Not only does content marketing outperform traditional marketing, but personal brands sometimes become more influential than big brands with much larger budgets.
With consumer trust in brands at an all-time low and a growing distrust of online advertising, personal brands have an advantage. The Internet has made it easier for people to build their own online communities through marketing methods based on trust, value and reciprocity.
How important is personal branding? Personal branding is increasingly becoming a requirement for anyone looking to grow their business, land their dream job, or level up in their career.
84% of decision makers begin their purchasing process with a referral. Their next step is Google, and 65% of people feel that an internet search is the most reliable source of what other people say or what companies advertise.
We live in a world where strong personal brands (aka influencers) are making a bigger difference in sales and marketing than the brands themselves.
Companies even recognize the importance of a good personal brand. Reputation damage is the top risk concern for executives, with 88% considering it a key business challenge gambling data turkey and 87% ranking “reputation risk” as more important than other strategic risks facing their companies. A strong, positive personal brand minimizes risk for these executives and their companies.
What is Personal Branding?
Before we talk about building a personal brand, let’s look at what the term means.
Personal branding refers to the practice of promoting and packaging yourself, your career, and your experience as a brand.
When you think of branding, you probably think of images and slogans from big companies – for example, Nike (“Just do it” and its iconic Swoosh) or Apple (“Think different” and the apple with the bite taken out of it). These are successful brand campaigns that have become as iconic as the companies themselves. Personal branding is not much different.
With your personal brand, you establish an image, impression, and position. With this identity, you develop your own brand assets, which can include a resume, website, writing, products, services, even a logo, tagline, and visual imagery. Much like a large company, you create a value or mission statement that represents your “why” and purpose, either as a personal mantra or to describe the overall goal of your business.
The Internet and social media have increased one-to-one interaction, making personal branding more popular and increasingly important. Even CEOs of massive companies are investing in their personal brands as individuals and as leaders.
How to Build a Personal Brand with Content Marketing - Personal Branding
How does content marketing create a personal brand?
Now that you’re more familiar with the term “personal branding” in general, let’s discuss how content marketing promotes your brand identity.
Content marketing is the consistent and strategic creation and sharing of relevant and valuable content that typically doesn't explicitly promote a brand, but seeks to stimulate interest in your offerings and ultimately drive profitable consumer action.
“Content” refers to the blogs, social media posts, videos, podcasts, eBooks, infographics, webinars, and other materials you publish to represent yourself and your personal brand.
Content marketing is highly effective when it comes to:
Increasing your authority in the industry
Promoting trust and sympathy
Creating Influence
Improving your SEO
Generating leads and conversions
As advertising becomes less effective and consumer expectations rise when it comes to perceived value, content marketing becomes more important in the process of building and selling a brand.
The power of personal branding + content marketing
In fact, more people – about 90% in fact – trust product or service recommendations from people they know, while only 33% trust a brand’s messages. When you build your personal brand, you’re actually becoming a more well-known and trusted person, rather than a typical brand.
That’s what makes personal branding so powerful: just as people’s recommendations are more valuable than advertising, so is content marketing, which increases consumer trust and brand affinity (especially over time). Consumers who read branded educational content are 131 % more likely to purchase from that brand.
With this in mind, content marketing is a logical and effective method for building and maintaining your personal brand. Content communicates who you are, what you do, and your values to your audience, while increasing trust – all without appearing desperate or self-serving.
Over time, your content builds a loyal, connected community that follows you and is more likely to trust your recommendations, including the products and services you offer.