PERSONAL BRANDING

PERSONAL BRANDING BUILDING AN AUTHENTIC PERSONAL BRAND “We all are brands, but not all of us have activated the sweet spot of our brands. But never the less, he who understands that to which humans are always drawn to, can always engage and thereby play the game of strategic brand-influence” Its amazing how the term-brand has been relegated to Big Companies and Organizations, but truth be told, every one of us has a personal brand. Although not many of us have consciously activated these brands, but they exist nonetheless. Our digital footprints are everywhere, on social media platforms, Google and in our personal websites. We engage our dynamic tribes hence they sip the salvation we have to offer. We Mold ourselves and ideologies on specific niches even without knowing. But hey, why are you still hidden even with thousands of followers and millions of personal tribe engagements? The answer lies on this-“Being Strategic”. Nothing happens by mistake.Brand building is a conscious and calculated effort. Now you know you’ve got a personal brand, so the question now is how do I guide myself into my innate personality, discover, cultivate and activate that ruthless brand I’ve got inside me? Your question will be answered in 6 Dynamic ways but lets consider these 6 dynamics on what you must do first before stepping into building your personal brand IN 6 Dynamic ways. You must discover and understand your creative potencies-gifts and talents which is the tool through which you add value to your world.You remain incapable to operate on the human capital marketplace if you don’t discover, develop and deploy your personal brand value, you remain giftedly dormant and unable to serve humanity your divine composites which gives rise to poverty and insignificance. You must turn your creative potencies(gifts and talents) into a meaningful enterprise. It’s not enough to be gifted in an area you must think of how to leverage what you have. Good thinking, good product You must mold and craft your person. What do you want out of what you are, what is your purpose for being and how can you use it create the perception you want and how you want people to perceive you. At this point, you’ve become a product in the market and we must know what you are offering enough to buy into you. What core ideologies, beliefs and set of values are you going to run with. These determines what you do and what you don’t. As a brand one of your core values i think should be integrity-this helps you to build brand equity. You must define your uniqueness and how to ruthlessly deliver or execute your offeringp-People will often come to you because of your “Youniqueness” not necessarily because of what you do. Target market. You must choose your target market and have a good reason for doing so, this will help you craft a bespoke content and offering to enrich and empower them every step of the way. NOW THE 6 DYNAMICS: But First, what is brand? A brand is an identity associated with a personality, company, product or services. And what is personal branding-The art and practice of creating perception on which an individual would be known for. It is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the minds of others. Hence it paves way for people to market themselves as brands. Note: Branding is the perception people, customers or clients have about a particular product, service or brand. Branding is about perception. Marketing is a tool to strategically increase perception. In our world today the market economy is driven by perception not products. 1. THINK WITHIN! “Your Band is first within, before it goes without” Every personal brand is a codification of your innate qualities, strategic gifting and God-deposits. So the first step to cultivating your brand is first to ask yourself, WHO AM I? WHAT’S MY LIFE’S-VISION (which is a composite of my life’s purpose),once this questions are answered to a reasonable extent then you are good to go to a sub-ruthless composite of the questions answered- Next question you’ll be asking yourself, which is-What do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? Is there a certain subject matter in which you want to be perceived as an expert or are there general qualities you want linked to your brand? Once you understand how you wish your brand to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about your personal brand. This doesn’t mean you can’t be human, be very human but strategically human-create a compelling personality around your codification. 2. STRATEGIC DISCLOSURE: Personal branding involves the practice of self disclosure and unveiling. Strategic disclosure helps to intimate your audience about who you are (YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF) including a bit of your everyday life and engagement as much as is needed and necessary as a feed to help build your personal tribe and engage your audience. Digital disclosure vai social platforms are great ways to create an unforgettable footprint for yourself and feed your audience with your inspiration, add value and help them realize their dreams. Your thought piece and written creative intelligence is a great way to disclose your beliefs, convictions and ideologies, principles that make for an authentic and a successful life. Your audience is always looking forward to reading your written piece of thought; empower them with that as much as you can. 3. DEFINE YOUR DOMAIN AND SELF CHARACTER! Your personal brand domain defines your niche market. Your area of creative-intelligence and self-market. You cannot stand out as a brand without at least one definite niche market. Appearing in all areas will make you unbelievable. If we must believe you, then you must appear believable, be believable and stand out as an authority in a specific area of human endeavor. 3. CONSISTENT BRAND PROJECTION Showing up just when you like is a message on its own. Consistency is a strategic approach in brand building. One way to fizzle out as soon as you entered any niche market, is not reflecting your unique self CONSISTENTLY in your definite platform(s) of performance and unique manifestation. Your personal brand goes through stages before maturity, which requires consistent show-up and improvement before it gets recognized and when it gets stocked in the minds of people, its relevance thrives through consistent value addition and manifestation. In the brand economy, your presence validates your relevance. 4. SOCIAL MEDIA. FLIP THE CRAPPY PERSONALITY ONLINE!! Social media, of course as an internet base platform- applications are built on ideological and technological foundations of the web 2.0 which allows the creation and exchange of user generated content. It’s a great way to kick-start your perception molding. Social media goes beyond facebook and twitter and extends to the professional world as well- LinkedIn is as a professional social platform validates this. If you must build a compelling personal brand and personality, then you must learn to manage “YOU” on social platform. Drop that messy profile, write something bespoke that speaks of who you truly are. A well written personal profile will give your social tribe a clue of who you are even without asking and that’s a great way to generate personal leads. Have a fairly common name? Consider using your middle initial or middle name to differentiate. Cultivating a strong personal brand is just as much about being responsive to what you are saying, as it is about creating intellectual property. 5. WEBIFY YOURSELF Not a crappy blog! Having a personal website is bae, it gives you a corporate outlook and tells your audience you are truly out for business. Your personal website is one of the best ways to rank for your name on the search engines. It doesn’t need to be robust. It could be as simple as a two to three page site with your resume, a link to your social platforms so that your social tribes can sip salvation from you and more, a well crafed brief and engaging bio data. You can always expand on the website with time. Webify! 6. REMAIN A NEWBIE: You know “the first love advantage”, don’t you? When you always want to learn new things… that is the ultimate attitude to becoming better than you’ve always been. No matter how well you know your industry or area of expertise, it would be wise to remember that things are changing at a faster rate than ever before, and you have to stay up-to-date with the latest changes and trends. It takes time to build your personal brand. If you fail to stay relevant, all of your effort will be wasted. If you don’t want to be discredited, then you’ll want to keep a steady supply of thought feeds and intellectual property. It also pays to learn new things, develop new skills, and expand your knowledge base to help your tribe become better, bigger and even larger than life. It’s all about value and adding value to your audience. If you’re not growing, then you’re stagnating, and that’s the last thing you want to do as an entrepreneur. Now you know how to get started! Build an authentic self- brand!