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Successful personal brands are thought of, admired and bring value to their target audience, community or tribe. These strong personal brands are experts and thought leaders in their industry. They etch a deep, positive impression on people who have similar interests, and they standout among competitors.
Having a brand story is of utmost importance when building a personal brand. A narrative or story gives you a platform to share your values, your goals, and the things that are important to you. A great brand story promotes transparency and trust as your audience will connect and relate to you in an emotive, empathetic way.
To be authentic is to be genuine or real. To be authentic requires a high level of self awareness. Its important to understand your purpose, values, strengths, weaknesses.
An understanding of these aspects are not enough however. To be authentic is to consciously live in alignment with values, and actively use strengths to drive towards fulfilling a purpose while working on overcoming weaknesses.
Strong personal brands are masters of their trade or industry. They are able to communicate effectively and articulate complex concepts in a way that makes sense to their target audience.
They actively seek opportunities to learn and grow on a daily basis. With continual growth on your focused area of expertise you can ahead of competition and position yourself as an expert in your field.
To merely know yourself is not enough to thrive as a personal brand. Having an understanding of the people who you are seeking to attract means that you are better able to build trust, loyalty and engagement. Successful personal brands have the ability to use information about their target markets needs, wants, demographics and interests to craft a message and offerings that will appeal to and attract these target personas. This message will need to consistently shine through your sales and marketing efforts, your online presence (including social media and website) and when you are creating content.
This is one of the critical elements to personal branding and also the end result of accomplishing traits 1 to 4 skillfully. To have a unique brand identity is to stand apart from competitors and colleagues and hence to be remembered. Unique personal brands tend to have engaging interactions with their target audience. They to do so with authenticity and leave their target audience with value and positive thoughts.