How to Build a Strong Personal Brand Online in 9 Steps

One of the most practical ways to create a remarkable presence, build platforms or evolve impactful collaborations is to build a strong personal brand that cannot be wished away.

Many entrepreneurs, celebrities and popular personalities have used this strategy to create platforms they have leveraged for different purposes but so many are yet to understand how branding works for individuals.

As someone who’s benefited from the impact of a personal brand built over almost a decade now, in this guide, I’ll be walking you through the steps you can take to build a brand that stands out from scratch.

Introduction: Understand what Personal Branding is About

Personal branding is the strategic process of defining, managing, promoting and framing your personality, expertise, experiences to create a specific public perception in order to achieve a specified outcome. Usually, personal branding is how people perceive you or what they say about you, when you are not in the room.

A lot of the times, people confuse personal branding with projecting your natural self or being who you naturally are but, personal branding goes beyond your natural self. It is more about defining, creating and projecting the personality you want to identify with.

It is the experience you want to leave with people, when they come in contact with you. And this has everything to do with the personality you want to embody or project, and not necessarily, the one you are at the moment.

Why is Personal Branding Important?

Personal branding is not just for entrepreneurs and influencers. It is important for job seekers and every day individuals. For example, in a recent LinkedIn study, over 80 percent hiring managers noted that personal branding was a key factor in their hiring process.

Also, most employers in recent times are most likely going to check your LinkedIn profile before proceeding with making hiring decisions. And in fact, some freelancers, contractors, creators etc. have gotten direct job offers from LinkedIn, simply by getting their personal branding right.

Benefits of Personal Branding

Personal branding comes with a lot of benefits especially in a highly competitive digital environment, where you have to compete with others for visibility. If you’re able to do it correctly, the following are some of the major benefits of personal branding that you’ll enjoy:

• Differentiates You. It sets you apart from others, be it in the labor market or in very competitive niches. By highlighting your value proposition, unique expertise, experiences etc.. it helps you stand out, making your qualities easily identifiable.
• Builds Trust and Credibility: A consistent personal brand over time can build transparency and credibility with potential employers or clients. It can also improve your KLT (Know, Like and Trust) factor, making it easier for your clients to know, like and trust your brand.
• Controls Personal Narrative: Personal branding defines and control your brand narrative. It shapes people’s perception of you, your skills and experiences. Where you don’t have this pre-defined, people will come up with whatever works for them.

Steps to Create a Strong Personal Brand

Whether you’re a freelancer, Writer, Entrepreneur or a random thought leader, if you’re not satisfied with your current brand, you can do something about it.

And even if you’re already satisfied with your brand, by creating a strong personal brand, you can always amplify your results. The following are some important steps you can take to achieve this:

Step 1: Define your Personal Brand Goals

One of the first steps to build a strong personal brand is to define your main goal or the reason you want to create that brand. This doesn’t mean erasing who you are at the moment even if you’re pivoting to build a different brand entirely.

By your brand goals here, I am referring to the things you want to achieve with the personal brand you’re planning to create. For example, this could be something like; “I want to build my personal brand so I can secure X job OR I want to build my brand so I can become well known as a thought leader in Y niche”.

Your brand goal could be anything but it is important to have one because it defines and shapes how you position your brand, the brand strategy you’ll use and the content plan you’ll implement to attract the brand visibility you need.

Now, to arrive at what should be your brand goal, you want to sit down and ask yourself, what’s the need for this brand and what exactly do I want to achieve with it. Get as detailed as possible as this will be very helpful.

When you figure out your goals, you can now move onto the next stage, where you’ll have to define your brand, in line with your set goals.

Step 2: Understand Who you Are

Who exactly are you? What are your strengths, weakness, opportunities etc.? You can’t build a strong personal brand without knowing exactly where you are, what matters to you and who you’re building for online.

Considering that you’ve already defined your goals in the first step, at this stage, you want to figure out who exactly you are, your strengths and how you can use these to your advantage.

In a nutshell, you are to use this self analysis to find out certain things about your self and then find ways to use this personality traits to build a really authentic brand that your target audience can easily relate with.

You can start this with using a personal brand SWOT analysis. There are some tools you can use to conduct a personal SWOT analysis like Creatively for example. You can also use some AI tools to get a better understanding and interpretation for your SWOT Analysis.

