When it comes to creating better brand recognition, you don’t want to only focus on the business alone. Building a personal brand also helps you to add some reputation to your businesses while also helping you foster an appeal that can help you in endeavors beyond your current business alone. As such, we’re going to look at some key examples of those who get personal branding right and what they’re doing so effectively.
Blogging
Consistently, the question is asked: “are blogs dead?” and consistently, the answer has been an emphatic “no” for over two decades. It is true that it’s hard to get an audience blogging, but if you bring the kind of new authority that is needed to be an industry leader in the first place, then what you have to say will merit the audience. Danny Brown is a fantastic example of what can be achieved in building a blog that fosters one’s personal brand, having essentially set him up with speaking and content selling opportunities for life outside of his own business.
Speaking at Events
The online shareability and accessibility of video and audio have made those kinds of content much more effective and engaging audiences for a longer period of time than text. Jaqueline Novogratz wasn’t unknown before her TED Talk, but both her personal brand and the brand appeal of her organization, Acumen, sky-rocketed after she successfully engaged the minds of both the business community and consumers more broadly. A single viral clip can create stardom (though it has to be fostered after that) nowadays, so you should be consistently creating opportunities to let your thought leadership shine at events at other speaking opportunities.
Social Media
A personal brand needs a personal touch and, as such, you need to get closer to your community rather than just delivering content from up on a podium or behind a blog post. Gurbaksh Chahal is a CEO, investor, keynote speaker, and more shows the new way for business leaders to build a community: by interacting with them personally. Being engaged with your community, speaking to them, and showing thought leadership in action, not just in publication, shows that your leadership isn’t too pre-planned but works organically, too.
Networking
Who you know in business can be as important as what you know. Most experienced entrepreneurs can tell you that. As such, it’s important to look out for those big networking opportunities that help you build links to other growing and established thought leaders. The Collision Conference is perhaps the biggest and best known when it comes to getting to know professionals across a wide range of industries, but it’s also worth looking into smaller and more exclusive networking groups that tend to offer more direct and intense development of professional potential.
Emulating success can be very helpful in learning the components of it, but you can’t just copy someone’s approach, of course. You need to find your own spin and make sure that your personal brand is truly personal to succeed.
