Now that we’ve established what personal branding is, and gotten clearer about what your personal brand is… and done some work behind the scenes around goal setting and why we want to build a personal brand, now it’s time to assemble the tools you’re going to need to make this happen.
1. A professional(ish) headshot. If you don’t already have one, you may not need to pay someone to take one. Maybe a friend with a good camera can help, or maybe you can do a barter with a photographer. You want your photo to be professional, but also approachable. You should look smiling and friendly, and be wearing something that is casually dressy, not super formal. The idea is to create an image of yourself that reads approachable but professional.
2. A bio. You’ll need to write this, or have someone write it for you. Remember our three words? Those need to be in here. Your bio should say a little about where you came from, your skills and experience, your passions, and where you want to go. A really important point to remember is that this is a personal brand you’re trying to build, so you need to make your bio at least partially personal. Include interesting or quirky facts about yourself.
3. A website. If you don’t yet have one, you should put the wheels in motion to have one created. You could use WordPress, or you could use an online tool like About.me or Vizify, just until you get your website up and running. Because of your personal brand, you’ll likely want to sell things off of your website (like courses or books) in the future, so it’s a good idea to get going on that now.
4. Social Media. I’ll get into this more down the road, and there are tons of options here, but for my money, the best tool possible for building your personal brand is a blog (or a vlog or a podcast). You may also want to have a presence on Facebook, a Twitter account, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you don’t have all three, what do you need to do to get started? If you have all three, do any of them need to be updated? (my goal this week is to revise my “about” page on my website and re-write my bio. Who’s with me???)
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