Recently, more and more has been said about building personal branding consciously. It is often presented as a reliable means of achieving success in the industry. It is worth emphasizing that this does not necessarily have to be a panacea for all your problems.
In this post, I would like to mention whether personal branding is necessary for my opinion. Before we start, it’s worth asking yourself what personal branding is. Without it, it might be challenging to have the same view of the subject.
Personal branding
Personal branding is not only social media and a broad group of followers on Twitter or LinkedIn. It is something much broader. Personal branding, for me, is what people think and say about us when we are not around.
Personal branding is the opinion of others about us and our suitability for a given topic. To be precise, solid personal branding is an automatic choice for a person who is asked who can be recommended; who is an expert in a given topic. It is worth emphasizing that personal branding is more than just being an expert in a given field.
Our behavior has great importance to the perception of us. You can be an expert on a given topic, but no one will want to work with us without proper behavior.
How to build a personal branding
Since we know what it is, we can think about how to build personal branding. I use “build” on purpose because I believe that it is impossible to be recognizable overnight. Building personal branding is a long process.
You should build personal branding in a place where our audience is. It would help if you also took care of the appropriate promotion of the materials you create. We will gain nothing if we expect visitors to find us on the Web themselves. Any valuable content should be promoted to have a chance to reach a broad audience.
Depending on our predispositions, plans, and aspirations, there can be many ways to build a brand. You can use tools similar to documenting your learning. It could be a blog, podcast, or even a YouTube channel. If this is not enough, you can introduce training or help solve the problems of others. The key is to realize that you need to define who you want to reach. You should build personal branding using the media in which you have contact with our recipients.
Beware of the temptation
It is worth bearing in mind the natural daily time limit. You can’t be everywhere and do everything. Therefore, it may prove extremely valuable to select one area and exploit it. Instead of distinguishing ourselves in thousands of smaller ones, you will be a specialist in a selected topic.
Growth hacking has been a popular term for several years. It is creating content in a way that intentionally raises the position in searches. It can be compared to a shortcut path. You may grow faster initially. The problem, however, is the use of empty content that provides no value. You will have no value for your audience.
It is also worth being yourself and not creating a false image of yourself. There is no point in copying others because the copy will always be maximally as good as the original. Also, don’t try to be different from what you really are.
Is personal branding necessary?
I believe that personal branding is not necessary. Without it, you can have a good career in the IT industry too. For companies, our expertise in a given topic and the ability to solve the company’s problems are of fundamental importance.
Personal branding can be an excellent way to stand out from the crowd of candidates for the job. It can be the key to better deals and opportunities.
That is why I believe that everyone should try to build personal branding consciously. It is like compound interest in savings. At first, we don’t see the hidden potential. However, we notice how much we have achieved just because we started in the past after some time. It is also worth taking care of because it is not given once and for all.