What Is Personal Branding And How To Succeed At It?
When you think of brands like Nike, McDonald's
, what comes to your head? Most often it is a logo or the mascot or may be their tag line. But what ever it is, the moment you see or hear it anywhere you know what you are looking at or what you hear. This instant recognition is the true power of a brand. So how did the big brands get where they are and can you also emulate the same?
The answer to latter part of the above question is yes. It is possible to establish yourself as a brand and get the same kind of recognition. Examples of individuals who have built personal brands successfully are Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill gates and the list goes on.
You might say that their organizations succeeded and hence they gained the reputation. While this might be true, it is not justifiable completely because the above mentioned people do have competition and are not one of a kind in their respective fields. So it would not be presumptuous to say that personal branding requires dedicated effort.
Making a personal brand requires you to stand out from the masses. A brand is built only if there is something unique and valuable to it. Likewise your services, your ideas and beliefs should resonate with others and benefit them in some way. For this you have to try doing things differently which means taking chances but not blind ones. Rather a calculated chance, fully aware that the outcome could be either positive or negative.
A very useful tool for the purpose of personal branding is - Social networking sites. Use them to spread your ideas far and wide. Many people including the who is who of the society tweet and use social media to let the world know about their lifestyles and beliefs. Social media sites get you an audience which is very difficult to reach with other kinds of media.
Personal branding is not a one time process nor does it yield overnight success. It is not smooth going as sometimes your image would be in the line of fire. The benefits of a recognized personal brand are invaluable; hence always also give your thoughts a brand building perspective.