Building a Personal Branding Strategy for Today’s Tough Job Market

Times are tough and jobs are scarce. Since the current economic recession took hold in December of 2007, nearly 4 million jobs have been slashed. As of February 2009, more than 11 million Americans are unemployed. Competition for jobs is extreme, creating the need for a personal branding strategy to stand out amidst the competition.

What is Personal Branding?
The answer to this question lies in another: What is branding? Branding is anything and everything that is associated with a product, company, person, item and so forth. It’s an identity and a calling card. It’s conscious and subconscious, tangible and intangible.

Popular brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, Apple and Wal-Mart are associated with certain lifestyles, behaviors, demographics, products and services – most anyone could connect the dots with these brands.

Personal branding is the process of developing these kinds of associations for you. You must create “Me”, Inc. and appoint “You” as the Senior VP of Marketing.

It takes time and hard work, but you yourself can reap the benefits of branding by following the right steps.

Start with your Story
What do you stand for? What are your values? How do you want to be perceived? What services can you offer? Think long and hard when answering these questions, as they will ultimately define your personal brand.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s is a successful global ice cream brand not only because they make delicious ice cream, but also because they tell a story of fun times, individuality and eternal youth.

The story is what makes a brand compelling, attractive and memorable to the target audience. Remember, “You” are your product.

Who Do You Market “You” To?
Know your audience(s). Your personal branding strategy should not include throwing spaghetti on the wall. Take time to match your values, identity and services with audiences that make sense.

Think of the Ben & Jerry’s example, neither Ben nor Jerry would likely market their brand to the lactose intolerant demographic. It would be a waste of time and money.

It’s a cliché, but try to “think outside of the box.” Who stands to benefit the most from what your brand offers? If “Me”, Inc. specializes in writing, for example, you would want to market your personal brand not only to newspapers or magazines, but marketing and public relations firms, professional blogs, book publishers, corporations, web site companies and more.

Stand Out in a Crowd
Like product marketing, differentiation and consistency are key to establishing a unique and credible personal brand.

In Seth Godin’s book, “The Purple Cow,” the writer was intrigued by an imagined purple cow in a pasture among all the regular cattle because of the way it stood apart. The point being, if you stand out as unique, you won’t have to invest as much time, money or energy into promoting yourself.

Remain relevant and accentuate the positives: Do you have phenomenal people skills? Are you extremely detail oriented? Have you performed a niche job in the past? Write down your assets as an employee and begin to rank them for today’s job market.

For instance, if you have a background in “lean manufacturing,” many companies that are struggling to stay afloat would welcome you. Determine your key differentiator and weave it all through your resume and your talking points.

After you’ve conceived and defined your brand, it’s time to market “You”.

Maintain a Relevant Resume
It may sound old fashioned, but the resume is the most traditional and still most effective self-marketing medium. You have an entire page to convince readers that your personal brand is the best thing since sliced bread – don’t underestimate the resume as a key component of your personal branding strategy.

The most important part of your resume is the “objective” line. Do not discuss your personal goals; point out what you can add to the company.

Remember work ethic and positive attitude. In most every article you read about good employee qualities, these are included.

Before broadcasting your resume, be mindful of the following:

• Proofread - mistakes communicate inattention to detail
• Don’t list every job you ever had – be relevant to the position you’re seeking
• Don’t mention your hobbies – unless they pertain specifically to the position
• Be authentic
• Include strong references

Brand You through Social Networking
One piece of advice that can not be understated: Brand yourself online.

Consider that 81 percent of internet users have researched a product on the internet that they are considering purchasing. Nearly 80 percent are confident they’ll make the right purchasing decision by researching on the internet first. Translation: If they can’t Google “You”, they likely won’t buy “You”.

Social networking is an opportunity to meet others in your field, create visibility for your brand, and increase your online searchability. The benefits of branding may be realized online more than anywhere else.

Here are some good social networking sites to get you going:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Blogging – Blogger, WordPress, TypePad
  

Remember, differentiate and be consistent. Take great care to make sure all social networking reflects your personal brand. These “social media” are blurring the lines between business and personal; don’t get the two confused.

Tell your story, know your audience, differentiate your brand, market wisely, and your personal brand will become a personal success.

About the Author
Woody Stoudemire is a veteran of the marketing field with 20 years of experience in building brands. His team of marketing experts, Gotham, LLC (formerly Gotham Images, Inc.) has successfully helped companies around the world achieve and exceed their communications objectives. Through creation and implementation of integrated marketing plans, Gotham has successfully guided new product launches, developed and promoted new brands, created e-commerce solutions and grown sales and margins for a number of diverse businesses, educational institutions and government entities. Gotham’s strategic marketing success is largely attributable to its unique proprietary process, LAUNCH. The acronym stands for Listen, Analyze, Understand, Narrow, Create and Hatch. Woody devised it through study, trial and error, and metrics that assess Return on Investment.

For more information, or to contact Woody Stoudemire, visit http://www.GothamStrategic.com.

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