35 Personal Branding Strategies to Build a Magnetic Brand in 2019

It’s no secret that personal branding is the key to success in today’s world of heavy competition.
It has the power to shift you from a red ocean full of competition to a blue ocean full of endless opportunities.
In 2019, people are making their buying and hiring decisions based on the brand of a person behind a product or service. They want to see if the person backing the product has a reliable personal brand which has authority in the industry.
Bottom line — It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, executive or a freelancer. You need to have a great personal brand if you plan to get ahead in life.
Based on that, here are 35 actionable personal branding strategies to grow your personal brand and make it remarkable both online and offline.
Let’s dive right in.
This section on Personal Branding Strategy will give you a step by step process on how to grow your personal brand and make it remarkable both Online and Offline.
Use these 35 actionable strategies, tips, and growth hacks to build rapid influence in your industry in 2019.
The section is divided into 2 parts:
- Online Personal Branding Strategy
- Offline Personal Branding Strategy
Online Personal Branding Strategy
We are living in the golden age of internet. Building a personal brand has never been as easy as it is now. Yet so few people are taking advantage of this brilliant opportunity which marketers of the past would have killed to get a shot at.
Let’s not let this opportunity slip away.
Here are 31 step by step online personal branding strategies which leverage the internet to make you stand out from the crowd.
1. Define your target audience
First and foremost, have a clear idea about who your target audience is.
What do they want in life? What are their biggest aspirations? What are their biggest fears? What are their main problems and roadblocks in overcoming those fears? Where do they hang out the most?
Conduct a thorough research on all these questions and then base your message on how best you can meet their needs and expectations.

2. Identify and narrow down your niche
a) Identify your niche
It’s nice if you are a Jack of all trades, but when branding, the key is to focus on one special superpower of yours.
Think of what you are most passionate about and what comes naturally to you. Once you identify that superpower, make it your niche.
For example, If you have a lot of passions but overall you are most passionate about improving lifestyle, select lifestyle design as your niche.
b) Narrow down your niche
Next, you should narrow down your niche to address a specific demography.
For example, after you select lifestyle design as your initial niche, you can narrow it down to address a specific community and make your brand message custom tailored for them. So instead of lifestyle design, it can now become lifestyle design for entrepreneurs or lifestyle design for single dads.
This way your message comes across as tailor-made for a particular set of demography and hence more appealing to them.
Pro tip — If you have more special qualities, you can connect them under the umbrella of your main superpower.
For example, if apart from lifestyle design, you are also good in personal finance, then after creating a string of lifestyle design related content, you can connect your insights and tips on personal finance as an actionable strategy to achieve a perfect lifestyle.
3. Stand for something
The key to building a brand is to stand for something.
Create a movement by representing something which is unique to your personality and instantly identifiable to you.
Remember to always be original even if at times your opinion does not have the popular vote.
Have a set of values and own them by structuring your personal brand around it. — Click to Tweet
Pro tip — Help people self-identify with your movement by giving them a title by which they can identify themselves and other members of the community with.
A great example of this is Russell Brunson and his Funnel Hacker Movement.
Russell Brunson is the Founder of ClickFunnels, a sales funnel software company. He created a movement around his brand by addressing his community members as Funnel Hackers.
This gave the members something to identify with and added a sense of purpose to what they were doing. It made them loyal to the brand as they felt part of a community of entrepreneurs with similar values, ethos, and goals.
4. Create a Mini-Manifesto around your brand
Establish a culture around your brand by creating a mini-manifesto.
This manifesto will list down all the values, mission and vision of your community in a mini-document. It will act as a rallying cry for the community and reinforce the values whenever the community is in doubt.
It will show your industry what you stand for and against. This will help fellow members of the industry self-identify with your values and be magnetically pulled towards your brand.
Here’s an example of Russell Brunson’s Funnel Hacker Manifesto.
Pro tip — An awesome way to add more meaning to your manifesto is by asking your community to print this out or have it as a mobile wallpaper.

