For a long time, “brand” was reserved for companies and businesses who were trying to sell a product. They’d need a unified personality or presence to effectively connect with and sell to customers. The rise in social media and freelancing has made branding important on a personal level. But instead of selling a product, you’re selling yourself. You, your content, and your expertise are the product. Building a personal brand has become important for content creators, no matter their platform.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of creating your own personal brand. Grab a pen and paper or the Notes app on your phone! In five questions, you’ll have built your personal brand.
What is a Personal Brand? 🤔
HeyOrca! said it best: “Personal branding is the process of creating a unique identity and reputation for yourself that aligns with your personal and professional goals.” Think of it like your content’s personality. What makes it unique? What makes it stand out?
To make it really simple, your personal brand is how you present yourself on social media. Your entire digital presence is your brand. It’s a more distilled, but still authentic, version of yourself.
Why a Brand is Important ⭐
Having a clear brand can make the content strategy and creation process easier. It also helps even the most chaotic creators look more put together.
Take Pizza Hut, for example. They’re a fast food giant specializing in pizza. As a brand, they’re all about making food that’s convenient, cheap, and crowd-pleasing. So when they eventually decided to add more food to the menu, pasta and wings also fit the mold (as Italian and can be shared across a group, respectively). A brand is also the colors, logos, and words you use. Brands like Pizza Hut want to stand out amongst a sea of competitors and often have entire departments devoted to brand development. It’s why you can so easily tell their flyers and commercials apart from everyone else!
You don’t need another person to help you build your brand; you can do it on your own! The final product will likely feel more authentic if you go it alone, too.
So, without further ado, let’s build your brand!
Building Your Brand 🏗️
For the most part, building your personal brand is answering a series of questions about you, your content, and your audience. We recommend using either a brain dump, outline, or mind map for this process.
1. Who Are You? 🪞
This is both you and the content you create. What niches or communities are you drawn to? Are there any interests you want to explore in your content? What do you like to create? You’re what you’re selling, so to have a really strong personal brand, you need to have a clear understanding of what you’re selling and why people should be interested.
It will probably feel a little meta or existential; try to think about yourself from a third-person POV. How would you describe the content you create in a few sentences? If possible, widdle that down into one. But if you’re really hitting a wall, describe your content and your personality as a creator in ChatGPT and have it generate a summary.
2. Who Are You Speaking To? 🦖
Think about your followers and your audience. Who are they? What do they like? What problems are they facing, and how does your content help them? If you can, check out the demographics of your audience while you do this. You may find that most of your followers are women aged 25 – 40, which can tell you a lot!
We also recommend creating a profile of your average audience member. Give them a name, a zodiac sign (if you’re into that), a job or hobbies, and any other information that will be helpful. And in the future, when you’re creating new strategies or exploring content, think about this ideal audience member! Would they like it? Would it resonate with them?
3. How Do You Speak to Them? 📣
This is what we call your voice. What personality do you use when you speak to your audience? Are you fun and approachable, or do they see you as someone more serious and educational? Maybe you take complex topics and break them down into super simple terms. Part of your style is cursing! Think about the way you speak to your followers and what your personality is, then write down some descriptors. Here are some examples!
Voice Descriptors
- Friendly
- Welcoming
- Approachable
- Youthful/Young
- Educational
- Professional
- Crass/Brash
- Authentic
- Passionate
These are just a few examples to get you started! We recommend having at least three, but no more than five. Too many will get overwhelming and hard to manage.
4. How Will You Reach Them? 🖥️📱
A large part of your personal brand is what social media platforms you’ll use to connect with your audience. You can think about this strategically (which is best for me, where is my audience more likely to be) or you can stick to the platforms you like better. If you’re into DIYs and home renovations, LinkedIn, X, and other text-based platforms won’t be the way to go.
Contrary to what you might believe, you don’t need to be on every platform to build your brand. In fact, we actually recommend you focus on one or two platforms at first! It doesn’t hurt to create an account on every platform just to get your username. However, managing multiple accounts can be a huge time commitment. Start small and add more on as you have time. It’s much better than getting burned out from trying to juggle five platforms and just giving up.
5. What’s Your Aesthetic? ✨
This is a lot of components rolled into one, depending on your content style and what your content is about. If you’re trying to sell a product you’ve made, you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about how your brand looks. If you’re trying to sell yourself and your content, it’s way less time-consuming.
Fonts ✨
There’s a shocking amount of fonts to use in any video editing platform. Which ones are more your style? Which do you want to use for your videos? The standard, simple ones are great! But if you’ve got a specific style or want to explore something a little more artsy, pick three fonts that align with your brand.
Colors ✨
Depending on your platform, colors may or may not play a big role in your brand. Instagram, for example, places a lot of importance on the visuals of your feed; the covers of your carousels and reels should have a consistent theme or brand.
For colors, we recommend mostly getting an idea of the types of colors you want to use. Someone who creates content about teaching might want to use bright, vibrant colors, like in a rainbow. But a dark romance author might want to use darker, more sensual colors, like reds and blacks.
Logo ✨
Most content creators will not need a logo. But if you’re selling products or plan to open a business, it’s never too early to start thinking about your logo!
Icons ✨
Do you include emojis in your videos or captions? Do you use other clipart or gifs?
Pull It All Together 🎁
Once you’ve answered all of these questions, sit down and review it! Make sure there aren’t any last-minute changes or additions. Then summarize it. Write a one-paragraph description of your brand based on this information – or get ChatGPT to summarize it for you.
Don’t worry about making it perfect: just make sure it’s a good summary of you and your brand as a creator. It needs to be detailed enough that you can build off of it. Like our Pizza Hut example, you may specialize in one or two things right now, but your brand description could accommodate (or even inspire) future projects.
Adjust As Needed 🪛
It’s not uncommon for people’s brands to shift and adjust as they continue creating. In fact, you should be reviewing and even revising your brand! That doesn’t mean overall the entire thing or throw out what you’ve done in the past, but make sure your brand accommodates the full scope of what you do.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and your brand won’t be either! As you create and explore content you’re passionate about, your personal brand will change. Just make sure it’s changing with you.
The Clapper app is a short-form video and Livestream app for creators 18+. Our goal is to give creators a platform to build communities and express themselves freely without judgment and censorship. To learn more, download the app or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.