Thousands of people are trying to brand themselves every day, but the majority seem to be making critical mistakes within the first week of their own personal branding campaign. If you haven’t thought about personal branding much and are looking to start branding yourself, here is what you should do in the next 7 days:
Day 1: Pick a niche
Branding yourself as being a jack of all trades isn’t easy. If you want to be looked upon as an expert you need to pick a niche and more importantly one that you have a passion for. This doesn’t mean that if you know a lot about cars that you should brand yourself as an automotive expert, but instead you need to figure out what sector in the automotive space you can brand yourself in. For example, it could be exotic cars, American cars, classic cars, or even sports cars. Whatever suites your interests and whatever you have a lot of knowledge in, that is what you should brand yourself as.
Day 2: Help others in your space
Before you start getting an ego you need to start giving back to the community by helping out others. Don’t think as this as a chore, but instead look at it as a branding opportunity. It can be as simple as answering people’s questions on forums, but whatever it maybe just make sure you are providing value.
Day 3: Participate within your community
If you are trying to get well-known in the automotive industry you need to participate in that industry. Whatever your industry may be, look out for blogs, forums, chat rooms, or even social networks that are related to your industry and start participating in them. This way not only do you start getting to know the average Joe, but you also start getting to know the leaders within your space.
Day 4: Network
Whether you are at work at a large corporation or you are online all day long you need to start networking with new people. They could be people within your industry or people outside who are just looking to learn more about your space. Networking will open up new opportunities for you in the future so make sure you know everyone that you possibly can. This doesn’t mean to be a networking whore, but instead actually get to know other people. So for this day I recommend that you get to know at least 1 new person on a personal level.
Day 5: Start a blog
Blogging is a great way to portray yourself as an expert. All you have to do is write great content every once in a while and you will start to gain some followers. I know you probably don’t have much time, but all you have to do is just blog once a week for a few months and you’ll notice that you are becoming better known throughout the blogosphere.
Day 6: Plan ahead
If you really want to create a strong personal brand you need to start thinking about the future. This could be thinking about how your industry is changing and what you can do to be a leader or just listing out all the future conferences and making sure you are there. The possibilities are endless so you need to think of how you can leverage the future to your advantage.
Day 7: Don’t expect the world
You are probably expecting to be well branded at this point, but you shouldn’t be. Don’t expect to gain much traction within your first week, month or even a year. If you are in a large industry it will take time to brand yourself as an expert so keep on pushing forward and never give up.
There are probably other tactics that you could use to start branding yourself within 7 days, but these are the ones that you may want consider starting off with. If you have more time you probably can do a lot more, and if you don’t have much time these tips should be enough to get you started.
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Thanks,Neil, these are great ideas, especially for a new blogger. These are the steps I have already been doing. Your blog gives me a little more focus. Patricia
Isnt it great to have your existing ideas enforced from other like minded business people in the blogosphere. It confirms you’re on the right path to success.
Yep. And if they don’t, don’t let that stop you.
Good Stuf. Specially Day 7. Although I would move ‘day 6′ forward a little. Like to day 2, since your blog is probably your personal branding tool number one. It’s also good to have a link when you react to your blog, so people who are interested in reading more about you and your opinions, can.
Good point. That way if you already have a blog running you could link to it when helping out others.
This is a good general introduction to beginning steps for… setting up a blog and gaining an initial audience. But I’m afraid you lost me on how this is personal branding. In all of this, where is what you stand for? Your operating principles? What kind of image you project? Your defining project/client portfolio? Does your blog match your other point-of-contact materials? Are there distinct markers of your personality that come through in your blog? It seems to me that these are what personal branding is. I really like your blog, Neil, but I’m scratching my head a little bit on this one!
Here is why each step helps you with personal branding:
Day 1: This covers that if you want a strong personal brand you need to carve your niche.
Day 2: Helping others is a great way to build a name for yourself as an expert. When you also help people for free it causes them to talk about you in a positive fashion which is great for branding.
Day 3: If you want to be well branded within a specific community you need to get involved with that community.
Day 4: Networking is also similar to helping others because it allows others to get to know what you do. It also helps with branding because the folks you network with will talk about you to others.
Day 5: Not much more I can say about blogging other then it has been effective in branding.
Day 6: Planning how you can leverage future events to help brand yourself is important.
Day 7: Not much more I can say about day 7.
As for your other questions they also relate to branding but this article was about how to start branding yourself.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
From everything I’ve read, you are known for “day 2″ Neil. I think blogging is the ultimate way to start your branding and that it takes a long time to gain the confidence and respect of others.
It’s worth the investment.
Thanks for the kind words! I try and help others as much as possible, but I feel I did it much more in the past. After my book is done I think I’ll have much more time to help others.
7 Day plan, not just for the first 7 days but the all the next 7 days to follow.
Vijay
I am new to blogging, but I assumed that branding means making a name for yourself in the field having to do with your blogging topic. Reading Michael’s comment has me questioning my assumption. Patricia
You are correct in the fact that personal branding is making a name for yourself, but it doesn’t have to deal directly with your blogging topic. Some people use blogs as journals and in most cases those types of blog topics aren’t too effective with branding.
If you are going to have a blog as a branding tool then you probably want to choose a topic that you want to be associated with.
Neil, I think you did the second step very well when you were knew. I came to know about it in Copyblogger. It seems you helped others in your niche by providing free SEO Design. I’ll be starting a blog in my own domain name probably by nest month and this is surely a must read article for me. Thanks.
Thanks Neil. This is very helpful tips. I think the key element is “passion”, without it, most likely one will just quit.
I would even go as far as saying passion and dedication is a must for everything. I have seen too many people doing things for the wrong reasons which is why they always end up quiting.
Spot on Neil! Wonderfully done.
We can then spend our days developing our competencies, our character (values & style), and our charisma.
~ Vikram Rajan
PersonalBrandMarketing.com
Thanks so much for this post Neil. I’m going right to work on applying what you have outlined here.
Best,
Coop
The one of these I have most problem with is day 1. I often feel by being jack of all trades I increase my opportunities to capture at least some paid work. Truth is it probably just goes to the experts!
As a business owner I rather higher an expert in most cases. Being a jack of all traits can be useful in a management position, but it is wiser to put your eggs in the expert basket.
Thank you for this information, very useful and beneficial tips, I will start using them right now!!
Day 3: Participate within your community
Day 4: Network
How about save a day, and sign up on several web 2.0 social network sites?
That works too, but you need to network offline as well.
What do you think made your “dugg” articles digged? Do you use any networking strategies there?
Im curious about building the initial momentum, the first 2-20 diggs-I put the rest down to momentum.
I used to be a top digger. I think I got 400 or 500 stories on the homepage.
I am currently doing about personal branding in university for a module called personal and professional development, so far I have been finding this the hardest of all but after reading your 7 steps, I seem to understand it a little better and I have realised it is not as hard as I thought it was. The steps of personal branding was very helpful, but I believe certain things listed can be done in a single day. Such as day 5 and 6; I can start a blog in the morning (pre-planning on layout and such and go from there) and then with the blog in mind plan future steps that I can follow. Doing this would cut down my time ratio and leave me with extra time to focus on things that need attending to such as advertisement. If days 5 and 6 are done in a single day then I would have an extra whole day I could invest in improving the layout, design aspects (if any) and try to make it easier for others to read and understand… just a little thought
Well you should plan it out however you find it most effective for you. Some may need to switch it up to fit their own schedule… don’t follow the time verbatim, just go by the steps on what you need to do.