5. Create a personal branding statement
A personal branding statement is your main value proposition presented in the form of a unique catchphrase.
It tells your target audience (your prospective customer) what they can hope to get from your professional skills in the form of results and ultimate benefits.
It should look something like this.

For example:
“I help B2B companies (target market) double their leads (result) with LinkedIn ads (skill).” — Click to Tweet
You can use your personal branding statement as part of your social media bio and as an introductory line while networking in meetups and conferences.
6. Create a strategic bio
How awful will it be if you win the leads with an amazing piece of content only to put them off with a shabbily done bio? Your audience impressed by your content will look into your bio to know more about you.
Take advantage of it by crafting your strategic bio beforehand which highlights the single biggest benefit your audiences can get from you. Then connect this benefit with your superpower or special skill.
The bio should be not more than 50–60 words. Additionally, mention all your media features and showcase your noteworthy achievements. Leverage it to the hilt by making it a common bio for your own blog and all your media columns/features.
Remember that the bio should reflect your values and what you stand for.
7. Use your headshot as your profile pic
Improve the way people perceive your image, literally!
Use a headshot (where your face covers 60% of the image) as your profile pic for all your profiles and business resume.
8. Have a brand logo
Personal branding is a process which involves both textual and visual content.
Have a brand logo which imbibes the ethos and values you stand for. Create something which stands out and communicates your message visually in the best possible manner.
Treat the logo as more than a piece of design and more as your brand identity. Your customers will treat this image as synonymous with you. So make something which represents your core message.
9. Focus on having a uniform design language
Apart from having a logo, focus on creating design assets with a uniform color code, appearance, and typefaces.
Create templates for social media graphics and videos with a common color scheme and appearance. This will make your brand language consistent making you stand out and get identified in front of your target audiences.
10. Start creating content
Now it’s time to start creating your content.
Start a blog or a vlog based on your product and niche. Select the best keywords in your industry and start creating consistent content around it. — Click to Tweet
What are the main pain points of the target audience? What are the strategies that work well in your industry? What are the latest trends in the industry? What are the popular tools to grow a business in your field?
Write and make videos about all this. Put the articles in a blog and videos on YouTube and other social media channels (more on that later).
Above all, focus on being an evangelist of your niche to the outside world.
Think what kind of information an outsider would need to get into your industry and create content around that. The more consistent you are with your content, the faster your brand will grow.
The goal is to make yourself synonymous with your industry.

11. Give high-value assets for free
See the demand in your industry and create assets to address those demands.
It can be a piece of software or a free report solving some specific need or query in your industry.
After creating it, give it away for free on your blog in exchange for the prospect’s email. This way you will be seen as an expert who does not hold back on giving value first. Doing this pulls all the critical levers in building an epic personal brand.
12. Focus on SEO
SEO is a great way to get qualified organic traffic to your blog.
This traffic will consist of people actively looking to get information in your industry and thus qualify as high-value leads.
If you can be the person who addresses their needs, they will start seeking you or your content for further advice. This will build your personal brand effectively for that niche.
To execute this perfectly, you need to rank on the first page of Google (or any other search engine) and typically for the top 3–5 keywords in your niche. Doing this is a bit hard and can take a bit of time. Having said that there are a few growth hacks to rank faster for your content.
SEO Growth Hack 1
Firstly, create epic content. By this I mean 10x the no.1 ranked article in your niche by adding more points, insights, creating relevant infographics and more. Aim for a minimum of 1900 words.
SEO Growth Hack 2
Secondly, do not go for heavily competitive keywords in your niche.
Instead, use long tail keywords.
For example, if the main keyword in your industry is ”Internet Marketing”, then focus on a long tail keyword like “Internet Marketing for Freelancers” or “Internet Marketing for Home Based Entrepreneurs”.
The goal is to find keywords with high traffic volume but low competition.
Pro Tip — Use a tool like Ahrefs to find low competition keywords with high traffic volume.

