Your personal brand is your capital, which needs constant nurture and care to sustain – and eventually thrive. And like Dorie Clark says, ‘your brand is your career insurance’, cannot be more accurate in these competitive ‘branding’ times. How you best showcase your brand’s capital depends on your persona, intellect, and mindset. More so, having a personal brand is no more a nice-to-have; it’s a prerequisite to have a certain standing and a thought leadership in the marketplace. Good or bad – well, that depends on your brand’s purpose and communication.
While having a social media presence and a personal Web site is important, but having a perspective that works like a theme for the ever-evolving business landscape, is critical.
To best leverage your brand’s strengths is an art – and a personal branding strategy as well.
But how to execute this strategy where you are successful in etching your brand’s visibility for your dear customers and prospects?
Here’s the real [and a doable] deal: Have your own balanced yet an opinionated perspective – one that is weighed in properly after studying your market intensively – and share it on other blogs and publications.
Take small but corrective steps towards writing for other publications. We live in a collaborative and a knowledge-sharing economy, where, as you can see, collaboration is becoming a culture, globally. So reach out to these bloggers and authors who can leverage your article/ write-up/ piece on their network, and in return, they can build thought leadership via intelligent content curation with your writing: a win-win for the both of you. Consider these publications as a mini-Forbes or a mini-Inc: that will give you the requisite platform to connect with a larger version of your ecosystem.
Never underestimate the importance of writing for small publications and magazines. They can help you reach out to your target prospects when your article is personalized and written persuasively. The goal is to be where your audience is at – and that is intelligent personal branding. However with one caveat: be careful of what your communicate, as you are in direct conversation with your readers.
Your biggest treasure – or rather a golden stock – that will never diminish, is your intellectual capital. And when you share your muse with the world, it only appreciates and becomes more valuable – with no iota of withering, so to see.
With gradual drizzling of your content, your brand spreads and sticks with your customers in a meticulous rhythm. Spreads, because your writing is accessible for a larger audience; and sticks because your brand becomes noticeable when people visit your Web site, after perusing your work. And so, where is the question of pushing people to appreciate you? You would know that your brand’s capital is the best marketing collateral to present your case for winning new business – and most importantly, trust. [Which reminds me of a book titled, Spreadable Media, written by Sam Ford, Henry Jenkins and Joshua Green. Do check it out!]
So keep raining great content for other media – and see your brand’s capital grow more and more, with time.
