As famously quoted by Jeff Bezos (man behind, Amazon) “Personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room”.

In simple words, personal brand can be defined as your professional standing or reputation in the marketplace. Personal brand help people in understanding who you are as a professional,  your expertise, your competency, your core values, the kind of work that can be expected out of you.

Now the question is why personal branding is important?

In the present competitive scenario, to be successful you need to build a personal brand. Through personal branding, you can market yourself in the right way and enjoy a good professional reputation in the marketplace. Seeing it's benefits, now more and more people are investing in building a personal brand. Fear not,

Here are 5 tips that can help you in building a powerful personal brand.

1. Have a Specialty-Before you put efforts on building your personal brand, you need to answer few questions:

A. Firstly, what you want people to associate you with?

B. Is there any subject matter or specific industry you want to establish yourself as an expert?

C. What exactly you want to be known for?

Once you figure out answer of these questions, you will be able to build your personal brand around it. When you showcase your specialty then you get more opportunities to engage your audience. Further, the opportunities you get, will be highly relevant to your niche.

2.  Secure a Personal Website- To build a powerful personal brand, you need to be visible and easily accessible to your audience. For this, securing a personal website is the best option as it helps you in gaining instant online visibility. Moreover, it is not necessary that you need to invest in a fancy and elaborate website rather a well-designed single page website design with relevant details can also do wonders for you. Make sure your website shares your brief bio, your career journey, your achievements, expertise, story behind your personal brand and links to your social profiles. If you want to rank for your name in the search engines then having a personal website is your best bet. 

In addition, you need to socialize and be out there in front of people to create a personal brand. Actively attending industry conferences, seminars, and related events is also part of branding as these are the best places for networking and meeting influential & like-minded people.

3.  Active Social Media Presence- You can't build a personal brand without being active on social media platforms. It allows you to connect with your audience in a more convenient and engaging way.  Social media is a powerful tool, use it to your advantage to gain new followers and fans. Share informative blogs,  share your opinions on current topics, and participate in trending discussions, answer queries, hold contests, giveaways, all these activities will help you increase engagement with the users. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are perfect platform to join relevant discussions and actively contribute.

You can consistently share promotional and personal posts to engage your audience. Don't only use promotional content but also share posts that shows the real side of you. People want to connect with people not only with mere brands. So, sometimes, giving your audience a sneak-peek into your personal life can help you connect with them on a deeper level.

4.  Associate with other Strong Brands-To cultivate a powerful personal brand, associating with other strong brands is a great strategy. For this, you need to identify the strong brands that can give a boost to your personal branding. This kind of 2 -way networking proves beneficial and helps you establish authority, reach wider audience, and you are taken more seriously. When you start connecting with influential brands then you start making industry contacts that help you gain lot of traction and credibility. Let me explain this point further by giving you an example.

For example- You must have noticed, plenty of startups or new websites highlight their press coverage, and association with well recognized brands like The New York Times, Time Magazine, Forbes, or other big names on their website. The idea behind this is to connect audience with the company they are already familiar with, so that they can easily relate or trust the new website.  Similarly, when you see new brands are launched, each brand picks their brand ambassador that they think best complements their brand's personality.  Choosing an influential person as their brand ambassador helps their brand gain instant trust and visibility.   Same way, until you become a powerful personal brand, it is beneficial to associate with other strong brands.

5. Be Yourself- It may look like an obvious one but is often overlooked. In order to gain audience trust, often times people build a fake persona around the interests of their target audience and they do get success out of it. However, the success they experience is momentary, so in order to taste long term success, you need to show your true self.  People can relate to you in a better way when they find you honest and upfront. So, don't hesitate to talk about your career journey, your strengths, weaknesses, your downfall, struggle, and achievements. This will make your brand a true reflection of your personality.

Lastly, personal branding is an ongoing process so you need to put your efforts continuously. You may not gain visibility instantly but over a period of time you will grow an audience of people who feel inspired by you, who trust you or look up to you.