The Beginning: Discovering Your Personal Brand

Kelly FisherSenior Honors Thesis

Definition• Personal branding is how we market ourselves to others.

• “What you bring to the table”

• Personal branding helps people differentiate themselves from their competitors by teaching them to identify and articulate their “unique value proposition.”

• A Unique Value Proposition is the attributes particular to an individual that makes them uniquely valuable to an institution or organization.

Personal Branding – What the heck?!

How it is useful• People don’t know what you have to offer until you tell them

• Each of us has a brand because we are constantly being judged based on first impressions

• Critical in a world filled with clutter, competition and ambiguity

• Use similar branding strategies that corporations use to create an experience - a friendship - with an audience

• People trust people, and are more inclined to purchase your product or hire you based your relationship

Personal Branding – What the heck?!

Why you should create one• Personal Branding is the process of discovering your key personal and

professional assets in an objective process and communicating them passionately to the audience that needs what you have

• You will become more visibility and recognized by your peers, hiring managers and other successful business people and entrepreneurs

• With visibility comes speaking engagements, jobs, clients, celebrity

• Aside from self-promotion, you will establish a professional and social network

Personal Branding – What the heck?!

Everyone has one – Who do you know?

YOUR Personal BRAND

DiscoverIn order to really understand who you are and create a career path moving forward you need to do some self-discovery

YOUR STRATEGY CreateYour personal branding toolkit may consist of a blog, Web site, résumé, portfolio, and a LinkedIn profile.

MaintainAs you grow, mature, and accelerate in your career, everything you've created has to be updated and accurately represent your current brand

CommunicateStart attending networking events, writing articles, and putting on your "personal PR hat," to start gaining attention

How You want to Be Viewed• What are you trying

to say to your audience?

Other’s Perception of You• How are you

being viewed?

Your Values, Mission, and Morals• What do you

believe in?

Social Media• Facebook• MySpace• Twitter• Linked In

Your Perception of Yourself• How you view

yourself

Hobbies & Interests• current things

you like to do

You Have One and You Didn’t Know It

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

• Discover • Create • Maintain • Evaluation • Judging of the two best Personal Branders

• The FINAL Product

• Personal Branding Toolkit

• Career Assessment

• Brand Check • Expand Your Brand • Goal Check • Winner! • YourUnique

Value Proposition

• Goals Exercise • Best mediums to showcase your brand

• Networking Exercise

• Evaluation Survey

• Winner! • Finished Portfolio & Resume

Me 3.0 – Creating a New Me: A How-To Build a Personal Brand for College StudentsWhat we will be doing…

WINNER WINNER!

• Incentives: at the end, the 2 groups will judge 2 people who have developed their personal brand

Discovering Your Brand

Different tools to get you started

– Articles from Personal Branding Blog• www.personalbrandingblog.com

– getInsights Career Assessment• www.getinsights.com

– College Personal Branding• www.collegepersonalbranding.com

Values and Visions

You will be at a disadvantage when marketing your brand to others if you don't spend time learning about yourself, your values, personal mission, and unique attributes

Missions and Goals

Ask yourself, "Who am I?"

and

"If I could do anything, what would it be?"

Discovering Your Brand– Resources to figure “you” out

Power of networking

– Friends, professors, etc

Friends

• Friends know you best and can help you find people who they might know to help you

Family

• A lot of family members know people who are working in the field that you might be interested in

Acquaintances

• Remember people who you meet because they too can have a connection

Creating Your Brand Using Social Media

– Using social media in a positive manner to help your brand

• Use mediums that people can see your personal statement

Build a Personal Branding Toolkit

• Personal Statement - Unique Value Proposition

• Resume• E-Portfolio• Website or blog• Social Media Outlets

– LinkedIn– Facebook

2

3

4

5

Manage your Facebook page

Create a LinkedIn account

Create a blog or website

Create your resume / e-portfolio

The Strategy

6 Career Development / Networking

1 GOOGLE yourself

Sep Oct Nov

Part 1 of Me 3.0The Beginning: Discovering Your Personal Brand

Part 2 of Me 3.0It Takes Time: Developing and Maintaining Your Personal Brand

FINAL Personal branding tool kit(E-Portfolio for honors)

Dec

Part 3 of Me 3.0Exploration & Evaluation: What Impact Have You Made?

!FINAL JUDGING!

Me 3.0 Creating a New Me: A How-To Build a Personal Brand for College Students

Me 3.0 Timeline