This post is part of the 7 Steps to a Personal Brand series.
Read the previous post: Crafting Your Public Persona.
Building a personal brand is like maintaining a garden: It requires ongoing care, the needs will change depending on the environment, and if left unattended, it will perish. You can’t just create a tagline, give yourself a makeover, grow an audience, then sit back and relax. You must continue to build your platform, establish your public persona, and expand your name recognition. You must continue to engage.
If you work in the corporate sector, you’ve probably heard the term “employee engagement” over and over again. If you’re a manager or executive, you’ve probably sat in countless meetings on how to increase employee engagement. If you’re an associate or senior level employee, you’ve attended team building events and met with your manager or mentor to discuss your career path, all in the name of building engagement.
But what would happen if all that stopped one day? What if you never checked in with your employees and your manager never checked in with you? What if there were no happy hours or community outreach days? What if everyone just came to work, did their job, and then went home without really connecting to anyone else in the office?
There would be no company loyalty.
If companies did not attempt to build an active, engaged community for their workforce, then employees would feel no desire to stay. They would go to whoever offered the biggest paycheck or the best title. Loyalty is earned. And it’s earned through consistent engagement.
If you’re an entrepreneur or blogger or artist, you understand the importance of audience loyalty. You can’t just grow your social media followers or build your mailing list and then walk away. Creating a loyal audience requires ongoing interaction and engagement. You need to let your audience know that you’re paying attention to them and give them reasons to continue following you. Whether you’re sharing content and information, sending updates about new products before they’re released to the general public, or running contests and giveaways, it’s necessary to not only give them value for their participation, but also to ensure they feel valued by you.
Using Branding Outside the Box as an example, what if I gave you the 7 Steps to Launching Your Personal Brand and then walked away? Would you have any reason to return to the site? What if you commented on a couple of posts, but never received a response? Would you feel compelled to leave another comment?
While you now have an overview of the 7 Steps to Launching Your Personal Brand, I expect many of you will want to more fully explore the process. That’s why we’ve launched the 7 Steps to Launching Your Personal Brand E-Course. The 7 modules (plus introduction and conclusion) will take you on a deep dive into each step of the branding process. We’ll use real life examples, address specific challenges within different industries, workshop your taglines and brand statements, and answer all your questions along the way. You’ll also receive three worksheets with guided activities to expand on and further personalize what you’re learning in the course.
Registration is open until 2/17, and once you’ve signed up for the course, the content is yours for life. So even if you’re not ready to launch your personal brand, consider banking the course for later in the year.
Click here to register or for additional details, and I look forward to launching your brand, together.
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