In 2015, personal branding experts are like hipster cafes: there’s one starting up near you.<\/p>\n
With enthusiastic promises to make you stand out and look great with the latest and greatest trend – I’m talking to you, double ristretto – it’s hard to separate the fair-trade organic from the freeze-dried instant.<\/p>\n
Assuming you’ve accepted the fact that you do, indeed, need a personal brand<\/a> (spoiler: you do – especially if you’re in the marketing, creative or digital fields), it becomes a question of ‘what’ and ‘how,’ not ‘why.’<\/p>\n Even though the term gets tossed around today more often than at any point in time in history since its invention 25 years ago,<\/a> the somewhat uncomfortable truth about personal branding is that the underlying concepts have been around for decades (even centuries).<\/p>\n At the end of the day, personal branding is good old-fashioned marketing, with a critical difference in focus: people, not companies.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So what does it take to market something — or someone — successfully?<\/p>\n The first, and most critical, step is positioning — it determines the power and influence<\/a> of your brand. Getting this wrong usually means that your subsequent tactics and strategies fall flat on their face.<\/p>\n Determining the exact blend is an intensely personal process and you won’t find the “right” answer online. There is no “right” answer at all, really — there’s simply one which produces the most value simultaneously for you and your target market.<\/p>\n Discovering this sweet spot for yourself is a personal experience; your success depends on your capacity for self-awareness as well as on your motivations<\/a>, abilities, personality traits, and strengths.<\/p>\n More importantly, it depends on your ability to weave those elements as well as past career moves into a compelling and powerful brand story<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last, but not least, it requires you have a finger on the pulse of cultural and technological trends on both global and local scale, which will enable you to tie your value and brand story to market needs in an intelligent, effective way.<\/p>\n Ultimately, building a personal brand is a process of communicating your value<\/a> in a credible, compelling way to the right people. These questions are a good place to start:<\/p>\n Find the intersection between what you offer and what the market needs — that’s your sweet spot for finding or creating work — but don’t stop there.<\/strong><\/p>\n Just as it would be an exercise in futility to focus your brand on VCR repair, there’s no point in positioning yourself to solve a problem you couldn’t care less about. If you don't like the product you’re building yourself into, chances are you’re setting yourself up for misery and failure.<\/p>\n For a brand to be viable, authenticity<\/a> is key, and spending your days schlepping through work you don’t care about is a sure-fire way to turn off your employers, clients, and partners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you haven’t found that golden triangle — a real problem, the skills and personality to solve it, and genuine interest — keep looking. Dig deep, and accept that there’s more than one way to catch a rabbit.<\/p>\n Once marketers have determined brand positioning and features, they think about reaching their target market with their message — at scale. So, how do you expand the reach of your own personal brand?<\/strong><\/p>\n In the past, this step was difficult and done mostly in person: networking<\/a> at events, speaking at conferences, calling for appointments, and posting physical letters of introduction.<\/p>\n Today, the options for disseminating your brand<\/a> are almost endless, with new channels opening up all the time.<\/p>\n What's worked for you? I'd love to hear, so please add your comments below. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n A former HR Manager and Talent Acquisition Specialist, I once provided advice to top tier companies on their talent decisions. I now partner with C-level executives, non-executive directors and management professionals to position them as candidates of choice in today's ultra-competitive – and increasingly digital – job market.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Assuming you've accepted the fact that you do, indeed, need a personal brand, it becomes a question of \u2018what' and \u2018how,' not \u2018why.'<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[835],"capabilities":[],"class_list":["post-15777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-seeker"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tThe uncomfortable truth about personal branding<\/span><\/h1>\n
Building your personal brand<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
Positioning is a function of two things:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Essential questions to ask yourself<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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The golden triangle<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
Distribute your message<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
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ABOUT IRENE<\/h4>\n