Hey! I'm Nia - marketer, content creator, and aspiring speaker. I'm all about empowering young, ambitious professionals to create their own opportunities.
I owe my entire career to personal branding.
I know what you’re thinking:
- ‘Urgh, not this again’
- ‘Is personal branding even a real thing?’
- ‘I’m sick of hearing about personal branding now’.
I hear you.
Personal branding has soared in visibility over the last few years, particularly on LinkedIn.
Many young people, just like me, are now taking to personal branding to build their careers
and attract their own opportunities.
But despite the stratospheric growth in popularity, personal branding still has a bad
reputation in the working world. Mainly amongst the older generation, who (through no
fault of their own) struggle to understand how personal branding works – and more
importantly, how it can get you a job.
Now, before I continue, I want to make something super clear.
I’m by no means a ‘personal branding expert’. I’m not here to sell you ‘viral templates’ or
quick hacks.
I’m simply going to share my story with you. How I started my personal brand, the direction I
want to take my personal brand in 2024, and above all, how you can use personal branding
to create your own opportunities.
So let’s do this!
My Story
If you’re meeting me for the very first time – hey!
I’m Nia, and I’m just a 24-year-old British Indian girl from Northwest London. But I’m also a
marketer, content creator and slightly obsessed with social media.
Back in January 2022, I was in my final year of my Maths with Finance and Accounting
degree at university. I know what you’re going to say – ‘Nia, you studied Maths at uni and
now you work in marketing? WTF happened?!’
We’ll get to it.
I’d just returned from a fully remote placement year (thanks, Covid-19…) and I was feeling
very lost. I had no idea what I wanted to do after graduating…and graduation was 6 months
away. At the time, personal branding was on the scene, but nowhere near as well-known as
it is today.
At university, I was part of a brand ambassador programme – a flexible, part-time job to earn
some cash to keep my bank balance happy. One day, I attended a training session on
LinkedIn, and how to use LinkedIn to grow your personal brand. It got me intrigued. So, I decided to give personal branding a go.
When I started, my approach was…scrappy to say the least;
I had less than 800 followers
I had no strategy and no purpose behind the content I was pos)ng.
But as I kept going:
I started to grow a community
I understood what kind of content my audience liked
I got to know how the LinkedIn algorithm worked and how to use it to my advantage.
Now, all that sounds lovely. But unfortunately, despite my slow-burning LinkedIn success, I
still hadn’t quite solved the overarching problem…my lack of a job.
It’s now May 2022. I’m halfway through my final year uni exams.
One morning, I was scrolling through LinkedIn when I came across a post by Isobel Cowell:
LinkedIn creator, speaker, and someone I’m so grateful to call a friend.
Her post was advertising that the agency she worked for, Kurogo, were hiring for a Personal
Brand Manager. Someone to do what I was doing for myself, but for CEOs, entrepreneurs
and founders – Kurogo’s clients.
At this point, I had nothing to lose. So I compiled a CV and a very embellished porfolio and
sent it off. One week later…I had the job. And since then, I’ve haven't looked back.
Building Your Personal Brand
It’s fair to say I didn’t have the perfect start to my personal brand. But, if I hadn’t had as
scrappy of a beginning, I probably wouldn’t be where I am.
Now I’m a year into my personal branding journey, I’d like to think I’ve picked up a few tips
and tricks along the way. And that’s what I’m going to share with you. Everything I’ve learnt, the mistakes I made – so you can follow in my footsteps and carve your own career path.
GIVE YOUR PROFILE A GLOW-UP
People on LinkedIn aren’t stupid. They can spot the difference between a real human and a
bot from a mile away. No one is going to interact with your content if your profile isn’t great.
Make sure you have a clear headshot as your profile pic. Don’t worry if it’s not a professional headshot – a selfie works perfectly well (as long as you’re not dressed like you’re off to a nightclub…)
Your headline is the taster of your profile – when people see your headline, they need to know exactly what you do. Often, your job title is sufficient, or if you’re a student, simply the degree you’re studying and university work perfectly.
Your banner is the strip that appears behind your profile pic. You don’t need to be a graphic designer (or spend loads of money hiring one) to create it – Canva has plenty of templates that you can adapt for free.
Your Featured Section is essentially the LinkedIn version of pinned posts on Instagram. Use this for relevant links to direct your audience, e.g. to your porfolio or to your website.
YOUR ABOUT SECTION
Ok, so the About section is part of your profile – but it’s so important.
Your About section tells your audience and new profile visitors your story. Who you are,
what you do, and most importantly – what you can offer them.
But I appreciate it can be tricky to know where to start when it comes to writing your About
section. In a way, it’s like writing a whole post in itself!
The trick I like to use is this – imagine you’re writing out the answer to the interview
question almost everyone hates being asked: ‘tell me about yourself’. Word for word, what
would you say? How would you answer that question?
Start off with a few bullet points, then expand on these until you end up with a clear,
coherent piece.
DON’T START POSTING STRAIGHT AWAY
So your profile’s set up, it’s new and improved. You’re ready to start posting!
Except…I wouldn’t.
If you’re new to LinkedIn, visibility is going to be key to growth in the early stages of your
personal brand. The more work and effort you can put in to boost your visibility, the easier it
will be to generate killer results when you do start to post content.
Instead, start commenting on other creators’ posts. Whether you share your opinion and
experiences or ask questions – commenting is a fantastic way to get your name known on
the plaform, thereby boosting your visibility - without even having to write or post content.
ONCE YOU GET THE HANG OF COMMENTING…THEN YOU CAN START TO POST
Now that you’ve got into a consistent routine with commenting, you’re ready to take the
plunge and start posting your own content!
Having a strategy in place to guide you is going to be crucial to not just seeing success on
LinkedIn, but achieving the goals you want to achieve. Different people will have different
reasons for building their personal brand:
To become more visible to employers to get a job
To land speaking or podcast opportunities
To expand their professional network
To attract new clients
Knowing why you’re posting in the first place is essential – this is going to be your North Star.
Once you’ve got that in place, ask yourself the following questions:
What do I want to be known for on LinkedIn?
Who are my audience? Who do I need to target to achieve my goal?
What topics am I knowledgeable in and passionate about?
You don’t need to write essays for answers, but the more detail you think of, the easier
content ideas will start to form.
And there you go! You’re ready to start building your personal brand.
I appreciate this post was extremely long. So I’ll spare you a conclusion that basically repeats
what I’ve just said. If you’ve made it this far – thank you. I hope that you’ve learnt something from reading this post, whether you’re a personal branding pro or newbie.
If you have any more questions on personal branding, feel free to reach out to me on
LinkedIn or follow me on Instagram (@marketersinprogress)!
Thanks for reading!
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