Brand yourself

Your Voice + Your Vision + Your Visuals = YOUR BRAND

Branding was one of the topics of this week. This is a great theme as we all have some kind of brand, said Anna Ikonen in her presentation on Monday. Because we all have personality and the way we do things or act public other people will classify us and make a picture through our own behavior. Your essence, interests of life, attitude and life style will make your brand. You have your brand even you might think you don't. Usually we spent and want to meet people who has same interests and motivations in life or the person is nice and kind so we feel good to be around with. Positive person is accessible and has also positive brand obviously. Send a positive message about who you are, what you’re capable of, and what you’re all about. Bring out your strengths. It is a good starting point.

Start thinking of yourself as a brand

What do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? Only you can determine how you want your life to unfold. Once you understand how you wish your brand to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about your personal brand. The brand is your story. Write about things you want to people hear, not what they want to read. Be personal and write and act the real way you are. In fact, I like people who are genuine and bold personalities. Do things your way. Thats full of real passion and right attitude. Of course, the brand can also be build with a strategy and plan behind. Attention and followers can be obtained by providing and doing things that are right now on the surface and communicate to followers of what they might want to know. There is nothing wrong with that. Strong brand always has a strategy and plan so it can achieve the goals. But remember to be yourself, because thats the way you get more value for the brand and you can proudly stand behind it.

SUCCESSFUL BRAND

Building a recognizable personal brand opens professional opportunities. Strong brand can lead you to find a better job, you might get new contacts and even much more. Branding is full of opportunities. It helps you to separate yourself from the competition. Being different gives you an advantage over the competition. You have to be better especially when looking for a new job. You need to sell yourself. Your name has to be strong. Competition is fierce and ugly in today’s job market. There are billions of people in this world competing for the same jobs, the same clients and the same promotions. So figure out what makes you different and uniqueness to get people to choose you. The best will win, it is that simple. You have to be more appealing to your target audience and you can achieve it by creating a recognizable personal brand.

Find ways to add value to your audience by creating or curating content that’s in line with your brand. I found some great tips written by Kat Boogaard. She comes up on her article with 5 Steps for Building Your Personal Brand to make your brand even better. The message is clear and easy to internalize. First of all understand who you are as a person and how to show it. Know who you are, as well as who you are not. Need to focus on how you want to be seen on others eyes. Be easy to reach. Use social media for marketing and share links to your social platforms. One good way is to create a personal blog where you can promote yourself and have a brief bio. Probably one of the best ways to rank for your name on the search engines and gain visibility through your website.

I also like entrepreneur Jonathan Long's scripture about tips for personal branding in 2017.

He is so right about the story behind the brand. People are more interested in the background, whats behind the brand, the failures, struggles and the success. How its build. It's the story what counts. Open yourself and let the people get the real touch of you and your brand. Be loud and active. Do not only make actions on social media, but visit the various events and make contacts so you can get better attention on public. Share things that helps you to build your brand. It is also part of your brand. Things you share should support the brand and your interests so also the followers see the information useful.

We had this week homework assignment to make a video to promote and tell about ourselves. So I did it today and it took a lot of time that I expected. Next time I know its not only taking time to plan and do the video, but also editing process itself takes even more time. I did it on my iPhone and I used three different apps, VivaVideo, VideoMaster and Splice. VivaVideo is my favorite one, there are nice layouts and it is pretty easy app to use. You can view my video below.