How to Establish your Personal Brand

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If you were asked to name this person, could you? This is Dwayne Johnson otherwise known as The Rock. We recognize him for his numerous roles in movies and even from the WWE prior to that. In our new book, "Social Media for Strategic Communication", by Karen Freberg, we discussed steps to take in order to establish your own personal brand. Dwayne Johnson was given as a great example of that. When I think about his movie roles I see a heavy importance placed on family. Whether that is him taking on a father figure role, or a son who has left home at odds with his family. That persona, a family man, he has made part of his brand. It is cool to see, someone with his stature, taking on those roles. The uniqueness of that is part of what makes his personal brand so familiar. 

How do you establish a personal brand? Freberg give a seven-step process on how to build your brand. Step one is to "conduct an audit." This is the most important process as this entails you figuring out who you are and defining your brand. How would you describe yourself and how would others? Think about what you want your brand to be, whats your mission statement, and where you want this to go. Step two is "keeping your brand image and voice consistent with each other." This is very important when it comes to making your brand recognizable. You want to have consistency across your platforms. For example, YouTubers are known for their channels but are still present on other platforms to interact with fans. They built their consistent presence on YouTube and that is what they became recognizable as.

Step three, "determine your personal brand associations." If you've ever hear the term " you are who you hang around," that becomes especially important in how actions of others can influence the perception of your brand. Step four is "identify what strategy you will take on." In this step we discussed the potential of combing your professional and personal brands. You can use content strategy (centered on what you share), audience strategy (relationships built), or customized strategy (combination). Step five is to "think about what makes you uniquely different." This is your opportunity to stand out and find that defining trait about you that will help solidify your personal brand.

Step six, "determine what you want to be known for." How do you want to be remembered? What actions are you taking to reach that? Find your passions and interest and let those guide you to finding what your "thing" is going to be. Finally, step seven, "Once established, invest in your personal community." You have made it this far to establish your personal brand, now don't forget to spend time stay active in the communities you are involved in. Share your thoughts, opinions, content, and build relationships. This will continue to help you build your personal brand and be recognizable in those communities.

Until Next Time,
James



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