Businesses – particularly local businesses – will usually have some form of personal branding mixed in with their business’s personality. It can often be helpful to small businesses to be associated with the person behind them. This can help to build trust with your audience and creates a connection with your users through shared values and experiences. Building your personal brand is going to be closely intertwined with building your business’s brand. However, there are some key differences which makes this task uniquely challenging. Today, we’re going to share with you exactly why your personal branding is so important and how to build it the right way.
What Is Your Personal Brand?
The only person who can really define your personal brand is you. Consider the following:
- What values do you have?
- Who inspires you?
- What motivates you?
- Who do you want to connect with?
The answers to these question can help you to better understand what messaging you want to put out into the world and how you want your audience to perceive you.
Where Is Your Personal Brand?
There are many places and platforms that your personal branding can exist on. Social media is probably the most prominent. You can curate your profiles to ensure you’re showing yourself in the best light.
Many of us will have been on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for several years. If this is the case for you, it might be worth taking some time to go back through your posting history and archive anything which doesn’t align with your values today. Remember, it can take a long time to build trust with people online, whereas one controversial post could break that trust in an instant.
As well as being on your social media profiles, your personal brand can exist within other people’s content. This is where it is far more difficult for you to control your image, as what others choose to write and say online is not something you can dictate. Be mindful of what users are saying about you, and seek appropriate legal advice if you recognise anything which could be considered as slander.
Make Yourself An Expert
If you’re a business owner who produces content online – whether that be posts, videos or anything else – it makes sense to showcase your expertise. Business owners who share tips, tricks and knowledge online are setting themselves up as a reliable source of information. This expertise doesn’t go unnoticed, and help you and your brand to build trust with search engines. Google acknowledges experience and expertise as ranking factors, so every step you take to build your personal brand could be helping your business as well.
Written by Alice Farley