13. Build a list
Build an email list. Give consistent value to your email list members. Nothing is more personal than being inside someone’s inbox. Take advantage of it and make them into your brand evangelists.
Also with Facebook’s January 2018 update effectively killing organic reach for Business pages, it will be a smart move to move your audiences to a platform you control completely — your email list.
First, drive traffic to your site. Then once the traffic is on your site, ask them to submit their email IDs in exchange for some awesome content (lead magnet or content upgrade).
Once they sign up, win their hearts by delivering exclusive top quality content not available anywhere else.
Consistently giving value at a place where you are seen almost every day is a great way to engineer an awesome personal brand.

14. Grow your social media audience (organic)
Start putting dedicated efforts every day to grow your social media audience. Focus on channels where your target audience hangs out the most and start putting high-quality content which helps them. — Click to Tweet
Here are the exact steps to follow.
STEP 1
Start by joining Facebook and LinkedIn groups related to your industry.
STEP 2
Post exceptional quality content which helps the members of the group. Be consistent in your posting. Do not pitch anything.
Once the members of the group notice your content, they will visit your profile.
STEP 3
Put a link to your own group and other social media profiles on your bio or cover image.
STEP 4
Take connections to the next level by connecting with other members through your personal FB/LinkedIn profile.
I understand the narrative about not taking your work home.
Over time you will build up an audience that will start associating you with your niche, thus forming stepping stones towards a robust personal brand.

15. Be omnipresent online
Be visible everywhere, be it your blog, relevant social media channels and other major platforms in your industry — both online and offline.
The more omnipresent you are, the more sticky your message will become.
Also, this is a good way to take advantage of the mere exposure effect which is a psychological phenomenon where people prefer things familiar to them.
The more frequent and omnipresent you are with valuable content, the more preferable you become. — Click to Tweet
You will start building up a niche follower base of qualified people eager about your industry. You will become their go-to source for all things related to your field.

16. Get into new social media channels fast
Get into new and unexplored social media channels fast. You will have an exponentially higher chance of becoming an influencer there as there will be very less competition.
17. Repurpose your content like a pro
Repurpose your existing content across different content channels like Medium and LinkedIn.
Take your existing article and record a video of you speaking about it, upload the video to Youtube and audio as a podcast.
Also, ONE hot way of standing out with your content in 2019 is by making infographics. Make an infographic out of your article using a simple design tool like Visme.co.
Search Engines love Infographics coz they simplify big complicated ideas into visually compelling and easy to understand images. It increases a visitor’s time on your site and also increases the chances of your content being shared in the community.
All this adds great karma points to your brand reputation.
So take your present content and add more modes of delivery to it.
18. Get a vanity URL
Get vanity URLs for all social media channels.
The URL should either be your name/ your name + your niche / reflective of your niche.
Do not play around much with it. Don’t go artsy with fancy names that have nothing to do with your industry. Stick to basics and connect the name to an industry keyword. This will be great for making the audience see a connection between you and your industry.
Also, this will be great for Social Media organic search optimization.

19. Build a Facebook Group to propel your personal branding
Apart from building a list, FB groups are another way to build a constant relationship with your target audience.
Simply start an FB group in your niche, and provide consistent value to your group members through high-quality content.
Solve their problems, talk about the latest trends, share the latest hacks and tools, do everything to win their confidence. The more value you provide, the more your target audience will see you as a leader in your industry.
Building your personal brand on Facebook goes a long way as this is where people spend most of their time.
The key is to focus on groups, not on business pages.
20. Ask questions
Humans are social animals. We love to share and tell stories. Hence everyone loves a good listener.
A primary way to build a relationship with your email list and FB group is by asking questions. This will help you get critical insights and also build a rapport with strangers.
21. Have a professional email signature
Email signatures are the visiting cards of 2019. So have an email signature which stands out from the crowd.

