Tanya Garma, co-host of the #GrowGetters podcast, on crafting a personal brand
#GrowGetters Podcast is the brainchild of creative women, Tanya Garma and Tiffany Hart. Each week in their signature digestible and fun podcast, they discuss future skills to help women uncover the secrets to grow your brand and bring you the very latest in digital growth hacks.
Based in Munich, there’s nothing these two aren’t willing to share to help women grow their business. It’s just one of the reasons we’re so thrilled to have partnered with them.
You’ll be hearing lots more from them over the coming months but if you can’t wait, Tanya is speaking on the panel of our next Wine and Design event. She’s also written this post for us on the importance of personal brand.
So what is a 'personal brand' exactly? Your personal brand is how you express who you are, and shape people’s perceptions of you. It’s not just about having a logo - it’s about your whole package. It’s how you speak, how you look, what you post about, what you specialise in, and what you talk about.
Most importantly, it’s about what you stand for.
It’s so critical today to really think about how you’re perceived by your desired market or audience – whether that’s an employer or your business’ desired target market.
From a professional perspective, harnessing your personal brand will most certainly build towards creating a career advantage.
“We live in an age where the lines between your physical and digital realities are not just blurred, but essentially intertwined. What’s clear is that our representation online matters. And the opportunity to manipulate and leverage our own representation is huge. That’s where personal branding comes in. ”
Traditional brands have always needed to use novel ways to cut through the clutter and find resonance and relevance with their intended users. And people are no different. So whether you’re a CEO looking to raise your profile, or a retail assistant looking for a job, the easiest way to outshine the others in the pack is to leverage your personal brand online.
To get started, here are three clear and easy ways you can harness your personal brand for professional success:
1) Position yourself as an expert in your field
What’s your professional field or the business that you’re in, and where do you fit in? If you have strong and credible opinions on matters in your field: share them! Is there a new angle or perspective on your industry that’s hardly been covered before: publish it! If you aren’t yet a fully-fledged expert on a topic, why not take the opportunity and talk to people who are: interview them!
LinkedIn and Medium are perfect professional platforms for you to write your thoughts in long-form. And don’t forget short-form content like posts and videos: LinkedIn loves this stuff – particularly long-form article content and videos.
2) Fine-tune your visual aesthetic
I’m not talking about FaceTuning the hell out of all your pics on Instagram, but presenting a consistent style that’s appropriate to the channel and audience.
If you really want your personal brand to shine, invest in a few professionally shot photos for your profile pics on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. This is the first portal into who you are, and you want to get it right straight off the bat. This also applies to your cover images, as well as other images you post if possible.
If you’re not a graphic designer, you can use free tools like Canva to help you create awesome images for your socials. You can even take your visual aesthetic one step further like many brands do, and consistently use colours and styles repetitiously. Doing this is deliberate, strategic and SMART!
3) Stay authentic
For your own personal brand, you need to ask yourself: what’s the unique value I bring to the world? It’s so incredibly important to stay true to who you are – building a personal brand means building on your own unique self.
Your passion will shine through in everything you put out into the world, and it’s especially true for Millennials who value authenticity above everything. For example, take two of the hottest musicians right now: Lizzo and Billie Eilish. These women are unabashedly themselves in everything they do. Not only is their music awesome, but people love them more and more for being authentically themselves.
So don’t be tempted to carve out a personal brand that doesn’t feel good in your own skin. People will buy what you’re selling when it comes from a truly genuine place.
When it comes to your personal brand, having a strong voice, clear guidelines around how you present yourself, and consistently putting yourself out there, are all things that will open up opportunities for you.
And if your online representation is far-reaching, and you've captured a wide audience, these opportunities are certain to be amplified.
If you'd like to learn more about personal branding and other future skills topics, tune into the #GrowGetters podcast on your fave podcast app. Every week, they cover the latest business tips, digital knowledge and growth hacks to help get your business or career growing! Check them out: growgetterspodcast.com
