DIGITAL PERSONAL BRANDING: WHY TO HAVE A PERSONAL BRAND

In the digital ocean swarmed with information that grows by the second, it can be quite challenging for businesses and personalities to stick their head up and get noticed. If you aspire to create some form of presence online, being original and fresh is an inevitable challenge you must overcome.

Still, standing out is not the only test. The digital scape is a world that grows daily, so how can you not only create a significant appearance online but also build your name so that it can be remembered regardless of time and competition?

This is when you will need a personal brand and understand how important it is in the digital world. A personal brand is something you are undeniably known for. To some degree, it can also be what your name is ultimately synonymous with. A personal brand is also the impression you leave on people or your audience based on your skills, strengths, products, experience, or all of it together.

It includes, but goes far beyond the aesthetic of your content, website, or product. Your personal brand is what people inherently come to know about you, what you do, and how you do things.

When a personal brand is established correctly, it can bring a great number of advantages to your relationships, career, business, and many more. It can bring you more sales, clients, job offers, and more opportunities overall.

So, how can a personal brand specifically help you with what you want to achieve and why is it important to have one regardless of the industry you’re in? Here are five reasons why:

1. Your personal brand will help you get noticed and help you stand-out

Having a personal brand is a great way of telling your story. For example, a lot of people may have the same skill set or talent, but they each have different stories of why and how they have become good at what they do. And you have a story too. There is an inherent uniqueness in you and how you do things. A personal brand helps you communicate this story and highlight what is different about you compared to the crowd.

Your personal brand will not only showcase your skills for you, but it will also share with your audience the unique story of how you were able to develop your strengths, talents, or skill set. A personal brand gets the job done by strategically displaying what you can bring to the table.

2. Your personal brand helps you gain clarity

When you have a personal brand, it will be easier for you to understand how you would like to be seen. Not only that, but having a personal brand will also help you determine your purpose,

your intentions, and your strengths that you would like to demonstrate best.

Getting clear about these aspects through your personal brand creates a solid foundation for your online presence. This will support not only what it is that makes you stand out, but also how you do things in the long run.

For example, if you’re going to develop an ad, create a video, a resume, or any online material, your personal brand can help you stay true to your message. This coherence of materials, regardless of what platform it is set upon, helps in establishing your brand in the minds of the audience. After all, repetition is proven effective in retention.

A personal brand also helps with designing a product. It does not only help you gain clarity with how you want your product to look, but also guides you with why and how you are going to develop it.

3. Your personal brand builds your credibility

Your personal brand is your reputation.

As time goes by, people have started changing how they find credibility online. For example, advertising through online creators who have solidified their personal brand through their content has been seen to be more effective nowadays compared to large-scale advertising.

This is because a personal brand is able to communicate why you should be trusted. Your personal brand will help you make your story known and remind people of your intentions and what you stand for. It creates familiarity which in return earns the confidence and comfort of the audience.

Trust is crucial in any partnership, business, or venture. A personal brand will help you establish this trust with your audience and care for it.

4. Your personal brand attracts your market

A blog post, an ad, a video, and any online material created with your personal brand will automatically help you attract the right audience.

People who share the same story as you or people who are looking for what you offer will be drawn to you. A personal brand will help you communicate with the right audience and give you better chances of achieving results whether it is sales, a job position, or simply an audience.

The internet is a huge space, that sometimes, finding the right place where you can start getting your market from can be quite overwhelming. But similarly, there’s always a space for everyone on the internet because of how huge it is. A personal brand is a strategy that leads you right into this space so you can get the right network and relationships. Needless to say, a personal brand does a lot of good work for you.

5. Your personal brand helps you leave your mark

Above all else, a well-established personal brand can help you expand across different platforms and ventures, across different times. Different types of audiences (even beyond your own market) will be able to discover who you are, what is that you offer, and what you stand for. Think of celebrities that are known even by generations far from their own. These people have created such a strong personal brand that their presence and reputation are timeless.

If you are someone who’s thinking of establishing something long-term, then a personal brand is a requirement for your goal. It contributes to the endurance of your business, partnerships, career, or online presence that for sure will continue to be challenged in the fast-paced online world.

In a Nutshell

A personal brand will help you create something long-lasting that has the potential to open up doors of opportunities for your career, business, or networks that you may not have considered before. Visibility, retention, credibility, and permanence are only a few of the promising benefits of having a personal brand.

Creating a personal brand may seem overwhelming at first. But with the resources available today, there are people and tools that can make the work easier for you. Building your personal brand is a process that goes far beyond getting clear on how you want others to see you. It also includes how you want to work and what message you want to send. Being able to come into terms with these things in order to build your personal brand will not only help you walk the talk, but also create the impact which only you can provide.

Once you decide to establish your personal brand, you have also decided to create your mark. Increase your business reach through personal branding. Whether it is for your career, for your sales, for your book, or simply for your online presence, a personal brand is a strategy worth investing in.

Dario Sipos, Ph.D., is a Digital Marketing Strategist, Branding Expert, Keynote Public Speaker, Business Columnist, Author of the highly acclaimed books Digital Personal Branding and Digital Retail Marketing.