What is your personal brand?

Having a brand is essential for companies to connect to the world and to create something that people relate with. All major clothing brands have a brand that you associate them with or even a logo. J. Crews brand is office chic, Tommy Hilfiger is All-American attire and even McDonalds has a brand with the double golden arches and Ronald McDonald the clown. Having key pieces that create a personality for your company is what builds your brand.

In Chapter 3 we discuss personal brands and what that really means. The book states, “Some form of personality that is unique and memorable about an individual can help bring forth a strong view towards his or her personal brand.”

This is an important thing to think about because when you are applying for jobs, you truly are branding yourself. One of my favorite personal brands I saw was at a PRSSA National conference. A college student was handing out business cards and I noticed an ear of little-animated corn on the back of her card. Thinking about how odd that was I flipped the card over and her last name was Corn. That is a true testament to someone else's personal brand because I still remember this student 6 months later.

Creating your own personal brand can be easy. You must choose something about your personality that is consistent with how you present yourself all the time online and offline. That can be through colors used in posts, a graphic used on all business cards or resumes or even just having consistent handles and themes across all social media. Once you have the image of your personal brand you can start to work towards showing expertise in the role you want. Expertise is vital to help make you and your brand seem credible.

I think every person has a personal brand whether they know it or not. We continuously find ways to connect our personalities to our social media sites. It gives each page a unique twist on it because no one can be you.