Building Your Personal Brand…A Blueprint
Defining Your USP: A USP is a Unique Selling Proposition. This is basically what you are about from a personal and a business perspective and how it (theoretically) sets you apart from others like you.
In social media, this is not something you advertise. People who do that overtly tend to look like they are only here to hustle business and that has always been frowned upon.
Instead, it needs to be done in much more subtle ways.
This post is a very good example. Once you get to the end of it, you will certainly have some insight into personal branding. But you will also have some insight into me, my skills and areas of expertise.
This is not being sold to you, but demonstrated. I am writing about things I know with an aim to helping other people define and build their personal brands. This, in fact, is the key component of my own personal brand. I am in the helping business.
The Content: In strategic terms this is known as Benefit Support. In social media terms it really becomes your library of topics, or things you want to communicate in order to get people to understand who you are, what you do, what your interests and passions are, how you like to do what you do and, by inference and example, what you could do for them.
Personal Brand Character: This is the element of your personal brand that really sets the tone and manner with which you will communicate.
It doesn’t have to be one thing, because it may vary somewhat depending on how you feel about what you are communicating. But it should always be from one voice…yours.
For example: The tone and manner of this piece, which is one of an ongoing series I do on marketing and communication, is very straightforward and informational. I am sharing what I know. But other streams of my communication have different personas, sometimes skeptical, sometimes critical, sometime downright cynical. But the thing they all have in common is that they are all aspects of one voice…mine.
Authenticity Is The Only Thing That Breaks Through The Clutter
There are literally tens of millions of pieces of communication flying around on social media every day. We tend to scroll past the vast majority of them.
But what makes us stop, read, interact and share is not clearly defined in our own heads. It is a je ne sais quoi quality that works almost on a spiritual level.
It’s called, for want of a better word, authenticity. And authenticity is really just a kind of catch-all word for being yourself.
And after all the mental acrobatics of defining a personal brand, that’s exactly where you end up, or should. Because, quite honestly if you ended up anywhere else you would be lost.
Getting There Is Where The Insights Are Born
I believe that even if it turns out to be a huge circuitous trip out and back to where you started, you will will have, through this process, picked up a great deal of valuable insight into who you are and how to incorporate your identity into your personal brand.
You will have learned how to go about disseminating your brand messaging to people who might have a genuine interest in that message.
And you will hopefully have learned, mainly through trying and analyzing feedback, how to build real authenticity into your communication.
None Of This Is Rocket Science
But it is an important part of the art of communication.
If more people would take the time to really understand what a personal brand actually is and teach themselves how to build it, there would, I absolutely guarantee, be a whole lot less ‘crap’ polluting social media.
As usual, comments. relevants and shares are always welcome.
If your business has reached the point where talking to a communication professional would be the preferred option to banging your head against the wall or whatever, lets talk.
Download my free ebook Small Business Communication For The Real Worlhere:
https://onwordsandupwords.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/small-business-communications-for-the-real-world/
All my profile and contact information can be accessed here:
https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/this-post-is-my-about-page
All content Copyright 2017 Onwords & Upwords Inc.
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