3 Ways on how to build your Personal Brand

How do you stand out?

This is one of the most common questions asked when trying to build a personal brand.

The idea of personal branding was first introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in his best-seller “Think and Grow Rich”

Yes! personal branding has come a long way since its inception 80 years ago and with the rise of social media channels like Instagram its commonplace to see every company or individual building their own brand.

With this amount of saturation in the market, the idea of personal branding has taken a sharp turn from its original design.

We’ve forgotten that personal branding means telling a story in your own unique way.

A better way to put it is that we’ve forgotten the value of being “Authentic”

Authenticity has been proven, many times, to increase brand engagement.

In fact, 91% of customers value honesty and authenticity from brands they patronize.

So the question is ” How can you show your audience you’re authentic?”

The hard truth is that no one can teach you how to do this.

Being authentic comes from you. That’s right. Your own story. Your audience wants to see your ups, downs, failures, and successes. They want to know if you can accept your mistakes and learn from them.

They want you to tell them a good “original” story. Something different from the generic content they’ve been consuming.

It’s time for you to take them behind the scenes!

Although personal branding cannot be taught, following these special guidelines will help you create original content for your audience regularly.

1. Identify your niche or target industry

A niche is a relatively small industry or market that you specialize in.

Take Content writing as an example, it’s a broad industry that covers articles written on paper and on the web.

You can’t cater to the whole industry. Try narrowing it down. Maybe blog writing?

Bottom line, be specific.

2. Network

Networking isn’t just about spamming Direct Messages.

It’s about building one-on-one relationships with your audience.

Start by reaching out to at least 10 people you identify as authorities or micro-influencers in your niche and provide some kind of value to them, preferably a free service.

3. Be authentic

Being original is one of the key takeaways of this post. Give your audience something they can’t find somewhere else. Don’t repurpose a similar brand’s content.

Instead, give them a unique look into what makes your brand tick.