Good Morning, you are welcome to this exclusive session on Personal Branding Concept.

I believe I
have meet most of you here but I will still introduce myself.

You are welcome to this exclusive session on Personal Branding Concept.

My name is Joshua Alex Mbaya, I studied at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where to the glory God I
bagged Diploma, BSc, and currently running my master’s program in Computer Science. I am an IT
Consultant, Tech Enthusiast, Software/Web Developer and a Graphic Designer.

Once again thanks being part of this session to which I will be sharing some views and opinions on
the topic of discussion.

I will love to see some few indications before proceeding.

So, if you are online please can u indicate?

Ok once again thanks for joining me this morning.

Personal Branding

What is Personal Branding?

Can someone pls share with us what he/she understands by the word personal branding?

"Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing
process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual, group, or
organization. Whereas some self-help practices focus on self-improvement, personal branding
defines success as a form of self-packaging”

In other words, your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of
skills, experience, and personality that you want your followers to see. It is the telling of your story,
and the impression people gain from your online reputation.

I narrowed down the personal branding process to a 2-part system involving some basic steps:

Defining YOUR Personal Branding Strategy

Know Yourself

Know Your Objective

Know Your Target

Know Your Medium

Implementing YOUR Personal Branding Strategy

Construct Your Identifiers

Claim Your Territories

Cultivate Your Relationships

Conserve Your Brand

STEP #1: Know Yourself

Know Yourself to Grow Yourself…

Here are the questions you use as a starting point to getting to know

yourself:

MOTIVATION

What am I passionate about?

What are my personal values?

Where do I see myself in 5 years?

What’s important to me?

What motivates me?

POSITIONING

What’s my current reputation?

What’s my greatest strength?

What are my most differentiated and valuable skills?

What personality characteristics make people interested in me?

What’s my greatest accomplishment?

CONNECTION

Who do I know who can help me reach my goals?

Who needs to know me so I can reach my goals?

What can I do to rapidly expand my professional network?

How can I add value to the members of my network?

How can I connect different members of my network for mutual value?

What can I do to nurture my network regularly?

Once you’ve gotten the answers to these questions, you can use them to develop your personal

UVP (unique value proposition) or your brand promise.

STEP #2: Know Your Objective

Different people have different reasons for branding themselves. A self-employed general

practitioner (family doctor) would have a different branding objective to a doctor working at a

hospital.

Keep in mind that branding is a dynamic process. As such, your branding objective will change

as you go through life. The branding objective of someone looking to enter the workforce will be

different for that person once they are employed and moving along in their career.

So, it’s important that you are clear about YOUR branding objective at this point in time. This

requires understanding where you are now and where you want to get to. Here are some

questions to help you focus on your CURRENT branding objective.

Ask yourself, is my reason for branding myself to:

 get a great job?

 advance my current career?
 make my career change easier?
 grow my network?
 be regarded as an expert in my field?
 establish my credibility?
 build trust and recognition?
 increase my perceived value and that of my services?
 gain a competitive edge?
 attract more opportunities?
 find my life partner?

STEP #3: Know Your Target

Your ‘target audience’ can be anyone from an employer, client or customer to

a romantic partner or social group.

Your target audience is directly linked to your branding objective.

If your objective relates to a job (current or future) then your target audience is an employer. If

your objective is to grow your business network, then your target audience is your potential

business partners.
STEP #4: Know Your Medium

Medium can be said to be a channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment

Media for branding yourself comes in many forms – offline and online. Knowing yourself, your

objectives, and your target will help you narrow down how many and which media would be best

for you.

When choosing your media, keep in mind that it’s NOT about offline vs. online, but rather offline

+ online…

Offline avenues for branding yourself include:

 Printables: business cards, personalized stationery, posters, postcards

 Branded giveaways: calendars, pens, key chains, fridge magnets, etc.
 Outdoor signage: billboards, car decals,
 Newspapers: local news, interviews, press releases
 Radio/Television: local news, interviews
 Seminars/Workshops at community center/college

For online personal branding, there are many choices. Here are some examples of the types of

social platforms available to you and examples of the type of content you can share on them.

