How to create your Personal Brand?

In this era of unlimited choices, you are required to build a brand that is consistent, memorable and distinctively yours to captivate consumers and eventually capture mind share.

"Personal Brand is your DNA".

Follow these 4 steps to kick start your Personal Branding Journey.

1. Take a Professional Portrait

Simple first step, would you accept friend request from someone you don't know on Facebook? Highly unlikely if you do not even know how this person looks like, and what he/she does, and what's his/her intention of adding you.

All these must be taken into consideration when you start creating your own personal brand. A clean portrait, with good description on the 'About Me' tab will gladly help your audiences to understand who you are and why should they accept your friend request.

2. Come out with a Brand Name

Coming out with a brand name could be daunting. The name is the first thing that people hear when you tell them about you, and your company. Good brand names are seldom arbitrary. They are meticulously created as ambassadors of a brand personality that convey its position, tone, and values. Good names, like good logos, evoke a strong passion for your brand, while bad names elicit distaste or worse still, indifference.

For myself, I am using my name because it is not very difficult to pronounce, and easy to remember. I have been using it since 2010, so it is not something I want to change easily. I will continue to work on my personal brand, even though I may set up a new company in the future. Because company and personal brand can be graciously complementary of each other.

Tip: If your name is very complicated to read, hard to remember, and easily being spelled wrongly, I suggest you do some modification on it before branding yourself. Maybe you can use your initials?

3. Make a Logo

A logo is an important part of your personal brand, and makes a significant impact on a your public perception. In fact, a logo is one of the most important branding investments a business can make. Because a logo can easily grab people's attention, easily remembered, differentiates you from over-saturated crowds, and people kind of expects it.

Ask yourself, have you realized that you’re able to instantly identify a business by looking at its logo, even if their name isn’t a part of the logo?

I recommend you to look up for Photologo, they design really good watermarks and logos. Just tell them your concept, the business you are in, and they will make a few designs for your to choose from.

Top to bottom:

2020 - Present

2014 - 2018

2010 - 2014

Client Canvas Print Displayed on Wedding Reception

4. Think about a powerful tagline

You can go creative on this, but plan meticulously because personal branding and tagline take a long time to be established and they have a long lasting impression in the eyes of the public. Your tagline must reflect highly on the business you are in, things that you do, and your core values.

Have you ever heard Nike changes its tagline? Or Adidas changes its tagline?

For example: Michael Boon Photography has a consistent tagline, 'Capture Your Passion'. I want everyone who walks into my studio understands that if a photo captures their passion, it is a photo worth keeping for a life time. Any entrepreneur who wants to have their professional portrait taken, will have high levels of passion in the business they do. Capturing that passion is crucial, and they will treasure your works for a long time. In this example you can see, I have created my own tagline revolving on the core values we deliver to clients.