When done right, personal branding can go a long way in providing a clear focus on the development of your brand, while also establishing you as a name to reckon with. It helps you stand out from the crowd. Because your personal brand is all about you, it is important that you put in the time and the effort required to grow and develop it. And of course, it needs to align with your values. Consistency is key.
To understand this phenomenon better, we spoke to 11 influential people from various industries about their personal branding initiatives.
Here’s what they said about how they made it work for them and how you can harness its power for yourself:
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Jeff Bullas
Content Marketing Influencer,Social Media Marketing Strategist & Speake, CEO at Jeffbullas.com Pty Ltd.
Website | Follow him @Jeffbullas -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
“The power of a unique branding centerpiece was the caricature that I started using after launching the blog. It proved to be both, memorable and different. This (and of course other important tactics of content and distribution) led to me being invited to speak all around the world, and increased my thought leadership and revenue. Standing out from the crowd needs a variety of strategies in a noisy online world.”
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
“Creating and promoting great positive content is your bulwark against possible negative mentions. Ranking high on Google provides a foundation that can hide the negative stuff from people like trolls. In essence, it is a two-step process: content creation and marketing.”
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
“The core practice of building a blog with long-form and evergreen content is the one thing that all influencers and thought leaders should work on. That’s because in the digital world, you are defined by your content. This should be your ONE thing that gets your focus”
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Brian Fanzo
Keynote Speaker and Founder/CEO of iSocialFanz LLC.
Website | Follow him @iSocialFanz -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Investing in my personal brand has, without a question, been the number one business driver and personal success tactic over the last three years. I found great success through hard work and built a great team. The results of that work helped me during the promotions and brought me the visibility I needed to be successful with my company. Upon embarking on my entrepreneurship journey, I knew that I had a story to tell and value to add, but I needed people to be able to find me, understand my story and trust me to deliver on what I promised. Investing in personal branding allowed me to do just that and more.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected?
I believe communities are the future of business, and no one client, one project or one event is worth jeopardizing the trust I have built within my community. I believe that with great trust and influence come both, great power and great responsibility. I’m more focused on what’s in it for them and how I can serve the community better. Your personal brand is what you make it. For me, building a community that will follow me regardless of where I go and that knows the good, the bad and the ugly will always keep me in check and focused on my passions and purpose.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Without question, the number one thing for me when it comes to growing my personal brand is celebrating other thought leaders in my industry and fellow speakers in my community that share my passion and purpose. I know I’m not perfect and I don’t know everything. I firmly believe that “We > Me” and that I don’t need to worry about being perfect or know everything. My community will celebrate me and provide me with maximum exposure. I do believe what I do will benefit my community.
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John Rampton
Entrepreneur and connector. Founder of Due.
Website | Follow him @johnrampton -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Personal branding has provided me with a persona that others can relate to and trust in order to determine if they want to do business with my company. It’s established a set of values that I represent that others, who admire those same values, can feel connected to and ascribe to my business. This helps considerably in an online world, where it can be difficult for prospects to touch and become engaged with what a company is offering. I fill that role and it helps convince them that I have something that will help them solve specific issues.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I use online reputation management tools to track my personal brand and to see what people are saying about it across all platforms; and then respond to anything that is being said that may be construed as negative or adversely impactful on my personal brand. I use tools like Google Alerts, SocialMention, Hootsuite, Chatmeter and Reputology to regularly assess what is being said. I like to comment and engage with all comments related to my personal brand and company brand so the audience knows I’m paying attention and that I care.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Thought leadership is a cornerstone of my personal branding activities and gets me incredible exposure through article syndication of both, my blog posts and articles I write for various recognizable industry publications. This has put me in front of more people and brought me the credibility that I continually work on with my key audience. The best place to start with thought leadership is your own blog, and then leverage the ongoing audience growth you gain from publishing informative and helpful content there to attract other publications where you can lend your voice and amplify your brand values and specific expertise.
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Ammon Johns
Internet Marketing Consultant, Online Marketing Specialist.
Website | Follow him @ammon_johns -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Personal branding is essentially the very core of my business in one sense, and yet, in another sense is almost irrelevant. You see, much of the work I do is essentially behind the scenes, and as closely as possible it is invisible to those beyond my clients themselves. What I mean is that so much of marketing today is designed to be unobtrusive, uncontrived, and to feel natural. So, it isn’t as if I can put logos and branding on my work. Yet at the same time, reputation is everything to my particular business.
Providing a lot of free and public help and advice is one of the few ways in which I can ‘advertise’ my abilities beyond my existing clients, and those they recommend me to. That is far harder than it sounds initially as the entire point is to ensure that public advice is always accurate, reliable, and useful. Branding oneself as mistake-prone, not-thorough, etc. would be disastrous.
