Activate An Effective Personal Brand

Ben was stuck in his dead-end job as a waiter at the local restaurant in town. By day, he was known as the nicest, more courteous server in the area. By night, Ben attended a local college with the ambition of starting his own social media serves. Ben understood stereotypes and bias. People had the tenacity to put individuals in pigeon holes with their biases. Therefore, Ben started building his online personality with writing insightful articles about social media and running a video blog. He wrote an e-book about social media that received Internet acclaim.
He quietly started a radio talk show. With his persistence, Ben started seeing his effort pay. The restaurant was packed with a bus of college students headed to a convention. Ben was helping out the servers with the big crowd. Suddenly, there was a big commotion in the crowd that involved Ben. Another server came to get the owner about this situation. The owner was afraid that Ben had done something wrong. He didn’t. These college students from out of town were overwhelmed with excitement in meeting the online celebrity “Ben the eWriter.” His online presence had repositioned his personal brand.
With the impact of the Internet and social media platforms, like Facebook, working professionals can reenergize or rebrand themselves in a matter of minutes. In fact, individuals can actually reposition themselves into new careers with the right strategies. In today’s job market, people need to understand the concepts of personal branding and how to develop their own personal strategy for employment. In this discussion, we will examine the concept of personal branding. Individuals will learn how to reenergize yourself and make gain more influence in the process.
A good personal brand will separate you from the crowd and put you in a better position for market opportunities. Personal branding can be defined as ‘the process whereby people and their careers are marked as personal impression or brand.’ Branding includes personal appearance, communications, networks, or anything that identifies a person.
Paul Peter and James Donnelly, Jr., authors of Marketing Management, argue the importance of branding: “For some organizations, the primary focus of strategy development is placed on brand building, developing, and nurturing activities.” They also suggest that the brand name is a single most important element of the brand package.
With an effective brand name, customers can be emotionally connected to the organization. At the sight of the brand name, buyers can be immersed in feelings of trust, confidence, security, and other positive characteristics. Thus, your name matters. In personal branding, your conduct and how you carry yourself impacts your personal brand.
For example, college students who turn in mediocre assignments are conveying something about their personal brand to their professors. Why are they saying? “I really don’t care about this assignment because I am not giving you my best.” Therefore, your personal brand can evoke both positive and negative feelings about you. Tennessee pastor, Richard S. Brown, Jr., further sharing, “Everyone wants to be outstanding, but no one wants to stand out.” Yet, it is the “standing out” that catches everyone’s attention. Working adults are no exception. With this personal branding strategy, a person can also create a positive position in a potential employer’s mind. This impression should reflect a person’s own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of its competitors.

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Today’s employers are searching for prospective employees who stand out against mediocre competition. Consequently, an effective personal brand can be a positive linchpin for career opportunities. Below are some personal branding strategies for your success:

Evaluate your current online appearance so that your image makes a positive impression.
Use an online visibility tool like Klout.com to evaluate your online brand.
Create your ideal personal brand and develop a branding strategy.
Showcase your expertise on a variety of levels (blogs, media expert, etc.).
Become a great source of information by writing and speaking.
Champion a social cause in a nonprofit organization.
Become the linchpin that connects people with problems to people with solutions.
Extend your network globally with social media platforms, such as Linkedin.com.

With the fierce competition for limited jobs, individuals need to understand personal branding and how it impacts their opportunities. For branding in businesses to be successful and create value for others, customers must be convinced that there are meaningful differences among products or services. Phillip Kotler and Kevin Keller, authors of Marketing Management, shares “A credible brand signals a certain level of quality so that satisfied buyers can easily choose the product again.” Personal branding is no difference.
In this discussion, I demonstrated the merit of good personal branding and how it can provide effective job opportunities. With the right personal brand, working professionals can reposition themselves to new market opportunities. If individuals want to be more effective this year, they should create a memorable personal brand.
Please share your insight on this specific topic.
© 2018 by Dr. Daryl D. Green

Daryl Green

Dr. Daryl D. Green is a management strategist who deals with complex projects. Dr. Green is the Vice President of Marketing for AGSM Consulting, LLC. Additionally, Dr. Green is the Business Dean at Langston University in Oklahoma. He worked at Oklahoma Baptist University as the Dickinson Chair, where he distinguished himself academically, including the ACBSP Teaching Excellence Award and the Bison Sports Faculty Mentor Award. In 2016, Dr. Green retired from the Department of Energy, where he worked for over 27 years. Before his 30th birthday, he managed over 400 projects, estimated at 100 million dollars. Dr. Green is an award-winning speaker and author. He is the author of several books, including textbooks Impending Danger and Small Business Marketing. Dr. Green has been noted and quoted by USA Today, Ebony Magazine, and the Associated Press. Dr. Green received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Southern University, an MA in Organizational Management from Tusculum College, and a doctoral degree in Strategic Leadership from Regent University.