For a SWOT analysis to be effective, you will have to evaluate your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and possible threats. And then find ways you can use this to influence your brand positively.

So, go ahead ask yourself, who am I right now, what do I want to achieve with this brand and how can I build from who I am to where I am going as a brand? Find out your personal strength and weaknesses and how best you can infuse them into your brand, to make it stand out and also help you to achieve your personal brand goal.

Let me give you an idea. When I wanted to build my personal brand, I realized storytelling was one of my strengths. Integrating this to my personal brand helped me in creating content that were relatable, easy to understand while also highlighting my skills and expertise. This went a long way in re-emphasizing my brand image and brand perception generally.

If you do not have a clear idea about your strength, weaknesses etc. you can also ask 2-3 people close to you. Ask them about their own impression about you or how they would describe you, what they think are your weaknesses and strengths etc.

With the answers you get from this exercise, you will have a clearer idea about your existing brand or who you are at the moment. You’ll be able to match this up with your existing goal for your future brand and then find ways to evolve a brand personality based on these two items.

Step 3: Decide What you Want to be Known For

It is a great idea to know who you are right now so you can have a place to build from. However, to build a strong personal brand, it is also very important to clearly bridge who you are right now to who you’re evolving into so you can seamlessly grow a credible and authentic brand.

That said, before you take further steps, you want to find out about the following:

• What do you naturally talk about or what do people come to you for? Or what do people think about, the first time they come in contact with your brand?
• Now, go further with how you want to shape your brand perception going forward. Find out, do you want to be known to help brands communicates as a digital communications expert, an online writing coach that gets people to become better creators, a relationship expert that makes dating easier for singles?
• What image will you like to leave in their mind after they come in contact with your brand?

Be very specific and clear about who you are right now and what you want to be known for henceforth, so you can customize your message to fit in with it.

Let’s say you want to be known for helping brands communicate as a digital communications experts, find out; do you have something you’re already doing in that aspect? Like are you a writer for instance? If you are, you can anchor your personal branding around here. And then use it as the foundation to build your brand.

Now, even if you’re building a brand from scratch or you want to pivot to somewhere different entirely, you can start from where you are, document your growth and then evolve and grow with your brand. A lot of creators who left their existing brands for a new one started this way.

And building your brand this way sort of builds up your credibility as you’re going to be building and growing from scratch, right in front of your target audience. With this, you end up building something that is much more authentic and rooted in who you are. You can grow and diversify as much as you want.

Step 4: Identify your Target Audience

Before creating a strong personal brand, you also want to identify clearly, the audience you want to reach with your brand so you can create a brand they can easily resonate with. This is very important.

So, go ahead and figure it out, who are you trying to reach? And where can you find these people? If you’re having difficulties identifying your audience, you can check up other brands that are closely similar to the one you want to create…

You want to profile your audience accurately to be sure their demographics aligns with your brand. Specifically, find out their age, profession, goals and even pain points. Doing this gives you an idea about who you’re targeting specifically and how you can position your brand to appeal to them.

A quick example. Let’s say you’re building a personal brand as a content creator that helps law firms and lawyers connect with their audiences. Your target audience in this case are lawyers, law firms and people in the legal profession. Considering that this target audience is largely corporate, your branding has to be corporate leaning to really appeal to them.

This will also reflect beyond your physical branding attributes. It will extend to other branding items like your brand tone of voice, content creation styles and generally how you interact with your audience within and outside their target platforms.

Finally, you’ll decide on the platforms your audience are located. Remember you may not be able to use all the platforms you can find them. For starters, you can choose a number of the platforms with the highest number of your target audience and work with that.

Step 5: Craft your Brand Messaging

Brand messaging is the strategic choice of language and stories you use to communicate your unique values as a brand. It is one of the core foundations of a strong personal brand. And for this to be effective, your messaging has to be very clear and easy to resonate with.

One of the things I tell brands I work with is that your brand message is more than what you say it is. It is what you stand for as a brand and how you communicate it. To make it clearer, you want to start by clarifying the following:

• Your Vision: Your vision is the change you want to create. It captures where the brand is headed.
• Your Mission: Your mission revolves around what you do. It reflects how you’re helping your audience right now.
• Your Values: Your values define the core principles that guides your content and communication.

