Personal Branding In A Digital Era

We all have a reputation to protect and a perception to paint.

In this digital era, anyone can become a brand by just owning a username and a password. All you need to do is to put in the time and effort in your craft, be consistent and offer value. Simple and brief like a miniskirt.

With the evolving digital space, it has become easier for businesses to catapult sales online, people to connect on social apps and actually getting married, and also, it’s now even easier for one to structure a personal brand.

Before anything else, having a specific niche is paramount. Pick something you can do effortlessly, passionately and perfectly. Be an authority in that niche. Let your audience know you with a specific type of topic or content.

This could be a career you trained for e.g a doctor, lawyer, journalist. Or could be something you’re passionate and talented in e.g Singing, writing, photography.

What’s yours?

Personal branding plays a major role in all this ‘culprit-of-a-trend’. Gone are the days when only celebrities and businesses had the personal brands tagged on their names. These days, anyone (even you, yes you) is eligible to personal branding.

How you package yourself to the people around you, your followers or even your colleagues tattoos a perception about you in their minds. It’s a determinant of how they will interact with you, or with your content.

It may also determine whether you land your next job or not. Recruiters might stalk you a little to see what you have going on on your socials.

Personal branding doesn’t only build trust, but can also expose you to copious opportunities in your career. The more you rub on people’s faces that you are specialized in a particular niche, they will always have you in mind whenever an opportunity that matches your expertise crosses their path.

Different people use social media platforms differently. There are those that will use it for stalking celebrities, those that will use to to connect with friends and those that will use it to showcase their prowess. The latter understood the assignment.

Social media provides the opportunity to create your personal brand. Just by going through one’s timeline, you can easily tell what one does, his passion and expertise.

Mark this though, branding yourself doesn’t mean you should fake who you are. So, this doesn’t mean that you should photoshop yourself or live a fake life Just so to impress your audience.

Instead, you should show your target audience the personality that mirrors who you truly are. Use your character trait to illustrate your skills and to attract people to your personal brand.

Take a pew on the driver’s seat of your personality and put it out there for the world to see. Let people know what you do, so that they can have a chance to say, “I know someone who designs websites,” Or “I know a lawyer who can help us out here.”

What do people say about you when you are not in the room? Eeh?