Do you know that your image can impact the way others see you? Well, Nielsen’s survey revealed that around 92% of consumers worldwide admitted to trusting word-of-mouth. They considered individuals’ recommendations to buy a product or service rather than thinking about the advertisements.
We recognized that Words-of-Mouth (WOM) had become the most influential consumers’ decision-making tool. But it comes to the question, how has word-of-mouth affected people to trust? What makes it flourishingly work? By force? Incentive? Or the answers you might have not even heard of?
As Jason Brain conveyed in Everyone Social, “Word of Mouth Marketing: The Original Employee Advocacy,” neither intenseness nor stimulus they carry out but amplifying what they have been strongly building. It’s called “strengthening personal brands.”
It’s critical to build a strong personal brand to catch the eye of the audience. Whether leaders or employees should be aware of their presence and how it will play a powerful role in making impacts.
What Is Personal Branding and How Does It Work?
Traditional stable business sectors have rapidly experienced changes. The recent business model forced them to focus on global concerns like renewable energy and the advances in artificial intelligence. Frequent changes also create new networks of contact, making personal branding activities mentioned frequently. Hence, personal branding has arisen as a means of achieving career success.
A “Branding” term used to be devoted to business. But the gig economy drives it to be more complex. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” The unique combination of skills and experience that presents who you are is what personal brand is all about. It is the factor that distinguishes you from the competitors and constructs trust between you and clients or employers.
Redrawing on the personal branding definition explained in the journal, “Personal Branding: Interdisciplinary Systematic Review and Research Agenda,” We could define a personal brand as a set of characteristics that cover an individual’s attributes, beliefs, or values. All those elements generate narratives or imagery that aim to create a competitive advantage for the target audience. Further, A personal brand is also constructed from various interconnected aspects, including how you behave, react, and interact with others to produce outstanding results.
Why Is Developing Your Brand so Critical?
Do you still remember the word-of-mouth (WOM) facts we’ve talked about before? Consumers prefer to buy something due to someone’s recommendation rather than advertisements. As we think back to that point, we can say that personal branding can forcefully benefit a company to increase more sales.
But there is another reason why personal branding is so valuable. The gig economy is here to stay, and it can be bigger than you think. That was what Diane Mulcahy, the author of The Gig Economy, said. As she stated in the Washington Post, “Now hiring, for a one-day job: the gig economy hits retail,” she explained that companies intend to avoid hiring full-time employees. Reality tried to tell us that workers have no job security anymore. It becomes the turning point of how workforces must be more creative to create stability by working differently.
Patrick Gillespie has predicted in his 2017 CNN Money report, “Intuit: Gig economy is 34% of US workforce.” by revealing the fact that the average person tends to switch jobs every 2 to 3 years by 2020. Further, the gig economy also forged 43% of the workforce to contract work and freelance jobs.
When a personal brand is about trying to give an appearance to who will see you, it becomes crucial when building trust between you and employers. A 2018 CareerBuilder survey showed that 70% of recruiters observe candidates through social media for the recruitment process. Meanwhile, 48% utilize social media to track their recent employees, and 34% have terminated an employee based on online content.
How to Invent Your Personal Brand? 3 Questions to Ask
Let’s get started from the most fundamental thing, “making people understand who you are.” A personal brand statement comes as vital in keeping you stay competitive. Therefore, you’ll find an interview, networking, or procuring prospects easy to deal with.
A personal brand statement is 1-3 sentences that summarize your experience, skills, or passion. So hearing your brand statements makes people take ‘what you do’ and ‘what makes you look unique’ on board.
Since strengths, passions, and abilities can identify people, those attributes incorporate a personal brand statement. Long before a ‘personal brand statement’ was coined, Dale Carnegie came as a pioneer of this concept. Here are things you can learn from Carnegie’s Human Relations principles. Find out yourself the answer to these three questions:
1. What are your most significant professional passions?
What interests, activities, or challenges make your day exciting? There must be something that keeps the fire burning bright in your bellies. And your mission is about finding the connection between things you are most passionate about and how it gives a colleague, potential employer, or prospects any value.
2. Which greatest characteristics help you reach goals?
According to Dale Carnegie’s 21st principle, “Throw down a challenge,” there are a few elements to observe: trustworthy, charismatic, inspiring, empowering, loyal, dedicated, self-motivated, enterprising, forward-thinking, innovative, collaborative, reliable, flexible, and risk-taking.
Dig deep to expose your attributes. To find out the answer, ask for feedback from everyone around you.
3. Which of your strengths look to benefit your employers or clients?
Carnegie explained his 3rd principle, “Arouse in the other person an eager want.” Take a look at what this statement implies. It’s a need to show others how your strength positively impacts them. Let others know how your top strengths make them willing to hire or work with you.
Consequently, there come statements of how your colleagues, managers, or clients will introduce you to others. They may define you as the person who’s best at communicating, problem-solving, fact-finding, risk-mitigating, leading, or mentoring.
Personal branding is not only about creating a stage to showcase your ability and interests. Over and above that, it’s a medium where you can prove to the world that you’re worthy of others’ partnership and trust.
