Why Personal Branding is Important


The truth is, everything we do helps to shape our personal brand, whether we like it or not. The sooner we can face this harsh reality, the sooner we will be able to control the messaging of our brand. A personal brand is not a tagline or a list of accomplishments; it’s a physical embodiment of the way people perceive you. In most cases, our brand is formed for us by the people we meet through the way we present ourselves. The second an employer meets you he/she decides if your pillars of values align with theirs, indicating a “culture fit.” Our ability to control our personal brand comes from the careful alignment between the way our employers perceive us and the way we perceive ourselves.

How to discover and develop your personal brand:
1.     Step outside yourself to analyze how your employers, peers, and community might perceive you. Does this align with how you perceive yourself? Where do you think the gaps lay and what are the similarities?
2.     Ask for feedback! You will, undoubtedly, need help to discover how other people perceive you from the people themselves. Gather a group of people who see you perform different tasks in different settings. This will help you collect a well-rounded idea about the way you are perceived.
3.     Ask yourself this- how do you WANT to be perceived? Formulate an idea to use as a vision to work towards. Like every company, a brand does not formulate overnight; it takes time, patience, and hard work. 
4.     Harness the power of those overlapping qualities to develop a sense of your defining characteristics. These might not be qualities you view as “strengths” but they are important to acknowledge. Write them down and use them.


So, what does your personal brand say about you?

Comments

  1. Unknown8 February 2018 at 11:29

    Hi Jace, great post! I completely agree with your stance on personal branding and how it is integral to finding employment and that a personal brand is largely established through first impressions. I also really enjoyed how you included the 'how to' for creating your personal brand. Just a question going forward would be if you believe all of the tactics mentioned in Ilana Gershon's book, Down and Out in the New Economy, should be employed when trying to create a personal brand or if you believe some of them could be disposable.

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  2. Sara Domaratzki8 February 2018 at 11:31

    Jace,

    I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on personal branding. I think you touched upon great points that really gave a lot of insight into what personal branding really entails. I enjoyed how you gave a step by step process into how you could discover your own personal brand. I enjoyed mostly step 2, about asking for feedback, I agree that asking different people about how they perceive you could be effective in discovering how other people see you. How you convey yourself to other people is huge and important to know in this aspect. Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on this topic.
    Great job.

    Sara

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  3. Shinjni8 February 2018 at 15:36

    Hey Jace, I agree for sure! Branding is so important. However, those individuals who have multiple social media accounts showcase themselves differently in each platform. On Instagram, we can showcase a varied range of characteristics and values that may differ from our Facebook or our Twitter. Also, the rise of creating a private account and also an open account is a popular way to brand yourselves with varied target audiences. What are your thoughts on these private vs open accounts? Aren't all accounts part of the branding scheme that we may pursue?

    Thanks for the post and discussion!

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    Replies
    1. Unknown8 February 2018 at 16:47

      Thanks for these questions! I appreciate your comment about using different accounts to appeal to different audiences. The more we get to know our social media platforms the more we can use them to strategically market ourselves. For example, the list feature on Twitter allows you to subscribe to or create a curated list of accounts. This can be a valuable asset in social selling as well as personal branding. I use my own Twitter account to brand myself as an ambassador for employee advocacy. The people I follow and the content I post helps to shape my overall image.

      In my opinion, employers do not want to see an overly calculated brand image. It is important to have a life outside of work and private accounts or any "embarrassing" pictures (although not inappropriate) help to show that you are a real person with a real life outside of the office. This too, helps your brand.

      Delete
    2. Unknown8 February 2018 at 17:40

      Hey Jace, this is a great topic for discussion!

      I would say that in respect to my profile on Linkedin, my personal brand tells others that I am reliable, work well within a team setting and have a passionate interest in the field of communications and marketing. With this said, I liked how you highlighted that a personal brand is ‘a physical embodiment of the way people perceive you’ and not just a list of one’s accomplishments. I say this because when I think about (re)creating my personal brand, I like to think of what I have accomplished rather than the whole picture as personal branding is not just about one’s assets but what you want to be known for. A question that I have is can this ‘careful alignment’ between our employers and the way we present ourselves cause an inadequate representation due to how much we try to tip toe around what we want the employer to see?

      Mae

      Delete
    3. Unknown9 February 2018 at 10:45

      Thanks for the question, Mae! Of course it is possible and highly likely to create an inadequate representation of ourselves. That is definitely one of the biggest risks during interviews, resume writing, or personal branding. However, I think employers (and colleagues) can smell desperation and inauthenticity from a mile away. The true nature of your personal brand will shine through and sometimes this fact is unavoidable.

      Delete
  4. Xavier Prosper12 February 2018 at 11:35

    Jace,

    I agree with you on the importance of personal branding. I particularly enjoyed the steps you outline for finding in and developing your personal brand because it focused on offline actions.

    My gripe with personal branding is that many people tend to see it as something that is simply done on social media. For this reason, we see a lot generic post, summaries and a lot of buzzwords on many student profiles. This is simply overdone and has lead employers to no longer fully trust what they see online.

