We talked about developing the core components of your personal branding strategy, and now we’re going to focus on building up your personal brand. You should have your personal branding statement outlined, and had someone or multiple people review it for clarity and consistency.

Putting your personal branding together

So now what? Now the work begins, and it starts online.

• Audit search results

Oh, you know it! You need to go ahead and google yourself and see what exactly comes up. Make a note in a spreadsheet with anything that pops up with your name, and that way as you go through the list, you can check off what has been dealt with. Heck, you can even get super type A like me and colour code based on importance.

Make note of everything. This is the perfect time to be super specific and catch anything that people may find about you that maybe they shouldn’t.

• Conduct a clean-up of the search results

So you googled yourself and you came up with a list of what shows up, and then what needs to be dealt with. For example, un-publishing images, videos, comments that are simply not in alignment with your personal brand.

Types of posts to delete:

• unprofessional communication style
• unprofessional behaviour 
• criminal behaviour
• substance abuse
• bigoted behaviour
• bullying
• explicit content
• polarizing views on politics, religion, gender and race

Any mistakes you’ve made in the past are definitely something to focus on un-publishing. Not only is this beneficial to your personal branding strategy, but if you had ever applied for a job before building your personal brand, odds are that the recruiter likely googled you, and what they found may have deterred them from hiring you.

If you grew up in the pre-social media era – aside from good old MySpace – you likely will not have incriminating high school content, but perhaps from college/university onwards. Clean it up, and keep your online presence squeaky clean!

• Define YOUR personal branding

This is the exercise you would have already done, where you look at your goals, interests, experience, passions etc., to come up with a personal brand statement(s). If you do multiple versions of your brand statement, get your trusted friends and family to review for accuracy and finalize your personal brand statement. As your skills, experiences and any additional training evolve, so should your statement.

• Create your brand identity

Find your voice! Your unique voice and not copying someone else. If you copy someone else, you’re likely not coming off as authentic, and people won’t connect with you emotionally. Or if they do, it could be the wrong kind of emotion (ex: anger that you stole from someone). So you’re an expert in your field, but you’re not the only one. People connect with people that they like, so showcase your expertise in your own unique way, that differentiates you from the others.

• Optimize your personal branding presence online and offline

If you’re looking to optimize your personal brand presence offline, you’re looking at doing some of the following:

• Attend conferences related to your industry
• Apply as a speaker/moderator at a conference
• If you attended college/university, attend those alumni events
• Attend networking events
• Ask colleagues (past and/or present) for recommendations 

If you’re looking to optimize your personal brand presence online, you’re looking at the following:

• Build a website with a blog and/or portfolio of work
• Social channels – go where your target audience is. You don’t need to be everywhere. 
• Set up Google alerts
• Start a podcast 
• Email marketing

 

• Build, nurture & engage your audience

A great way to do this is to have your target audience sign up with your website to receive email marketing and/or blog updates. Nurture your audience with premium content such as freebies, to help them, which in turn builds trust. Be interactive with your target audience on the social channel(s) you’re on, and they’re on. Don’t try and be everywhere all at once. Firstly, your target audience isn’t everywhere, and secondly, you burn out and lack creating new content, losing your target audience’s attention.

There will of course be cold calling, emailing outreach, as well as networking to help build your audience.

Building relationships online, leading up to a conference or networking event, can lead to better conversations at that upcoming event. Building, nurturing and engaging are the keys to your relationships amongst your target audience.

Ensure that you are publishing high-quality content on your blog and social feeds, while also responding to comments and questions. Don’t post and ghost – that’s a surefire way to lose credibility. Content tip: if you tend to see trends in the types of queries posted, acknowledge them within a blog post, update your FAQ’s on your website, and you can even turn that into video content. Oh, and absolutely remember to make note of the content that performs really well vs what doesn’t. Find ways to take that outstanding performing content and turn it into multiple pieces of content.

Go ahead and pitch content to third-party websites that can be a good way to connect with leaders in your industry, but also your target audience. Showcase your expertise! Share content from other industry leaders which help you in the long run as a well-connected industry leader.

• Consistently create RELEVANT content

You should be posting a mix of created and curated content, but always post regularly. Set up a content calendar and plan out your content in advance. Taylor Loren has some amazing courses, including a content creation course that was super helpful, even for someone like me who already works in social/content marketing. Oh, and she’s working on getting some content done and dusted for her YouTube channel, so that’s super exciting, and I’d highly recommend you go give her a follow.

Optimize your blog posts for SEO and work on building backlinks to help increase your website domain authority, which in turn helps you rank higher. Building your domain authority, backlinks and keywords can take time so don’t get discouraged. As you interact, publish more content, good things will come.

• Get a personal branding mentor

If you already have a relationship with someone, you can ask them to be your mentor in building your personal brand. If you don’t, seek a mentor from within your network instead.

If you’re introduced to someone that can help mentor you, acknowledge the individual’s time and respect that they may not have immediate availability. Schedule an initial conversation and have a clear agenda as to what you’re looking for and acknowledge that you are up to the necessary work and follow-through. If you don’t sound committed, you may get ghosted.

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Constantly Evolving

Over time, your skillsets and experience will grow, and so too will your personal branding. It is important to note that this is not a one-and-done! Make it standard practice to review your personal branding strategy every 6-12 months to ensure you’re optimizing in all areas.

Have you ever focused on your personal branding strategy before? Or have you done this without realizing it, and there are just a few aspects you’re missing to round it all out?