Personal branding is the process of developing a "mark" that is created around your name or your career. You use this "mark" to express and communicate your skills, personality, and values.

We all can be a brand and cultivate our power to stand out and be unique. This uniqueness draws people to our product, our services, or even just our message. Your personal brand should be about who you are and what you have to offer.

Why Personal Brands Are for Everyone

Personal brands should be important to everyone. Personal brands are not only for the entrepreneur that owns their own business. It is the secret sauce that can make you stand out of a stack of resumes.

If you don’t develop your own personal brand, others will do it for you. Developing your personal brand is the proactive way of controlling your career development and how you are perceived in the marketplace. ​

A strong personal brand will impact your ability to get the right jobs, promotions, and increase your ability to attract talent and capital. So, let’s look at these tips that can help you in creating your own personal brand:

Build Your Platform

If you are going to have a personal brand, you will need a website to create your virtual platform. Your website should be your name. You will also need social media accounts that represent your brand. You will use these platforms to share your voice.

Identify Your Uniqueness and Your Strengths

Think about the characteristics and strengths you’ve built in your career. If you are stuck, think about that “one thing” that everyone says you rock at. If you're still stuck, ask others.

Own Your Space

Once you’ve identified your uniqueness and strengths, perfect them. Learn all that you can and become the expert in that area. You can never stop learning. Read, absorb, and teach.

Share Your Knowledge

It’s not enough to learn it; you have to teach it and share your knowledge by helping others. Do this through videos, social media, and writing both online and offline. This is where you prove you know your stuff and gain exposure from doing so.

Be Yourself

Find your own style. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing and just follow the crowd. Use your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. Think of Gary Vaynerchuk and how he built his brand by making videos that share wine reviews and tips. No one else was doing it and now look ​around hundreds of people are following in his footsteps. Find your own style and create a new set of footprints for others to follow in.​

Identify Your Values and Set Your Priorities

It’s important to have a clear picture of your personal and professional goals, both short and long-term. This will help you to not only identify the most important things to spend your time on but will also have something to align new projects with. Use your values and priorities as a compass that guides you both in action and your decision-making process. This will ensure you stay on track.

Craft Your Personal Brand Persona

It will help in creating your brand. Your persona can be created by:

·         Identifying your emotional appeal. What are your personality features? This can be as easy as saying you have a crazy sense of humor or that you are obsessively organized. Take a few moments, why do you think people are attracted to the brand of you?

·         Describing yourself. When it comes to your brand who are you and why do people enjoy working with you?

·         Identifying your specialty. What do you do and what do people want you to do for them?

Use these exercises to create a strong personal brand persona that you can always refer to when it comes to creating materials that support your brand.

The Bottom Line

Building a personal brand takes time and effort, but it’s worth it. The need for a personal brand will continue to increase. It’s the one thing that no one can take away from you, and it can follow you throughout your career. It’s a leadership requirement that lets people know who you are and what you stand for.

Don’t understand what I’m trying to say well let’s word it a different way:

1. Know yourself and what you're good at.

Your personal brand reflect who you are, so you can't possibly brand yourself if you're clueless about yourself. This doesn't mean navel-gazing, but rather a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, what you love doing, and the skills that you've mastered or are working to master.

2. Create a memorable brand name.

If you've got a unique name, make that your brand name.  If not, create a brand name that's a hybrid of your name and your career direction. "You want people to find you, not somebody who's got the same name as you," explains Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future.  Remember, though, if you put your direction in your brand name you're tied to that direction. (That's why Step 1 is so important.)

3. Capture your online turf.

Buy the domain name that corresponds to your brand name and secure the Facebook page, Twitter account, Google+ account as well. If you find that your brand name is already "owned" create a different brand name. With LinkedIn, you'll use your real name, so put your brand name prominently in your profile.

4. Build a website for your domain name.

This is easier than you think. There's no reason to struggle with a complicate website editor when you can create a perfectly usable site using a product like WordPress. (There are alternatives but WordPress is the de-facto standard.) You don't want a traditional website anyway, since they have an "institutional" feel about them anyway.

5. Set up automatic updating.

To reduce the busywork of all those different social media platforms, set up an application that allows you to simultaneous post to all of them. For that past few months I've been using the free version of Hootsuite.com, but there are many alternatives out there both free and fee.

