The importance of personal branding:
Personal branding is mainly used for businesses that are created around a person, For Example, if you run a small business as a fashion designer YOU are the designer and therefore need personal branding as you represent the business.
Branding is the first thing that people see so it is super important to be able to represent your self within the first couple of seconds someone see your brand. Your branding is more than just a logo, it consists of imagery, the tone of voice, the language, the colours, the icons and even the words you use.
The overall importance of branding is that you want your ideal client to be attracted to you, if you are trying to attract a female business owner who is super creative and loves being bold and wild then you can use bold and bright colours, fonts, and icons in your logo, website and marketing material. You can create fun and funky headshots all while using feminism within your language. This will attract the bold female entrepreneur and it will not attract a male office business manager. The aim and goal is to work with the right people.
How to use social media for personal branding:
The first thing to think about is how your images looks, do your headshots match your colour theme and link in with what you do? Does all your other imagery also match and represent what you do. If yes then use these images as your profile picture on Facebook, Instagram , linkedIn, and other platforms, this is great tactic as people buy from people and you are instantly letting people in and making them feel they already know you.
Another great way to use personal branding is through the language and tone of voice that you use. You want to be consistent across all platforms. The best way to do this is to write a list of adjectives that reflect you and your business style. If we go back to the fashion designer example they may create list using words like:
Elegant, Soft, Romantic, Minimalistic, Nontraditional.
Once you have created your list find a thesaurus and create a list which contain as many words as you can think of. Once you have done this you want to make sure you add these words into your bio, captions and even use then in videos you upload.
Example:
Here you can see the Instagram account for Ask Alanna who is a personal assistant within the digital world. Alanna is the perfect example of someone who displays personal branding in multiple formats consistently. The first thing I want to talk about is how she showcases her friendly and relaxed “tone of voice”, this is through the language, images, videos and words that she uses. She uses the words “Hello, you beauts” which showcases she want to target women but in a fun and friendly way. Another way she showcases her free spirted personal vision is through funny videos, below you can see that she’s pulling funny faces and stating that if this is your vibe then she wants to be friends. This video showcases she want to be considered more of an easy going work best friend rather than an awkward strict professional, this is all related to her personal branding.
Alanna uses images and videos which reflect her being in a casual and relaxed environment, such as being in the sun in her garden to holiday images, these elements help keep her personal branding consistent.
Personal branding is super important when you are the business, this mainly applies but not limited to when a business offers a personal service such as a fashion stylist, designer, marketing consultant. Alanna showcases that she is the business in 2 ways. The first being that the businesses profile picture is a photo of her and the second is that she adds graphics, icons and text to photos of her that reflect her business branding. This is a great way to combined both personal and business branding together to showcase she the business.
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