Let me start by saying the obvious: we all have a personal brand, whether we like it or not.
The question I have for you is: what are you doing about it?
I’ve read articles from people on LinkedIn and beyond, where the author insists that personal branding is fake or a waste.
There are many misconceptions about personal branding, and I’d like to take some time to clear things up a bit.
Below are just 3 of the common personal branding issues people have mentioned before. It is my goal that after reading this article, you’ll be better informed as to the true value of personal branding and what you need to do to make the most of it.
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Personal Branding Issues:
1) It’s out of our control.
When you focus on your job, career and personal life without taking the time to see its effect on your reputation, you are in fact letting your personal brand get out of your control.
However, if you take the time and put forth the effort to monitor and maintain it, you do have the control you need.
Personal branding can be controllable if you are willing to invest the necessary resources for it.
It may require time. It may have a cost. However, it’s something we have to accept if we want to have control over how others perceive us.
2) It’s too time-consuming.
Yes, personal branding takes time to maintain. You have your online presence via your website and social media, and you have your offline presence via networking and in-person events.
It is time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly so.
If you are properly prepared and organized for your branding efforts, you’ll have the resources to be more efficient, saving time as a result.
We all have busy schedules with our jobs and personal responsibilities, and it can seem like personal branding is a commitment we don’t have time for.
However, we all have to spend at least a moment of each day to check how we are viewed in the public eye.
If our brand is portraying us as distant and unavailable, we will lose opportunities, especially these days with the importance of a social media presence. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen, right?
Use the tools out there to be more time efficient. There are so many resources out there for productivity and time management. Take a look at my productivity tips article to learn some best practices and discover a few handy tools, as well.
3) It makes us less human.
I read an article a while back that said calling ourselves a “brand” was a bad thing because it made us seem less human. I see what the author was trying to say, but in truth, there is no denying or avoiding the fact that our lives are public and branded online.
Have you searched for yourself on Google recently? I’m betting you’ll see several results about your online history when you do. It could be your social media presence, a website or other activities and contributions.
All the websites, the social media posts, the blogs… They are all part of your online story. Calling it a brand is just a way to simply explain our presence online for people to understand.
It doesn’t make us less human. In fact, it makes us more recognizable and respected as human beings.
Working on your personal brand is an effective way of giving your name a face and voice. When you are actively building your brand, you allow others to get to know, trust and respect you. It’s not something to be frowned upon but rather embraced.
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Let’s reflect on this for a minute:
- We can have a sense of control over our personal brand if we’re willing to invest the resources in it.
- Personal branding is only too time-consuming if you allow yourself to be negligent or disorganized.
- Instead of making us less human, personal branding can actually give people the opportunity to get to know you as an individual.
Personal branding is one of those things that you either actively maintain or allow to go astray.
It doesn’t matter whether you monitor it or not: your presence is being recorded online with or without you noticing.
Why allow your online presence to go in random, disorganized directions when you can control it, without getting overwhelmed, while still being human?
