Your Brand

How people will associate your pictures, profiles,business, and endeavors with who you are.

As a student and intern at Innovation Simple, I often go to lectures at school that talk about the importance of branding. It always comes down to the fact that we, as professionals, have to brand ourselves whether it is in our businesses or our personal profiles.

This is not as intuitive as it sounds and takes a lot of work. It means completing work and designing any profiles or materials in a unique way that are put out to other businesses, employers, and the general public. By so doing, people can view your work and say,”That’s (insert your name here)’s work and I like it.”

Here are five simple tips of how to brand yourself that was put out by the AICPA:

Define yourself:

You need to define your persona, culture, and outlook. You need to be seen as the expert that is solely focused on your mission. For us at Innovation Simple, we work to garner results in web design and content marketing. Focusing on any other expertise is a waste of time.

Establish a presence:

This really consists of creating and buying the space to be able to put out your content to friends, associates, and potential customers. Get on social media. Get a personal website space as well as your business website space. This is important in terms of showing up on search engines too.

One of the insights that I recently received is that it’s beneficial to go through social media profiles and remove or untag yourself from any pictures that might not go over well with potential employers or clients. People these days do their research on their clients and not only do they look at your professional pages, but also the more “unofficial” ones too. They check to see if you’re the real deal or if you’re a weirdo.

Let’s be real. Nobody wants to see you putting down a bottle of… Glass Plus…

Generate brand awareness through networking:

You should be connecting with professionals within your industry in any way possible. This is an important part of brand awareness and also gaining and retaining talent within your business.

Remember to be clear, consistent, and constant

Remember who you are and what you do. Remember who you aren’t and what you don’t do. Don’t say you’re an “expert” when you’re not. Make sure that your messages are consistent over all you communication channels.

Get feedback from those you are closest to

Branding is all about reputation and what others think of you. You need to get feedback straight from the source. If people describe you or your business in the same, consistent terms, you have been successful in branding yourself.

The simple truth is that people are (1) getting online specifically to check out businesses and individuals and (2) that they are attracted to solid, professional, premium brands. My goal is that you feel the need to improve in a certain area, whether it’s through improving your social media profiles, developing a more solid and centralized logo and mission, or simply redesigning and improving the work that you’ve already performed.

For additional tips on marketing and branding, be sure to continue looking through our blog.

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