Personal branding is an approach that is essential for anyone who wants to create their dream job or land a better career opportunity to take. It’s about crystallizing your value proposition that you promise your future client or employer. Personal branding is a long chain of actions that require dedication and hard work because when you’re building your brand you’re rather building your professional reputation. You build trust with the people in your network so they can spread a good word about your work. And just like anything else, trust needs to be maintained. It needs watering with good actions just like a plant needs water and sunlight to grow greener. One thing that’s considered the base of a successful personal brand is authenticity.
As simple as it could, authenticity means being yourself. While branding does require some self development, if your brand isn’t real, if you’re faking it or trying to pretend to be somebody you’re not, nobody is going to trust you.
Trust comes from how alike your words and your actions are. It’s a product of the similarity between your online identity and your true personality. You have to maintain the same impressions you’re giving across all platforms and channels and also in you real life. For instance, if you follow a polite approach talking and replying to others on the Internet, you never talk aggressively or impolitely to anyone, you have to keep doing this in real life as well. If something messes up this matching, it can negatively influence your brand and creates a crack in the trust you’re building.
Looking from another side, authenticity is actually very easy to do. Nothing is easier than just being yourself and acting according to what you believe in. At least you save all this efforts some people make pretending to be others than themselves. To help you be more authentic, here are some tips can get you started:
Know who you are
You need to know more about yourself and define what works best for, and what makes you feel comfortable. Start by writing 5 adjectives describing yourself. Online reliable personality tests can help.
Determine your values
Write down what you stand for and what you consider very essential while doing your work or dealing with other people.
Examine your actions
Think about the impressions and ideas others have about you and ask yourself if this is really you. Watch your actions and the message you’re giving through them. Change your actions according to the idea you want others to have and remember that, these actions have to come from within.
