Five tips for giving your personal brand a hand

When it comes to business, your company’s brand is its identity, its niche. Your business’s brand is how your company differentiates itself from everyone else in the pack.

Here are five tips to give your brand a hand so when people see your logo or hear your message, they instantly connect those with you and your company.

1.  Create a clear goal about why you’re using social media to reach others and be certain your messaging, graphics and logo align with this goal.

If, for example, you seek to grow your personal brand while also owning a small business you wish to brand, create one identity for your business and one for yourself. That means establishing separate accounts for each on social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Your personal brand might include family photos on its pages while your company’s brand should focus more on the business’s name and mission.

2. Make it easy for others to find you---create a vanity link for LinkedIn and Facebook. Be sure to include those social media urls to your business cards and in your email salutation. Send an email to friends with links to all your social media contact requesting they connect with you.

3.  Be certain the message of your brand reflects your voice, values and characteristics. One way to accomplish that is to take time to consider and identify your top ten values. This site gives you a handy list to help you narrow them down: Values This site provides a list of characteristics: Know Yourself

4.  Take time to define your brand upfront and write it down. I encourage you to keep a pad of paper near your laptop so you can reflect on your brand while piecing your message together. Then, take the personal brand information you gathered and then make certain to communicate it narrowly so it consistently conveys the essence of your brand across all social media sites.

5.  Be genuine and transparent. No, that does not mean confessing to felonies, but if you want people to identify with you and your brand, give them reasons to do so. The best way to do that is to be you.