So, you want to start a personal brand but aren’t sure where to start? The funny thing is, you may already have a personal brand that you aren’t even aware of! Ever catch yourself saying “this reminds me of (insert name)!” that, my friend, is personal branding 😉

I want to share with you some steps to gaining control over our personal brand and be intentional with it. Below are six steps to help you get started on building a personal brand!

Step 1: Find your why. State your goals, your intentions, and motivations for WHY you want to start building a personal brand. If you don’t have a reason for wanting to start, it will be hard to find any motivation to continue. Ask yourself why you want to do this, and what your goals are. Do you want to start a business and replace your income? Pay off some debt? Get your work published? Build a community? The first step is always finding your ‘why’.

Step 2: Define your market. Who do you help? What do you offer? How will it make your customers’ life better? How do they get it? These are great questions to ask yourself when you are defining your market and ideal clients. Don’t be afraid to be super specific. If you don’t feel like your leaving out a large market, than you are too broad. Would you rather speak to a full stadium of people who aren’t listen or paying attention to what you’re offering or a classroom of people hanging on to your every word, ready to pull their wallets out? When you get really clear and specific about your market and ideal customers, your message is 1000x more powerful.

Step 3: Research your industry. When you take the time to research and really get to know your industry well, you’ll see opportunities where you can stand out and make a lasting impression with future or current clients. Can you provide an additional service that your market needs that others in your industry are not providing? As a photographer, I love hiring other photographers to take my photos because, for one, it’s not easy to take my own photos of me, and two, I love to go through their process as a client and see how my feelings of a client can help me adjust my own process.

Step 4: Choose your platforms. This goes hand-in-hand with step 2 and 3. Each platform, especially social media, all have different audiences. For example, Pinterest’s audience has a much larger female presence than men, and Facebook has an older audience than snapchat or TikTok. Identify your target audience and where you will be most seen by them. There’s no reason to spread yourself thin trying to have a large presence across all media platforms if that’s not where your market and audience is. Stick with one or two to really focus and build on.

Step 5: Plan your content. Be strategic in the way you share your story and connect with your audience. Every time you go to create content, make sure you’re creating content that not only will your audience enjoy and want to see, but content that is true to you and your brand. If you’re trying to copy everyone else instead of planning content that is unique to you and your voice, it won’t be on brand because you’ll constantly be pulling from other brands other than your own.

Step 6: Keep it consistent. When your audience beings to feel like they know you and think about you when they see things like certain colors, stories, or images, THAT is good branding. When this happens, your audience starts to really trust you and you can build that better connection with them.