Building Your Own Personal Brand

Are you a marketer in need of building your own personal brand? Marketers often focus on building brands, but what about their own? It is important, no matter what profession you go into, to have a personal brand, especially when applying for a job. Think of your own brand as how you sell yourself. What are the fonts and colors that represent your tone? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Even smell like??? All of this represents who you are as a person for all to see. It can be as simple as an Instagram page that markets specifically you as a brand, or you can integrate everything within a website.

Okay, so now that you’re a little more convinced on why you would need a personal brand, where do we start? Let’s start with your purpose. Your why. Your drive, your passions. Now, building a brand is no easy task, but start to dig a little deeper about yourself.

Let’s start with, what I think is, the easy part of your brand - your colors, as part of the brand elements. Your favorite colors or tones and shades that represent you as a person.

As  you can see, my brand colors are three different shades of blues. I like a minimal white look to my brand, but blue accents are a must. These three shades really represent me because these are my favorite, so I associate it with me. If you take a look around my website, there are pops of these blues everywhere. See that six symbol combination? That’s called a HEX code. Each color has a unique HEX code so when you are designing, you can enter the codes and they will be the perfect match. It’s important to not overthink an easy part like this because then you’ll begin to overthink every little part. It is important to be detail oriented, but focus on the big picture. 

Staying in the realm of brand elements, let’s talk about your font and logo. Whether you’re using your font and logo for a post, video, or website design it all needs to be integrated. Integration across all media platforms is key for any brand retention. Working with readable, classic fonts is great when designing with different tools like Canva or Adobe because the font can be transferable. Having a logo that fits you as a person is also important. I want my brand to give off a sleek, modern, and clean look, which is the reasoning behind my logo.

Taglines can also be important for brands to build that brand retention. “Just Do It,” “I’m Lovin’ It,” “Save Money, Live Better.” When reading those taglines, did you associate them with the big brands they go with? I’m sure the answer is yes, and that is because of how they’ve shaped and structured their brands. Along with taglines, think of tones. How do you want your brand portrayed? How do you set the tone as a professional?
Along with the brand elements comes the senses and the mood. This section may feel silly, but it is important to establish the 

look, smell, sound, taste, and feel. 

How do each of the senses make you feel, emotionally? 

My brand looks like modern blue.
My brand Smells like clean, hypnotic apple, pear and citrus.
 My brand sounds like calm waves crashing.
My brand tastes like a fresh,crispy energy drink.
My brand feels like warm ocean water.
These become important to put in place what your senses are that associate your brand to you. Your mood is also important. Start by making a mood board. You can do this on a physical board, or try our Pinterest. A great place to set the mood and also relate that to your senses.
An important part of your brand is to determine your target market. Who are you trying to sell yourself to? Let’s break it down by:
Type of work and companies like

Psychographics - VALS & AIO
- Values, Attitudes, Lifestyles
- Activities, Interests, Opinions

Geographic - Location
Benefits Soughts
Features
Advantages
Benefits

Now that you have established some of the important parts of your brand elements and who you are targeting - let’s move onto your purpose. Your purpose as a product/brand. Start with this framework by Real Symple Marketing:

To __________contribution_____________, so that __________(impact)_________________.

Your purpose statement is your brand’s mission. According to Real Symple, think of it as 
“What is the contribution (actions) you want your brand to make to the world?
What is the impact you want the world to experience as a result of your actions (contribution)”.

Along with your purpose, think of your brand value proposition. Think about these as a part of your elevator pitch. When networking with professionals, what is going to sell you in the short time you have to talk with them, or even hold their attention. Following again, Real Symple, has a great framework for this.

I help <user/customer> __________________________________
Do <solve problem/get benefit> __________________________________________
By doing/providing <feature> _________________________________________________

Again, think of this as your selling point for yourself, through your brand. Utilizing these tools to market yourself will not only be impressive to potential employers, but a great way to do some self actualization. Building my own brand made me more self aware of who I am, and what I stand for. 

There are many other parts to creating a personal brand, but here are three great sections to start your own personal brand, today.