SwipeTown Academy

With this simple definition you will understand what Personal Brand is: “Personal Brand consists in considering oneself as a brand”, that simple.

It is a concept of personal development in order to differentiate you from the rest and to obtain more success in your social and professional relations.

You must be clear that everyone has a Personal Brand but not everyone knows how to manage and develop it.

In this aspect, knowing how to do it will open many doors in your way: you will differ from the rest and the impression you make on others will be positive and lasting.

The Personal Brand allows you to show your differential value and your abilities, making you unique and unrepeatable. Surely now you are wondering: what is Personal Brand, how do I manage it, what should I avoid when managing it?

1. The importance of the personal brand in the professional world.
2. The 4 reasons to manage and build your personal brand.
3. Managing your Personal Brand. How do I do it?
   • Steps to follow
4. 5 mistakes to avoid when creating your personal brand.

1. The importance of the personal brand in the professional world

Keep in mind that today companies are increasingly beginning to verify the Personal Brand of the candidates who come to them and surely in the not too distant future, those people will be chosen to do any work according to their personal brands.

Put yourself in the place of a company that constantly receives CVs of the same line.

Let’s say they treat them as if they were statistics, all the same, repetitive; so being able to differentiate yourself in some way will surely make you get more points.

Does white label ring a bell? Well, if you don’t differentiate yourself from the rest with your Personal Brand, you will be seen as a white label. That’s why you must build, promote, communicate and protect your Personal Brand.

Do you already see the importance of knowing what a personal brand is? It will help you get better professional and business opportunities.

Recognition, prestige and visibility will also come later. Don’t doubt it because everything will come.

2. The 4 reasons to manage and build your personal brand

Now that we’ve seen the answer to the question What is a personal brand? Let’s go with the 4 reasons to take care of it:

• A good Personal Brand will give you a lot of professional freedom. By standing out from the rest and differentiate yourself. It is no longer necessary to have millions of titles, now you have to know how to differentiate yourself and transmit what you know.

• Having a developed and strong Personal Brand makes it easier for you to consider self-employment, you are already being seen by potential customers.

• It’s much easier to focus on topics that you like and if you really like them, you’ll perform your functions better.

• Nowadays recruiters are not just looking for profiles because of their experience and training, they are looking for someone with specific skills that they can put to work immediately and productively.

3. Managing your Personal Brand. How do I do it?

Okay, we’ve seen what personal branding is and why it’s so important. But… how is it managed?

The first thing you have to bear in mind is that you have to define objectives and draw up a strategy.

To begin with, you must transfer your brand to your CV. Companies are already tired of receiving the same CVs day and night so this will be where you have to start.

The profiles in the social networks are visited more and more by the companies that receive the candidate; they have imposed themselves as another consultation tool for recruiters.

Therefore you must create, build and consolidate your profiles on social networks. You should not mix your professional profiles with personal ones; what you do, say, comment.

Everything is susceptible to being seen by companies. LinkedIn is the most important social network to create relationships with professionals and the most useful for your personal brand.

Social networks, as you surely know, open up a wide range of possibilities.

Becoming an influencer will be a more difficult but likely task but becoming a different profile to the rest is not so much.

Showing passion, standing out is the best formula to give visibility to a personal brand and any company will pay attention to who stands out most.

What else can I do to manage my Personal Brand? You can enter the world of the “blogosphere” and create your own blog or collaborate in other blogs.

This will allow you to stand out from the rest and improve your positioning in search engines. However, you should set some short, medium and long term goals.

Steps to follow

• Be clear about what a personal brand is and what it’s going to do for you.

• Define a goal, what do I want? What do I want to achieve professionally? With the answers to these questions you will have set your goals, which may be several.

• Analyze what other professionals with a similar profile may be doing. This way you will be able to get ideas of what you can or cannot do. But don’t copy, that won’t make you unique and unrepeatable.

• You must analyze yourself internally. You must know what your strengths and weaknesses are in order to start your personal brand and be successful.

• Also analyze your environment, possible threats that may be externally as well as opportunities that can help grow your Personal Brand.

• Study your target audience. You must reach the people you are interested in. Reach those people to whom you are launching those ideas, knowledge, messages, values.

• Identify which channels you want or are interested in. Not by being in all of them you will have greater possibilities to make your Personal Brand grow. On the contrary, you must choose well which ones you want to be in and once in them, manage them and work on them.

5 mistakes to avoid when creating your personal brand

• The mistake many people make is to think that they don’t have a Personal Brand. But that’s not true. Try putting your name on Google and you’ll probably get results, some more and some less and even see things you wouldn’t like to have seen there; so you probably won’t start from scratch.

• Stop being authentic. You must be yourself providing differential values.

• Try to please everyone. Not everyone should like you to try to grow your Personal Brand. In fact, you should focus on the niche that suits you, on the audience that interests you.

• Don’t confuse people with products. Empower everything you are and represent.

• Think that with being in the networks you have everything done. In fact the Personal Brand must grow with the physical presence. Not going to events, face-to-face activities is not good for your Personal Brand as the two have to go hand in hand. You must make a physical presence to which to associate that Brand.

Would you add another point? If you’d like to share it with us in this task of clarifying what Personal Brand is and how to manage it, don’t hesitate to write to us. Leave a comment?