If you ask people to describe my work attributes or sum up their perceptions of me, then that is the personal branding I have successfully transmitted. Generally, people know that I am very honest, very knowledgeable, quite clever/innovative, and don’t hold with nonsense or time wasting. They see that my peers (often people they already know and respect) hold me in high regard, and that my advice is respected and accepted. They don’t see, however hard they look, instances where I have given poor advice, or ever failed a client. Things like that simply can’t be faked.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
The biggest risk to my personal brand is if I were to make mistakes. Technically, it would be enough to simply always fix my mistakes, but I believe it is important to not be seen making them in the first place too. I, therefore, have to be extremely careful to be thorough, to very clearly state which parts of anything I share are personal opinion, or are situationally specific, and so forth. I have to add that while I take care of over-accuracy, and knowing my field, it is also important (at least for my particular business) to never be seen as overly-cautious, such as avoiding the tough situations, or sticking only to things that are easy and safe.
My reputation as fearless, sometimes blunt, honesty is important here. I’m well-known for it, and if I say something isn’t true, people know my reputation.
Mostly, what I have to do to protect my reputation is ensure that I always know what I am talking about, check my facts, do extensive research, and be sure to honestly and openly engage with critics and dissent. While I try to never make mistakes, the only way to do that is to always be aware that mistakes happen, and that making them is possible, and be actively looking for them.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Honesty. In a world that is ever more worried about being ‘politically correct’, and fearful of offending, fearless honesty is a rare and instantly-recognizable quality. When a business client hires me, he doesn’t want politically correct answers – he wants facts and absolute honesty in the advice given. That doesn’t mean I can only talk about established facts, of course. One can be just as fearlessly honest in stating opinion, as long as one is very clear about stating that it is your honest opinion.
The other part of what makes my personal branding activities powerful is that I never waste people’s time with stating the obvious, or simply rehashing things already discussed enough elsewhere. It means that when you have already read several articles about a topic, and then see one from me, you know that it won’t be just more of the same. I’ll have an important distinction to add, or even be fact-checking those other pieces I have been seeing. What you choose not to do is far more important an aspect of all forms of branding than most realize. If I see a great article or bunch of articles about a topic getting a lot of attention, I don’t try to hijack the interest by adding my own article. Instead I’ll happily point people to the best ones I have seen. Selfishness is not a good quality in branding. Helpfulness and always cheerfully getting the best information to the people, regardless of who authored it, is the key.
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Anita Campbell
CEO of Small Business Trends
Website | Follow her @smallbiztrends -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Personal branding has helped call attention to my main revenue-generating business. By being known in my market (the small business space), I’m able to get visitors to our growing media site, Small Business Trends, which gets over 2 million visitors a month and is the main revenue driver for my company. So, my advice to any entrepreneur would be: no matter what your business model is, work at getting your personal name out there, freely sharing your expertise and thereby positioning yourself as a recognized thought leader. That has public relations value in virtually any industry. There’s another benefit, too: Having a strong personal brand will open doors for your company that might otherwise have been closed because the person you are emailing or calling will recognize your name. In other words, you don’t have to make your living primarily as a speaker or an author to benefit from growing your personal brand.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
To protect my personal brand, I’m extremely choosy and careful about which brands, products and services I will speak out about and support. If I say I personally use a product (which I don’t often do) and say something positive about it, it’s because I really do use the product and have a good opinion of it. The better known I become, the choosier I have gotten. There are no shortcuts to a good reputation. Your reputation comes from months and years of how you conduct yourself.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
In my personal branding, the one thing that ALWAYS gets exposure is social media activity, especially things such as Twitter chats. When we organize and participate in a chat, it always increases my personal visibility. And I make new connections. I only wish I could double the amount of time I spend on social media, but alas, other priorities compete for my attention.
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Leonard Kim
Personal Brand Strategist. Managing partner of InfluenceTree.
Website | Follow him @MrLeonardKim -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Personal branding is the absolute foundation of my business. If I had not invested in building my personal brand, my business would not get featured in any publications, nor would we have any customers. The personal brand is the main reason people have any interest in my business.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I don’t do anything illegal. I stay out of arguments. I ignore personal attacks.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Usually, when I’m interviewed, I say one completely off-the-wall thing that no one would ever say. For example, even though I look insanely popular with over 250,000 followers on social media, I told someone that when I go to networking events, I avoid others and hide in the corner to eat my chicken wings. When I say something no one else would ever say, it keeps me memorable.
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How has personal branding helped you and your business?
I guess a lot of personal branding these days is really about how you package and position yourself and your skills. As PR pros, this is something we do all the time for our clients, and after a while, it becomes instinctive.
