I grew up during a time when the famous weekly magazine Bichitra would carry small ads of people (‘doa-prarthi’) going abroad for higher studies. Newspapers would carry a back-page article on the students who stood first in the combined merit list in SSC or HSC. Back then, we would not know if someone got a double promotion at work or if someone was travelling abroad on holiday. But times have changed. You now have the world in your palm (read ‘on your mobile devices’) and things are instantaneous. This digital era, hence, opens up infinite opportunities to leverage your personal brand – to be a greater ‘you’!
Personal Brand: What and Why?
Academically speaking, your personal brand is the grand total perception of the associations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and expectations that people hold about you. Practically, as Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon said, it’s “what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Whether you want to maximise your professional and/or social presence is purely your choice. For most people, these are some common considerations for creating a personal brand: it can help you get promoted; it helps you find a bargain or rewarding professional partnerships; and it gives you a steady stream of ideal clients. Sometimes, the reason to have a personal brand is to simply spread positivity or share knowledge, thus making a difference in the community.
E-Commerce founder, CXO, and Career Coach
Six Steps to Your Personal Brand
The broad objective of your personal brand should be to help differentiate you in a positive, non-intimidating, yet, compelling manner to your target audience. While there are countless online courses on this, I believe the following steps are more effective and applicable in the context of Bangladesh.
Step 1: Know Yourself
Ask yourself these questions to find the ‘real you’ first: what do you feel challenged by? What drives you? What strength made your last 3 accomplishments possible? What activities drain you? What do people most compliment you for? What do people come to you for?
Write down the (honest) answers, and then try to list some adjectives or ‘descriptors’ that capture the ‘real you’. Try to use something that differentiates you. For instance, instead of ‘smart’, try ‘agile’. Instead of ‘Top student’, try ‘globally exposed’, or ‘someone who sees beyond numbers’.
Finally, see if you have proof of those descriptors from your life’s accomplishments. That proof is what builds trust! From hereon, focus on 1 to 3 areas (not more) of your expertise in your future posts on the web and social media.
Step 2: Building a Personal Profile
Whether it’s a potential recruiter or a person you met at a networking event, chances are they will ‘research’ you on social media. That is why you need to build a personal profile before building your brand. Thankfully, this is a rather simple step. You decide where you want to create your presence – Instagram for travel, fashion and food; LinkedIn for professional and personal values; Facebook for a mixture of both. Facebook is most popular in Bangladesh and I suggest you have a balanced ‘personal-social-professional’ presence there. It’s best to define ‘groups’ or ‘classifications’ of Facebook friends and choose who gets to see what posts. You may also choose to keep Facebook for everything personal and LinkedIn for all things professional.
When building a personal profile, make sure to stay consistent on the following: names and descriptors, the tone of your posts/stories, connections with influential people, joining groups and engaging with online communities, and cross-promoting friends of your personal brand. Try, also, to have a website – at the very least, a blog.
Step 3: Tell Your Story
Try to always build a narrative around your stories. For instance, instead of mentioning ‘I got promoted at work’, briefly but passionately narrate your first day at this work, the nervousness, the excitement, vs. how this workplace became your own, and today you reached a new height.
Tip: Your content needs to be aligned with your ‘brand promise’ – your expertise that you had defined in the previous step.
Step 4: Develop Your Social Network
Your stories and content will surely come from your activities. But only posting on Facebook will not build your brand alone – you’ll need to be ‘seen’ in various programs, events and with people. Networking feeds you opportunities! As you meet people who have seen your digital presence and may have read or glanced at your stories or visuals, they would like to engage in conversations. That is where you find opportunities: opportunities for sales, for creating a difference, or simply for new friendships.
Remember: networking is not a time you are spending – networking is time you are investing!
Step 5: Feedback and Honing
Embrace that things on digital media may not be in your control. You never know whether your opinions about something will be seen negatively or positively, or which post will draw thousands of reactions. Here are my quick tips for handling such instances: befriend a truth teller – someone who can give you ruthlessly honest feedback; admit it – go back with a corrective stance – after all, to err is human; don’t talk about yourself – instead, make your company, stakeholders, or the audience the hero.
Step 6: Sometimes, Let Others Tell Your Story
This is where you reach a point where your brand is finally established. People start talking about you. It’s a tricky stage, and you would not want to become larger than the company you are working for, or the stakeholders you are managing. If it’s a promotion, let the office Facebook post boast about that. If it’s a social event, let others take selfies with you and post about you. Once you have people sharing about you and your work, you have achieved a brand status.
The world today is far more competitive than ever before, but this digital age has also given us superb tools to establish ourselves as ‘brands’. We are not talking about becoming influencers or celebrities – we are talking about standing out, positively, in a crowded corporate and/or social sphere. It is about strengthening your position and opening up opportunities. The truth is, whether you want it or not, you already have become a brand in some way to the people you know. Hence, it’s better to tweak and sharpen the brand to represent a better ‘you’.
About the author:
Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq is an eCommerce founder, CXO, and Career Coach. He can be reached at zeeshan.huq@gmail.com
