Personal Branding

TWC Career Center encourages students to look for a career path or major that will capture their interests, utilize their strengths, and match with their values. Here are some ways in which you can learn more about your skills and interests.

What is Personal Branding?

As consumers, brands impact everything from the shoes we buy to the coffee we drink. We often times choose one product over another as a result of impressions that we have gained as consumers about a brand over time.

Branding is not only for products but it is for individuals as well. Personal branding allows individuals to make a name for themselves by promoting their unique qualities and creating an image to achieve a goal. Through the internet and offline tools, an individual has the ability to promote their brand and market their talents.

Personal branding can be used for a wide variety of situations which include:

  • working to promote yourself as a specialist in your area you are passionate about
  • a way to position yourself as an individual with unique talents when applying for internships or jobs
  • building relationships with others who have similar interests, potential employers, and colleagues

 

Why is Personal Branding important

An increase in competition for jobs is one of the key reasons why personal branding is important. A recent job survey has indicated that employers received an average 73 applications for each available entry-level position. Over the past years, there is increased competition for entry level positions. Therefore it is important that applicants do what they can to be unique in this challenging labor environment. Building a personal brand can enable an individual to stand out from the crowd. Personal branding can enhance an individual’s reputation which can directly determine their value towards potential employers.

Also, employment opportunities often times occur through online or in person networking. Seventy percent of jobs are secured through networking. This indicates that job are often times found through interpersonal and relationship-building.  As networking becomes more vital, it is important to establish a personal brand. Creating a personal brand not only protects how you are perceived online but also enables you to establish a strong professional network. 

 

Benefits of Personal Branding?

Personal branding has a number of career and personal benefits. These benefits include:

  • Visibility: Personal branding provides a forum to share your expertise and passions with a wider audience.  As a result, you create a way to promote yourself to decision makers, experts, and other people with similar interests as you.  You can stand out from the crowd because it allows you to market your unique selling points.
  • Do what you love: By aligning your personal branding with your goals and passions, you can create a platform to share your knowledge and interests on a topic that you love. This can turn a passion into paid opportunities or a way to help others.
  • Networking: Personal branding provides an opportunity to expand your social and professional network. It also is away to meet new people and learn more about areas of interest.  It also can help you to find out more about opportunities that are directly related to your passions. 

 

Myths of Personal Branding

  • Personal Branding is all about your ego.
    Personal branding is not about being arrogant or conceited. Too much self-indulgence and promotion pushes people away from you and your network. Therefore, an important part of having a personal brand is collaborating with others so that they support your brand and endorse it.
  • Personal Branding is all about getting a job.
    Personal branding is a tool for your success. While personal branding may help with getting a job, it really is more than that. Personal branding enables you to promote your unique strengths while creating an image to achieve your goals. Building a personal brand takes time and energy as it is unique to YOU.  Therefore, it is important that your personal brand takes into account your interests, passions, and personality.

 

Process of Personal Branding

There are three stages of the personal branding process that will enable you to integrate your passions into this process while creating a platform to network with others and create tools to increase the visibility of your brand.

  • Discover Your Brand: An important part of your personal branding is aligning it to your career goals. The first thing to do is to figure out your interests, passions, interests, and goals.
  • Create Your Brand:  While creating your brand, it is important that all the pictures, content, and text are consistent with how you want to represent yourself. Traditional tools include business cards, portfolio, resume, cover letter, and references. Non-traditional tools include video resumes, blogs, LinkedIn profile, Twitter, and Facebook. When creating your brand, it is important to ensure that you are creating a positive image of yourself and feel proud of the image that you are relaying through your brand.
  • Maintain Your Brand: After creating tools to increase the visibility of your brand, it is critical to maintain your brand. This can be done by posting on others blogs, monitoring your brand, being searchable, integrating your tools, writing articles, investing time into your brand, and integrating social media.