While everyone has a unique story & identity, not everyone can be a successful personal brand

Confessions of a personal brand builder.

A thread

Do you want to build a personal brand? Are you growing your personal brand? Are you a PR or marketing professional who builds personal brands for their clients?

This thread is for you. So let’s start at the beginning,

What is a personal brand?

A personal brand is the conscious & intentional effort to create & influence public perception of an individual by

positioning them as an authority in their industry, elevating their credibility, & differentiating themselves from the competition, to ultimately advance their career, increase their circle of influence, & have a larger impact.

Most people who want to have personal brands usually believe that their long list of accolades or extensive professional experience is sufficient to term them into a personal brand, very quickly at a very low cost. The mentality is “I’m great, so it should be easy”

Other people who want to be turned into personal brands have the following attitude;
1. I’m a real professional, & other people who have personal brands don’t even have talent, so it should be easy to make me famous.
2 After a couple of interviews I should have my ideal clients

3. If influencer can be famous, so can I. They don’t have substance and I do, they’re no intelligent & I am.
4. My product/service is amazing, so it will be easy to turn me and my business into a brand.
5. I have famous/ influential friends, so it will be easy to make me famous

What people don’t understand about personal brand building is; Just because you’re thriving in your career or have many years of experience it doesn’t mean that it will be easy to build you into a successful personal brand.

There is more to building a personal brand than your work experience, achievements, &. Other factors you have to consider are but not limited to;

1.Personality
2.Physical Appearance
3.Your ability to communicate your story
4.Your network
http://5.How  interesting your career is
http://6.How  dynamic & interesting you are as a person
...

http://7.How  much work you’re willing to put into your social media assets
http://8.How  many opportunities you’re plugged into that we can use as leverage to sell you & grow your brand

The less of these criteria you tick, the more work your team has to put into unearthing your story and your value in a way that will shape your brand & give it commercial value

A hard truth that people don’t want to accept;

Building a personal brand is not cheap. If you want it to cost R500 you will get R500 results.

The time, strategy, & resources required to make someone into a personal brand make personal branding an expensive activity.

Another misconception that petiole have about personal brand building is;
Media interviews automatically make someone famous.
There’s more to successful brand building than media interviews. Media interviews alone won’t turn you into a personal brand.

If you’re building a personal brand, understand that your couple of media interviews, won’t automatically get you clients. They can, but it’s not the rule. You need broad & consistent visibility to convert media coverage to business, especially if

1. Your personal brand is being built from scratch
2. You don’t have a unique story, product, business
3. You don’t have a significant social media presence
4. There’s nothing happening on the ground to amplify brand building efforts