8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

From Entrepreneur, Matt Sweetwood shares 8 reasons that a powerful personal brand is a key element of success.  Matt writes:

Here are the eight reasons why I tell people you must have a top-notch personal brand if you want to be successful today:

1. Opportunity finds you.

When your personal brand is attractive, customers, clients, vendors, press and even companies looking to hire, will find you and reach out to you. I am the CEO of a new social media platform, and I had them contact me for the job. I didn’t even know the position was available. I have gotten media appearances, writing opportunities and speaking engagements because I get noticed and folks reach out to me.

2. Online networking power.

When you have a compelling personal brand, people find you interesting and desirable, so they are willing to connect with you. I get dozens of new Linkedin and Twitter connections every day. People look at my profiles, follow me and want to know more about me.

3. In-person networking power.

When I'm at a networking event and I engage others, I have many aspects of my brand to share. It makes me more interesting than the guy who walks up to you and says, “Hi, My name is Joe, and I sell insurance.” I have many facets to my brand, both professional and personal. That makes people want to connect with me and do business with me. I can demonstrate proficiency and have the online assets to back them up on many topics like photography, entrepreneurship, my Man-Up Project and fatherhood, blogging, speaking, social media, men’s health, non-profit work and more.

4. Build your business.

When I had to reinvent and rebuild my photography business in 2007, which was failing because of the rapid decline of film, it was my powerful personal brand that drove much of our success. Customers, clients and vendors are more likely to do businesses with a company when the leader has a killer personal brand. Good examples are Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Fred Smith, Warren Buffet and even Donald Trump -- whose personal brand may be bigger than his business. Where would their companies be without their personal brands shining on their company brands?

5. Get hired.

According to SHRM, 84 percent of hiring managers use social media to hire -- 96 percent use Linkedin, and 53 percent use Twitter. Many companies post jobs on Twitter before anywhere else. But the most revealing statistic is that 66 percent of hiring managers use Facebook to hire. They are doing that because they are trying to find out more about you than just what’s on your resume. They want to know you as a person and understand whether you are going to fit into their corporate culture.

It’s a logical approach for selecting the best candidates. Candidate A has an impressive resume. Candidate B has a similarly impressive resume, but their strong personal brand shows that they have a blog with articles on topics relevant to the company’s business. They tweet about news and ideas from the industry. They do yoga, run half-marathons, and they volunteer for charity. Who do you think is getting the interview and the job?

Read the full story at 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

6 Personal Branding Rules to Being Popular and Profitable

From Entrepreneur, Patrick Allmond shares his 6 rules for personal branding.  Patrick recommends:

Here are six tips to being profitable and popular:

1. Be loud and opinionated

Some people just can’t over-tweet or make too many videos. Their audiences are huge, and people pay attention every time they open their mouths. Even if you don't love everything a loud person says, you have no choice but to listen. They invite conflict and debate and don't care whether you like them. 

2. Teach

The best way to help elevate yourself is to elevate those around you.

Give until hurts. Teach everything you know. Teach your secrets. Walk people step-by-step through what you do and how you do it. Make your failures just as public as your successes. Use every lesson in your life as good advice.

Remember: Nobody listens to the silent expert. 

3. Break all the rules

Productive people are too busy knocking over barriers to help their audience to waste time on rules. They don’t have time to ask whether they are doing it the “proper” way or not. One of the worst things you can do is look at somebody else’s rule list and apply it to your marketing. No two people or companies are the same. Determine what your mission is and goals are. Then make up your rules along the way. 

4. Have no shame

Sometimes, people are afraid to share their knowledge because they don’t want to seem arrogant. They might not want to making a scene over a controversial topic. But, if you don’t speak up on your expertise, people will turn to the guy who does.

I stopped being embarrassed a long time ago. I know I am going to look like a fool part of the time. I am going to make mistakes. That said, I’d much rather come crashing through the wall than cower in the corner when it comes to being an expert in my field. 

Read the full story at 6 Personal Branding Rules to Being Popular and Profitable

The Proven Guide to Using Live Video to Build Your Personal Brand

From QuickSprount, Neil Patel offers a terrific guide on how to use video to grow your personal brand.  Niel provides exceptional advice for social media and in this blog post, he provides great advice and discussion of each of these core recommendations.

