To understand why you should care about your personal brand, you first need to understand what a personal brand is and these two questions will help frame the context:
Question 1:
When people think about you, what are the three things that come to mind? For example, dancer, singer, loves Christmas.
Question 2:
Are those the first three things you want them to think? If no, what 3 things would you prefer?
Your personal brand is how the world sees you. It is an image created out of a mixture of your personality, skills and values and it affects the way people perceive you.
Subconsciously, we are aware of our personal brand. We have an idea of the image we want to project and we dress, act and talk like it.
However, most times, we tend to lean towards projecting things like “brutally honest, funny, kind” and while this is not bad, imagine if you could push it a bit further to project yourself as something more concrete and in line with your personal goals so you are not just “John the funny guy”, you are “John the web content developer with a great sense of humour”.
If I am sitting in a room and someone asks if I know a person who can create content for his website, “John the funny guy” would never cross my mind, but “John the web content developer” would and his great sense of humour would be a selling point.
This does not just apply to career or business people, if you are a student who dreams of working for an NGO or becoming a chef, you have to talk, walk and act in a way that will get you the part.
If your friends do not know that you have these interests, they will not share content or opportunities they see in that field with you because quite simply, to them you’re not that guy.
There are several reasons why you might not be comfortable with building or promoting your personal brand, so let’s take a look at some of them and see if we can show you why you should care about your personal brand.
1. I like my privacy
Love it!
Do you know what else I love? The fact that you have total control over what you share, where to share it and who sees what.
Some people are different people on different platforms (remember the Dolly Parton social challenge?).
But the problem is, if you are an SEO professional on LinkedIn and a comedian on Twitter, I will probably never know that you are great at SEO because I only follow you on Twitter.
It makes more sense to build a consistent brand that can cut across, be the funny SEO guy.
2. I don’t want to come off as conceited or pretentious
Another great point.
But you forget that personal branding is not about projecting a false image, it is about showing people who you are, what you do and what you care about in a way that works for you.
It is not conceit, it is basically self-packaging.
You cannot sustain your personal brand if it is not built on who you really are.
3. I don’t need to speak for myself, good work speaks for itself
If you are in this category, that’s okay, you’re not alone. Even big brands make this mistake and pay millions to fix it.
I’m helping you figure it out now so you don’t have to pay me millions later to help you fix your brand, you just have to pay me to manage it and make you more money 😉.
Anyway, the truth is, morality quotes aside, if you do not show or talk about something, nobody will know about it.
People build an image of you based on what they see or hear.
A simple example, if I open your Twitter or Instagram page or follow you in these places and I don’t see you talk about food or post/repost food pictures, I will not have you pegged in my mind as a “foodie”.
Even if you tell me you are, it will not register in my head or on my Top 10 Foodies list because there is no proof and no reason for me to remember.
You can be a do-gooder in your community, but you still need proof to show that you are worthy of that grant, funding or NGO job that you are applying for.
You’re a great person, you have amazing skills, you’re talented, you’re fun, don’t wait for the world to discover you.
Show the world why it should care.
There are so many reasons why you should care about your personal brand and this one just tells you that for your brand to speak, you have to give it a voice.
4. I’m still building my skills, when they are perfect, I will show the world
Valid, you don’t want to come out half-cocked.
But I will tell you the same thing I try to teach people with Rêvie, there is no better time to start than now.
Think of it this way, life is a game with a shifting goal post, the more time you spend waiting for the right time to start, the more time you lose.
Instead of waiting until you have perfected a skill to show the world, take the world on the journey with you.
There is a reason people have social media posts and conversations around “How I Met So and So Celebrity vs How You Met So and So Celebrity”.
These people didn’t wait until they became ‘perfect’ to start. They built brand advocacy from carrying people along on their journey to ‘perfection’ and ‘success’
Plus, impostor syndrome is a real thing so you might never really feel like you are good enough or like you have done enough.
Moral of the story? Start today.
5. I don’t care about all of this, I just want to live my life
Personal branding is exactly about living your life.
It is about taking a step back to identify who you really are, who you want to be, what you believe in, what you care about and using this information to live your life.
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