Put your headshot in the signature along with all your social profiles. This way your email will stand out on a pitch.
Use a free tool like HubSpot Email Signature Template Generator or a paid tool like Wisestamp to get this done right.
Your personal branding image will skyrocket after this.
22. Do what the pros do
See what the top players in your industry are doing for their personal branding. Reverse engineer and emulate their online strategies.
Find a mentor who is currently where you want to be. Study their career history and map out the path they took. List out all the strategies and base your plan of action around it.
23. Network with influencers
Start expanding your network by connecting with other members of the industry on Social Media. Type your industry keywords on Facebook and LinkedIn and join all the top groups which come up as results.
Once there, start giving real value without an intention to sell. This way you will be seen as a valuable member of the community and not an annoying salesperson. Your ultimate aim should be to give so much value that your name becomes synonymous with everything good about your industry.
The value-first mindset to connect with influencers
Start connecting with Influencers online. Reach out to them with a “value-first” mindset. Provide them value upfront by giving your core service for free.
Now I know the word “free” can make some of us frown. But when you do it to build relationships with people who are the stalwarts of your industry, then this free work will pay itself off in no time and skyrocket your growth.
Just imagine a great video testimonial about your work from the biggest influencer in your industry OR an influencer blasting a mail to his 100k strong list recommending your work. You see the value now?
Networking tools and hacks
Connect with influencers using networking tools like Meet Leonard or Duxsoup. These tools will help you send automatic connection requests to industry filtered members on LinkedIn. For finding email IDs of influencers, you can use a tool like FindThatLead.
Another way to connect with influencers is by joining their courses/paid mastermind groups. Once a part of the group, provide upfront value to all the members to get on the radar of the influencer.

24. Get on major media platforms
List the top magazines, podcasts, TV shows, YouTube channels in your niche and approach them to feature you. You can pitch them to have you as a guest panelist, contributor, columnist or them doing a story on you.
To do this right, you need to first build relationships with these platforms. Use the same value-first mindset and offer your help or something of high value for free.
Once you get their attention, pitch them to feature you on their platform. Show them the value you can offer to their audiences with proven results of your work.
Once accepted, give actionable value and do not hold back. The goal is to win the hearts of the platform’s audiences. In the end, offer the audience a free cheatsheet or strategy call in exchange for them signing up for your newsletter.
Leverage media logos to build authority
Add brand logos of all your media features on your website and social media profiles. Put pictures of your speaking gigs and TV appearances. This will build a lot of authority for your personal brand.

25. Be helpful and have a knowledge-based mindset
Be helpful and provide value to people.
The days of information ownership and competing for knowledge are over. Share your expertise for free without holding back anything.
We live in a value-centric, knowledge-based economy. If you are not sharing, you are losing out to someone who is giving it all for free and building an unbreakable bond with your audience.
Start by answering questions on Quora and other channels. Join all the industry forums and be the gateway people need to get into your industry. It will pay off in the long run.

26. Document and showcase results
Results. They are by far the no.1 buying emotion, and hence the no.1 brand builder. Whenever you work for yourself or your clients, focus on documenting results.
For example, if you are in the field of SEO, make it a point to screenshot your rankings for the targeted keyword. This will come as handy proof that you deliver on what you do.
Likewise, if you work for your clients, make it a point in your contract that you are allowed to showcase the results you bring for them.
Also, a very effective hack is getting video testimonials. When a number of your clients come on camera and share their success stories from working with you, your Personal Branding will skyrocket immediately.
One of the world’s leading consultants, Sam Ovens has 1000s of video testimonials on his site — consulting.com

