Confused about personal branding? Let’s clear it up in about 200 words.
Personal branding means marketing yourself and your career as a brand. You become a brand.
Oprah, Richard Branson and Martha Stewart are all examples. Oprah could have called her show “Talk Time.” Instead, she became the brand. Personal branding and regular branding can be used together. Jay-Z is a brand; he also owns the Rocawear clothing line.
Why would you want a personal brand?
Opportunities: career, business, relationships, recognition. Your personal brand will help you stand out.
How do you build a personal brand?
- Decide what you want to be known for, and what your brand will stand for.
- Do the work necessary to become truly great at something.
- Create things and publish content that demonstrate your expertise and reinforce your personal brand.
- Build a following on the web and social media.
When is a personal brand a bad idea?
Personal branding requires being in the spotlight. It requires personality. The business and you are inseparable. If you don’t like the spotlight, it may not be a good fit.
Is that all?
That’s it! Don’t complicate personal branding. It’s a simple concept with potentially huge impact.
More about personal branding from us:
- A Better Personal Brand (Fizzle Show episode #076)
- 8 Great Examples of Personal Domain Names in Action
- Why You Can’t Afford to Be a Generalist
Learn how to set goals that actually stick!
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I love how you guys are able to take concepts most people make way too complicated and break them down into simple, easy to understand ideas, and action steps. Thanks for all you do.
Corbett, thanks for breaking it down so simply.
I guess one of the things that’s held me back from trying to establish this is the question of whether or not I’ll want to change it in the future.
Any thoughts on what to do with your personal brand if you don’t like it after you create it?
Hi Andrew, great question. In my experience, these things can morph over time just fine. If you start building a brand, but don’t like it and haven’t gotten much traction, there’s room to change. People change, and personal brands should too. If you brand yourself and are successful with it but want to change, you’ll just have more explaining to do. If your followers like and trust you, many of them will support you through and after the transition.
Any progress you make toward being known for something is important. Changing direction along the way is normal and expected. I recommend getting started as soon as you feel passionate about some specific topic or cause.
Pivoting a personal brand is difficult, but doable. You lose momentum and traction as your former audience gets disinterested in you, and you do have to work harder to build a new audience.
I’ve been going through a brand picot for more than a year now, and it is disheartening, but it’s ultimately better than sticking with a brand direction that doesn’t authentically serve you anymore.
Having the experience of building a personal brand the first time gave me a lot of tools to do it better the second time; and having an audience base already in place made it easier, too.
Nice, quick and succinct, and as a result quite useful. Well done.
Bingo.
Please do more of these 200-word guides! :)
Also, on the spotlight comment, I’d say that depends. I’m an introverted entrepreneur focused on my personal brand, and I’d say that 1990s me would never have expected to be putting myself out there like I am, but it’s easier to do now that the “spotlight” is online rather than in person/on TV. I can choose when to log in and respond to people.
Nailed it. I’ve struggled with this a bit as I like to pursue a variety of projects. Dad blogging, social media consulting, photography, Legos, podcasting, etc. Thank you for distilling the concept of personal branding so concisely.
Great, succinct post, Corbett. Always enjoy your posts.
Makes things so simple. I have been going back and forth and decided to stick to my guns on my personal brand and my other sites that I can consider a program underneath my brand. Just like Jay-z is a brand and he has products such as his clothing line rocawear. I like that analogy. Thanks guys. I feel so much confident when I hear simple things like this from the experts.
Thanks for the short n sweat article!
I have recently had more clients starting up asking about personal branding and weather to take this approach when branding their business. Many of them just thinking this is a trend, and thank personal branding is just the thing to do today.
The clients I have encouraged to go down this route, have been personalities, or known figures in the local communities. And it works, and feels right.
When you ask, “When is a personal brand a bad idea,” I believe it is for anyone starting out with nothing much behind then. The personal brand to me is when someone has reached a certain level of their work or profession.
This is a great simple guide. Thanks for sharing it Corbett. I love how succinct it is. I feel like this is something I can do.
Decide what I want to be known for and what my brand stands for. Get great at something specific. Talk about it, and share it so others talk about it.
Thanks again!
Like a fine Scotch whisky — well distilled and best enjoyed in tiny sips. Thanks, Corbett!
Nice and simple perfect!
Some good advice here. I’ve published a coaching tool about personal branding and I would argue though that ‘not having a personal brand’ is no option anymore, whether you have a business or work in a company. People will always try and pinpoint you down, who are you? what do you do? what makes you different? If you don’t create your brand yourself, others will do it for you. It’s good to sit down and decide for yourself what aspects of your work, experiences and personality you’d like to be known for. I do agree that it depends on the person how much spotlight is desirable. Personally I don’t like being in the spotlights at all, but I do set some time apart every now and then to think about the image I’m projecting. To make sure the stories I tell about myself are supportive of my goals.
Right on.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a Corb Bomb.
*drops the mic*
What do you think about creating a personal brand around a pseudonym? Especially if you’re not sure you want people in real life to know what you’re up to for some reason?
Brading is very important to every company! Thanks! I am from zemzem