This is a guest post by Sharyn Sheldon from BusinessContentPLR.com
Have you become wrapped up in the personal branding quest? Between social media consultants, life coaches, marketing experts, and other blogging gurus; creating your own personal brand can sound like a complicated exercise.
Among other things, you’ll need to discover what really matters to you and your target audience, where you provide unique value, and how you want to be perceived.
While the process of putting together your total personal brand “package” sounds daunting, it’s far easier to communicate to the world than you think. It’s not as if you’re creating a product from scratch. You already exist!
One of the things that all your consultants might forget to tell you is that the real you is what matters most in building credibility. As soon as you start trying to market an artificial personal brand, people will see right through it and you’ll lose the trust you were striving for in the first place. And we’re not just talking about bloggers here. These principles apply to everyone.
With those thoughts in mind, try on these few tips for making sure it’s the real ‘you’ that shows up in your personal brand and on your blog:
1. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
You may specialize in words for a living, but no matter how many times you tell the world what your personal brand represents, it’s what you do in real life that will communicate it most.
If you say in your blog that you’re an innovative content marketer, then you’d better have some real life, active marketing campaigns going on that take the word “creative” to new levels. If you say that your mission is to help people realize their dreams, then I hope you are out there in the world doing just that.
Before you start defining your brand, think about whether your words are really wishes. Or, do you truly intend to put those words into action immediately? Successful bloggers have their actions planned out ahead of time and always make sure those actions are aligned with their image.
2. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Always use a good picture of yourself for all your profiles and other places you can post it. While we’d like to think that the way we look doesn’t matter, it does. People will always get a first impression of you from your face, hair, clothes, posture, etc. If they see you face-to-face, they’ll look at the way you move, sit, stand, gesture, or even blink your eyes. If they’re just seeing your picture, they’ll note every little detail in just a glance.
Make sure your visual image reflects the brand you want to communicate. You may prefer to blog in your underwear, but unless you’re an underwear model, that image is not something you want the world to see.
3. Drop The Artifice
While there are some parts of yourself you don’t want anyone to know about, you’ll also find it difficult to fabricate something that you’re not. You might be able to learn some new skills to push the edges of your comfort zone, but you still should be aware of where you are most comfortable as yourself.
If humor is your main trait, you’re not suddenly going to become the serious pontiff who blogs about the political hazards plaguing the third world. On the other hand, if you have a really bad sense of humor, you shouldn’t start trying to tell funny stories.
Strive to be yourself and focus on you finest qualities. At the same time, be selective in sharing some of your weaknesses and faults. That’s real life and nobody likes a perfectionist.
4. Stop Reinventing Yourself
Some bloggers like to reinvent themselves as if they’re trying on the latest fashion trend. It’s confusing to every reader who arrives on your site and it defeats the entire purpose of having a personal brand. Attempting to build a community on shifting sands is pointless and self-defeating.
Once you’ve spent the time to really figure out your personal brand, stick with it. You’ll certainly refine it as you learn more about your market and yourself. But you won’t even know if your brand is having the impact you want unless you stay consistent and let it grow on its own.
5. Don’t Be A Hermit
You may know who you are, but does anyone other than your mother read your blog? The whole point of a personal brand is to use it to show the world who you are and what you have to offer. No one will know your name at all unless you are visible in some way – whether through your public actions, marketing, word of mouth, social interaction, or other efforts.
As part of your personal branding, you need to create a plan for how you’ll communicate it to the world. And that doesn’t have to mean a big speaking tour or hours spent on social media. Depending on who you’re trying to appeal to, it may be as simple as networking with other bloggers or participating in blogging challenges. Keep it simple where possible and, whatever you do, stay true to the real you.
Do you have a personal brand? What do you do to make sure it’s the real you?
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Hi Kelvin,
Honestly, I’m not as surprised about people trying to change their image all the time as you might think. It’s really difficult to figure out what’s so unique about you that other people will want to read what you write. After all, hasn’t it all been done before? I think it’s ok to experiment with your image in the beginning, when not that many people are reading your blog anyway, but at some point you have to get a grip on it or you’re just going to lose people. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of blogging, right?
– Sharyn
I think some people fall into the trap of writing for ‘the internet’ rather than thinking about the specific audience that they are going to target.
