As long as you like, you can think to yourself that I am a great specialist and help people get certain results, but if the outside world does not read this message in a few seconds of the first contact, “our people” pass us by.
Today there is a lot of talk about the personal brand and awareness of its value is growing every day. More and more specialists are coming to understand that it is necessary to promote a personal brand in order to become in demand. The question is, what is a personal brand and how to develop it?
In an era when the speed of information transfer is rapidly increasing, when tons of offers are poured on us every day and we are all competing for attention, every communication with the outside world matters. For example, a potential client stumbled upon our Instagram profile by accident. As a rule, according to the description, avatar, and last posts, he concludes “to stay or leave.” Or, for example, he saw us in a joint chat in Telegram and was attracted by our avatar. However, clicking on the “description” section, he did not find information about us and left …
One more example. The potential client got to know us at the event and instead of a clear self-presentation, we briefly said “I am a psychologist.” In fact, this answer does not mean anything other than the scope of our activity. Therefore, we did not hook him with anything, and he did not add us to “favorites” in his head and contact list. And these small nuances either form the incoming stream of requests for us, or we lose these opportunities. Clients come to those who have taken care of this issue in advance. This is just one of 12 reasons why we are in the business of personal branding today.
Let’s take a look at the five stages of working with promoting a personal brand.
The audit of our point A is the starting point where we determine what our personal brand is today in terms of specific parameters. Here are the reference points. We determine the most important reference point for the current period. So we will understand whether we are moving in the right direction. For example, the benchmark point for a specialist in helping and supporting professions is the growth in the cost of a consulting hour. If working on a personal brand affects the growth of demand and prices, then this means that we are moving in the right direction.
The foundation of a personal brand is a key stage in which we work on positioning and monetization. This is where the uniqueness of a personal brand is defined. When creating the foundation of a personal brand, we do not rely on the past, but on the future. That is, we need the parameters of the prospects, which determine what specifically we will do today to achieve the goal in the future. Let’s say we see ourselves not only as good specialists but also as sought-after speakers on this topic. At the same time, we have never performed in front of a large audience. So, to realize this perspective, we go to courses in public speaking or we broadcast on our topic on Instagram in order to practice speaking.
Packaging is about creating a content strategy and the choice of communication channels with the audience. Content means any kind of information: texts, videos, audio tracks, etc. The main task at this stage is to find a strong format for regular communication with the world. For example, an Instagram profile or articles in Yandex Zen, or live performances, or the launch of a YouTube channel. Ideally, it is better to gradually master the different points of contact and build a scheme for regularly posting content. To make it easier to work, we use the principle of “multi-content” – this is when we present the same topic according to the principle from complex to simple. For example, we conduct a full-fledged master class on one topic, from the same material we create ten videos on YouTube, then we translate each video into an article, and each article is already several posts on Instagram. Thus,
Promotion is when we begin to systematically promote a personal brand both for a fee and for free. At the beginning of the path, we choose free methods of promotion, of which there are many on Instagram. Among them – geotags, which still work effectively, or collaboration – when we invite a non-competing expert on the air to exchange audiences. Starting with free traffic will let you know if we have packaged our personal brand correctly. If there is a reaction from a new audience and there are subscriptions to our account, there are requests for consultations and the purchase of our services, then everything was done correctly. Only after that, for even greater coverage, we connect paid channels and scale multiple times.
Delegation is when we highlight those tasks that are not part of our professional competence. For this, we involve employees or external contractors. In the future, we come to the conclusion that the strategy is being implemented by a separate group of specialists. We pay for their services from the profit that a personal brand brings. The first such specialist, for example, will be a brand assistant. He will help with content management, organize photo sessions, supervise promotion contractors, create visual content, as well as track collaborations, etc.
For the systematic work of a personal brand, a clear and transparent strategy is needed – these are the five stages that we have considered. To make the personal brand work for us constantly, we continuously work on it. As the scale and reach of the audience grow, tools, budgets, and profits change, but the process will be the same.