This will provide your foundational and internal clarity, guiding everything you do. And from here you can move onto building the core of your brand messaging.

The Core Elements of Brand Messaging

For a personal brand, you have to be able to translate your vision and experiences into a clear and compelling narrative that will help people to easily understand you, why your brand matters and the solutions you can provide for them. The following are the core parts of this messaging:

• Personal Brand Statement: A short 1-3 line sentence that defines who you are, what you do and the unique value you offer. Make this to be short, descriptive and catchy. Example: Helping lawyers create content that brings in the briefs.
• Brand Voice and Tone: This is about the personality your communication embodies. Like I said earlier it should mimic what works with your target audience’s expectations. For example, if your audience is more young and casual, you want to have a more casual tone. Ditto for audiences that are more corporate and conservative. You can decide to sound witty, inspirational, sassy or corporate but generally, our brand tone of voice has to align with your target audience.
• Key Brand Message: These are the core ideas you want your audience to remember about your work. It could be 2-3 lines statements or words you use to communicate your brand message to the world. For example, As a content creator, I turn your expertise into authority so you can stop chasing leads and start attracting them briefs.
• Value Proposition: This is a clear positioning of the specific benefit you provide to your audience as a brand. It answers why people should pay attention to you. Your audience has to grasp the benefit of your brand from your value proposition.
• Brand Story: Your brand story is a narrative of your professional journey, including the challenges you’ve faced, experiences, insights and lessons that shaped your journey and how that drives you today.

A clear example of a strong brand story is Gary Vaynerchuck’s brand story that is framed around how he built his family’s wine business from 3 million to 60 million worth in USD, using strategic content marketing. This is one of his core brand stories that shows growth while demonstrating expertise and experience. You need a brand story that shows where you come from, your growth and also inspires your audience.

Step 6: Design a Consistent Brand Image

Now, that you have a clear knowledge about your Mission, Vision, Core values and you have also created your brand messaging, the next step to build a strong brand is to create a brand image that is consistent on all your platform.

Take a look at everything you’ve created so far, including your brand message, what kind of brand image do you have in mind as you begin to imagine the person behind this brand?

Ask yourself, does this picture clearly identify the image I’m creating? If it does, then go ahead and create real pictures that embodies that image you created.

If you’re projecting yourself as a coach, consultant or a professional with a solid formal experience for instance, you want to create a picture that is consistent with this image and then upload it on your platforms.

Ensure that there’s consistency throughout the digital platforms. From your website, to your social media handles, make sure that your visuals, including profile photo, logo, brand colors etc. are consistent across all platforms.

To make your brand visuals stand out, engage in getting professional photography. Also, use professional tools like Canvas etc. to create your graphics done. You can also use generative AI tools to your advantage but keep things professional and on brand across all platforms.

As part of your brand messaging, ensure that your brand image shines through. If you’re projecting a less formal, sassy or techy brand, ensure you also create an image that projects such brand image clearly. And then upload it to all your platforms.

Step 7: Choose the Right Platform

You can’t build a strong personal brand online without owning a digital platform. Because that’s where you’re going to reach your audience. It is also the same place they are going to be able to see and engage with your brand directly.

While building a personal brand as a beginner, keep in mind that there are a number of platforms you can choose from but like I mentioned earlier, you do not necessarily have to be on all the platforms. You want to choose the platforms that suits with your branding goals and then start from there.

The following are some of the key platforms you can use, based on your goals:

• LinkedIn: This is the main platform for professional networking. It is possible for brands seeking to network generally or for brands positioning to engage with B2B, professional recruiters etc. If you’re building a personal brand for the job market, thought leadership or trying to connect with top industry experts, this is one of your top options.
• Instagram: Instagram is one of the top choice platforms for content creators, influencers and lifestyle focused brands. It is a visually driven platform that you can easily use to humanize your brand by creating and sharing relatable content. Great for behind the scenes and personal style content. And you’ll easily fit in here i you’re building a lifestyle brand.
• X (Twitter): X allows user to share short punchy insights, join live conversations and build a brand around their ideas. It is a very useful social media platform especially for brands seeking to build thought leadership and real time engagement with their content. Combining X with LinkedIn can be very useful if you’re trying to build a thought leadership centered brand for a specific industry.
• YouTube: This is a key platform for long form video content. It is a great platform for building trust, credibility and authority through tutorials, vlogs and storytelling. It is also a platform that has made some top personal brands, including brands like Mr. Beast, Gary Vaynerchuck etc. If you’re looking to showcase deep expertise and high trust, using long form videos, this is one of your top platforms.

