Personal branding is the intentional process of shaping how others perceive you — your reputation, your value, and the unique way you show up professionally and personally.

It’s how you communicate who you are and what you stand for so people remember you for the right reasons.

Why bother?

Your personal brand represents the intersection of your skills, experiences, and personal values, combined with how others perceive you.

A strong personal brand allows you to stand out, communicate your value clearly, and attract opportunities aligned with your goals.

Building a personal brand is not about pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s about highlighting your unique strengths and contributions in a way that is consistent, visible, and authentic. Professionals with clear personal brands are more likely to gain trust, advance in their careers, and influence their industry, due to being considered more authentic and reliable.

Define your brand

An exercise in self-reflection.

  1. Write down your skills, values, experiences, and passions. (If you need help with that, check out this lesson first)

  2. Identify what you want to be known for - values, principles, non-negotiables, passions and interests.

  3. Who is your target audience? Who are you trying to influence or connect with? What are their needs, challenges and expectations? Are they online or offline? - LinkedIn, conferences, industry events, communities.

  4. What is your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)? What makes you different from others in your field? What are the problems you solve or results you create for your audience?

  5. Draft a brand statement:

    “I help [what is the target audience?] achieve [what result?] by [how? skill/approach].” Identify 2–3 key experiences, achievements, or projects that reinforce your claim.

  6. Audit and Refine by reviewing your LinkedIn summary, bio, portfolio, and social profiles to ensure alignment. Get into the habit of an annual adjustment by removing inconsistencies or outdated information that contradicts your brand statement. Life happens and things change - your brand lives and grows as you progress on your journey.

A strong brand statement acts as a guiding compass for all your professional activities - your online presence, networking strategy, and content creation, ensuring consistency in how you present yourself.

Build Presence & Value

Presence is created through repeated, meaningful touchpoints where others see your thinking, your work and your way of contributing.

  • Being visible in the professional spaces where your target audience already is

  • Being associated with a small number of clear themes or topics

  • Being recognised over time, not through one post or one event

Presence is not about volume. It is about recognition and relevance.

Value is created when those touchpoints help others solve problems, understand complex issues or make better decisions. It is what makes people remember you and return to your content, conversations or events.

  • Focus on usefulness, not self-promotion.

  • Sharing insights from real projects, work and experience

  • Translating complex topics into practical understanding

  • Offering perspective, not just information

  • Showing how you think, not only what you do

Creating content that educates, inspires, or solves problems for your audience is central to personal branding. This can include blog posts, short videos, social media updates, or speaking engagements. The key is to provide authentic, consistent, high-quality content that reinforces your expertise.

Networking is not a separate activity from personal branding – it is the main channel through which your presence and value become visible. Strong professional networks grow when people repeatedly experience you as helpful, reliable and relevant. (check out our lesson on Networking to learn how to do it).

  • Books on Personal Branding

    1. Personal Brand Management: Marketing Human Value — Talaya Waller (2020)
      A research‑based book that blends theory and practice, framing personal branding in strategic value and economic terms. It’s used by consultants and university programs to teach how to analyze, manage, and scale a personal brand with methodological rigor.

    2. Personal Brand Creation in the Digital Age: Theory, Research and Practice — Mateusz Grzesiak (2018)
      A theoretically grounded treatment of personal branding and digital communication. Good for understanding how branding principles transfer from traditional marketing to personal identity formation online.

    3. Strategic Brand Management — Kevin Lane Keller (various editions)
      A cornerstone academic text in brand theory (though for products/organizations) that provides frameworks for brand equity and positioning that are directly transferable to personal brand strategy. Widely used in MBA and marketing courses worldwide.

    4. “Strategic Personal Branding—And How It Pays Off” — Business Horizons
      Explores personal branding through interviews with professionals and offers a research‑informed process for strategic self‑branding.

    5. Career Distinction — William Arruda & Kristen Dixon Personal branding framework used in career coaching.

    6. HBR: A New Approach to building your personal brand