Personal branding: marketing guff or an essential tactic in today’s marketplace?
By Fenella McCar-thy – Housebrands Toolkits
Google personal branding and you will be almost overwhelmed by the amount of information available online. Everybody seems to be talking about the need for a personal brand and how important it is for success. Sometimes it seems incredible that we ever survived beforehand. Why do we need one now?
Well, the short answer is of course that the world has changed. We are connected worldwide 24/7. Anybody can (and does) get their opinions and profile out there. The volume of information that any one individual is subjected to on a daily basis is a staggering 74GB. That is the equivalent of 24,666 songs or 38,542 days playing video games. To say it’s a lot is a severe understatement!
Arguably no one can process all that information and live a fruitful life on a daily basis which is why we have the sound bite. We have to find short cuts in the way we process information and conversely in how we communicate. And that is precisely where brand scores highly.
Brands are a shortcut for communication. Over time their reputation is built up through communications, promotions and the way they deal with customers. Meaning is poured into a brand through what it says, how it speaks and what it does, until ultimately all that is imbued in its logo – the marque through which you identify a particular brand. That’s why businesses spend so much money and effort developing their brands and communicating what they stand for and why they are special.
Personal brands work in exactly the same way. They are a shortcut to communicating who you are, what you stand for and why you are different. The reason why we need one so much more today is that the space in which we communicate is so much busier. We need to be punchy and clear in our communications and having a personal brand strategy is the easiest and surest way to achieve that.
Personal brands parallel commercial brands. Successful companies have strong successful brands but these are not flukes. Rather, a lot of clever people spend a lot of time (and money) creating and running these brands to make them effective. At the heart of any strong brand is a clear brand definition – this crystallises what a company is trying to achieve, why it’s in business, what its values are and the benefits it offers – ultimately giving you a clear reason why you should buy that brand and not any other. Once the brand definition is agreed, company marketing teams then use this as their guidance for all communications – making sure that what their brand says and does is consistent with this defined strategy.
It’s exactly the same for a personal brand. A strong personal brand requires a clear definition at its heart outlining who you are, what you stand for and what makes you special. Once you have that it is then easy to create the right messages to communicate on your social media sites, in your posts, articles, CV and so on. By using your personal brand definition as your guide, you will make sure that you build a clear profile – one that is consistent and can stand out amongst the other 74GB of information we get every day. That’s because clear, consistent messaging is compelling, drawing your audience in, rather than allowing them to gloss over your well-chosen words.
And it’s worth it. Individuals with a strong personal brand are more likely to get to the top of the career ladder, they are more likely to be noticed by prospective employers and recruitment consultants and more likely to be promoted.
So far from being marketing guff, personal branding is the way to shortcut your way to the top. Yes, it takes a bit of work but once you have defined your personal brand, the content you need will be a breeze because you will know exactly what to say and how to say it to get noticed.