Personal Online Branding: A Key to Success

Personal Branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. In today’s digital age, personal branding is often reflected online through different social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram or youtube. And on social media, everyone is potentially a brand, if leveraged strategically. Your online activities, such as your posts, images, and views, may therefore be inadvertently associated with your company. How does your personal branding then affect your company’s branding?

We asked Ms Millie Morales, our resource person on branding and digital marketing, to enlighten us on three ways personal branding could help the company or business where the employee is engaged.

Strong personal brand aligned with company goals can help sell products

At the dawn of social media, we carefully curated our profiles to express a likable or pleasing image to our friends and family. After a while, we realized we could have the power to sway, or inspire our close circle depending on our projected image of integrity and honesty. Suddenly, your friends are asking for your advice on where to eat, where to go on a date, and so on.

If we then align our personal brand to our company’s values and marketing goals, we could be seen as someone who truly believes in the company he/she is working for, and the products he/she is selling. In time, you could become a trusted source, who could vouch for your company’s products, and services.

A good example of this would be the successful Financial Advisors and Unit Managers of Sun Life, with their very strong branding of providing “A Brighter Life” through a customer-centric approach to marketing and selling their services.

Personal brands can help raise capital for small businesses and start-ups

Investors invest in people more than their ideas. Most investors trust their money with a company which is led by someone with a strong, personal brand; someone who has built tangible trust with their audience, someone who is more likely to sell their product or service, and succeed.

For example, a lot of young beauty gurus have started their own companies, backed by huge investors for their make-up line, from internet influencers such as Kylie Jenner, James Charles, Bretman Rock, to our local youtube beauty guru, Anne Clutz, backed up by Vice Cosmetics and Luxe Organix. These people built their personal brand and gained an online following before launching their own products.

Personal branding humanizes your company

Aligning your personal brand with your company’s branding provides a human element, a human face, to the image of big companies. If done right, your company would have a representative who could be talked to, reasoned with, approach and show empathy to your consumers. Your customers will feel heard, and a personal bond might be formed. This bond builds trust and more importantly, loyalty to your products and services.

Morales will conduct a virtual workshop on “Powerful Personal Online Branding: Investing in Yourself so that Others will Invest in You” on January 11, 2021. This virtual workshop will cover the importance of creating a powerful self-brand by using one’s strengths and capabilities to create an efficient digital marketing strategy that may result in robust sales and career growth.

For your online learning needs, Inquirer Academy could assist you in designing and facilitating a webinar or virtual workshop for your organization.

For more information about the workshops and schedule of online courses offered by Inquirer Academy, please email [email protected], or call (0945) 2158935 and look for Jerald Miguel.

The author is the Executive Director of the Inquirer Academy.