Personally, I have always tried to see how I can be of service to others. Whether that’s by sharing useful information on Twitter, which was the reason I started the #measurePR Twitter chat, which is now an industry “thing,” giving PR pros the world over a voice on my blog, or by sharing what I’ve learned through ebooks or my Social PR Virtuoso™ Master Course, my goal is to be of service.
That, more than anything, has built my personal brand. That is what leads to folks approaching me for speaking engagements, or referring business to me, or taking 15 minutes out of their day to talk to me when I need help.
It’s not something I did “to build” my personal brand. It’s just who I am, and what I love to do – to help others, to be a point of connection, of service. Who I am as a person is who I am in business, and I suppose that’s become one of my core brand “attributes,” as it were.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I should hope not. I hope the world is made up of mostly good and ethical people! But I do think it’s just common sense to keep an eye on where your name appears, and how it’s referenced. A couple of things I always suggest folks do:
a) Set up a Google (or other search engine) alert for your name. It might feel egotistical, but get over it. That’s one way you can engage in what I call smart listening. It’s only if you know how your name is being used (or misused), that you can do something about it.
b) Extend this smart listening to social networks. For example, keep an eye on your @ mentions on Twitter. Where are people tagging you, and why? Ditto for Facebook; a lot of times people will tag you in photos and/or updates that you might not want appearing on your Timeline.
Inspect your privacy and notification settings for each and every social network you’re active on (actually, even those you’re not active on). And make sure you review these settings regularly.
c) Secure your URLs. For example, the URL for my business site is my name. Even if you don’t plan on launching a business associated with your name, doing so prevents others from using it. And now that so many different domain extensions are available, you may want to consider registering your name with one or more of those to boost your branding.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Turning memorable quotes into shareable images. Especially if they’re a bit snarky. 😉
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How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Establishing a personal brand has allowed me to create content on high-level topics like start-ups, entrepreneurship and business growth. This has allowed my company to connect with potential customers much higher up in the funnel, long before they ever realize they might need to buy our products and services.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I try not to associate with trolls on Twitter.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
My best performing content always involves some form of unusual data analysis along with a non-obvious conclusion.
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Eric Holtzclaw
Serial entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience.
Website | Follow him @eholtzclaw -
How has personal branding helped you and your business?
Today’s customer (be it B2B or B2C) wants to know the individual behind the company. It’s not enough to have a company brand. Your customer wants to know who you are, what you stand for and why working with or buying from you will be the best decision for them. Leading with your personal story is an excellent way to connect and creates a vested interest on behalf of your customer in your success.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I am very thoughtful about how I interact with people across social media, in my writing and on my radio show. Over the years, I have realized that I am most comfortable as an educator and a connector. With this thoughtful choice in the back of my mind, I am better equipped to think through how I may react or respond to others. This persona also drives the type of opportunities I am open to pursuing.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
Connecting individuals to each other. I have the unique opportunity of meeting new people all the time and making connections that will help move their businesses forward. The people I “connect” never forget that I helped them out. It’s great word-of-mouth marketing and always results in good things for my own personal brand.
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John Boitnott
Longtime digital media consultant and journalist.
Website | Follow him @jboitnott -
“One of the best things you can do to build your personal brand is to build your own website. It doesn’t have to be an extremely large site with thousands of pages. It’s really just a matter of staking your own personal ground on the web where you can post your career highlights as well as social channels. Make sure to update it as time goes by with posts written by you.”
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How has personal branding helped you and your business?
My SEO and content marketing agency has been lucky enough to use personal branding and our work as our sole means of acquiring clients. So personal branding is a core focus for me.
What are the steps you take to make sure your personal brand doesn’t get affected? I’m sure there would be many who’d look at misusing it anytime.
I strive to just be ME and be authentic, and we encourage our employees to be themselves online, too. However, I don’t talk politics, religion, or hot-button issues through my public profiles. I’ll share silly gifs or sarcastic comments on random topics, but people don’t come to me for my take on politics. They come to me for marketing and SEO help.
So I focus on providing value and leave the rest for the dinner table.
Out of all the activities you do for personal branding, which is that one thing that never disappoints to get exposure?
*Participating in Twitter chats. I like to find weekly or monthly chats, and being a guest or a regular contributor can really help connect you to potential clients, new industry contacts, influencers, and other cool people. If nobody in your space has a good Twitter chat going… start one.*
Conclusion
There you have it, straight from the horses’ mouth. The above 10 influential bloggers are the best in their business and their word can safely be considered final. You will benefit greatly if you take the above lessons seriously and implement them in your personal branding efforts.
Pratik Dholakiya is the Founder of Preceptist, a content marketing agency for SaaS businesses.