3 Easy Steps to Building Your Own Brand, Part 1: Defining Your Brand

Because I just started at Boot Camp Digital as the new Marketing Coordinator, this past Monday was my first time sitting in on one of Krista’s social media training lunches. This month’s Lunch and Learn was focused on Building Your Personal Brand.Whether you like it or not, you have a brand. Every business has a brand. A brand is how someone would describe you after meeting you, it is the first impression you give someone after they see you online, and it is the impression you create as a lasting basis. Many people think a brand is just a logo, but it’s much more than that. It has both a logical and emotional element. For example, in our session we discussed both the logical and emotional elements of Apple’s brand.Logically: great customer service, unique packaging of products, efficient productsEmotionally: always has the most up-and-coming products, how the product makes you feel, the brand speaks to many people, customers feel hip

Clearly a brand is not just a logo or the type of products a company provides; a brand is also how something or someone makes you think and feel about them. Brand building is therefore the connection between logical and emotional indicators. Companies used to be able to manage their brands just through advertising, but now people can access opinions of your brand or your company’s brand at any moment, anywhere: even from a person on the other side of the world.

So where does building your own personal brand come into play? There are three easy steps. Today I will talk about Defining Your Brand, and Part 2 (Building and Monitoring Your Brand) can now be viewed here.

Step 1: Defining Your Brand
You will never be able to build or manage your brand if you don’t know what it is about. In order to be perceived as an expert in your area, you have to build a brand that will back that up. Think about your values, your strengths, and how you would want someone to describe you in an ideal world.

There are 4 Key Parts to defining your brand:

1. Brand Equity:

• This is your overall statement, your thing. It is what your brand stands for in the hearts and minds of your audience. For your personal branding, take all the characteristics that are memorable about you and turn it into one thing – the thing that you are best at. It is easier for people to remember just one thing about you. By building a very clear association between you and your talent or specialty, you will ensure success.

2. Brand Character:

• Your brand character is how you actually come to life to people. Are you energetic? Passionate? Focusing on your brand character means focusing on who you actually are.

3. Building Blocks:

• These can also be called “Points of Proof.” It is how you differ from other people, and gives people a reason to come to you for what they need, instead of your competition. You must give people a reason to believe that you are the most qualified in your field or industry.

4. Design Elements:

• Once you have created enough of an identity for your brand, you can move onto the fun part: the design elements. It can be an icon, or a picture of you doing the very thing that you want to be known for. It can also be using the same type of color scheme on all your social media networking sites, your presentations, etc. The key here is to make things consistent: make yourself recognizable and easy to pick out from a picture of you on a social networking site.

Now that you’ve learned a little more about defining your brand, which key element are you most excited about defining or redefining? I’d love to hear some feedback! Be sure to also check out Part 2 to hear how you can Build and Monitor your newly defined brand! Now quit reading and start defining!