What Does Your Personal Brand Say About You?
Branding is a term often used when describing a company’s image and the perception that a company wants in the consumer’s mind. Solid branding builds loyalty and reputation which equals sales. But what about our own personal brand? Does the quality of our work and communication clearly represent us and what we want to convey about our persona? Does the way we put our self out there and social media presence tell our story? Social media can be a powerful tool to let people have a peek into our personality and lifestyle.
It is a popularity contest
Personal branding is not only about consistency and top-of-mind awareness, it’s about likability. Ask an acquaintance to describe you in a couple of sentences. That’s your brand. It’s what they don’t say about us, that we have to pay attention to. Our personal brand is our reputation--what people say about us behind our back. Like it or not, this is a popularity contest. There are a lot of choices out there. People want to work with people they know, like and trust.
Trolls are ugly
As we have less and less face to face communication, people have become emboldened to say things to perfect strangers online that they would never have done in the past. The ability to hide behind a computer and spew out opinions has reached a crazy level in troll town. If people would just think before they type, “would I walk up to a complete stranger and say this?” The answer would most likely be “no”. Even the toughest people would admit that words can really hurt, no matter how ugly the troll is that said them. My question is why? Why say things they know will hurt people? Go out of your way to spew butterflies and hearts to make people feel good.
Consistency counts
By putting out inconsistent quality or controversial messaging into the universe with our name on it, we are creating confusion for our personal and professional brand. Typos on our marketing materials? Sends a message of no attention to detail. Accuracy builds trust, it says we can be depended on. What about when people preach politics on social media? Or readily spread misinformation without bothering to check the source of the information? Even though we may be doing it on a personal account, if we have ‘friends’ in our profession with access to our social media accounts, we are dragging our company into the branding challenges that behavior creates just by association. Remember the disclaimer, ‘these opinions do not reflect those of the organization’. But they do. Whether we want them to or not.
Be self-aware
When it comes down to our public persona, all we have is our brand, so why turn people off just to satisfy our own need for a platform? Sure, it’s a free country, but we may have just alienated half of it. It’s not hard to create a likable personal brand without losing our self and still being real. It’s ok to stand up for change that is needed or voice a frustration. Just refrain from topics or behavior that may alienate or disappoint. Take the time to make sure the message is professional and compassionate and we must be respectful of those who might be affected by our opinion. Communicate with intent. High Emotional Intelligence is a desired trait for a reason.
We can all hope to achieve a personal brand that reflects quality, empathy, clarity, honesty and helpfulness. If we strive to keep our communication relevant, professional, accurate, informative, inspirational and entertaining, then we will hopefully be perceived as a likable, trusted, real person, who is easy to work with. After all, it is a popularity contest and attributes matter.
“If you are not branding yourself, you can be sure others are doing it for you.” ~ Unknown
