Personal Branding

Personal branding skills denote the ability to create for you or for your company a well-acquainted professional name as well as reputation. In the business world, personal branding precisely refers to the ability to create an impression on your clients such that they remember you for exactly what you want to be known for.

You can use several means of communication for tying certain characteristics to your name and image, according to your wish. However, you must be able to think of your personal brand as an asset that not only requires protection but also calls for being molded and shaped along with your changing needs and circumstances.

Why is personal branding important

Any career-minded individual would be clear about the fact that personal branding is not only important for job seekers, but for everyone. The following benefits, among many others, will help you understand why that is so:

• Greater demand. All other things being constant, consumers will always choose an expert if given a chance. That is why personal branding skills are important because they enable you to present yourself as that ‘expert’.
• Opportunity to charge higher. When your high credibility is combined with high consumer demand, it enables you to charge higher prices or demand a higher salary and still win the business or get the job.

How to improve personal branding skills

Following are some helpful tips to improve your personal branding skills:

• Take control. Whether or not we know this already, we all have a brand i.e. the reputation we have for the combination of our beliefs, values, interests, skills and talents. Therefore, the first step towards improvement is to realize this fact discover what our personal brand currently stands for. We must be able to make our personal brand very clear by understanding and defining it so that others may understand it just as well, without having to guess or define it for us.
• Benefit from your online presence. Social media often receives its share of criticism but we must also bear in mind the wonderful opportunity that it provides us with by enabling us to present ourselves to the world exactly the image that we want. All you need to make sure is that your online presence reflects precisely the personal brand that you have identified. For instance, your LinkedIn profile is to showcase all your skills and experiences and your Facebook profile picture should be something that you would not mind your boss or other professionals to have a look at. Similarly, guest-blogging on the topics and areas of your expertise is also a good way of showcasing your knowledge to other professionals.
• Let as many people know as possible. The greater the number of people that know of your personal brand, the stronger it gets. However, the brand that is being portrayed across various social media channels as well as in face-to-face interactions must be consistent all the way.

Job profiles that require this skill