How to Create Your Personal Brand

Wherever you look these days, you will hear about personal branding. For some, this idea is confusing, where do you start? What should your brand look like? It can be confusing and hard to know where to start. A personal brand is the way that we market ourselves to employers and client alike. It is important to make your brand a well though out, cohesive strategy rather than just allowing it to happen. When your only chance to make a first impression is online or via other written document, your brand can sum up who you are an what you are about.

So how do you create your own personal brand? Here are a few step to help you out.

1. Take time to think about what you want your brand to say- One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating their brand, is not taking a larger view from the beginning. Think about your strengths and weaknesses. Ask your friends and career mentors what makes you special and sets you apart from others in you desired field. Deciding on a brand means that you decide what career you want, having a vision and creating a mission statement (one or two sentences) that allow you to narrow down how you want to market yourself. Decide where your niche is, and use it in your brand creation.

2. Create your brand presence- Once you have your vision worked out, you need to get get it all on paper. Decide what are the main points you want to get across, and make sure that you tailor your resume to reflect the highlights of your brand. It can be helpful to think about your brand as your personal business. Your resume serves to be a marketing campaign for your business. When listing your previous work experience, target the accomplishments you have made that show how you uphold the qualities you wanted in your brand.

3. Go public- Now that you have re-written your resume to make it support your vision, it is time to set up your online presence. Set up a facebook profile, a LinkedIn account and other social media. You may also want to create your own domain and write a blog about your career field. Establish yourself as a sort of expert in your field. Even if you are only able to write about studying the career field, it is a good start. Be sure to link the sites all together. Whenever you post anything, take the time to ask yourself “How does this support my brand?”

4. Select your wardrobe- You may not be able to complete this step right at the beginning, but it is important to decide what your style is and how does it reflect on your brand. When selecting the clothes you are going to wear to your interview and to your new job, give some thought to how your clothing supports your desired image or brand. People judge you by your appearance, and you want to make sure that your total package all goes back to supporting the things that you listed as important to your brand. If you are marketing yourself as a technical minded geek who is a go to person when it comes to compiling code, wearing a flashy suit to work each day may not be the best way to look the part. If you think about it ahead of time, then you can be sure that you are reflecting your brand all the time.

Creating your personal brand is a way that you can market your time, talents and skill set and make sure that you are promoting yourself the way that you want, rather than hoping that employers and clients see how wonderful you are. Don't wait for them to discover your talents, but rather, plan out what you want to show them and make sure that everything you present to them upholds those ideals. By thinking about your assets ahead of time, you can be sure that they will remember you and have a good idea of who you are as a professional.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.