3 Brand Elements for Developing a Personal Brand
Your personal brand strategy matters when you are building your business. It means that you are now an extension of what your business does, how you serve your customers, and what your brand mission is.
Branding yourself requires strategy, purpose, and vision. Read on to find out more about the three brand elements for developing a personal brand.
Remember the ‘80s hit movie Nine to Five with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin? It was this movie that depicted what women empowerment and sex appeal could look like when existing side by side.
I’m sure it’s not shocking to hear that my personal fave was — cough is — Dolly Parton. She falls into the buxom blonde category that I’ve been awing over since the 1980s— along with Marilyn Monroe and the Playboy bunnies.
What can I say? I got taste.
But when it comes to branding, taste can only get you so far.
You already know that a brand needs to look cohesive, look professional, and look identifiably you.
But did you know that your brand is actually made up of more than the design and aesthetic? Your brand is identity (envision Dolly), brand voice (think Lily), and strategy (obviously, Jane).
You truly can’t have one without the others. You can’t even have two without the third.
Your branding is literally a dreamy throuple.
The Brand Throuple
These three attributes should be identifiable at all customer touchpoints.
This means, when your audience experiences your personal brand on social media, they know it’s the same brand they’ll encounter when they visit your website, hear on your podcast, scroll over your Facebook Ad, and even watch on YouTube.
How do they know this? There is consistency everywhere.
The brand identity, brand voice, and brand strategy work together to make up your personal brand to build consistency and purpose around the content.
So let’s take the three parts of building a personal brand and break them down to analyze.
The Brand Identity
Many people think that the design of a personal brand is what makes a brand. And although the design is what is noticed first, there is much more to a brand than the design.
But since it is what stands out first, brand identity matters a lot. The color, graphics, style of the images, fonts, and layout all play into the identity of the personal brand.
It’s the outfit and accessories of the brand. It needs to complement each other, but most importantly, resonate with the audience.
If your brand’s ideal audience is males 35-50, then having a very feminine design palette will likely deter your ideal client from engaging with your brand. Why? Because they won’t believe that your brand is for them!
So when you are building a personal brand identity, think about your audience and why they resonate with it over simply designing your brand around your favorite colors.
The Brand Voice
There’s a lot of talk– pun shamefully intended– about brand voice and knowing your brand voice.
And the truth is, it is important. But just like the rest of your personal brand, it is evolving.
Think about it. When a child starts to speak and communicate, they sound much different than they do when they’re an older child, then a teen, and then again different when they’re an adult.
They’ve evolved, matured, come into their own.
Your brand voice works the same way.
Your voice is the personality of your brand in word form. It’s the way in which your brand communicates with your audience.
And there is a different style of language that brands use to highlight their own unique voice.
But again, the secret to a successfully executed brand voice is to speak to your ideal client in their voice. Use language they want to hear, that they themselves use.
Finding out which Brand Archetype your audience is can help you narrow down your voice and then doing a deep dive into your client’s voice–using data like customer reviews, any direct communication, referrals, etc.–to build a library of language that they themselves use.
People resonate well with having their own thoughts, beliefs, and personalities mirrored back to them, and by using your customer’s voice in your personal branding, they will feel seen, understood, and drawn to your brand, and ultimately choose your product or service over the others.
To learn more about Brand Voice strategy, check out this article.
The Brand Strategy
The goal is not to have everyone love your brand– the goal is to get your ideal customer to vibe and fall in love with your personal brand.
So how do you strategically build a brand that connects with your ideal client?
Learn as much as you can about your ideal client. Know their hobbies, their favorite Netflix shows, how they speak and communicate, and what their values are.
And see if your brand’s values, purpose, and mission align with theirs. What is missing? What needs to be elaborated on, or taken away? Does it still feel authentic to you and your brand?
And when you know more about how your brand aligns with your ideal audience, you also know how to design the identity, and create content in your brand’s voice.
Content pillars and brand values are big in the strategy portion of your brand as well. Knowing what your brand stands for, why it’s important, and building content that includes sharing about your brand values helps guide your creative process with a purpose.
Building A Brand
Now that you have the foundation for building a brand, it’s time to actually put the pieces together. But where do you begin?
Starting with the strategy will guide the rest of the branding process.
You’ll need to know the
Brand purpose
Brand values
Target Audience
Brand voice & personality
Brand message & story
Content pillars
Once you have these pieces of your brand, you can move on to the design aspect which includes a color palette, typography, logo, imagery, graphics, etc.
Brand Guidelines are a great way to house all of this information in one place. They’re a great resource when onboarding new employees, outsourcing tasks, and creating content that aligns with your brand.
Think of your Brand Guidelines like a magazine that describes your brand to anyone who is either representing your brand or creating content that represents your brand.
They’ll need to know the who, what, where, when, and why of it all in order to embrace and encapsulate what your brand is and who your brand serves.
Whenever I’ve written for big-name companies, I’m always given a copy of their Brand Guidelines to review in order to know their mission, purpose, voice, audience, content pillars, etc.
Reviewing their Brand Guidelines help me to really understand the brand for more than just their products or services.
Brand Guidelines can certainly be DIYed, and there are some templates you can find out there. You can also work with a copywriter and brand strategist to partner with you through the process to create guidelines that are thorough and well-researched.
Want to learn more about Brand Guidelines and how you can use them for your business? Read more.
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