Importance of Personal Brand Building
Though many people may not realize it, they are playing a great role in cultivating their personal brand image on a daily basis. A brand can be defined as the perception, ideas, visuals, and concepts that are used by a product to set it in a different light from other products in the market.
In that context, the way a person walks, writes, talks and communicates, sets him/her in a light: different from others. That is your personal brand.
While this is how we manage our personal branding. But when it comes to business, we try to establish the brand deliberately and thus the efforts are to that end. This is where design becomes important.
So, no matter who you are, a designer, small business owner, illustration or anything else, building your personal brand will help you give a shout-out to others about who you are. Even in the B2B niche, 77% of marketing leaders say branding is critical to growth.
Here is how you can get on with the process of personal branding:
Decide on What You Want to be Perceived as:
Before moving on with the process of your personal branding, decide what and who you are. You do not have to decide on the sole goal of your brand, but determine how you want your brand to be perceived by others.
Like we change our clothes depending on different circumstance, our brand tone, and brand image also changes depending on the circumstances.
Gather Information About Your Audience and Competition:
Just like knowhow of the type of audience is required before starting a business, a little knowledge about the competition is also required while getting into the act of designing your personal brand. The success of your brand image depends heavily on the audience that you cater to.
It is advisable to track audience activity as well. Determine the kind of audience, their likes and dislikes, the brand they follow and such. But while building the audience profile, look into the standards set by your competitors too.
Competitor analysis not only in terms of SEO but for branding as well is essential to ensure your long-term success. Find out what are the other brands in the market which your customers are associating with. If you are a designer, then find out what styles and techniques are being used by other designers to attract more clients.
Establish an Exclusive Tone and Language:
Branding goes much deeper than just outward appearance. Thus it is important to use a particular tone for every copy that you create. Be it a tweet, or a post on your website or a small communication with your client.
You have to ensure that the tone is maintained. It would be kind of a knockdown if a formal, sophisticated brand sends emails likes “Hey Whatsup!” Similarly, a fun and casual brand cannot sound too formal. Interestingly, tones can be designed using pictures as well.
Create an Effective Logo:
Though many people think that designing a logo is a hefty task, it is not very difficult after all. The beauty of logos is that they can be of any design, both simple and complicated, and all that depends on your choice. If you wish, you can opt for a detailed designed, planned out logo or you can select a simple logotype.
Logotypes are simple logos which use the name of the brand in a certain typeface as the logo. Logotypes also play a crucial role in branding your content as well. The main purpose of a logo is to make your brand name visible across diverse verticals.
In addition to the physical design of the logo, it is important to decide how the body copy for your brand should be written.
Custom Font and a Colour Palette:
Colour is a very powerful tool and thus must not be treated lightly by brand owners. For those who don’t know, color plays a very important role in determining the success of a brand, brings out certain emotions and feeling, and also makes or breaks the brand. Thus it’s important to take your time to decide on the color that you will be using in developing your personal brand.
As per the rule of thumb, it’s important to stick to 3 colors or less to keep the design clean. Too much of colors and add ons make the design too overwhelming. In addition to that, add a few textures and patterns as they make the design very engaging.
Happy designing!
