How to build a personal brand

This article is not for the lame backbench students who attend a college just to secure some job after graduating. These are the people who walk clueless in corporate aisles working without knowing why they are doing it or who they are doing it for.

In the current time and space, to stand out from the regular herd, you should start viewing yourself as not an individual but as a brand. But why? Why can't I be just Sharat and be known to others for what I want to be known for?

Why is the branding aspect required suddenly? The reason in my opinion is the reach our online presence has in the current times. My father was known in his time to only people whom he has met personally or who heard his name through their contacts. Things are different now.

As a student or young professional, you are bound to have some online presence through you professional profile on LinkedIn or through your social profile on Facebook, or through some other profile on one of thousands of platforms.

Now, with that presence, you do not know the breadth of reach this presence has. You do not know from where the traffic is of people who are viewing your profile. But what you do know is these are people who you have never met nor are related to you in any way.

Now that is an opportunity you want to cling on to and make the most of it. And that making most of it means, you want to sell yourself on what you are good at and what is that you offer and why people should buy that service or product.

You thus become a brand from an individual. Neil Patel, Tim Ferris, Robin Sharma, Deepak Chopra and thousand others have done it, made it big or bigger that advanced their careers, sold their books and brought them fame. Now that the need for a personal brand has been established, let's discuss where you can get started.

Find what you want to be known for
Each of us have some personal interests which are a tad bit serious than our usual hobbies. You are probably part of a book club, cricket club or a theater club. These are on the social side of an individual.

Similarly, think on the professional side too and examine what is that one line of skill that you want to master in, that you want to be known for. Once you have identified these. Building a brand take significant time and effort.

And you want to be spending it on the right subject that excites you and the persona growth in which should satisfy your hunger for perfection. Once you have identified these, think of a role that you want to play in this space. A trainer, mentor, facilitator, event organizer etc. Each role requires a different set of activities to pursue and master.

Learn about different ways to develop a brand
Once you identify that one or more areas of interest and the role you want to excel in, your next step is to create a brand building plan. It is better to define the outcomes ahead of investing time and effort.

What is it that you hope to achieve? It could be a simple thing as gaining an elite level status in one of the popular online forums of that area or to build a leads asset of 10000+ in the next six months or something else. These outcomes must be measurable and should be contributing to your overall career or strategic goal.

Once you have come up with a goal of your brand building, you want to get down the plan. Remember Rome was not built in a day. It takes time and patience as we are trying to solve a chicken or egg situation. If you wait for readers to start a blog, it will never happen. Youtube channels are the best examples of brand building.

The channel owner keeps churning out more and more videos in one area without worrying about the subscriptions initially. But once the name goes out, all his older videos will also start to generate revenue. Brand building activities can be monetized like a Youtube channel. Monetization can come directly from traffic or indirectly from references to consulting gigs and other opportunities.

Find your medium
There are several channels through which a brand can be built. Some people choose to start a podcast, while other choose blogging or video blogging or community administrators etc. Based on your available resources, contacts and time at hand, decide on one medium. But whichever medium you choose, consistency is the key.

If a Youtube channel generates 5 videos straight in a row in a month and then goes dead for six months, it will not emerge as a brand. Based on your capability to produce, decide on a routine and stick to that. And keep improving the quality of both content and technicalities with each release so that it gets noticed and try to turn every stone to gain some media coverage for your brand as that will multiply the reach of your brand.

Benefits of Personal Branding
Why is all this required? What would one gain from this? As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the magnitude of the reach is beyond one's imagination. We keep reading strange stories of how a house wife from Delhi is earning millions through her cooking channel and how few bloggers are making more than a crore a year just by blogging.

These are the more popular ones. However, there are several tangible and intangible benefits to building a brand. One direct benefit is that it affects your career positively and very visibly. You will come across as an independent self-driven professional to any possible recruiter. You could be hired as an expert to consult for several others.

These are hard to quantify but cannot be dismissed. So, go ahead and start observing different individual brands and take a note of how it is offered and presented and starting taking note of how you can build one such brand.