How to Create and Maintain a Personal Brand Online

Personal branding is the process of creating and marketing a certain image for yourself online. Basically, your personal brand is your impression and reputation in the minds of others. With the rise of social media, crafting a personal branding has never been easier. Your online presence and personal branding are closely intertwined and work together to create an image of yourself for fellow colleagues and professionals.

In order to cultivate your personal brand, you should have a presence online. In today’s day in age having a presence online is the easiest and most effective way to build a personal brand. Everyone can create an online presence simply by creating social media accounts for themselves. Making yourself a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn is an easy and free way to create an online image for yourself. By keeping these social media profiles active and updated, you are contributing to your online presence and therefore creating a platform to build your personal brand. Be sure to post appropriate content for each social media platform. For example, you wouldn’t want to post a picture of your dog with his or her new toy on LinkedIn. That content is more appropriate for Facebook or Instagram. Another great personal branding tip is to give all your social media profiles a consistent look and feel.

So how do we create and maintain our personal brand? The first step to perfecting a personal brand is to express who you are. Having your education, professional experience, skills and specializations available for others shows people who you are, what you are capable of, and what you plan to do in the future.  Be sure to highlight your strengths, this is what will help you encompass who you are while emphasizing your most important features. In addition to this, showing your personality and interests will really diversify and personalize your brand. This is arguably the most important aspect of your personal brand since it helps you stand out and differentiate yourself from everyone else. Be sure to be as honest and authentic in this component.

Your personal brand is also built off of personal and professional relationships. This includes who you are connected with online and what these people say about you. Your personal brand is also built off of who and what you follow. Following influencers and communities online can really help you encompass who you are, what you are interested in and knowledgeable about, and what you stand for.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to craft a personal brand for yourself online that will positively portray yourself to your colleagues and professionals.

Written by Emma Bevilacqua from Rebecca Adele PR & Events

Do You Know Who You are Talking to??? Know Your Audience!

Momma always said, “don’t talk to strangers!” Well, don’t be a stranger to your audience, get to know them! To reach your audience, you must be able to speak their language. This requires research. Audiences can be broken down by demographics, geographics, psychographics and behaviors segmentations.

Demographics:

These include, family size, gender, marital status, income, and occupation but the most common demographic is age. Communicating to different generation cohorts will require tailored messages and various media outlets to get your audience’s attention. For example; The Gen X community is more likely to read the newspaper than Millennials and you would be less likely to promote anything is “lit.”

Geographics:  

Yes, location plays a significant role in the language used to reach your audience. For example; Soft Drinks, you’re going to say Pop in Ohio, and Soda in Florida. Making that adjust makes all the difference if your soft drink is going to be excepted in that location.

Psychographics:

Psychographics are more personal to the audience. These include segmenting people based on social class, personal characteristics, lifestyles, and values. In a case for promoting environmental health, you will find that marketing toward values will be more efficient than using an age demographic approach. 

Behavior:

Behavior segmenting divides people based on attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors about your promotion. An example of this is promoting a brand based on the belief of its benefit, basically what they want from using the product. If you are promoting dandruff shampoo, create your message based on their belief that having a flaky, itchy scalp can be soothed and remedied by your product.

These are just a few tips on breaking down your audience into segments and creating the message that you give to them. Remember, this includes the slang terms and hashtags you use; if it does not resonate with them, then it will not work. When you learn what motivates your audience, you can successfully reach them and increase your team's efficiency!

Written by Marisha Daniels from Rebecca Adele PR & Events