How to Create Own Unique Brand Identity with Strategy for yourself Understand only 8 Easy Steps By TECH with KAPS
If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? Would someone viewing your content on different channels know it all came from the same brand?
Whether you’re searching for a better job, looking for a promotion, considering changing careers or growing your network, building a personal brand can help you reach your goals. As marketers, we often market services and products but forget that we also need to market ourselves! Follow these seven steps to get started.
If you’re not careful, you can end up with a random assortment of voices and tones in the content produced across your marketing ecosystem that doesn’t provide a consistent picture of your brand, or even use the same language consistently.
This inconsistent brand experience is more common as an organization grows, and is often exacerbated as external entities such as freelancers and agencies get thrown into the brand’s content-creation mix.
You may be asking why a brand voice matters – isn’t it more important to work hard to make your brand sound more human? A brand voice, though, isn’t about the creation of a non-human voice. It’s about being consistent with the voice you are creating – positioning yourself as an easily identified and authoritative source for your area of expertise. Similarly, a consistent brand voice and vocabulary is essential to implementing localized content and intelligent content strategies effectively.
Luckily, you can create a brand voice chart to help address the issue. I’ve outlined the five steps to establish, create, and maintain a desired brand voice to drive consistency in your content creation efforts.
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Step 1: Gather a representative sample of your content
You want to cast a wide net — gather everything from videos to web pages, e-books to your social media calendar. Now, cast a critical eye on the content. Which of these examples could have come from any of your competitors? Set those aside. Your goal is to whittle down your examples to a small group of pieces unique to your brand – examples of the brand voice you want to embody. Print these examples and put up on a whiteboard, grouping together pieces with a similar feel.
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Step 2: Define Your Key Traits
What helps you stand out from the crowd? These elements are your unique traits, and they help shape your personal identity. The Big Five Personality Traits are identified as :
- Openness to experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
Step 3: Develop Your Personal Image and Create a brand voice chart
Once you know your values, passions and personality traits, it’s time to start showcasing them! Here are some ways that you can get started:
- Have professional headshots taken and use them on Linkedin, in your company profile, etc.
- Cultivate an email signature that’s unique to you. (Use your personal email if you can’t edit the email signature you use for your company). Include all of your contact information, your signature, your social media icons, your company and your website.
- Build credibility with content. Use your personal blog, Linkedin profile or publishing tools like Medium to get your message out on topics you are knowledgeable about.
- Dress the part! Stay prepared for networking events and big meetings by keeping a fresh blazer and pants or skirt pressed and ready to go.
With your brand’s voice defined, illustrate how it turns up more concretely in your content with a brand voice chart. It will be an essential reference tool to ensure your content (text and visuals) is consistently using the same voice.
Include three rows for each of the primary characteristics accompanied by three columns – a brief description, do’s, and don’ts. If necessary, add a row for any secondary characteristic that needs a little extra explanation. In this example, “irreverent” is a related word and should be fleshed out so the team is clear on how it is defined (i.e., Does irreverent mean to challenge the status quo or to be snarky?)
Step 4: Ensure your writers understand how to put your brand voice into action
You’ve defined your voice and tone, and shown it in an easy-to-understand chart. How do you get everyone onboard with using it? Meet with the team – anyone who creates content or communications – and walk them through the chart.
Go through some examples of content that hits the mark, and show in real time how you would revise some existing content that isn’t reflective of the defined voice to realign to it. If possible, provide the team with a laminated or card-stock copy of the brand voice chart to keep at their desk for reference. Ensure an electronic version also is available.
Step 5: Build Your Online Presence
From Twitter to podcasts, blogs to Facebook, to establish your personal brand, you must get your voice out there. First, you must secure URLs, social usernames, etc. that are the best fit for your brand before someone else does! This includes both your personal website and any social networks you choose to join.
Tools like knowem and NameChk can help you check availability across hundreds of social communities. If your preferred name has already been chosen, try using dashes, underscores or numbers to find one that best fits your brand.
Linkedin is one of the best places to start getting socially if you’re interested in improving your job standing or looking for clients then LinkedIn is the best place to start. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the other major networks you’ll want to take a look at. Secure your username here and start building your profiles on the network(s) that will best fit and help further your personal brand.
In addition, ensure your personal website showcases your best attributes and/or work. If you’re a writer or designer, establish a portfolio. If you’re a speaker, start a podcast or film yourself speaking at a conference.
Step 6: Revisit and revise the brand voice chart as the company changes over time
A brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time-set-it-and-forget-it tool. As your brand messaging evolves or new competitors come into your market, it’s good to take a look at the chart and refresh it with new examples.
On a quarterly basis, convene your key content creators and communicators to find out if any voice attributes haven’t been working well or are more aspirational than possible for whatever reason. For instance, many brands initially include “irreverence,” but find that many of their writers are uncomfortable flexing that muscle or that copy is consistently deleted by your key approvers. If that’s the case, it may be time for a voice refresh, or some new do’s and don’ts.
Step 7: Start Blogging!
Many marketers consider blogging to be the best way to build a business, but they can also be influential when building a personal brand. Once you have your website, Use The Complete Guide To Building Your Blog Audience to get started with blogging. Once you have followers, you’re well on your way to establishing a lasting personal brand.
Some of the best strategies for gaining followers include:
- Writing about influencers and getting them to share your posts
- Using social sharing buttons on your blog
- Joining the right online communities
- Syndicating your content
- Repurposing your content
Once you’ve established an audience, make sure to post on a regular basis, follow SEO best practices and continue to cater to your audience for best results.
Step 8: Revisit and revise the brand voice chart as the company changes over time
A brand voice chart is not meant to be a one-time-set-it-and-forget-it tool. As your brand messaging evolves or new competitors come into your market, it’s good to take a look at the chart and refresh it with new examples.
On a quarterly basis, convene your key content creators and communicators to find out if any voice attributes haven’t been working well or are more aspirational than possible for whatever reason. For instance, many brands initially include “irreverence,” but find that many of their writers are uncomfortable flexing that muscle or that copy is consistently deleted by your key approvers. If that’s the case, it may be time for a voice refresh, or some new do’s and don’ts.
Step 9: Follow in the Footsteps of an Expert
Who do you admire inside or outside of the marketing industry? Here are some examples of great personal branding from which you can borrow straight from the experts. Take note of how these individuals present themselves and their work.
Want to grow your brand’s content marketing in a cohesive manner? You and your team can expand your skills with CMI’s Online Training and Certification program – and start with two free e-courses today.
If you want more information & Deep Detail to build your brand, then you can buy Amazon Kindle, you can click on the link below and download the book for complete details about promoting your brand.
⇓⇓⇓⇓
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