Currently, we live in a labor market where there are too many professionals fighting for the same job. Therefore, it is vital to differentiate yourself from the rest and creating a personal brand can be a good strategy. Furthermore, the rise of communication technology has made it possible for people to better work on their personal brand.
In Spain, social networks have been a powerful filter for this concept to spread strongly, but also human resources departments and business schools have echoed the implementation of this skill.
Individual marketing has managed to reach a potential never seen before, since today it is easier to carry out these strategies and for most it turns out to be cheaper and with more professional qualities than other tactics. But, what is meant by personal brand?
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, assures that the personal brand is “what they say about you when you are not in the room.” Therefore, the concept is linked to what you are, personality, name, what you transmit to the outside. And it is an idea created to be able to differentiate yourself from the rest and obtain more success in personal and professional relationships.
The concept of personal brand emerged in the late 90s in the United States, when Tom Perters, a writer specializing in business management, wrote an article titled “The Brand Called You”, where he qualified this conception as a strategy in charge of professional promotion.
Personal brand is closely related to personal branding. In the business field, branding is an Anglicism used to refer to the process of building a brand through the creation of direct and indirect strategies.
It is true that all of us are born with a personal brand, so you could say that in this case the product is ourselves. We must manage and project the image that we are interested in selling to be competitive and make a difference, leaving a mark through the values and virtues that we have.
The objective therefore is to sell ourselves and generate trust in others, but what is the importance of creating a personal brand? Nowadays, companies no longer look at the candidates’ CVs, nor do they give importance to “titulitis”, but rather they value more that the future interviewee has a personal brand.
That is why creating a good strategy will help you build, communicate, promote and protect your personal brand. This will increase professional opportunities, prestige and visibility.
A strongly developed personal brand can give you professional independence. Also with these strategies it will be much easier to focus on the content that is of interest to you. In addition, it will help you promote your credibility, because showing what differentiates you and becoming a reference within your sector will grow trust among your professional community.
The first step in developing a personal brand is to know yourself, then you will have to set goals, which will materialize in objectives and, finally, defining your audience will be the key to carrying out your marketing strategy.
There is no specific formula for developing strategies, since it will depend on yourself, but networking usually works for many, where relationships are established with other contacts. Also creating a careful and updated blog or website will help you with your personal brand. On the other hand, you will have to generate visibility on social networks so that they know you are there and interact with your followers.
It is important that mistakes are not made when creating a personal brand. Don’t think that you don’t have a personal brand, because surely if you put your name in the Google search engine you will get some results. Don’t forget to be authentic either, bring the values that characterize you and don’t assume that by being on social networks you have everything done.
I would not like to finish this article without recommending three books related to the creation of a personal brand: 50 keys to making yourself a brand (Tom Peters), Personal Brand (Andrés Pérez Ortega) and Branding Low Cost (Kevin Albert). In this way you can expand information to carry out the development of your skills, experiences and keys to leaving marks.
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