6. Share useful content on a regular basis.

Don't try to be a full-time blogger. Instead share "helpful tips relating to the products [you] sell, relevant news, and personal updates that build emotional connection and convey positive character, such as a philanthropic interest," explains Clara Shih, CEO of Hearsay Social, writing in the Harvard Business Review.

7. Get feedback from people you trust.

The advice and encouragement of others helps keep your "brand development" on target.  Philip Styrlund, CEO of The Summit Group, recommends setting up a "board of directors"--a few trusted colleagues who can assess your ongoing efforts and act as an informal sounding board.

8. Be authentic, even a bit risky.

As long as you don't come off like you're crazy or weird, a little opinion in your online presence is a good thing, according to Meg Guiseppi, author of the book 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search. "Don't assume that being authentic will turn people off," she explains. "Nobody is interested in working with a cookie cutter."

As you see I keep repeating myself but the proof is in the pudding. Know Thyself, Love Thyself, and Brand Thyself

Destini

Ever Googled yourself? What did you see? Did you like your web “you”?

That’s the only way some people see you today in a digital world.

You are defined by your online content, brand and persona. Sometimes a personal branding focus can be seen as an overt attempt of self-promotion.

In crowded job market and a competitive business world some packaging and promotion is essential.

Does your job define “you”?

For many people their career can be their primary building block that provides major personal meaning and purpose outside of their family. Lose your job and the question is asked, “Who am I?” or “Why do I exist?

Being made redundant at 40 or 50 can raise many doubts about life and its purpose. Being fired due to bad economic conditions, company failure or a political power play can be life shattering for many.

Should your life be so defined?

It’s as if you handed your life to the boss or the company that hired you. That is a scary place to be and can be avoided.

Building a personal digital brand can be done in parallel to your job and career.

Should companies suppress personal brands?

Sometimes companies see the personal brand as a threat.

That is the old closed model of command and control. It doesn’t work well in an internet century. Hal Varian said

“The internet is a lab experiment that got loose “

Many companies still want to control and restrict their top employees within the confines of the corporate brand and hide them. They are afraid they might get “loose”.

Let them shine and they will add a credibility and a halo to the corporate and organization’s brand. Smart creatives and “Ninja geeks” need to be given the recognition and rewards they deserve or you will lose them to a competitor.

Start your digital legacy

There is also one aspect of creating a personal and substantial brand online. It is the creation of a digital asset and foot print that outlasts your current job, the next career and the one that follows.

It may even outlast you.

I suspect that in 100 years that a search engine (it maybe Google) will still have your content indexed. Maybe paying for domain name so your blog or website remains live and online should be built into your children’s inheritance commitments!

In a web world the digital “you” will outlive the real flesh and blood you.

Creating a personal brand online is a legacy building process that will supersede any job or career.  It’s not just about looking good and placing a few words on LinkedIn. it is a persistent focused process of creating and publishing content that you are passionate about on your own digital platform.

It is the documenting of “your” intellectual property.

So where do you start?

1. Passion and purpose

Random mutterings online show lack of focus. Make sure you have your direction and purpose clear as possible.

Can you state what you’re about in 20 words or less?

You need a spark to start a fire. That’s the passion piece. This is what will sustain you when inspiration deserts you and doubts engulf your daily life.

One particular approach that provides a simple framework is worth considering.  Porter Gale’s steps to discovering your focus is quite helpful without overcomplicating it.

The 4 steps

1.       List your passions

2.       Discover the sweet spot at the intersection

3.       Describe your tone – Witty, Irreverent, Inspirational etc.

4.       Write the 20 word mission statement that distils your purpose

2. Digital platform

The other day someone said to me that they wanted to build their personal brand just on LinkedIn. Nothing wrong with that, except, why give all the great content to someone else?

Why not build it for yourself and then share it on LinkedIn.

A great place to start is with WordPress. Design and build your digital platform with your own domain and self-hosted.

3. Social proof

Building trust online is vital to position yourself as one worthy of reading, following and sharing. This will take time.

Online “social proof” is where you display your evidence of achievements.  It is a combination of a variety of factors.

These could include:

·         Awards

·         Mentions in mass media and online blogs and publications

·         Book(s) written

·         The number of followers on social networks

·         The amount of social sharing of your content. Retweets, LinkedIn and Facebook shares are part of that attention quantification.

This is the credibility piece and can be displayed in your “About” or “Bio” tab and on your home page.

