Personal branding has always been important in building our success as individuals. Showcasing who we are, what we do, and WHY we do is such a critical skill because it helps us find jobs, be invited to communities and events, and in general create a successful life. But before everything went online over the past decade, I bet you didn’t even think about what was considered your “personal brand.”
Did you ever create a resume to find a job? Did you ever get a college degree? Did you ever put together a portfolio of your work to bring to a job interview? All of that is part of our personal brand, and all of those tools are still very valuable to our success. But to truly succeed in the digital age, our online personal brand is even more important!
In this new age of social media, remote work, and building social influence to leverage for our career success; online personal branding is critical. I really started diving into personal branding a few years ago by listening to Brittany Krystle’s podcast called “Beyond Influential.” Through this podcast, she dives deep into how important it is for someone to get to know you as a brand. She helped me understand what was really required to get started with sharing my voice with the world to find success in bringing my dream to life.
One of the key factors in building a personal brand is that we tend to buy from and work with people that we “Know, Like (really Love), and Trust.” And how are those people supposed to get to know you and trust you if they don’t have a way to digitally see who you are and what you are about?
Clearly the world is challenging place to connect in-person right now, so that’s why having a way for someone to still “connect” with you and get to know you digitally is so important. Your digital presence online is what can help you get through the current storm we are riding through in the world; and we are here at Remote Work Mentors to help you find success in building your personal brand online.
So what does it look like to build a personal brand online? Well there are many key elements to being successful at building a personal brand online that also turns into a successful strategy for your career or business. What we want to do is think about social media and search engines as our audience engine. Our audience engine is where we are using these platforms to build a portfolio of work, gain trust in our current audience, and grow our follow as we are discovered by more people.
Then as we gain trust in our audience through our content, we can leverage that following to find more clients, get a new job, or grow our customer base. But it all ready starts with building out a strong online personal brand where people can connect with the authentic person behind the account.
And being authentic online isn’t always easy! We constantly are judging ourselves and where we are in our lives with other “influencers” that are out there in the world. We are also constantly worried about what others might think of us if we share our voice with the world.
The truth is that we are all unique though and who are we to NOT share who we are, what we do, and WHY we do it with the world. You never know what impact you might make one someone’s life through your online personal brand, and it just might help you grow your career.
I hope this article helped spark a few ideas for why it’s important to build a personal brand online and how you can leverage it to create a success life for yourself. I believe personal branding the foundation for any successful online business or career.
If you have more questions about personal branding or building your influence online, you can join us each week for the Remote Work Mentors Ask Me Anything virtual session. Each we we come together to build our community, empower others to find success through remote work, and answer any other questions you might have about being successful in the digital age. Sign up here to join us this coming week!