Personal branding strategies: Learn some tips on how to market yourself in 2021.

In a competitive, global economy, you need to stand out. Whether you're expecting a promotion, or wanting to get that your dream job, trying to win a major client or striving to gain a recognition in your community, you need to stand out of the clouds, one thing is for sure: The world has no room for the unfits. We live in a very competitive world where only the fits survive. This article is on Personal branding strategies: You could Learn some tips on how to market yourself in 2021 and it is open for everyone who wants to build success in business, career and life. It's a great tool for anyone who wants to increase revenue, develop a business. At the job interview, in our argument and even discussion, all we do is trying to sell our ideas and win people to our own way of thinking. This article will do you good in that. This tool can also be applicable in politics

Jeff Beals had said that:

"People are products and like every other product in the market, you need to be marketed. You can develop yourself into a product with a very high market value with lower chances to be substituted with any other product. Your actions whether deliberate or not determine your brand."

Can I build a brand for myself? Yes, you can! The image that pops into someone's mind when your name is been mentioned or when your thoughts flow through their mind is a brand and is totally within your control. You can shape that image to what you want.

Personal branding is a marketing strategies focused on your most important product (you). It's a good marketing strategy especially for product (you) with high competition in the market. Nigeria has a high rate of unemployment and this has made the labour market more competitive. Can I avoid this competition? The truth is that, you may not be able to avoid it completely but it can be reduced drastically to an acceptable standard. This can become possible mainly by building a brand for yourself. That is; making yourself to stand out of the competition. Below are some strategies that can used to build a successful brand for yourself.

SOME PERSONAL BRANDING YOU NEED TO APPLY NOW.

Developing a personal brand requires figuring out who you really are (your skills, values, passions, and personality), who you want to serve (your target market or audience), and how you differ from the competition (your unique niche).

Building your Personal brand requires you to spend time figuring out who you really are and what you want from your life. Often, this self-analysis seems to be the most difficult part. It requires you to define your needs, vision, mission, strength, interests/passion, goals etc. You can choose to be a jack of all trades but personal branding requires that you craft out a space for yourself and master all that it takes to be there as standing on the fence is not allowed here.

Dan Schawbel in his book; Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success said that;

Titles might be good for your ego, but in the grand scheme of things what really matters is what you’re known for, the projects you’re part of, how much people trust you, whom you know, who knows about you, and the aura you give off to people around you. Sure, what you do is important, but what others think you do can be just as important if not more so. If you build a strong reputation, the money and opportunities will find you.

WHAT ARE THE TIPS THAT YOU NEED

1. Select your Niche:

This is usually the second most important thing to do after self acceptance (accepting that you want to brand yourself). You have to choose a particular position well suited that you would want to occupy, it starts with thinking about your passions and interest. It encompasses knowing the hard and the soft skills you got and the project types you loved doing, what do people often tell you you're good at, your education or training and area in which you have a handful of or adequate knowledge, the market size (how many people), your competitors in the market. Can you also see yourself doing that job for the next five (5) without getting tired?. Your passions/interests are important in choosing a niche because your new chosen path may not give any financial benefit(s) at the start. Your passion will keep you on the job without payment at least for sometimes.

2. TARGET AUDIENCE:

What category of people do you want to sell yourself to? This is a very important question to answer.

Yaro Starak when been asked of the 3 things he would considered to provide the biggest return on investment (ROI) on his time and money if he was building an online presence from the scratch today. He talked about target audience as the first things he would have considered. In his words;

"I’d first focus on establishing a crystal-clear empathy with the audience I was planning to serve, so I know what their problem is, how they feel about it and what they currently do to try and solve it. The best way to learn this in my experience is in person, over the phone or a distant third is via monitoring discussions in groups, blog comments, forums and social media.

If I don’t do this step well, I won’t have an audience or make any sales down the line, so it’s the vital first step for ROI."

You're the product that needs to be marketed here and your target audience is who you want to sell yourself to. When we were growing up as kids, whenever, we wanted something, we go to our parents and sometimes, we tried to impress them and make them happy but then, you must understand what makes them happy before you could succeed in doing that. The same strategy is also applicable in marketing and in designing a new product. A good manufacturer would always go out to find out who may be interested in his product or how they would love the product made through research/market survey before starting his production of the new product/service.

The same principle is very important in personal branding. You need to know exactly who they are (your target audience) and how they may need you or services. When you place this side-by-side with Yaro Starak's statement; "..... so I know what their problem is, how they feel about it and what they currently do to try and solve it." Knowing their problem could be same as knowing people in need of your talents and passions. By doing so, you have known who you should market yourself to. You can now help solve this problem by providing your expertise.

3. BUILDING A BRAND PERSONALITY.

Create an authentic brand personality that reflects your goals and values. Brand personality is a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a brand name. Brand personality is a framework that helps a personal brand shape the way people feel about your service, or mission. Your personal brand personality elicits an emotional response in a specific audience segment, with the intention of inciting positive actions that benefit you. Your brand personality could be built around sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, ruggedness etc.

4. CREATE RELEVANT CONTENT

Content helps you attract, engage, and delight prospects and customers, bring new visitors to your site, and ultimately, generate revenue for your company/person. This is the process of generating topic ideas around your chosen brand. It should be appealing to your target audience, it should be visible and accessible to your audience as either a blog post, video, infographic, or other format via your webpage or your social media handles or through any other available media means. This nature of content varies from one platform to another. This requires that you have social media presence already.

5. KEEP LEARNING

There is no end to learning. Education develops your mind and equips you with the principles of getting ahead in life.

One of my professors in the university once told us in the class that the only thing that will separate him from his books, is death. That is, he wants to continue learning in life. Of course, that is the way forward. The information you have today may become obsolete tomorrow or in the next few days. You continue learning to become indispensable in your field. The good thing here is that, you continue to learn on daily basis while you're on the job (On the job training).

Learning expands your horizon and allows you to discover wonderful things about you that you didn't know were in you. They more you learn here, the higher chances of better earn.

6. BE PASSIONATE ABOUT WHAT YOU DO

Being passionate about what you do keeps you on the job for so much time even without any financial benefit.

"Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate." -Jon Bon Jovi.

Passion is a powerful force in accomplishing anything you set your mind to, and in experiencing work and life the fullest extent possible. Ultimately, passion is the driving force behind success and happiness that allows us all to live better lives.

Extracted from inc.com

7. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH LIKE MINDS.

Imagine boarding a bus that the other passengers in the bus are not going in the same direction as yours but the driver will have to drop each at their individual location before taking you to where you're heading to. That could be frustrating with so much delay in your journey. That same journey can become short and sweet when the driver have all his passengers in the bus moving in the same direction.

There is nothing worse than moving with the wrong set of people. Moving with the wrong set of people or people with unlike minds can cause you so much delay and waste of resources needed in the journey of life. Personal branding requires that you get the right people on your bus and drop the wrong people if you really want to move fast and go far in the journey of life.

8. SELL YOURSELF

You're now a newly personal branded product that is ready to be sold. For this new product to be consumed, the consumer (audience) has to be located and convinced beyond doubt of the benefits of consuming the product.

You had already defined your audience, next is for you to look out for where your audience is/are and sell yourself to them. At the start, your services may be rendered for free but once your audience feels that there is so much sense consuming your service, they will want to pay have more of it. Place yourself high in the values of services render so you can be indispensable in your market.

Need a brand for yourself?