4. Select your social networks

Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are your generic social default networks. After that it becomes murkier. Let’s take an example. If your passion is fashion, photography, food or design then you will need to focus also on visual social media channels. The biggies are Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram.

If you are in a knowledge industry, then your choices will be different. Slideshare, Google+ and even a personalized Flipboard magazine will provide suitable platforms to display and share your insights and knowledge.

I would recommend that you focus on the top three I mentioned. But also secure your brand name on several of the relevant social networks that are suitable for your media priorities and industry.

5. Create focused content

There is an ecosystem of topics that will surround your core focus that will become your content pool. You can list them out. They can also be your key phrases that you want to rank on search engines.

A photography blog could have the following topics that become your content pool.

·         Landscape photography

·         Fashion photography

·         Lighting tips

·         Camera equipment

·         Travel photography

And the list goes on.

If you know your industry well, you will know the major categories. Once you have started publishing then you will find what are the biggest problems and aspirations of your readers and will fine tune the content as you get feedback in real time via retweets, comments and shares.

6. Build tribes

They say it takes a village to raise a child.  You are going to need an online global tribe to help you share your story and build that powerful personal brand!

Even Coca Cola realized when it changed its marketing focus from “creative excellence” to “content excellence” that they could never create or pay for the same amount of content that their fans and advocates could create on their behalf.

Octoly published some research that revealed that just on YouTube alone 99% of content about a brand such as Lego was produced by its “tribe” of passionate users and customers.

So, from day one, start building followers on social networks to assist you in crowdsourcing the sharing of your content.

They will do your marketing for free when they discover your passion, how good your content is and enjoy your focused expertise that provides helpful insights and inspiration.

7. Network

Business networking is both an online and offline initiative. It starts with weak ties. These can be quick bite size connections on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

It can be as simple as sharing someone’s content or thanking them for their great article.

There are platforms and tools for identifying influences and facilitating online networking.

Here are a few worth considering.

·         LinkedIn

·         Nimble

·         Xing

·         Topsy

·         Explore B2B

Strong ties

Then you can move your focus on networking to strong ties. That’s offline and face to face. Humans still thrive on that physical connection. The shaking of hands, the hug and the intimacy of human touch.

Sharing a meal, coffee or a drink can build relationships that can start businesses, open job opportunities and partnerships.

Powerful purposeful networking is not about “you”, it’s about helping others first.

8. Collaborate

You have built the network and helped people. Then you will start to know which of those you will be able to work with and collaborate to leverage your personal brand.

.

Just imagine the power of 10 people with 10,000 email subscribers each and also 10,000 followers on social networks. Helping each other market or share your content will drive a significant and powerful personal brand. You can choose to monetize this by packaging your knowledge or you can use it to just build a global network of business connections and opportunities.

9. Write a book

Want to get really serious about creating a powerful personal brand?

Then a book is vital.

It doesn’t have to be “War and Peace”. That’s 1,000 pages. Ninety pages will do. You don’t have to beg permission to publish. Do it yourself. It can be done on Amazon, Apple or even your own blog in an ebook format or print

10. Learn the art of communication

This is where the magic happens. Not just teaching minds but inspiring hearts. If you want to move and motivate people, then the art of communication needs to be learned.

The mediums to this include written, verbal and visual.

a. Written

Writing is one type of communication that can reach people without opening your mouth or even being there. That is a blog post, a book or an article.

b. Verbal

Verbal communication is very personal. People can hear your tone and can feel your passion. Podcasts are the most used verbal communication tool online.

Destini

Tell the truth and nothing but the truth!!!

After watching this week’s video “How to separate facts and fiction online, I was inspired to learn more about fact in faction not only online but with a any news source available.

With fake news lurking around every corner of social media, it seems more difficult than ever to separate fact from fiction.

No one is more aware of that than news literacy professors, who teach the critical-thinking skills necessary to evaluate any piece of journalism.

We spoke with three news literacy experts who shared their advice for being a responsible news consumer. Here are seven quick things you should do to judge whether you can trust what you read.

1.  

•     . Read the article

This one seems like a no-brainer, but it's essential to actually read an article before letting it form your opinion — especially if the headline makes an outrageous claim. A recent study found that only 59% of articles shared by Twitter users have actually been clicked, suggesting that many people share links based on the headline alone.

"Clicking is a good place to start," Jonathan Anzalone, assistant director of Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy, told Business Insider.