Tony, you are so right about that! On the same note, people often write for themselves, just writing anything that sounds interesting to them vs. a specific reader. Then they’re surprised when they find that nobody’s reading it!
Thoughtful post.
Interesting how people react to the term “personal branding”! I see it as just shorthand for the image we want to present. I’m wrestling with this right now. My blog started out very focused on one aspect of myself, and now I want to broaden it out. I’m concerned I will mess with your point 4, and lose the readers I already have.
Maybe that’s not a bad thing though. Maybe I need to be willing to take that risk.
I see so much information for bloggers about finding a niche and keeping the content relevant to that. That bothered me, made me wonder if I should stay with waht I was already doing.
At first the changes I want to make, the new content I want to cover, all felt very random and scattered. Disconnected. All aspects of me and my interests, but maybe totally uninteresting to anyone else. Or one person will like my post on writing, but unsubscribe when the next three posts are about other things, like sewing, gardening, and emotional growth.
Reading your post and a few other related ones got me questioning whether I do have a theme. And I found it. All those scattered pieces come together under the heading of living creatively and authentically. Finding ways to be real in a world that often wants to make us plastic.
I may of course be doing just what you replied to Tony in the last comment- writing for myself and no-one will want to read it! I do think it’s important to apply some filters, if I want to build readership. I need to think some more about who I want my core readership to be, what sort of person I hope will read and engage with me through my blog, and play up the aspects they will be interested in. I don’t want my blog to be a sort of public journal, just about self-expression. I want to create a blog that gives to my readers.
The main thing I’m getting from the post is the importance of our image being true and being consistent. Kinda like a CV. Everything I put on there had better be true. And the core facts won’t change. But I don’t have to put all of myself on there. I can be selective about what aspects of myself I show, what skills and experience I put centre stage.
Or even more, like dating. If I want the relationship to last, I’d better not present anything false on the first few dates. How many women spend what feels like forever having to keep on pretending to be interested in something they find incredibly boring because they thought that would make their date like them better? I’ve known a few! But if I want to get a second date, maybe I do need to make sure I’m showing the best me I can. This is not the time to discuss my ingrown toenail and the shortcomings of my ex! My blog is the same.
it’s true that we shouldn’t try to reinvent our image. some people can be a designer today and internet marketer tomorrow. we have to keep a good identity of us and let people believe us in everything we do.
Hi Autumn,
Sounds like you’re going through a difficult transformation, though necessary. I wouldn’t worry too much about clarifying your identity if you’ve been all over the place before. You just have to figure out what resonates most with your readers, but is still you. You may lose some people, but you’ll gain far more.
As a little extra wisdom, I’m actually sitting in a session at BlogWorld Expo right now and one of the sessions talks about defining the purpose of your blog. You need to identify the problems you are solving for your readers and then gear all your content and design around meeting their needs. It’s not about you. It’s about your readers. Just something to think about as you work on your brand.
Good luck with it!
Sharyn
Thanks for the valuable tips.I’m surprised to see some bloggers trying to create a new identity every now and then not knowing they are causing a lot of confusion for their readers.
100% truth.
Credibility is THE secret. You have to be in sync with what you say.
Saying “you have to make people want to be like you” is a little extreme but in a certain way you have to give them a reason to follow you. If people despite who you are don’t expect them to read your stories, no matter how interesting they are.
All this sound perfectly logic I confess but you know what? It’s not entierly true. In France (where I live) we have a “wannabe rapper” called Cortex who does nothing but saying that people who have a little succes on the internet suck. Everyone hates this guy, everyone wants him to stop publishing videos but everyone watches them…
Hi Geoff. Sounds like being a jerk IS his personal brand. People are always drawn to a little controversy and a good debate. There’s one Internet marketer who built a whole business around being “the rich jerk”. Your brand doesn’t have to be likeable! That idea just doesn’t appeal to me.
– Sharyn
Agree that blogger should stop reinventing themselves. For branding to be sucessful you need to be focus, consistent and most important of all be patience. Branding take time, it will take a while for people to notice it and appreciate it.
We should stop reinventing ourselves. We need to work hard so that people likes us. I really loved your post. I think branding helps a lot in expanding a blog. So your post was worth reading. Thanks.
Hi Avi. Thanks. I’m glad you found the post helpful. Most people struggle to define themselves and that’s why they keep reinventing. But it definitely helps a blog to have a specific identity!
– Sharyn