4 Tips to Build Good Personal Branding for Influencers

Influencer marketing is a billion-dollar industry now. As the opportunities come in, so do the challenges. The market will become crowded very soon. If you, as influencers, can’t find a way to differentiate yourself, there is little chance for you to win the brand deals. To showcase your uniqueness and stand out from the crowd, make sure you have good personal branding.

Want to learn more? Let’s dive into this article that covers:

• the definition of personal branding,
• why it is crucial to influencers,
• some tips for building your personal brand.
  

What is personal branding?

A personal brand is what people perceive about you based on your experience, expertise, competencies, actions, and achievements within a community, industry, or the marketplace. It’s the unique story about you that you want to tell the world.

Personal branding is the process and strategy that helps you build your personal brand. If done well, it will be a powerful tool for you to grow your reputation and become successful as an influencer.

Why do influencers need to build a personal brand?

What you demonstrate in your personal brand, either the pink pants you wear in an Instagram photo or your soft voice in a YouTube video, will make you memorable to someone else, even if you haven't met them in person.

The pictures you post, the stories you share, and the collaborations you take can help you build a level of trust and connection with your followers. If your content is genuine and authentic, people will trust you more. For example, posting photos of your daily life proves that you are a real person and makes you more approachable to your followers.

Good personal branding lets you showcase your uniqueness, proves your knowledge and skills, and makes it easier to pitch yourself to brands.

Tips for building a good personal brand

1 - Know yourself and how you want to present that 

First and foremost, you need to find your niche: what’s special about you, what you are passionate about, and what you are good at. In short, your personal brand needs to be about you. Don’t try to imitate another person, you won’t succeed. If you try to focus on too many things at the same time, you won’t make an impact either. Just one thing, the most special thing about you, is going to work.

Nas Daily left a $120,000 job at Venmo to make videos because he realized that we are born to create something, and he wants to become a creator. By traveling around the world and making videos, he now has more than 20 million followers on Facebook.

2 - Know your target audience & build your brand to match their needs

While your personal brand is about you, it needs to be relevant to the target audience. You should make sure your content is inspiring to your followers and encourage them to take action. For example, if you are a beauty blogger who wants to promote organic skincare, research the most trending products and recommend them to your followers. 

3 - Be consistent from copy to visuals

If you are wearing a green hat today, people may forget it the next day. But if you consistently wear a green hat 365 days of the year, “green hat” may become your style icon.

When building your personal brand, being consistent is the key to success. You need to act in a way that matches your personal brand. For an influencer, it’s not just about the content you share, but also your tone of voice, the color scheme, and the fonts you use in your marketing materials. It will be helpful to write down a set of branding guidelines that you can follow all the time.

Victoria Paris, a Tiktok influencer who gained one million followers in less than six months, shared in an interview hosted by Colin and Samir:

“I don’t view myself as creative at all. I’m not a creative person like if anything. I’m a consistent person.”

Agreeing with Victoria, the hosts said: 

“I actually think creatives oftentimes are not consistent, and consistency is rewarded in business. It’s rewarded in algorithms.”

With a consistent process on Tiktok: creating short videos showing different angles of her life and replying to her followers all the time, Victoria has built an extremely engaged community of followers.

“When I was making videos, I was like ok I’ll make a ton of videos, see what people like, take it back, build the credibility and the numbers, and then continue.”

“You owe the people who put you in power, like some kind of answers or some kind of dialogue,” Victoria said, explaining why she replied to every comment in her posts.

Although most influencers’ work today is done online, there may be a chance when you are recognized in public. Make sure your outfit and behaviors are consistent with what you have built online, otherwise your reputation may be affected.

4 - Don’t focus too much on selling

Sharing sponsored content is generally expected (and accepted) because it’s part of your job as an influencer. However, to successfully endorse a product, good personal branding needs to come first. 

One good strategy is to create a mix of useful and relevant content for your audience. By posting this content, you focus on your audience rather than yourself. That’s how successful personal branding should be.

Some content that you can try include, but are not limited to: tips and how-tos, Q&A sessions, infographics, templates and cheatsheets, polls, random daily moments, etc.

Hannah Elizabeth, a micro-influencer with 26k fans on Instagram, is an example. While she uses Instagram to post sponsored content for brands, her Tiktok is solely for random tips (how to take good Instagram photos, how to get more followers, etc.) or short videos about her life.

In brief

Today’s consumers, especially Generation Z, rely on influencers rather than brands when making purchasing decisions. Before persuading your audience to buy any product, make sure you are the one they want to listen to. Personal branding is a crucial step to help you as influencers to differentiate yourself and build long-term relationships with your audience.