Personal brand is one term that is thrown around very often. The entire internet is talking about it. From famous YouTubers like Alex Harmozi, Neil Patel, and Garry Vee to Instagram Influencers like Ranveer Allahbadia, Ishan Sharma, Raj Shamani, and how can we forget LinkedIn where there is a tsunami of people who are constantly encouraging you to build a personal brand.
All of them are preaching about it. But do we actually know what exactly is a personal brand, why it matters, and how can you build one effectively?
In this article, I will try to cover everything about personal branding.
What is a Personal Brand?
If we break down the words we might understand what is it. Building a brand based on your own personality. In other language, personal brand means having an authoritative perception of yourself and becoming known in front of the right audience for the values you stand for.
I have been helping founders, CEOs, and CXOs become visible in front of the right audience for the last 3 years now and I have realized one thing, everyone needs to become famous. The highlight here is the word “need”. It is not an option anymore, it is not a luxury but a necessity of the future. Fame attracts attention and attention by right people get you closure to bigger opportunities.
Let your work speak is an old thing now, it is the time when you do one thing and tell the entire world about it. You might achieve 100 milestones but if the people don’t know about it you won’t get the opportunities and recognition you could have gotten.
Remember, money attracts money, attention attracts attention, and success attracts more success. Thus, it is important to talk about it.
How To Build An Effective Personal Brand
The process is simple but might not be an easy way. Whether you’re a freelancer, an employee, or running your own business. You must have a personal brand, if you think you don’t have it now, start building it. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can get started in your personal branding journey. These steps I have curated after working with over 35 clients so read them carefully.
1. Define Your Values:
You might already be doing something either running a business, serving clients as a freelancer, or already working as an employee. That means you know your work. But your personal brand needs more than that. Your brand must have your personality infused in it. Find out what are your values, what you stand for, and what things you will never compromise. Jot it down on a piece of paper, your mobile notes, or Google Docs, whatever suits you the best but have it handy.
Building a personal brand is like discovering yourself.
2. Pick a Platform And Start Sharing Value:
In 2025, I believe the best platform for anyone to get started is LinkedIn, I might be biased because I started my journey from there but I still feel LinkedIn is comparatively easy to crack. However, choosing a platform should be your choice.
Peak into yourself and find out what are you most comfortable with.
Do you communicate well in the video, in person, or through writing? If you’re comfortable with videos you can also start with Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and gradually you can move towards a Podcasts. If you find it difficult you can get started with LinkedIn or Twitter.
But you can’t escape or avoid the camera for a very long time, because the future is videos. If you don’t change with time, you might not exist in a few years.
3. Find Speaking Opportunities:
This is one of the crucial aspects of building a personal brand that I want to cover extensively. Because of social media influencers people think, that building a personal brand is all about growing followers on a social media platform. But that’s wrong. In fact, increasing the number of followers and engagement should be an outcome of your personal brand. When you go on a prominent stage you increase your authority. Here are a few options you can look out for:
a. Offline Events:
India is growing and the conferences and event culture is also on the rise. People are showing interest in networking events, meetups, and business gatherings. You can find a list of upcoming events on Google and find out where you can contribute based on your areas of expertise. Write emails to them. Remember, initially you don’t speak for money, you speak to get known in front of the right audience.
b. Podcasts:
India has over 57.6 million podcast listeners, and getting featured on a few of them is a perfect way to get seen and share your expertise. It helps you create awareness about your work and build authority in the market. If you’re tight on budget you can pick small creators. However, if you really want to see tangible results in the minimum time period always look for top people in your industry. That’s when your audience starts to think very highly of you.
c. Colleges:
I know some of you might not be catering to college students. However, visiting colleges and getting speaking opportunities there is the fastest way to blow on all the social platforms. College students are the most active people on social media. If you can provide them with unique insights they are likely to talk about you in their circle and social media handles.
On top of that, Personal Branding is not a short-term game, it is a marathon that you run for years and you never which student gets a placement in which company.
d. Your own company events:
If possible try to conduct a conference by yourself. Invite prominent guests and interact with them. Remember, what I said earlier, success attracts success. The only objective is that people talk about you in the room even if you’re not present.
e. Get featured as a guest speaker in virtual courses.
That’s again one of the prominent ways to get seen, share the expertise you have and the possibility to get talked about on social platforms.
4. Apply For Awards & Recognition.
I know it may sound creepy. Who apply for the awards by themselves? I get it. But that’s how it works. If you don’t want to do it yourself hire someone who can do it on your behalf. But nominate yourself for different awards in your category. Once you get it talk about it on social media. That’s when people get to know the kind of work you’re doing and the impact you’re creating.
5. Try Not To Sell
This is one of the major reasons why your audience doesn’t connect with you. Remember, marketing and sales are two different domains, talking about your products and their benefits is fine but if you try to hard sell, your audience will lose interest. Share your expertise not with an intention to increase the leads or increase your conversion, share it to genuinely help others.
Why Do You Need To Build A Personal Brand
Recently I asked a CEO, what are your three biggest problems. He said there are many but most itching problems are finding the right talent, getting genuine suppliers, and getting more customers, and guess what? Having a personal brand can solve all these problems for you.
A personal brand can encourage skilled employees to work with you, increased awareness can help suppliers find you, and sharing your expertise on different platforms can create an authoritative voice for yourself resulting in increased trust among your clients, aka a higher conversion ratio.
Even if you’re a freelancer or an employee, this can benefit you by getting better clients and the jobs at places where you can grow. AI is here, organizations are firing people left, right, and center. If you can effectively communicate why you’re the best person for the job, there are high chances you will get the opportunity and a personal brand provides a platform to share your opinions.
Myths Around Personal Branding
Popular things are often misunderstood. Personal Branding is no different. Let’s talk about some of the myths revolving around this buzzword:
1. Creating Content On Social Media = Building A Personal Brand
People often think Personal Branding means regularly publishing content on a social media platform. But is it really what helps you build your personal brand? Let’s look at some of the prominent and well-known founders in India, Aman Gupta, Ritesh Aggarwal, Vineeta Singh, and Kunal Shah. Did they build their personal brand because of their social media presence?
No, they became popular because they built something unique and valuable and talked about it again and again wherever they could. About the journey, about the competition, about their unique insights.
Increased follower base is the outcome of all their personal brand.
I am not discarding an approach to getting started with social media, but if you think only creating content for your own profile can build it, you’re wrong. It requires a more nuanced approach.
2. You Need An Extensive Budget To Build Your Personal Brand
In fact, this is one of the most common myths and I am sure after what I have written in this blog, this belief would have become even stronger. But that’s now what I intended to do. You can start building your personal brand even with zero money. Creating content online costs nothing, getting featured in niche podcasts will cost you nothing, and nominating yourself for different awards again is a zero-cost activity. To start building your personal brand, you need to have an interesting personality and unique insights to share. That’s it. However, if you do have a good amount to invest, it can amplify the results you could receive.
3. You Need To Be Cringe
Being cringe may help you become popular. But think twice, it is the kind of brand you want to build yourself. The key to building a personal brand that can attract opportunities is to show your authentic self. You might think you are the only one with this personality but believe me there are thousands of other people who can resonate with your true self.
Conclusion
Perhaps this article has broken a lot of preconceived beliefs you already had about personal branding but it was important. It is not a one-time activity, your personal brand evolves after years of consistent efforts. Remember, it is not about social media followers, instead, it is about the trust you establish, the authority you create for being the person you are, and the work you can do.