1.  Make your videos personal
2.  Don't script it
3.  Go for quick delivery
4.  Don't go cheap on hardware
5.  Be funny, with a purpose
6.  Maintain Authenticity
7. Diversify your content
8. Build your audience to promote your stream
9. Always bring value
10. Brand yourself
11. Go Live Regularly

Read the full story at The Proven Guide to Using Live Video to Build Your Personal Brand

Personal Branding: 10 Steps Towards a New Professional You

Thank you to Hannah Morgan and her Career Sherpa  newsletter for sharing the following terrific infographic created by Delightful Communications

Source:  Personal Branding:  10 Steps Towards a New Professional You

What You Need to Stand Out in a Noisy World

From Harvard Business Review, Dorie Clark share great advice on how to stand out in a busy, noisy world.  She offers three key features:  social proof, content creation and your network. She writes: 

Social Proof

Humans, especially busy ones, have a bias toward conserving mental energy. It’s cognitively taxing for them to independently evaluate every person they come into contact with to determine, “Is this person credible?” Indeed, performing that calculation is almost impossible if the person is outside their field of expertise, because they simply may not have enough information to know. That’s why social proof is so critical. Social proof is a heuristic that allows people to judge something — in this case, you — based on your affiliations with brands they already trust. If you went to Harvard, the thinking goes, you must be intelligent; if your book was a New York Times bestseller, it must be good. 

Obviously, these are exceptions (sometimes glaring), but in general, social proof provides shortcuts that are helpful for people most of the time. You can leverage the power of social proof to ensure your ideas are taken more seriously — immediately — by making an effort to align yourself with people and institutions that are known and respected within your industry.

For instance, if you make it a priority to start blogging for a publication that everyone in your field reads, that can be a quick shortcut to credibility. If you’ve worked at an industry-leading company, make sure that it’s prominently featured in your bio and that you periodically share anecdotes highlighting your time there. If you take on a leadership role in a professional association, that sends the signal that your peers respect you enough to select you as their leader. Social proof enables others to “relax” about you; they don’t need to be so vigilant in evaluating your credentials because you’ve already been vetted by others. That primes them to listen to your ideas more carefully and with an open mind.

Read the full story at What You Need to Stand Out in a Noisy World

13 Daily Activities That Will Double the Size of Your Personal Brand in 6 Months or Less

From QuickSprout, Niel Patel provides great recommendations on how to improve your personal brand by offering 13 specific things you can do.  Some of Neil's suggsetions are:

1. Write from the heart

One of the best things you can do to build your personal brand is to write daily/regular authentic blog posts where you talk about your life, your struggles, and your triumphs while offering real value to your audience.

People love to read the authentic stuff.

You can’t fake authenticity. It’s hard to open up, to be real, to feel raw, and to share things that are, well, heartfelt.

But what does this do for your personal brand and your audience?

It will show others you are a real person, just like them, and make you far more relatable. People like to know the person from whom they are buying, and doing this positions you as a “friendly expert.”

2. Take a picture doing something you love, and post it on social media

A picture is truly worth a thousand words. Posting regular pictures on social media of you partaking in a favorite activity will make you more relatable to everyone and will build special rapport with people who share your interest.

For example, gym pics, pics at the gun range (a highly polarizing activity that will likely generate some controversy, so be warned), in the kitchen, or at the movies are all great ways to seem more personable and start great conversations with your followers.

Read the full story at 13 Daily Activities That Will Double the Size of Your Personal Brand in 6 Months or Less

Personal Branding Lessons from Muhammed Ali

Sheri Allain offers great advice on building your personal brand based on the great Muhammed Ali. She provides three terrific recommendations:

1. Brand Voice - aside from Muhammad Ali, has any boxer or fighter ever been associated with lyrical lines, political poetry and inspirational orations like Ali? Ali quotes are ubiquitous: strong, succinct, compelling and emotionally rich. While his trash-talking served as great sound-bites, it also established his rep as a fearless athlete who understood the importance of self-promotion.

Personal Branding Implication - determine your style of voice and make your statements bold, brazen, clear and strong. Move hearts, motivate minds and make 'em laugh. Speak the truth, aways.

2. Brand Visual - Ali was pretty. And he knew it. He looked good in boxing trunks, traditional African kente cloth and dashiki or the iconic bow-tie of the Nation of Islam. His figure was a vessel for winning fights and for making a political and cultural statement. When you think of Muhammad Ali, you don't think "sponsored by Brand X" or wonder what designer he wore to the awards gala. The man wore the clothes, the clothes never ever wore the man. And while tattoos today have become the equivalent of skin graffiti, Ali's body was an unmarked work of art and physical perfection.

Personal Branding Implication - worry less about the label and more about the package. Hold your self in high esteem always, for everything that you do is a direct reflection of your personal brand.

Read the rest of the story at 3 Knock-Out Lessons on Personal Branding from Muhammad Ali