5 Components of an Awesome Personal Brand

How to Stand Out in a Crowded World

These days it seems as though everyone is trying to build a name for themselves online using social media. But regardless of the methods used to build an online following, one thing remains certain. Having a consistent personal brand that accurately portrays your expertise while building trust and credibility is more important than ever.

Personal branding is one of those trendy terms that I normally stay away from using in everyday conversations. But the ideas behind the concept of personal branding (or whatever you choose to call it) are based upon fundamental marketing principles that have been around for ages.

These principles are meant to help you differentiate yourself from the crowd in a meaningful way that builds trust with your audience.

The tips I’m about to outline were derived from those same principles mentioned above, so I can assure you that this advice will stand the test of time.

The 5 components every personal brand should have are as follows:

1. A Central Hub

Social media has made the Internet a pretty big and crowded place. With attention spans seemingly shortening every day, we need to make sure our audience can find us online quickly and easily Furthermore, we want to ensure that the bulk of our web traffic is being directed towards an Internet property that we own, rather than a third-party profile or site.

What does this mean? It’s simply means that you need your own website. This is where you’ll showcase your work, whether it be written work on a blog or visual work displayed in an image gallery. Whatever the case is, your website should have a professional look and feel.

Your web address should contain your name, in a .com, .net or .me extension preferably The colors of your website matter as well. Whatever colors you choose, those same colors should follow you around online on all of your various social media profiles. As you’ll hear me repeat several times below, consistency is key when it comes to standing out from the crowd.

2. A Professional Photo

This is an easy one. You need a good headshot of yourself that will be present on all of your web properties and your social profiles. The important thing to note here is that you should try to use the exact same photo on every profile. I do this myself, with the exception of my Facebook profile, since I primarily use Facebook among close friends and family and I like to change my profile photo frequently. Other than Facebook, you’ll notice that all my social media profiles contain the same exact image.

Some folks would argue that this is makes for a boring web presence but just as virtually every corporate brand has one main logo, you should too. This again is an important strategy for building consistency and trust.

3. A Catchy Tagline

This is where your copywriting skills need to shine. If I asked you to describe yourself in one sentence, what would you say? Think about your answer. Was it unique? Could I identify you by your tagline alone?

I call this part the development of your “CUE” statement. CUE stands for Catchy, Unique and Engaging. These are the three components your tagline should contain.

A tagline should be short enough to tweet and long enough to answer three questions: Who are you? How are your different? and Why should I take action?

The tricky part is fitting all of this into one sentence but with some practice it can be done.

4. An Interesting Biography

Hopefully your content and your tagline will interest people enough to take a look at your full biography. Now you’re not writing a novel here, so take it easy, but you certainly want to cover more ground than what is in your tagline.

The goal is to expand upon the three questions posed above. Describe who you are, what you do, how you are different and why people should care. Then, in closing, give your audience an opportunity to take action.

This can be as simple as asking for folks to follow you on Twitter, or you can try to get them to subscribe to your email newsletter by offering a free eBook. Whatever your call to action is, make sure it’s not gimmicky and that it aligns with who you are.

5. Consistent Social Profiles

Lastly we come to your social media channels. The main point I want to make is that (I’ll say it again) consistency is key. This means that your social profiles should show the same photo, display the same tagline and link to the same website. This is really where all of the work you’ve done in the other steps comes together.

Furthermore, you should be consistent in how you use your social media channels. Tweet on a regular basis and don’t overload yourself with more than you can handle.

I’ve always said that not having a social media presence at all is better than having a vacant or abandoned profile. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert in your field, one of the worst things to have is a Twitter profile that hasn’t been updated in two years.

In closing, I must add that these rules are meant to be broken, adjusted and amended as you see fit. That’s just another way we set ourselves apart. The important part is that you do something that allows you to stand out. In turn, that will translate into more views, more clicks and more conversions.