Y is for… Your Personal Brand

Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. Professionally, your personal brand is the image that people see of you.

It can be a combination of how they look at you in real life, how the media and others portray you, and the impression that people gain from the information about you available online.

Part of promoting and developing your Personal Brand is through networking (both online and offline).

Additionally, having a strong and clear personal brand will also make networking easier.

Having a personal brand gives you an opportunity to highlight your strengths and your passions. It can make it easier for you to talk about what you do and help forge connections. It helps people believe they know you better, and people have much higher trust in those they feel they know.

Your personal brand is what makes you memorable and helps you to stand out from crowd.

Skill Development Plan: Brand

If you don’t already have a personal brand then you will need to start by putting together a personal branding plan and ensuring you have a complete online presence.

Once you have one of these in place, you can then look to develop and finesse your brand. Your personal brand should cover all aspects of your public professional life, both online and offline and you should use it to maximise your networking opportunities.

You should work on ensuring that your communications and visuals are on brand and on message. Such as what you are posting on social media, your blog posts, what you are saying when networking in person etc. Believe in yourself and your brand and the more it will come together.

Action Point: Write a plan for integrating your personal brand into your networking activities/routine and put it into practice.

WFH Action Point: Make sure your online presence is up to date and on-brand.

Further Reading:

• B is for… Brand
• How to: Use the Social Media Planner as part of your Networking Strategy
• Why you need to be on LinkedIn