    By focusing on your actions and interactions like you described in your four steps I believe that everyone can build a strong brand. One thing i strongly believe is that it’s important to remember that your brand is made up of what others say you and not the buzzwords you associate with yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kristina Kyriakis13 February 2018 at 15:24

    Hi Jace!

    Awesome post! I truly enjoyed how you added steps for identifying ones own brand. It is true that we are constantly constructing our image, not only through first impressions but also through our online profiles. LinkedIn is a perfect example of creating a personal career brand, but other social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram can help establish our own brands as well. What someone chooses to post about and the language they use to write their captions, can display their interests and personality. Even though it may seem early since we are in university, we have already constructed a brand for ourselves. The time is now to assess our images and change them (if need be) before we start our professional careers.

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  6. Kimberly Santos14 February 2018 at 15:28

    I agree Jace! Personal branding is so important especially in this digital age, where our online personalities/profiles are just as impressionable as first in-real life impressions. When you brand yourself companies look and analyze if your personal brand matches with theirs so, that they can establish a successful employer- employee relationship. The tips that you provided as well are very helpful and can contribute not only to ones personal brand but as well as companies own branding.

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  7. Tiana Oakley16 February 2018 at 12:15

    I agreed with your post Jace, particularity when you said, “everything we do helps to shape our personal brand.” Often we do not realize that our actions contribute to the way others perceive us. An example of this would be the content we willingly post on our social media pages. We publish images that depict our lives and personality positively, as we want others to see that good rather than the bad. We act in a certain way to create an authentic image of ourselves whereby others look highly upon us. I believe that we all process several brands. For example, we may act differently in the workplace than we would with our close friend group. Therefore, we alter our behavior and attitudes to cater to specific situations that will ultimately benefit our image. I enjoyed that you laid out four ways to help us discover develop a personal brand. I believe that branding ourselves is important as it sets expectations, creates trust, defines perceptions, and allows for the development of relationships. Not only do we participate in self-branding by fabricating a public identity, but businesses also create brands for their company that will benefit their enterprise. For example, high-tech startups portray an energetic, youthful, and creative brand that makes their name more attractive and recognizable to consumers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Unknown16 February 2018 at 20:09

    Hi Jace! This post was brilliant and I really enjoyed reading it. I agree and understand your view of personal branding. I believe that you are your own portfolio, and marketing yourself to employers as a brand is a way to get them to invest in you. Where I believe you may come to a crossroad, is where you stated: "our ability to control our personal brand comes from the careful alignment between the way our employers perceive us and the way we perceive ourselves." With so many social media and connectivity opportunities in our generation, I believe that the "control" of our brand may become threatened. Building our portfolio/brand, the one that we want to present to employers, is an extremely structured and controlled process that grazes the line between what is public and private to us. Allowing a potential employer to follow our LinkedIn may not cause any potential harm, and would probably be a positive branding opportunity. However, Facebook or Instagram can be potential branding disasters. Despite the fact that we may not be willing to post pictures or images of something an employer would find inappropriate; we also have to take into account what someone else has the ability to post on your feed or what pictures you are tagged or involved in may represent of you. This is where we lose control in some aspects of our personal branding. Despite this, I still believe that branding is a key tool that we can take advantage of in the digital age.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown19 February 2018 at 20:41

    Hello Jace,
    Great post, it certainly makes for an interesting read! I do agree with you, I believe personal branding is extremely important in todays digital age for numerous reasons, not only does it establish a brand for yourself, it also provides a clear focus for personal development. A lot of companies contain their own unique brand and as a method of staying “on brand,” they look to hire applicants that match their values. This is precisely why personal brand is so significant in todays business world. Just like humans, personal brand is completely fluid therefor it is constantly changing and evolving. As such it is important to find a company that matches one’s personal and professional changes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Epushka27 February 2018 at 11:57

    Jace,

    Nice work finding this article, and thanks for laying out the 4 steps of developing a personal brand. Without question, personal branding is essential in any work force if you want to succeed within your job. The most interesting thing about a personal brand is that in my opinion, the majority of it would be considered intangible assets. What I mean by this is there are no statistics or hard evidence of ones personal brand, but rather a general perception and how one "fits" within an organization. The other thing I find interesting is that a personal brand combines both one's core values and personality, as well as things that have been learned through work experience, specifically within an organization. Consequently, a personal brand is something that is continuously being modified to be the best person you can be, using eveything youve learned along the way. In other words, one's personal brand can be a product of innovation on a daily basis as we are constantly changing and bettering ourselves as individuals.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Adam Kula24 March 2018 at 13:29

    Great blog post Jace! I am inclined to agree with the importance of developing a strong personal brand, perhaps now more than ever, as the workforce has become greatly over saturated and more competitive of late. I really like that you included steps for developing ones own personal brand, as it provides individuals with the opportunity to analyze themselves and think about how they look in the eyes of potential employers. Personally, I'm not a big fan of networks like LinkedIn, as I like to associate my personal brand with my own personal touch, meaning I would rather my personal brand be associated with who I ACTUALLY am, and how employers have seen me in the past few years of my work experience, as opposed to my LinkedIn profile, which doesn't quite articulate who I am and thus what my personal brand reflects.

    ReplyDelete

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