2.     

•       Check the URL

The fake news site abcnews.com.co tricked readers into thinking they were reading the real ABC News with similar branding and a nearly identical URL. BISome purveyors of fake news choose domain names suspiciously similar to those of established news companies.

Leading the pack is the notorious abcnews.com.co, whose name and logo mimic the branding of the real ABC News. During the 2016 election, the website attracted readers with bogus stories like one claiming President Barack Obama banned the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, and another that "quoted" a fictional person who claimed he was paid $3,500 to protest against Donald Trump. Both stories were debunked.

"Go beyond the masthead at the top, because it's really easy to copy a brand," said Peter Adams, senior vice president at the News Literacy Project.

Other culprits that fail the URL test are cnn-trending.com, washingtonpost.com.co, and bloomberg.ma. Make sure the site you're on isn't an impostor.

•              Who is the author?

Always check the author of the news you read. If you don't recognize the name, you may want to inspect other articles by the same person to see if they're a reliable voice. Bonus points if the site provides a way to contact the author.

And if no authors are listed, ask yourself: Why don't they want to stand behind their work?

"A story without a byline is a huge red flag," Hunter College journalism program director Sissel McCarthy told Business Insider.

• .      Check the receipts

Some fake news writers pushed the debunked "Pizzagate" conspiracy, which alleged that Hillary Clinton campaign members were involved in a sex trafficking ring at a Washington, DC pizzeria. Associated Press/Jose Luis Magana. Any factual claim in a news article should be backed up by a source. Ideally, an article will cite verifiable sources like government figures, scientific studies, court documents, and the like.

Be especially vigilant when an eyebrow-raising claim doesn't have a source to back it up, McCarthy said.

For example, take the notorious "Pizzagate" conspiracy, which claimed members of Hillary Clinton's campaign were involved in a child sex-trafficking ring run out of a Washington, DC pizzeria. Countless fake news pieces were written about the alleged scandal, without a shred of evidence. But do some digging, and you'll find that the entire conspiracy originated from a single unsubstantiated tweet from a white-supremacy account.

•     Cross-check with other sources

Despite the claims of one famous fake news story, Pope Francis did not endorse Donald Trump for president.Franco Origlia / Getty Images. If you think you might be reading fake news, try to find an article about the same subject from different media outlets. If you can't find the story on any other site, you may have been bamboozled.

"If the article seems too good to be true, or we really want it to be true, there should be extra incentive to double-check or triple-check," Anzalone said.

One of the most notorious fake news stories of the election season purported that Pope Francis endorsed Trump for president — a stunning revelation. But you wouldn't find the story in The New York Times, the Associated Press, or USA Today. You'd only see it on a little-known site called WTOE 5 (or other fake news sites that copied the article verbatim).

That's because it wasn't true. If a story of that magnitude is legitimate, expect multiple news outlets to write about it.

• .      Quality control

How's the quality of the writing in the article you're reading? Are there words in all caps, or a plethora of exclamation marks? Both are rarities in the world of legitimate journalism.

How about the photos — do they appear photoshopped or doctored? That's another sign the site you're on may not be trustworthy, Anzalone said.

• Find out more about the site

One popular fake news story purported that President Barack Obama banned the Pledge of Allegiance in US schools. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza. Does the article's website have an "about us" page, or another way to learn more about the company? Having one is a good way for a site to establish credibility and clue readers into its legitimacy.

Some fake news sites disguise themselves as local media outlets with names like "Denver Guardian," "Boston Tribune," and "Dallas Star News."

"People weren't familiar with the names of local papers outside their own cities, so they didn't detect it," Adams said.

"It's mocked up to look like news from institutional organizations, but there's no such paper as the Dallas Star News. People outside of Dallas will never know.

People be aware! Fake news is out there take the time and the steps to figure out what your reading is truth or lie. It is critical that people take the time to find out if what they are reading is fiction or fact. We have the right to know if what reading is the truth.

Destini

I Want to be a Star!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Sandra Bullock and the numerous movie stars in the entertainment industry today. If you want to be famous be a social media star is the best move. After watching TED video “How to make a splash on social media,” I’m convince social media can help you become a household name. I think of some of the “Insta” celebrities I follow. @jnaty @louisandperals @laurenelise, and many more have more followers than some very famous people around the world. When Instagram took off it made some people “Insta” celebrities.  Here is a list of questions and ideas to kick start you becoming “Insta” famous.