IMAGE ATTACHED
 Implementing YOUR Personal Branding Strategy

In a previous part, we covered the steps to take in Defining YOUR Personal Branding Strategy. In
following those steps, you would have figured out your UVP, your current branding objective, your
target audience and you would have decided on which media (online and/or offline) you will be
using to build your personal brand.

Now, we want to examine the steps involved in part B of the 2-part personal branding process.

STEP #1: Construct Your Identifiers

Sometime soon after birth you were given a name as a means of identifying you and distinguishing
you from others. Within a VERY small context (i.e. your immediate family), your name may be
enough to uphold its purpose.

However, if you carry the same name as one of your parents then other methods are used to
differentiate you from them. Perhaps something like John Smith Sr. and John Smith Jr. Or maybe, in
casual circles, one is called John while the other is called Johnny.

So, we take to finding ways to “unique-ify” our names…

YOUR personal brand identifiers are those components that will EVENTUALLY become synonymous
with your personal brand.

Personal brand identifiers include, but are not limited to:

 your desired name (legal name, stage name, pen name)

 your personal logo (your choice of typeface, colors, etc.)
 picture of yourself (photo or caricature)
 your UVP (unique value proposition)
 your physical appearance (think Dolly Parton, Einstein)
 your style (think Marilyn Monroe)

In this step, decide what YOUR brand identifiers are and begin assembling them.

STEP #2: Claim Your Territories

Online Territories: secure your domain name and username for the various social networks.

Go to Knowem.com and use their search tool see if your desired name is available. Purchase your
domain name and claim your name on as many of the social networks as possible. Remember,
you’re NOT going to try to be active on all those social networks.

As Megan Auman said, you want to start by focusing on just one social network, but Claim your
business name (or your name) on all the others, because it’s important for your digital real estate.
But then just add your pic and profile and let them chill.

Offline Territories: your choice of which of these you should use may depend on your branding
objective, whether you have an entrepreneurial mindset or an employee mindset, and your field of
interest:

 business card
 portfolio
 cover letter
 resume
These are some suggestions for Offline Activities to Grow Your

Personal Brand:

 Have a personal brand-friendly business card.

 Memorize your elevator speech.
 Create a friendly voicemail message.
 Attend networking meetings and events.
 Find speaking engagements.
 Send letters and cards to your contacts.

STEP #3: Cultivate Your Relationships

In Personal Branding, Relationships Are Key, Nick Nanton states:

As you know, personal branding is all about building credibility, visibility, and establishing yourself as
an expert in your field. But there is another element of personal branding which is often overlooked,
and that is relationships.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that personal branding that doesn’t create and nurture
relationships is almost useless.

Yes! No matter your objective for branding yourself, it involves other people. Brands are forged in
people’s hearts and minds. You have to plant seeds of interest in others so that they become aware
of you and your personal brand promise. Then you keep watering these seeds by nurturing your
relationships and living up to your brand promise.

In time, the seeds of your personal brand will become firmly entrenched in the fertile minds of your
target audience and you will begin to reap the fruits of your labor of love.

STEP #4: Conserve Your Brand

Sometimes a person’s personal brand is the most valuable asset that they possess. It’s what makes
customers choose to do business with them as opposed to their competition.

The following presentation highlights some of the problem that can arise if you do not monitor and
protect your personal brand.

Obviously, you do not want all your hard work in building up your personal brand to go down the
drain. So, it is vital that you take steps to protect it.

Lastly How to Monitor your Brand

 Control your personal brand in the search results through Google authorship.
 Separate your name from others that share your name.
 Keep your website and social profiles up-to dated.

Now that we’ve gone over the four steps involved in implementing your personal branding strategy,
you should be well equipped to put them into action.

Time for YOUR input