For Entrepreneurs
Ways to Add Your Personality to Your Brand
Behind-the-scenes reels aren’t enough to make a sustainable connection with your audience.
The current world population is 7.8 billion as of July 2020.
That means roughly 7.8 billion personal brands exist. Yes, I am counting infants and adolescents — -have you seen Instagram and YouTube?
If you disagree with me, it is probably because you do not know what a personal brand is outside of knowing one of your college friends asked you to like a Facebook page for their new candle ‘brand.’
It is cool. Friends should support friends.
What is a brand?
A personal brand is a consistent impression of who you are in the world and a direct reflection of your gifts, talents, and expertise. That is essentially everything about you since your earliest memory.
Once you’ve created a brand, you’ve decided to package who you are and leverage it in a marketplace based on the consumption of things (products, people, animals…you name it). This brings us to what you need to make a personal brand thrive.
The best of who you are should come to the forefront when discussing personal brands. Your personality doesn’t have to be perfect — no one is — -but you should be tolerable. I always remind my students and clients that everyone can’t and won’t want to be a part of your community. That’s okay.
Your presence should refrain from making people run for the hills because of your poor attitude, oversharing, bigotry, and irresponsible practices.
What makes a good brand personality?
A brand personality that can be considered “good” or well-designed is made using a particular story. Or what we in marketing call messaging. A brand’s messaging is a story told repeatedly by the brand based on its particular creative strategy plan.
If you are interested in becoming a personal brand, start with understanding who you are and what makes you unique. List personal traits and qualities that help you stand out in a room. You can start crafting a personal narrative once you’ve identified your golden traits and qualities.
Crafting a personal message requires self-confidence.
Ways to Add Your Personality to Your Brand
- Share why you started your brand. Assuming your brand showcases a product or service that solves a problem, tell people why it matters to you. Why did you come up with this idea? If done well, the answer to this question will make your audience feel like it is summer camp and you just made ‘best friends forever’ bracelets. Let your audience know why you can be trusted.
- Show you care by responding to comments, polls, or quiz answers. Being online can be overwhelming, so using automation is helpful, but making time to be active online is important. When you show compassion, you show you are invested, and there’s a 76% chance your audience’s life will be better from knowing you.
- Incorporate sharing into your daily routine. Assign one or more specific times throughout the day or week to collect content that reflects your personal investment in your brand or showcases your humanity. People like knowing you eat, sleep, have fun, and sell a product. Give them a prix fixe menu of your life. Gathering content for your brand doesn’t have to take over your life. You need to plan ahead.
I showcase my brand(s) while sharing my career as a writer and cooking and decorating skills. Although I’m uncomfortable sharing my relationships on social media, my audience sees my passion for my family and academic career. Believe me, it works.
Above all, adding your personality to your personal brand is an enhancement to your brand when you know who you are and what you have to offer. You have to know your personality and what drives your passions.
Pro Tip: Being confident in who you are is the ‘secret sauce’ to having a winning personality and a good personal brand.
Other people like you are ready to brand up and take the world by storm. What makes you unique? What personal experience will you use to shape your brand’s messaging? Let me know in the comments.
If you want to grow your social media following, take advantage of this post suggestion.
IMAGE IDEAS.
A picture of you looking pleasant or smiling
A picture of you outdoors
A picture of you with people or animals you love
If you don’t have one, ask someone to take a quick headshot.
CAPTION.
USE THE CAPTION, ADD EMOJIS, AND FILL IN ANY BLANKS.
This is me happy.
I don’t know the last time I said that.
I spend most of my time being a ______ to/at _______.
But I feel most alive when I _________.
Lately, I try to focus more on spending time with my passions: [List your passions]
And it’s changing my attitude about life.
I’m grateful for _______.
Do you remember the last time you felt happy? Who you were with? What you were doing?
If you can’t remember a time, you need to STOP and do something that will make you happy. It doesn’t have to be BIG.
Tell me your ideas in the comments.
HASHTAGS.
(#) joy, happy, smilemore, smile, happyness, happyvibes, passioninsta, passionphoto, hello, photooftheday
