Whether you have a Business Brand or you want to Develop your Personal Brand, either way, you will need to start somewhere with your online presence to stand out in the crowd.

personal brand

You can make this as easy or as complicated as you like. I prefer the easy way so let me explain first of all why this is important and how it ties in with your online marketing.

Why Your Personal Brand is Important

If you think about the popular brands online, or even offline, what is it that makes them stand out above their competitors? They are easily recognisable.

As far as a personal brand goes, take Kylie Minogue for example. Kylie has been around since the 80s when Neighbours took off as a prime time TV series here in Australia. Since then, she has established herself in the UK with her singing career. Kylie Minogue is now recognised around the world and her success began from a humble role in Neighbours.

Kylie Minogue has beaten sports stars, media moguls and even the prime minister in a survey of Australia’s most powerful personal brands. (source: News.com.au)

Kylie Minogue Mosaic

7 Steps to Developing Your Personal Brand

Developing your Personal Brand is considered to be essential rather than a luxury. Every item you post anywhere online is there forever and for anyone to access.

You must consider what you would like to be known for and how you are perceived by others online is whether your brand will be noticed and warrant a following.

Note that Google keeps a record of every little tidbit in the search engines so if you were to apply for work and a potential employer were to do a search on your name, would you be happy with every single post and comment you ever made online?

Consider these steps when developing your own unique brand:

1. What are you passionate about? Choose a niche you can write and talk about easily where you can share your expertise online and when speaking to groups.
2. Write articles on your chosen niche. Become known as an authority in that niche by writing articles and submitting them to article directories.
3. Set up a personal or business website. This is where you can add more value for your potential clients and provide additional details of your services.
4. Set up a blog. Writing a blog and producing fresh content will keep your clients coming back to you as well as adding value to your website by linking to your services. This also enables you to begin building links and strengthen your websites authority in the search engines.
5. Social Media Profiling. With the rise of Social Media, you cannot escape the fact that you will in fact have to set up profiles with at least Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google.
6. Design a unique business card. Carry your business cards wherever you go as you never know who you may meet and network with.
7. Testimonials. Gather endorsements and quotes from notable people, admirers, fans or ideally happy clients.

Following these steps will start you on your way to developing your personal brand. I welcome all comments and your ideas on how you are progressing with these steps and in my next post, will elaborate on some strategies you can use to make this process work.

Ange Recchia
Hampton Internet Consulting 

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