Now more than ever, it’s important for millennials to build their personal brand.
With the rise of digital and social media, these are the tools in which we interact online—and whether we want to admit it or not, we judge each other based on what we see.
Before you grab coffee with someone, what do you do?
Look them up online.
After you meet someone for the first time, what do you do?
Look them up online?
When you’re thinking about who to hire, who to do business with, what do you do?
Look them up online.
This trend isn’t going anywhere, which is why it is so important that young people start investing in building themselves on the Internet.
If you want to build a meaningful personal brand, here are three things you should absolutely be doing:
The first thing you need to do is understand what value you are looking to provide to a specific type of person.
For example, if you want to be considered a thought leader in digital marketing, do you want to help other digital marketers become better at what they do?
If so, what questions do they want to have answered?
Look for the questions people are asking and find a way to answer them better than those who are already answering them. Read what people have already written in your industry, and ask yourself if there’s a way you can do it better. Maybe what they’ve shared is too vague, didn’t go into enough depth, or just wasn’t written well.
These are all opportunities for you to stand out.
Try to pinpoint the things that were done wrong.
Then work backwards from what questions your target may have, and look to answer those questions in a way that exceeds what everyone else in your space is already doing.
Everything that you put on the Internet is a representation of you—from your bio to your pictures to the quality of your content.
It’s important that invest in your brand, and ensure everything you do represents you in a positive light. Millennials, especially, have no excuse for lackluster content, photos, videos, etc. We all know how to use the Internet. We have high-definition cameras in our phones. We have more tools at our disposal than any generation prior. There’s no reason your bio should have grammatical errors, your header image to be blurry, or for you to have a profile picture doesn’t present you well.
Have all of your ducks in order so that when someone looks at your page, their first reaction is “Wow, this person really has their act together.”
The biggest mistake people make is not knowing how to communicate what they do or care about.
For example, if you have “Coffee lover” in your bio, that’s great and all, but it doesn’t tell anyone what your value to them is. The whole goal is to have anyone who comes across your profile immediately get a sense of what you do, how you do it, and why they should reach out to you.
Even if you haven’t done a lot in your career or are still in school, you should still be thinking about these things. At a bare minimum, you can put something like, “Creative graphic designer always looking to help other people with their projects!”
That gives someone a reason to reach out to you—and presents you with additional opportunities to improve at your craft.
Connecting with other people is vital.
Especially as a millennial, we inherently have an understanding of the Internet that many older generations lack. And it doesn’t matter which platforms you use or prefer, as long as you find communities of people who you want to be around and keep pushing you to improve.
The best way to do this is by reaching out to people and offering to do something for them.
For example, if you’re a graphic designer and you notice someone’s infographic has a really bad design, re-do it for them and send it over. Say, “I’d love to help you with your infographics,” and work to build a collaborative relationship from there.
Second, when reaching out, find people who are one step ahead of you—not 100 steps. Don’t reach out to the top people in your industry when you’re first starting out. Instead, find people who you like, whose content you admire, and who are just a bit farther along than you.
These people will be far more receptive to your eagerness to connect. And then it’s all about climbing the ladder from there.