Building Your Personal Brand
If you want to be known as an expert in any niche, you need to create a personal brand. Your brand is the driving force behind getting attention and building credibility. So how do you design and establish a strong personal brand aligned with your unique passion and purpose?
Believe In Yourself
The first and most fundamental part of establishing a brand online is considering yourself a brand. Own it. Now, ask yourself these two questions:
- What image do you want your digital tribe to associate with your brand? The digital arena is all about the image you present to the people. And based on this image, people are going to decide whether to follow along with you on your journey or whether they’re going to move on to someone else.
- Do you have a niche you want to establish your expertise in? Having a targeted niche allows you to establish credibility, authority, and become the go-to person of that particular arena. Yet, being the jack-of-all-trades has its own benefits, too. So, figure out if you want to make a name for you in a specific niche or if you prefer to keep it general.
Do Your Research
You do not understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. – Albert Einstein
Now, it’s time for you to do some research.
Make a list of 10 words that you bracket together with your niche. These 10 words should describe your niche or be associated with your niche in some way. These are your brand keywords.
The next step is browsing through the web and gauging the potential of each of these keywords. So, start with your favorite social media platform and start searching for one keyword at a time. For more effective search results, use hashtags – #keyword. This will bring up all the discussions, posts, pictures, etc. that users have posted with this keyword.
If you’re unsure about which platforms you should go for, here’s a list:
- TikTok
You can also search for yourself on Google and see what kind of results turn up. You can activate Google alerts for your name, too. Then every time Google posts something about you, you’ll get an email. This will help you keep track of your personal brand.
Identify Your Tribe
It is essential to know your audience inside and out.
You need to know: How they think. What they want. What pain points they are facing, etc.
I know EVERYBODY in the digital arena goes on and on about target audience to the point of ad nauseam. But because the web is a massive place of good and bad information, there’s a reason why you need to satisfy a specific audience. The bottom line is that when you try selling to everybody, you won’t sell anything. If your message is too general, it will not be appealing enough for anyone to buy from you. The solution is tailoring your content, your message, and everything you associate yourself with according to a well-defined audience.
So, grab a pen and paper and write down the characteristics of your ideal buyer. Think back on all the people you’ve done business with and write down all the points why they were perfect and why they weren’t.
Share Your Message
Personal Branding is all about building authority and getting your audience’s attention. So how do you do that? By sharing the message of what you can do for them. This is your elevator pitch.
Create an Elevator pitch
The best elevator pitches are precise and hit all the right notes – pain points, how you can transform your buyer’s life, and who your buyer is.
Elevator pitches are short and to the point—think between 50 words to 100 words at most. Your elevator pitch should appear in your guest post bios, social media, networking events, and any other platform you have available to reach your target audience and tell them what you do and how you can benefit them.
A great elevator pitch opens doors to opportunities and convinces your ideal buyer that you’re exactly what they need. That without you, their life will remain stagnant. That you can take the sting out of their pain. That you can transform their life for the better. And so on.
So, make a list of your ideal buyer’s pain points. Make a list of all the ways their circumstances will change if they buy your product or service. Use both these lists to write an elevator pitch.
Create Your Online Space
We’re on to our last step now. You’ve got everything set up in terms of your strategy, and now you just need a central online space where you can drive all your leads so you can convert your readers into buyers. You need a website.
Website Planning
Your website must be quality built so that your readers will take a first glance and want to stay around to browse. It must be attractive and have a format that easily guides your readers throughout your site and gets them to the next step in their journey. This next step can be a call to action such as contacting you, opting into a newsletter, or downloading some form of value you have to offer.
Website Platforms of Choice
We suggest building your website using platforms such as Ghost or WordPress all depending on your needs. If you require a full-fledged content management system (CMS) with an e-commerce shop and plan to expand in future, Wordpress is the way to go. If you need help in setting up your website, our go to team for this is Responsive Pixel. They will save you lots of time, energy and headaches in trying to do it yourself.
However, if you're just a blogger that wants to get your message out to the world, Ghost is a better choice. It's a simple, elegant and easy to use publishing platform designed for the needs of content creators. You can typically pick a theme and adjust it yourself or have a developer help you fine tune. Our recommended Ghost Developer is Kasun Jayarathna who can be reached via Fiverr.
Enhance Your Content
Once you’ve got your website, work on its copy. If you’re not an excellent wordsmith, then hire one. The copy is the most important part of your website. It has the power to convert and convince buyers.
Get Social
Now, start hanging out on social media platforms and live up to your brand image. Post consistent content that gives value to your readers and educates them. When you think about your audiences needs above your own, you can never go wrong.