5 Ways to Build a Powerful Personal Brand You need to stand out in the business world. Here's how to build your personal brand.
By Samuel Leeds Edited by Amanda Breen
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In today's business environment, it is important to cultivate a personal brand, whether you are an employee or an entrepreneur. Becoming a leader in your chosen niche will open doors that you never expected to be opened and create opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist.
Here are five strategies for building a personal brand and how you can implement them in your own life.
1. Create valuable, engaging content
To brand yourself effectively, you need to get your name out there. One of the best ways to do this is by creating content that is helpful to people within your chosen field. You can start this process by becoming active in online communities within your niche and answering people's questions, providing advice and helping others anyway you can.
In the longer term, you will need to build your own community. This could be via a podcast, YouTube channel, blog or Instagram account depending on what type of content you are best at creating. You could also start a Facebook group or a forum website, which will allow others to provide much of the content while you moderate.
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2. Write a book
Having a book that is relevant to your niche is a great marketing tool. As you build your online content, you will learn what questions, challenges and topics come up on a regular basis. You can use these as jumping off points for a subject for a book. Don't assume that you are not qualified to write a book. If you know about your field, you can certainly help those less experienced, or the wider public, understand it.
Amazon allows you to self-publish books and have them printed on demand. This reduces the costs involved in creating a book. Once created, your book is an amazing "business card." Imagine giving someone a copy of your book at a networking event, rather than an easily lost bit of paper!
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3. Speak
Speak at events whenever you have the opportunity. At first, these may only be small, community meets. You should make sure to film these speeches and leverage them on social media. It can be hard to speak in front of people, so join groups where you can practice in front of a friendly audience. As your confidence grows, expand your reach.
Speaking at events is a great way to build your profile directly with the audience you are speaking to, and it's also a way to establish yourself as an expert. There may be regular, monthly clubs or groups in your local area that are continually looking for speakers. Contact as many as possible and offer your services. Use the opportunity to give as much value as possible, rather than promote your services. If you provide helpful information in an engaging way, you will soon have many requests to speak.
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4. Continue to educate yourself
If you want to be an expert in your field, continue learning yourself. Attend events put on by other experts, read as many books as you can and pay for as much training as possible. Find the people in your industry who have had the results you want and follow them.
Learning is never over. You must keep ahead of developments in your field so that you can impart the information to those that are following you. This is the best way to ensure you become the "go to" person in your industry. Investing in education from those that are already doing what you want to be doing will pay off hugely down the line.
5. Narrow your niche
Depending on your level of experience and notoriety already, and the size of the industry you are in, you may need to narrow your niche. For example, it may be hard to become known as an expert in social-media marketing in general. However, if you have a specific skill in social-media marketing, it is easier to be known in that sub-community as an expert. Maybe you are an expert in helping personal-injury lawyers get more clients on Instagram, or maybe you can help course creators drive sales from the Clubhouse app. No matter who you are, if you are skilled at what you do, there is a niche that you can be the leader in. Find that niche and tell the world!
If you want to build your brand, you need to become known in your industry. This can be done via a mix of real-world and online methods. It is essential that you stand out and provide real value if you want to be considered an expert; advertising and self-promotion are not enough. However, if you do offer amazing value to your community, you will soon have a following, and this following can be leveraged in ways you would never have dreamed possible.
