Personal Branding during COVID 19

Written by Megan MacNeill

Personal Branding During Covid-19
June 4, 2020

During this episode I bust a couple of myths about Personal Branding.

We also discuss some things you can do during COVID-19 to build your personal brand.

Call your clients & suppliers

Collaboration over competition

Get on LinkedIn

You don’t need to take my word for it. Check out some of my favourite personal branding experts – Henry Kaminski (Brand Dr), Cher Jones, Mike Kim, Mary Henderson and Suz Chadwick

Keep in touch and send me your questions.

LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

You were listening to personal branding exposed with my favorite Suman, Megan MacNeill, each episode, we’ll explore a different area of personal branding and how you can build, maintain, and leverage off your own personal brand. Let’s put it together. Here’s Megan. Hey there. Thank you so much for joining me for episode two of personal branding exposed.

All right. This week, we are still talking about coronavirus along with the rest of the world. I just wanted to break a couple of personal branding myths and why even in the middle of coronavirus, you should still be trying to build your personal brand and how you can do that. Okay. So let’s think about this.

We spend our lives deciding if what you know, or who, you know, is more important when really what we should be focusing on is who knows you and doubling down and what they know you for this doesn’t mean who, you know, and what, you know, doesn’t matter. It means that it doesn’t have to be one or other, and it certainly doesn’t end there.

Alright, let’s talk about some personal branding myths. First one, this is the most common one, personal branding and building one makes me ego test deck and narcissistic. Absolutely not. What it means is, you know what your niche is, you know, your thing, you know what you know? Okay. And you want to be known for that, and you’re not afraid to tell the world you’re positioning yourself in a market.

You’re a market as an expert. It’s actually the complete opposite of being egotistic or narcissistic because you’re telling people what you’re capable of and how you can actually help them. Number two personal brands are for famous people. Okay. Yes. And there’s a lot of amazing personal brands out there in the celeb world.

I mean, one of my favorites is Ryan Reynolds and he takes that into the professional business world rather. Well, you can check him out on everything, my favorites, Instagram, but that’s cause I’m visual. Um, yeah. So yes, as for a famous people, but for regular people like you and I, it isn’t about being famous, famous.

It’s about being famous selectively to your target audience, to your target clients, to your target suppliers. It’s about being famous in your niche. Not worldly famous. Famous within your thing. Number three, personal brands are a lot of hard work. Well, they shouldn’t be because your personal brand should be true to you.

Meaning it comes naturally as you, if it doesn’t, then you’re actually acting. And quite frankly, that’s another skill in itself. Showing up should be enough. What can make it hard though, is spreading yourself too thinly. You don’t need to be in every single platform and you don’t need to be there every single day.

You just need to be where your audience says and stick to that. You can add more platforms as you grow and you can handle the workload, or if you’re wanting to get more people on board that are going to help you with that. But it’s always, always about repurposing that content as well. Okay. So now, you know, your personal branding is not.

What can you be doing to build yours during COVID-19 call your clients and suppliers and do it? No. Call them all. It doesn’t matter if you have one or 101 make contact, check in on them, see how they’re holding up. Ask if there’s anything you can help with. I know this might sound really time consuming and you’re just focused on trying to stay afloat yourself at the moment.

But believe me, when I say this, this will serve you in the long run. Like I’ve said before your personal brand is what people think and feel about you based on what you put out there into the world. If at this time, your disappear or your scarpering are sending nothing, but buy from me, buy from me desperate messages.

You aren’t going to be remembered particularly favorably when this is all over. Even if, actually if you exist, when this is all over I’m okay. If I ever get the tape to pick up the 400 at the very least send a personal email or text, then you will be remembered positively once COVID-19 is over and done with.

And we start watching those movies on Netflix. And let me be clear, you are not calling clients to try and make a sale, but to genuinely offer support and check in how they’re feeling. Collaboration over competition. I Oh my God. At the beginning of 2020, I reckon I use the statement in nearly every conversation I had.

And if anything, this crisis has made me even more sure that that was the right move. People are beginning to operate in fear. They’re feeling a bit unsure and they are dying for reassurance and guidance. Step up and offer that anything you can do to help right now, you should be. Does the wider community know what your skill set is and how you can actually assist them right now is your competitor doing something that you feel you could add value to and in doing so you create a super service that will help others.

Can you afford to offer a couple of free hours here and there to help others out if they make it out of the other side of this guest will be front of mind, you will. Okay. And finally, something really simple that you can do is get on LinkedIn. Honestly, there is no better place online to position yourself professionally, in my opinion than LinkedIn.

All right. You just need to be connecting with the right people, people you like trust and value. I mean, I go on about this in my LinkedIn training all the time and I sit, I just go on and on with my clients. I’m like, if you don’t like trust and value them, why you connect it to them? Okay. Because if they don’t take these three boxes, then you shouldn’t be connected because remember people are judgmental.

We’re all judgmental. And this is about building your personal brand and you will be judged by association as much as you, well, by your own actions. So if you don’t like trust and value, why are you connected? All right. You need to make sure you’ve got a profile picture and it’s a head shot of just you, because guess what?

That face that’s your logo. That’s your personal brands. Very own logo is your face. So make sure it is out there. Okay. And then we need to be sharing content positive content that Elaine’s with you and positions you as an expert in your field. This content can be your own. Eric can be carefully chosen from third parties.

You know, it can be something like, um, from trusted news outlets, uh, leaders within your industry or associations in your sector. You can be sharing that content as long as it aligns with you and what you’re an expert in. And it’s adding value to your connections as well, and follow amazing people that lift your spirits and they offer services that you need, or you might need in the future, or they can add value to your learnings.

Okay. So these may not feel like active actions and are kind of marketing and branding sense, you know, of picking up the phone and checking that people are all right and collaborating with people that you’re normally your arch nemesis and, you know, getting online social media is a bit daunting for some of us.

I know, but they’re just small things that you can be doing to position yourself right now so that people know what it is you do. And also that you care. Because our personal brand is all about you. And if you pick up that phone and you leave a lasting memory that says, that guy phoned me during this.

And I like him because of that. Honestly, people remember you for that. Now you don’t need to just take my word for it. Check out some of my favorite personal branding experience. Check out Henry Kamensky he’s the brand doctor shared June’s who I’m going to have on an episode coming up shortly, Mike Kim, Mary Henderson, SUSE Chadwick.

They are all awesome. And they are all singing from the. Same Xi. I am that personal branding is super important and they do an amazing job of it. So check them out, follow them, listen to their podcasts, their videos, read their content, whatever. However you consume your, um, your information. If you like this podcast, remember to share it with your friends and your contacts.

Flips on the valued content that you don’t mind sharing on your LinkedIn. And if you’re listening on iTunes, I would love if you would rate me and give me a couple of stars, that would mean a lot because I’m just starting out my podcast and that will help me. No end, thank you so much. So at the end of COVID-19, who will know you and what will they know you for?

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