When I first started my online life I knew nothing of personal branding. I didn’t even think about it. As a result when my name was searched all types of things that I’ve tried online would show up. That eHow account I started when I first started writing online was always the first in the search results. Search your name. What are the first results? Do they give a good first impression?
How to determine your personal brand.
The first thing you need to do is decide what your brand is. Sit down with a piece of paper and do some brainstorming. Write down as many adjectives as you can that describe your writing. Now write down adjectives as you can to describe your personality. Like it or not, as authors part of what you’re selling is your personality. What stands out to you? Do any of the same words appear on both lists? Which words reflect the image you want to project?
The next question you should ask yourself is what your goal is? Yes, you want people to read your books, but why should they? What do you have to offer the reader? This isn’t all about you. You should make it about your reader. How can you help the person who comes to your blog? How does your book add value to someone else’s life?
Once you determined these things you’ve found your personal brand. This is the image you want to project online. This is the message you want people to get when they interact with you. Think of a short concise sentence that sums up the idea you’ve gotten from the list of words you’ve made. That’s your personal brand. That’s your theme.
Reassess your online presence.
Not that you know your personal brand you need to determine whether or not your online presence reflects that brand. Do you have a blog or website? If you don’t you really really need one. It’s not that hard to do.
Look at your website. Does it reflect the idea that your brand is trying to get across? If it doesn’t you need to start making changes. Whenever you put something up on your site you should have the idea of your brand in mind.
Your brand should be reflected in your bio, what you tweet on Twitter, your Facebook Fan page, and everything else you do online.
Knowing your brand and keeping it consistent will help your target audience find you.
If you write in a variety of different genres you may want to consider using pen names to keep you brands seperate. Many authors use pen names for this very reason.
It’s never too late to build your brand.
That eHow account I mentioned at the beginning of this post is from a long ago life and has since been buried beneath all my other more recent online activities. If like me you didn’t start your online life with branding in mind, don’t worry about it. Eventually, you’ll be able to bury the links to embarrassing things because you’ve put up so more recent content online.
Get started today building your brand today.