Personal branding is not something that applies to just athletes, celebrities or entrepreneurs.
Personal branding applies to everyone, especially if you have aspirations and goals in your life and professional career.
The way people perceive you matters more than you might think. Moreover, how you grow your brand will be a deciding factor in where you will be later in your life.
The last thing you want to do is make a costly mistake that can change your future.
Honestly, your brand is probably one of the most important things you should be concerned with in your life. It is even more important than your business (if you have one) or your career. Those things can always change or be taken away. The core meaning of who you are will never change. You will always be “you” and one mistake or negative aspect can turn people off of you.
This is why your brand is so important and why you have to go about it the right way from the beginning.
This is all the reason why you shouldn’t post things online that can affect your image or change the way people see you.
These things matter more than ever now because once anything is on the internet, it will be around forever. You can’t erase inappropriate pictures or tweets that you said years ago. They stay with you for the rest of your life.
The mistakes you make no longer go away as they could have 20 or 30 years ago. Everything is out there for people to see. Below I’ve listed 4 major mistakes that many people make when growing their personal brand.
Don’t let this be you too.
4 Mistakes When Growing Your Personal Brand
- Being Inauthentic- Always, always, always be true to yourself and what you stand for. Building a brand is already hard, but lying and being inauthentic is much harder. When you have to put up a front and show people something that you aren’t time and time again, it just gets harder to keep up with those lies. Instead, focus on being yourself regardless of who likes you for it. Building your personal brand on lies and inauthenticity will be exposed over time and people won’t respect you or your brand is you portray yourself as a dishonest person. Take the time to analyze your values, your interests, and your message. Understand yourself as best as you can and show people the real you. You’ll attract the people that you want to attract and the people who you don’t, won’t matter anyway.
- Make It All About You– Personal branding is about you, but at the same time it really isn’t. It is more about the people who you give back to and the message that you’re sending to others. It’s about providing value and helping people recognize you as someone they should go to, look up to or inspire to be like one day. Don’t be the person who just talks about yourself and what you’ve accomplished all of the time. Give value, serve other people and educate others on things that you think you might be able to help them with.
- Post Inconsistently- The foundation for building a brand is content. Whether is written, visual or audio you have to regally post content on a topic, subject, or matter that you care about. Show that you have some knowledge or thought and expertise in something. Show people what your life is like and give them an insiders view, but make it of value as I stated in the last point. Consistent posting is the only way to build trust and to build a brand that people love and respect. If they don’t see you consistent, then how can you expect them to know you or even want to get to know you.
- Give Up Too Early- Branding takes time as does anything that is worthwhile. If you aren’t immediately seeing results in your goals, branding-related or not, don’t panic and ditch the plan. Stay with it and give it time. Especially with branding. It takes time to get people to come to you and see you as someone they want to follow and aspire to be like. This is probably the most important mistake that you don’t want to make. Too many people stop growing their brand over time because they haven’t received the rewards from it. Keep moving and forward and make small steps every day. It’s similar to working out to stay in shape. Remember that it is much easier to continue going than it is to stop and try to pick it up again.
Slow & Steady Always Wins Long-Term
The last thing you have to keep in mind is to remember to not go for the home-run and try to create that one post, picture or piece of content that will explode your personal brand in one day or night.
Brands that take-off like that rarely happen and if they do, most of the time they don’t sustain themselves for a long period of time.
Instead, slowly build your brand over time and show people that this is the real you online and offline.
It’s easier said than done, but let yourself become vulnerable and transparent. People respect that and it helps you become more relatable to others who might be experiencing the same things or problems as you once did.
The whole purpose of building your brand should be to create more opportunities for yourself, to attract new relationships and differentiate yourself in the world.
By avoiding the 4 mistakes above, you’ll already be on the right track to accomplishing those things.
Malcolm Lemmons is an athlete turned entrepreneur, author and speaker. Now, he focuses on helping athletes brand themselves to prepare for life after sports. To check out more from Malcolm, visit his website at www.malcolmlemmons.com or connect with him on Twitter & Instagram