Pro tip — Run paid ads on your video testimonials targeting potential clients.
27. Do webinars and live streaming
There is something about webinars and live streaming which connects more than perhaps any other form of content. Maybe it is the LIVE nature of things or the interactive value feature which adds to the excitement. Also, it has never been easier to do webinars and live streaming than now, with free platforms like FB Live, Youtube Live, and Periscope.
Apart from that, you can take advantage of various paid but cheap webinar software like Demio which allow you to collect leads.
Do webinars with pure value and no sales intent. Add your personal touch to it by being yourself, sharing personal stories and epiphanies along the way. It will make you charismatic and relatable to your audience.
28. Create chatbots
Chatbots are a great way to personalize your branding and be interactive at the same time. With Facebook killing reach of FB pages, FB messenger bots should be one of the priorities to focus on.
Again, like any other personal branding strategy, make the chat conversation sequence authentic and true to your voice. The audience should feel like they are having a conversation with you over a cup of coffee.
Pro tip — Use a tool like manychat or chatfuel for setting this up.
29. Invest in paid ads
For all the amazing long-term benefits of organic traffic, we cannot deny that paid ads are the fastest way to reach your target audience.
Use smart targeting hacks. Target people with an interest list of brand names only hardcore fans in the industry know about.
The ad should offer something of value to your target audience and show your knowledge on the subject.
Retarget the visitors of your site with a lucrative offer.
30. Get on YouTube
YouTube is the go-to channel for people looking to actively find solutions to their problems. So creating YouTube based content which effectively solves their problem will instantly build trust, rapport and authority for your brand.
Also, since its an audiovisual medium, the impact is higher and more intimate to the senses than the written word. All this adds great brownie points for your personal branding.
Now simply creating videos and putting it on YouTube may not work for your brand. Instead, you need to optimize your videos for YouTube’s algorithm.
Here are some quick tips on how to get traffic for your YouTube Video:
1. Keyword optimization — Do thorough keyword research. Use this 6 step process to optimize for your keyword.
- Search for your keyword on YouTube and see YouTube’s search suggest recommendations. These are keywords which people are actually searching for while looking for your topic.
- Go to a famous channel in your niche and search for the most popular videos. Click on them and see the tags they are using. Use a tool like VidIQ chrome extension to do this.
- Make a list of all the keywords and tags you collected and then go for the ones with low-level of competition.
- Try to use your main keyword at the beginning of the title and also use them as tags.
- Write a thorough video description, describing what your video is all about and the things the viewer is going to learn. Use the main keyword naturally wherever possible.
2. Content Optimization — Be energetic and expressive in your videos. Start with a hook where you state what will the viewer learn from watching this video. Hype it up by saying what all will you reveal by the end of the video.
Mention the main keyword early in the video and use it wherever it feels natural to do so. Deliver on the promise by giving real transformational value so they are hooked till the end. Have multiple Calls-to-actions to subscribe and comment on the video. The Youtube search engines will pick it up and show your video to people looking for that topic.
3. Design Optimization — Have attractive thumbnails having your picture along with the title of the video.
4. YouTube Funnel Optimization — Create a funnel with your videos by offering a free checklist or report which acts as “The Next Step” for the viewer after they watch your video. Offer the checklist by making it available through a landing page where they can get it in exchange for their email.
5. Video Promotion — After optimizing, post the video on your blog post, social media and other forums as a helpful resource for someone looking to get answers on your topic.
6. Consistency — Be consistent on your video posting schedule. Make it a habit for your viewers to expect a video from you on a specific day. For example, you can have a YouTube banner which says — New videos posted every Monday and Friday.
For more YouTube optimization resources, I highly recommend checking this detailed article by Brian Dean of Backlinko.
31. Start a Podcast
I cannot emphasize this more — jump on podcasts before it gets too saturated. This is a key platform where a lot of smart entrepreneurs are putting their content on and in the process becoming instant celebs in their niche.
A lot of top CEOs prefer to listen to podcasts over videos. Standing out there can mean connecting directly with your industry leaders and evangelists.
Distinguish your content by interviewing industry leaders, experts, and giving actionable content which your listeners can implement easily for quick wins.
For further resources check out this awesome guide on podcasting by Pat Flynn.
Offline Personal Branding Strategy
Offline Personal branding strategies follow the same basic principles of Online but in the physical world. So principles like defining a clear target audience, niching down, standing for something, having a unique voice, giving value first, making it about your customers, etc., all remain the same.
Having said that, building your brand offline have the added dynamics of physical presence and personal touch to your brand. This aspect can be very powerful while building your brand name and business relationships.
Let’s look at 4 step by step offline personal branding strategies to leverage your brand in the physical world.
1. Start doing public speaking gigs
Your omnipresence has to be both online and offline. The best way to have an impactful omnipresence offline is by doing public speaking.
Here is a great hack to do this perfectly.
Go to meetup.com and search for your niche/industry. Hit up all the meetups happening in your city related to your industry and say you want to give a 30–45 minute presentation on a hot topic in your industry. More often than not they will get back to you with your slot as a guest speaker.
Taking it to the next level
At the speaking gig, open up a funnel by asking the audience members to join your mailing list or your Facebook group where they can get more in-depth content from you. This way you convert total strangers into a list of warm leads.

