Are You a Personal Brand or a Branded Person?

A personal brand means you believe in yourself and are self-aware of your identity, skills, purpose, value, and market values. When you are a branded person, you are more of the identity of the business brands you are attached to and the products and services of those business brands. Your identity becomes overshadowed by those brands, including their identity, voice, purpose, and value, which you use to optimize their brands at the expense of your brand.

Why We Care

Who are you in your brand-building process and journey? And what is the purpose and value of your brand? You have seen that the personal branding concept is simple, but social media marketing vanity metrics have corrupted it to a branded person rather than personal branding. So, what is the true meaning and essence of personal branding? The new awakening reality is that personal branding is not the glitz and glamour flouted on most social media platforms. 

Most social media platforms rate personal branding and marketing for virality and the flashy glitz visibility online. Its misrepresentation of branding and marketing has become a topical debate in the creator economy. If branded as an influencer on behalf of those brands, that compromises your self-awareness, identity, skills, purpose, and value in the market and shuts out the voice and tone of your brand.

Brand deals are okay, but for personal branding, stay in your lane based on the purpose and value of what you do and believe in. That is why personal branding is a hot topic on social media platforms these days, with most creatives and brand strategists who have come to realize the essence of brand building in the creative digital economy.

Why You Should Care

The debate is whether your brand is purpose and value-driven or just a trophy of commercial vanity for luxury brands. Someone said the way you buy should be the way you market and promote yourself. If you are the kind of person who does not care about genuine quality in value creation, how can you believe in quality delivery to your consumers? Maybe that is why the business world is fraught with shoddy deals and poor-quality delivery, not even mention customer care and experience.

So, as we dive into the new year, with most internet users complaining about fake personal brands that garner attention from their lifestyle as brand influencers, you should sit back and rethink your branding and marketing strategies for solid brand building in the market that has become tired of fake branding and marketing prompts that do not deliver value and benefit in their industry and niche. Here is what you should rethink about personal branding and how to make it valuable and convincing to your target audience.

Serve

Serve before selling your luxury brands. Serve and be known for your service, products, concepts, ideas, coaching, or consulting.  One coaching guru, Sunny Nagpal, explored this mindset and highlighted how selling is serving. That reminds personal brand influencers to prioritize solving problems before selling anything to their target audience.

Branding and marketing should all be about creating value, whether in the form of logo design that should depict the purpose and value of your client's business venture. Be it a product or service or creating content for that same brand, you cannot effectively serve the master you hardly know and relate to. 

So, your personal branding should start with defining the needs and pain points of the target audience. If you relate to their needs and pain points, you won't post irrelevant content about cruises across oceans elaborated with sunbathing poses in slinky beachwear fit for Victoria's fashion parades.

Inform

The internet is oversaturated with brand information from marketers seeking attention for promoting and selling. But not all information is useful and helpful. That is why most users are getting what has come to be described as infobesity, just like obesity from eating junk foods instead of eating healthy dishes from your home kitchen.

That means helpful information of value and benefit should be the basis for personal branding based on the real problems you are familiar with in the real business world. So, your personal branding strategy should be quality content based to attract quality-conscious readers who find value in your brand for their personal development. Most people are hungry for knowledge.

 Many people are getting thirstier for the real thing about business and marketing. And how you should do it with a more human approach without cutting corners and compromising. Getting branded is like playing hide and seek with the audience who should trust and in whatever you are suggesting they should

Inspire

Personal branding should be about inspiring your target audience. However, it should not be about cruise ships in the Atlantic Ocean. But from the authentic realities of being an entrepreneur and creator with a deep sense and meaning of branding and marketing. For sustainability and longevity in the market. Remember, brands are for wealth creation. Therefore, long-term for solid brand building. And traditional businesses are meant for short-term profit realization.

Your audience needs to be inspired to change that mindset of short-term perspective in their entrepreneurial pursuits and their lives as consumers of your products or services.  Be an inspiration by not letting anyone dictate your brand-building story and journey. You are the creator and author of your brand story.

The more you craft it based on the purpose and value of your brand, the more authentic and fulfilling it is in your brand-building process and journey. Inspiration comes from within, and what you create for your audience should come from the bottom of your heart and soul. That will make it powerful enough to touch their hearts and souls to support you in your journey. Inspire them to believe in you and believe in themselves in their journey in life and business.

Educate

The guiding principle in influencer marketing is getting involved with brands that share the same purpose and value as yourself. And more so the human values and principles you uphold in your daily interaction with your consumers and users. Humanity is being compromised, especially with tech advancements like disruptive AI tools and apps.

Branded limits the creation of practical human solutions to deliver educational content that can empower your target audience about the value and benefit you are providing. 'Ghost' personal branding does not quite bring out the true essence of why you are doing what you say you do in the market. It lacks authenticity from the horse’s mouth and their tone of voice. You should by now be used to our tone of voice and mindset in this blog. Aren’t you?

Please comment below to show you have become part of our inspirational blog posts. Tell us whether you always feel inspired and empowered in your brand-building journey. So, your brand should be based on the knowledge you can share easily with your target audience. That builds trust and credibility in what you say you do and try promoting.

Empower

There is an adage that says if you empower one great person, you have empowered the whole world. It takes one powerful brand to change the world for the better. So, is your personal brand carving that mindset for the right impact and influence in the market? If it is not, it is a branded misrepresentation of yourself and the true reality in the market it serves. But doing a disservice.

Remember, influencing people should not just be about making money. But about business strategies to make money from tangible business activities that generate income. Personal branding can only become meaningful and tangible when based on content that helps people to realize where they are lacking and allows them to transform into something better through what you provide in the market.

Unlike when you are branded as an influencer by any other brands you might choose to work with, you lose that power to empower your audience to believe in themselves through your brand offers. So, personal branding should be guanine transformative power for massive impact based on your personal identity, your knowledge, skills, purpose, value and values in your industry and niche.

Conclusion

If personal branding is just about getting branded by big brands, then there would never be courses like Ronny's Personal Branding Master Course on Udemy. This course describes personal branding as the business of branding and marketing yourself to become the go-to person. You can also check our comprehensive Personal Branding Guide.