There are also other platforms like Facebook which is great for community building especially when targeted at millennials and Gen X, Tiktok for viral video and visual based content targeted at Gen Zs, Pinterest for visual focused content etc. You do not have to be on all these platforms. Choose the ones that aligns with your brand, based on what you can handle at a time.

Additionally, beyond getting your brand on social media, get a website. This is also supposed to serve as the foundation of your brand presence and a central platform where you can be reached online. It also allows you to showcase your portfolio, testimonials, resumes, blog posts etc. without being limited to social media algorithms.

Step 8: Create and Share High Value Content

Content is the life wire of branding. It embodies the value you give to your audience, represents your brand and positions you as a brand that matters. So, to build a strong personal brand; you want to create and share valuable content that resonates with your audience.

But, before you get to this point, you have to try to understand what works for your audience in terms of content. This includes, researching what they are searching for online, using tools like Google Keyword tools, Ubersuggest, Ahref Keywords Tools etc. This tools gives you an idea about what your audience are searching for, including he number of people searching for that.

Now, after you’ve successfully identified the top search terms and content consumed by your audience, your next step is to find a way to create and share this content with them, consistently.

Regardless of your preferred platform, one of the ways to get a good outcome for your content is to follow through a specified content template. For example, have a clear hook, a value proposition and a call for action for every content you create.

In addition to that, you need a clear heading and title, and introductory paragraph, short and convincing description among others.

Instead for posting content irregularly or once in a while, show up consistently. Create a specific content timelines that works for you. This can mean posting 3-4 times weekly or more, depending on platform. This helps to maintain a level of consistency with your audience and also shapes the platform algorithm in your favor.

This strategy has worked for brands across platforms. For example, a brand I we work with increased their subscribers by 100 percent monthly after we leveraged shorts and increased our YouTube posts to 4 times minimum every week instead of just 1.

Step 9: Tell your Brand Story

Beyond creating content, storytelling is one of the key tools you’ll need to build a strong personal brand that people can easily relate with, regardless of your industry.

For personal brands, brand storytelling is so significant that it can shape how people see and interact with your brand. Look at top personal brands like Steve Jobs, Opray Winfrey, Chimamanda Adichie, and you’ll find out how their personal storytelling has pushed their brand growth and perception.

Since you already have your brand goals, brand messaging and you know your audience and what works for them, you want to create a brand messaging that further amplifies your presence.

To get the most out of this, your story framework should have a Situation you’re meant to fix, the Challenge you experienced while trying to fix it, the Action you took to fix the issue and the Results or outcome you evolved.

Example: I was a beginner in digital communications, I had zero clients and experience, I posted my career journey online, overtime, I now have 7 paying clients. Your messaging doesn’t have to be this linear and bland but this is the framework you want to follow through.

Regardless of your niche or content type, use a content framework like this to create your brand storytelling. Overtime It gives you the chance to share your brand journey and build a deeper, more meaningful and relatable connection with your audience.

Final Words

Creating a strong personal brand that stands out is not a walk in the park but it is absolutely doable if you’re going to put in the work that will be demanded by showing up everyday to push, promote and get it across your target audience.

Also, there are a number of mistakes you have to avoid if you want to build a formidable brand. For example, if you’re not posting consistently, you’ll lose followers. Also, if you’re copying other brands, you might end up diluting your brand identity.

Furthermore, do not just keep building and posting, measure, track your growth. Find out your engagement, new followers, lead, content performance etc. Use analytics data to position and evolve your brand. Where a strategy isn’t working, change it for new ones.

Beyond all of this, keep in mind that even when your brand can always evolve over the years, being able to create a certain level of consistency through out your evolution is one key factor that will continue to distinguish your personal brand as you continue to grow.

And finally, commit to learning, growing and evolving your brand. Don’t get stuck, keep growing. Find mentors like our brand experts here to work with and build your brand from scratch, get a social media plan, a digital marketing strategy and grow from scratch, if you’re just starting out.

Now, it’s your turn! What are your thoughts on personal branding? And what strategies have you used to create your own brand? Drop your comments below.