2. Network at masterminds and conferences
Start expanding your network by connecting with other members of your industry. Join mastermind groups and participate in industry-related forums actively. Use meetup.com again to find like-minded industry groups.
Become seen to the extent that your name becomes synonymous with your industry. Reach out to influencers and have the value-first mindset by providing value upfront to impress them.
You can use networking tools like Dux Soup and Meet Leonard to first connect with these influencers online and then meet them personally.
3. Write a book and give it away for free
A book is a great personal branding tool to immediately position you as an expert in your niche.
It is best to launch a book when you have a thriving email list and an active blog. This is because it will come in handy for marketing the book. Having said that, it is not a necessary requirement as you can always run ads or collaborate with an influencer to leverage their list.
Now let’s come to the content of the book where a lot of people get stuck.
Follow these easy growth hacks to write a book fast.
Growth Hack 1
Hire a virtual assistant and ask him or her to transcribe your webinar and assemble it in order. Once you refine and edit it, you have the content ready for a book!
Growth Hack 2
Use a service like Rev to transcribe your video content and convert it into a book.
Growth Hack 3
Another method made famous by author — Investor James Altucher is collecting 20–30 blogs you have written and put them in order to form a book.
Making it available through dropshipping and digital download
After you arrange the information in a book, you can put it on Amazon Kindle as a digital download or use a site like disk.com to drop ship the book to its destination.
Now, here’s where it starts to get really interesting!
After writing and editing your book, give it away for free and only charge for shipping.
Yes. FREE.
Now before you start to frown, hear me out.
Books hold tremendous power in making your brand impactful. They create a great initial touchpoint between your target audience and your brand.
Also, they are a very personal item and tend to quickly become an intimate part of people’s lives. This can lead to amazing word of mouth exposure and formation of a loyal tribe. Imagine the number of sales and long-term brand equity you can generate from the tribe. Why restrict it all with a price tag?
So use the free + shipping method to quickly gain massive exposure and brand loyalty.
A great example of this is Russell Brunson’s now iconic book — Dotcom Secrets.

4. Merchandise giveaway
A great way to make your brand visible offline is by giving away your brand merchandise for free.

Create t-shirts, cup and other stationery items with your brand logo or catchphrase on it and give it away for free to your superfans.
These superfans will flaunt your merch with pride which in turn will lead to great word-of-mouth advertising.
The key here is to create merchandise only when you have built a sizable following so you can leverage your superfans to promote it.
Pro Tip — Use a site like printful.com to drop ship your t-shirts.
Dropshipping resource — Dropshipping can be a critical tool to make your personal branding be active and present in the physical world.
For further reading, here are two awesome resources on Dropshipping.
Enjoying the article?
Click here to get the complete Personal Branding Guide.
The complete guide includes 3 powerful Personal Branding growth hacks, 3 personal brand case studies (Neil Patel, Tony Robbins and 1 surprise case study) and much more.
The Next Step
I hope you got tons of AHA moments and epiphanies about how to build a profitable personal brand.
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Originally published at thestartingidea.com on August 31, 2018.

