6 Tips for Successfully Communicating Your Personal Brand Follow these simple guidelines to stand out from the crowd and effectively broadcast your own personal brand to the world.
By Leyes Edited by Ryan Droste
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Your personal brand is a culmination of your skills, based on your experiences and personality. In short, it's the reputation that you promote for yourself. It's also the way you differentiate your unique abilities from others. Having a strong personal branding strategy could be the differentiating factor between you and a competitor when applying for a job. The interesting thing about personal branding is that you can connect it with your business and get better results than any corporate branding could ever imagine. The way you choose to communicate your personal brand will determine if others receive it.
1. Keep it simple
Don't overcomplicate your personal brand. If you communicate it simply, it will be more digestible and understandable for others. Take some time to think through your personal brand and boil down the key aspects into one or two words each. What can you offer others? How can you share that in a short, concise way? By doing this, you make your personal brand more relatable. This will make people gravitate towards you.
2. Invest in your development
What key aspects are included in your personal brand? Take courses and look for ways to continue learning about these areas. If part of your personal branding strategy is to be known as an excellent communicator, take courses to refresh your communication skills. By doing so, you can back up your skills with education. Additionally, people will see for themselves that you have an ongoing commitment to the skill.
Related: 3 Principles for Personal Branding Success
3. Share expertise online
Create a track record of your personal brand online by sharing content and writing in a way related to your personal brand. This can be achieved through social media, your own personal website, guest writing for others and publishing on sites like Medium.com. You'll be able to impact lives by sharing your expertise — all while communicating your personal brand.
4. Mentor others
Showcase your skill set within your personal brand by offering to help or mentor others. This will help boost your reputation as someone who is sought after for their skill set, and this will build your credibility at the same time. Plus, listening to and helping others will help you grow as well.
5. Connect others
Your personal brand means nothing if others are not interacting with it. By connecting with people from your network, you increase your credibility. Connecting people can be recommending someone for a job or noticing that someone might benefit from a phone call with a mentor. Whatever it may be, you'll be showcasing your skills by recognizing the need for the connection. If you don't have a huge network yet, volunteering is a great way to meet people and make connections for yourself, all while building your reputation.
6. Do speaking engagements
Hop on a podcast, speak on a panel or participate in giving a formal speech. Any of these types of speaking engagements will give you a chance to share your background, experience and personality — which then correlate to your skills and personal brand. With this public platform, you can showcase exactly why these characteristics are part of your personal branding and build trust. Then, you can develop further credibility by sharing that podcast appearance or a video of your speech on social media.
Related: Personal Branding: The Key to Success in the Digital Age
Final thoughts
Being able to effectively communicate your personal brand is just as important as coming up with your personal brand. Sharing your experiences and skills with the world might seem intimidating at first, but you can do it on a very small scale by mentoring and connecting others. Sharing on social media is another relatively painless way to communicate your brand. When given the opportunity, public speaking can be a powerful reputation builder for your personal brand. Communication is a key aspect of your personal branding strategy — so how will you communicate yours?
