Crafting Your Identity: The Strategic Power of Personal Branding in the Digital Age

 The Importance of personal branding

“Personal branding is the process of defining and promoting what you stand for as an individual. Your personal brand is a culmination of the experiences, skills and values that differentiate you.” (Sprout Social, 2019)

Personal branding is not about your reputation, but all about how you want people to see you. By developing a personal brand, you can shape how people perceive you, it can increase your credibility, it allows you to explain what sets you apart from others and most importantly, a well-developed personal brand will leave a lasting impression with people.

How to use social media for personal branding

“Personal branding on social media is becoming more and more important due to the multitude of benefits that it brings to one’s business and professional goals.” (GRIN, 2019)  

The first step of social media for personal branding is to define your goals. Once you have done this you can plan your branding and decide which social media platforms suit your goals and branding best. For example, if your goal is to reach as many people as possible, a platform like X (Twitter) would work better than Linked In because X has an open network model that allows you to reach more people.

When setting up you should include keywords, interests and skills in your profile. This will help you appear in relevant searches. You should also ensure that you are consistent in your tone and image. This will allow people to remember and recognise your brand. Most importantly, you should create and share high-quality content. This will increase engagement and reach as people love to view relevant content.

Good examples of using social media for personal branding

A great example of using social media for personal branding is Paige Williams. She owns the multi-million-pound cosmetic company ‘PLouise’. As well as having social media pages for her business she has her own personal pages in which she endorses her personal brand. When looking at her profile I discovered:

• 1.       Her personal pages are consistent with the same profile picture and profile description, username and links.
• 2.       All the content she produces reflects her personal brand. This allows her to connect with her audience and gives her target audience an understanding of who she is and what she stands for.
• 3.       Her personal brand leaves a recognisable and lasting impression.

 

Reference List

Sprout Social (2019) ‘Personal Brand’ [online]. Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/glossary/personal-brand/ [accessed 10/02/24]

GRIN  (2019) ‘A Guide to Branding Yourself on Social Media [online]. Available at: https://grin.co/blog/a-guide-to-building-your-personal-brand-through-social-media/ [accessed 10/02/24]