Personal Branding – Why It’s Not Just About The Photographs
Building a personal brand means putting yourself out there. It also sometimes requires a thick skin, particularly online. Yes, personal branding is about eye-catching photographs and graphics, and building a connection with your community, but there are other aspects that aren’t addressed often enough. Incorporating these will help to add more depth to your personal brand.
Alongside the visual aspects, here is what you should focus on when building and growing your personal brand.
Emphasise What Matters to You
While you want to increase your exposure and drive more traffic to your site and content, don’t write and engage for those reasons alone. For your personal brand to be effective, you need to touch on topics you are passionate and curious about. This authenticity is what keeps people coming back for more.
Don’t Be Afraid to Be Honest
People who spend a lot of time online know how to spot smoke and mirrors. Being honest is one of the best ways to gain the trust of your audience. It is ok to voice your opinion, provided you are not intentionally hurting anyone’s feelings in the process. When done respectfully, it will attract your ‘club’ to you even more. Anyone who doesn’t belong to this club will naturally fall away, leaving you surrounded with like-minded folk, as well as your ideal client. Don’t disagree just to disagree though. It is always obvious when someone is trying to stir up unnecessary verbal battles online.
Be Patient
While you will have some easy wins, building a solid personal brand takes time and requires patience. Sometimes this means biting your tongue when you really don’t want to or staying out of a conversation because you don’t really have anything valuable to add. You won’t always be front and centre. As long as you keep at it and persevere, you can build a strong personal brand.
If you’d like to find out more about booking a brand shoot, email me via the link below, and we’ll set up a zoom chat.