1. Why do you want to become famous on Instagram?

I’m not going to ask why you want to be famous in the first place. That might end up being too philosophic conversation and it’s a topic for another time.

But the main question you need to ask yourself is what do you want to be famous for?

Is it the fact that you’re funny as hell and people are drawn to you because you make them laugh? Is it because you have a great taste in fashion and people turn to you for outfit inspiration? Or are you an expert in your field seeking to help others to become better at something?

The common thing these scenarios have? They all provide value to their audience. You need to provide value, without there’s no fame and following.

End of story.

2. What is your talent/passion?

First you got to ask yourself this question: What is your talent or passion?

Ideally, you want to start your Instagram page around something you are passionate about and you have talent for. This is the surest way to have a great start.

If you have great passion to start a singing career, but you cannot sing at all, then don’t be sad. There are creative ways you could still shine in the spotlight.

For example, you can come forward with your lack of talent and make fun about it. If you’re genuine, people will like you and follow you.

Or why not start an Instagram account about your journey of learning to sing and share your experience with the world?

There are several ways you can make yourself interesting.

3. Get the first 100 to 1,000 followers

We all have friends and family. Be sure to include everybody in your journey. This is something people often forget to do or for some reason just don’t do.

Those first followers are important so you could actually work out your processes and start getting a rhythm of how you want to do things.

4. Develop your own hashtag to become #instafamous

Most brands and big accounts have developed their own hashtag, which is solely used by them and their followers. This is a great way to build your “tribe” and community of engaged people around a specific topic.

Of course, if you’re Coca-Cola or Apple, people all over the world will use your hashtag without actually following you.

Having your own hashtag makes your account look more professional (and bigger than it actually might be) and it gets people interested in you and the movement you’re creating.

Your hashtag could be your account’s name, the name of your product, program, movement, service or just a creative combination of words that are related to your niche.

5. Use a large variety of hashtags

If you’ve done research about using hashtags, you’ve probably found contradictory advice. Some say use only a few hashtags so you wouldn’t look too spammy. Some say you should use 30 hashtags, which is currently the maximum amount of hashtags allowed by Instagram.

Research shows that using more than 11 hashtags gets more engagement. Buffer has put together a very nice article about using hashtags.

I personally recommend using all 30 hashtags per post. Just make sure you keep them relevant and keep changing them once in a while to reach different audiences.

6. Track your exposure with different hashtags

This one is huge!

Most of us don’t realize that people aren’t just browsing their friends’ profiles, but also searching for new cool content.

If you want your posts to be featured in the “top posts” section for certain hashtags you need to gain massive traction in a short period of time after posting. Usually your posts can stay up for around 48 hours. It depends on the hashtag and other accounts using it.

I recommend checking all your hashtags a few hours after posting. Did you hit the top posts section with any of them?

If you didn’t then you’re probably using too broad and too popular tags. Try using less popular ones to get some traction. When your account is already big you can pretty much get to “the explore” even without using the hashtags (Instagram reads other signs besides hashtags as well).

On the other hand, if you did hit “the explore” with all the used hashtags, you should consider using hashtags that are even more popular to reach an even bigger audience.

Keep testing which hashtags work for you and which ones don’t.

It’s not always about popularity as well. I believe Instagram’s algorithm is somewhat similar to Google’s and it also takes into account factors such a CTR (click-through-rate) and account’s activity. So, if people don’t find your content relevant with a certain hashtag, then they’re not clicking/tapping on your post. This gives Instagram indication not to keep it in the top posts section.

Makes sense?

7. Make a list of competitors and idols

This is important for so many reasons.

Firstly, it’s good to get an understanding of their profile. How are they interacting with their followers (could you do something better)? What type of posts get the most shares? etc.

Secondly, it’s better to be friends and collaborate with your competitors, rather than fight for the followers. I suggest interacting with your competitors all the time and exchange shootouts if possible (will get to that later on – so stick around).

Thirdly, if there are certain idols or competitors that you want to interact with, but you don’t really get their attention, don’t take it personally. We’re all humans, and we all have 24 hours in one day. They’re probably just overloaded with everything that’s happening on their social media.

However, you could occasionally mention them in your post captions. If they see that, they just might respond by leaving a comment. In those cases, your post has better chances of being pushed into the explore feed. A comment from an account with a super high follower base is considered very valuable.