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Radical Innovation: Success Without Academic Boundaries: Part 5
Building a Personal Brand
Success often starts with being noticed. From snagging that job you've been eyeing to climbing the corporate ladder, your personal brand plays a pivotal role. It's your lifejacket when navigating the ever-changing sea of opportunities. A strong personal brand helped me overcome obstacles, like not having a college degree, and it can do the same for you. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work on crafting a brand that not only gets you noticed but also celebrates your unique value.
The Basics of Personal Branding
Think of your personal brand as your calling card. It's the deliberate, strategic way of showcasing your unique qualities to the world. With social media at your fingertips, you can target a vast audience, but this comes with its own set of challenges. Here's how you can tackle them.
Key Questions to Consider
What are you good at? Identify your core strengths and skills.
What's your unique selling proposition? What do you want to be known for? Where can you make the greatest impact?
How do you want to be perceived? What should people think when they hear your name?
Tips for Building a Strong Personal Brand
1. Pick Your Medium and Platform
What platform will best amplify your voice? Instagram, LinkedIn, a blog—choose one you feel you can be proficient at and use it as both a starting point and home base. You are far better off focusing on one platform initially than trying to navigate the idiosyncrasies of multiple channels.
2. Consistency is Key
Consistent Presence: Make it a point to regularly update your chosen platform.
Unified Message: Maintain focus. Your content should revolve around your unique skills and subjects you're passionate about.
"It’s ok to bring non-work stuff into the work environment, and when it comes to personal branding, it’s actually a bit of a shortcut, if done well. Your LinkedIn ravings about Peruvian art from the 1800s might have nothing to do with your accounting service, but you can be sure people will remember it better than if you were just another faceless service provider.." - Claus Raasted, Author, Speaker, Experience Designer
3. Clarify Your Value or Service
Be an Expert: Identify where you can provide specialized knowledge, experience, and value.
Stand Out: What makes you different from everyone else in the field?
4. Target a Niche Audience
A niche audience is a specific and narrowly defined group of people who have particular interests, needs, or cultural backgrounds that a business or creator can cater to. The value in cultivating a niche audience lies in the ability to build a strong, loyal community around your product, service, or content, which often results in higher engagement rates.
By appealing to a specific group, you can become a big fish in a small pond.
5. Set Achievable Goals
Short-term: What milestones do you want to hit in the next year?
Based on those goals ask yourself "Who do I need to connect with, learn from, and follow, and who do I need to get in front of?"
Long-term: What lasting impact do you want to make?
Your vision of the mark you want to leave on the world should be your north star, shining light on opportunities and guiding your journey.
Pro Tips
Provide Value: Your audience should benefit from your content.
Build a Community: Engage with your followers, reply to comments, and DMs to cultivate a sense of belonging.
Be Authentic: Authenticity goes a long way in making you likable.
When Clause shared the following advice "To be memorable, become a caricature of yourself," I immediately asked ChatGPT to produce a written caricature of me then pasted that into Canva's 'Magic Design' and almost fell over laughing at the image it produced!
Claus then clarified "I’m not thinking caricature in the visual sense, but more in the manner of being yourself, just 110%"
Closing Thoughts
That brings me to a final piece of advice from a man who has certainly mastered the art of personal branding:
"Be yourself 110%. First of all, while it’s possible to try to mold yourself to fit the expectations of others, it’s very exhausting (not to mention hard to get it right!), and second, it’s much easier to remember who you are when you are yourself." Claus
Now that you have a good sense of who you are and what unique abilities you have to offer the world. Join me for the next segment in this series: "Elevate From Ground-Up: Resilience, Experience, and Alternative Learning." Let’s embark on this journey of success together.
If you would like to connect please feel free to email me at jasongrantpadgett@gmail.com or send me an invite to connect on my favorite platform LinkedIn. Godspeed