ED LAWRENCE: If I showed you this logo or this logo,
you'll know what it is for the quality of the product
and probably who it's aimed at.
Now, if I showed you these faces,
you'd probably have a similar experience.
That in its very purest form is what a personal brand is.
But really, it goes so much deeper,
and it's an incredibly powerful way to market.
So let's dive in to learn more.
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Have you ever googled your name?
Well, of course, you have.
Did what pop up represent what you want to be known for?
Or did an old man pop up, like it did when I gave it a shot?
A personal brand is your unique mixture
of skills, experience, personality, and know-how.
These features promote you and tell your brand story,
reflecting your conduct, behavior, spoken and unspoken
words, and attitudes.
It's basically your professional image,
how you look in real life, combined
with how the media portray you, and the impression
that people gain from the information they
find about you online.
These can develop organically and potentially very,
very quickly.
Or you can work on your brand to portray to the world
the person you want to be.
But why would you want to become a personal brand?
Well, a personal brand allows you to highlight your strengths
and passions.
It helps people to feel like they know you better,
which means they trust you more even if they've never met you.
Politicians rely on this when it comes to elections.
People vote for the people they feel they know and trust.
Some benefits you'll find from building a personal brand
is people will buy from you without you
needing to sell overtly.
They'll purchase what you provide,
recommend you more to their friends,
and help you build more of an audience.
So why is personal branding so important?
Building a strong personal brand is
the key to being considered influential.
It helps you stand out from the pack,
and it's what makes you memorable.
Think back to the examples I showed you
at the start of the video.
If I showed you these faces, you'd probably
have a similar experience.
You probably knew who Richard Branson was and probably
had an opinion of him that made him stand out when we showed you
the image of him.
The reason this is more important than ever
is the distrust built by millennials to advertising.
84% of them don't trust adverts or the brands that create them,
yet they're prepared to believe people they know,
even business people behind brands they don't like.
This has caused a major reshuffle in the way businesses
market themselves and why influencer marketing has
become so successful over recent years.
Richard Branson mentions in his book, Losing My Virginity,
that he noticed people were more interested in him
than they were virgin, which is why
he attempted so many stunts to remain in the public eye.
What was good for him was good for the company.
Think of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, even Donald Trump.
Business has merged with celebrity culture.
Here's some things to consider for building
your own personal brand.
To start off, you need to self-reflect.
It's very hard to describe yourself.
It's easier to explain how you want to be and go from there.
If your main goal is to improve your business using
your personal brand, you need to get a solid grip
of who your target audience is.
They need to match.
There's no point building an audience of men in their 20s
if your company sells makeup brushes.
Really, you want to build a reputation
as someone who cares about the types of people
that are potential or existing customers.
The key is to come across as human
and as the name might suggest, personal.
This allows you to de-emphasize selling
to appear more authentic.
The best way to build a personal brand is on social media
nowadays.
You need to be where your target market spends their time
and create open accounts for them to follow and engage with.
So that's the personal side.
What about the brand side?
Well, you need to decide on a consistent color scheme, fonts,
icons, and graphics.
And you should use these everywhere.
So they should appear on your website, social account,
business cards, and anything printed.
Carry business cards with you everywhere.
Yep, it's old school, but they still work.
If you're representing a business,
they should match the colors and fonts of that too.
You should also consider what you wear in public situations.
Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg went for the same outfit
every time they were in public.
It eliminated a choice and saved on ironing as a bit
grubby, though.
So if you're a CEO of a bank, don't turn up
in shorts and a tank top.
The final thing to think about is your actions.
They need to match your brand.
Like pretty much every area of marketing,
consistency is key here.
If you look the part and turn up in the right places,
you need to act the part too.
People's expectations of a politician
are different from, let's say, a rock star.
If a politician were found taking drugs,
there'd be an uproar.
And trust would be lost.
Yet, if a rock star got busted, nobody
would batter much of an eyelid.
OK, so you might not be under the same spotlight,
but you still need to consider this and act like the person you
promote yourself to be.
Which will be a lot easier if that's actually who you are.
Be authentic.
Don't try to be a saint if you're not.
It'll all come out in the wash.
It's easy to spot a fake.
And if you want to check out your own personal brand's health
score, then have a look at the link in the description
to use our tool.
Just type in your Instagram account and await
the glorious data.
If you want to learn more about growing your own personal brand,
then watch this video here to master Instagram.
Don't forget to hit the link and subscribe as well.
You'll have three videos a week that
will help you grow your personal brand, market,
and more thrust your way.