Whether you’re applying to new jobs, building your freelance practice, gearing up to ask for a promotion, or even crafting your dating profile, you need to think about how you present yourself to the world. What’s the story that you want to tell?

While creating your own brand may not be everyone’s cup of tea (it can feel awkward or even shallow!), it is an important part of the professional world these days. Investing time in crafting a coherent narrative will enable you to effectively communicate your value to potential employers or clients. And when done right, building your personal brand can be a rewarding exercise that helps you connect with your accomplishments, values, and aspirations. 

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What is personal branding?

Personal branding is the practice of defining, expressing, and differentiating your value. Your personal brand is how your clients, employers, and followers will connect to and understand what it is that you do, and how and why you do it.

We like to think about it as your narrative. What stories about your experiences and accomplishments do you want to tell? And with what voice or tone do you want to tell that story? Once you know your pitch, you can express it through mediums like a portfolio, website, resume, and social media platforms. 

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Why spend time focusing on building your brand?

A strong personal brand can make it easier to unlock new opportunities for you to progress toward your personal and career goals. Your brand will also help you stand out, grow your network, establish thought leadership, and open doors for new partnerships, events, and opportunities.

So how do you build a strong personal brand? We asked our very own mentor Jara Montez to share her top tips for building a personal brand. You can check out her website here! Here are her top 7 tips:

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1. Start by reflecting on your goals

If you’re just getting started, or even if you’re giving yourself a brand refresh, Jara recommends starting with self-reflection. You can use this list of questions below to get started:

• What am I passionate about?
• What are my values and beliefs?
• What are my strengths and unique skills?
• What problem can I solve for people?
• How do others currently perceive me? 
• What do I want to be known for?
• What does success look like for my brand?

The objective is to get in touch with your purpose and mission and tie it to your strengths and goals. Starting with reflection enables you to ground your brand in an authentic expression of yourself and start to parse out what it is that makes you different from everyone else. 

You can write out the answers to your questions and even try crafting a personal brand statement: a sentence or two that summarizes your skills and offer. Think taglines or catchphrases. Here are some great examples.

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2. Determine your audience and pay attention to them

Knowing your key audience—whether it be potential employers and recruiters, your managers and teammates, or followers on an app like Instagram or TikTok—is critical for figuring out how to best position your brand.

If you already know who your audience is, take some time to research what your audience is interested in, what they value, and what platforms are they’re most active on. Try speaking to someone who represents your audience and ask them these questions. Pay special attention to how they articulate their answers so you can start to develop ideas for how you can most effectively message them.

If you’re starting from scratch and don’t know your audience yet, do not fret. There are many ways you can discover your audience. Take a look at people who have engaged with posts on your social media platforms. Ask friends, coworkers, and peers about what skills and perspectives you bring to the table and who they might best serve. And most importantly, look for inspiration from people who have been successful on the platform or industries you want to participate in. Here are some examples of people who have crafted very successful personal brands. 

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3. Develop a content strategy 

Content is often the cornerstone of a successful personal brand. Content is a great way to tell people your story and provide value to your audience. 

All great content strategies are based in a deep understanding of your audience and what they like to consume. Spend time to figure out what topics they are most interested in, what channels and platforms they spend the most time on, and what their engagement behavior is like. Once you can answer these questions, you can craft a strategy for how to most effectively reach and engage them. 

We often get asked questions about timing such as, “How often should I post content?” and, “When is the best time to post?” The best answer is that it depends on a number of factors including audience preference, your capacity to create new content, and platform best practices. 

Start by setting reasonable expectations for your content creation–don’t be to ambitious as this can lead to burnout. The most important thing is to remain consistent. If your goal is to post twice a week on Instagram, stick to it. If your goal is to publish one blog per month, stick to it.

4. Be data-driven when you can

Data can be your best friend when it comes to making decisions about your brand and growing your audience and reach.

Whether you’ve been collecting data for years or you’re starting from scratch and only have a few data points to analyze, the most important thing to keep in mind is that great data analysis comes from asking great questions. Before you dive into a data set or survey results, take some time to figure out what it is that you want to learn. Maybe you have a hunch about your audience that you want to prove or disprove. What problems are you trying to solve or what decisions are you hoping to make? 

The key is to ground yourself in something you’re trying to learn so you don’t get lost in the data. If you’re starting from scratch, try not to get too bogged down on whether or not your data is statistically significant or whether you have enough data to make real conclusions about your audience or their behavior. While these factors are important, they can also act as blockers to progress.

Instead, use what data you have to point you in a direction. Use it to form hunches about your audience and questions about what you might want to learn from the data you collect in the future. These questions will help you determine what data you want to collect and how you might collect it moving forward. 

We often get asked: “What data collection tools should I be using?” There are a ton of different tools out there for data collection. Today, nearly all social platforms have built-in analytics that you can use to pull data. If you’re using a website, you’ll want to make sure you’ve set up Google Analytics. One thing we also like to recommend is to not overlook qualitative data. Conducting interviews with previous clients, coworkers, or managers and sending out surveys to your audience is a crucial way to gather information about your audience. 

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5. Show, don’t tell

While it may be tempting to tell your audience about all of your experiences and greatest accomplishments, it will be much more effective if you show them through stories and case studies. You may be able to pique your audience's interest by telling them what your skills are, but you’ll gain their buy-in once you prove it by sharing your success stories.

One important note that Jara emphasizes is that portfolios and case studies are not exclusive to design work or those with visual deliverables. “Did you launch a project? Did you raise $1 million? Let people know! No one will know what you do if you don't talk about what you do.” 

This doesn’t need to come in the form of a case study or blog post every time. You can also share smaller accomplishments or stories on social media platforms such as LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Here are some examples of websites with great portfolios and case studies.

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6. Start an email list

Even if your list is small at first, it can be invaluable for sharing your content, personal outreach to potential clients, precise audience targeting, and even learning more about your audience. 

To do this, you’ll first want to find an email service provider (ESP). Many website-building platforms such as Wix and Squarespace have ESP capabilities built into their platforms. You can also look into dedicated ESPs such as Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Convertkit. There are many from which you can choose.

Once you’ve chosen your ESP, you’ll want to come up with some ways actually to acquire emails. The first and most important task is to make sure you’re driving traffic to your site. You can do this by focusing on SEO, ads, social media promotion, or virality. At the end of the day, your main focus should be creating great content for your audience as this is what will ultimately lead to views and engagement with your content. 

Once you’re generating solid traffic to your content, then you can focus on improving your email capture by adding things to your website like pop-up email captures, newsletter signups, or gated content. 

As you build your email list over time, you’ll be able to use it in different ways and test the best ways to engage with your audience. 

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7. Don’t sweat the small stuff

Jara’s last tip is a simple, but important one. When it comes to creating your personal brand, or even just parts of it such as your website, social media accounts, portfolio, or brand identity, it can be easy to get bogged down in the details. 

Yes, your portfolio should be comprehensive, free of errors, and easy to read. But obsessing over small things like font, website design, and word choice can prevent you from your primary goal of getting your content into the world. The best brands evolve as you do! 

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Ask Questions, Ask for Feedback

Finally, you don’t have to build your brand alone. Feedback from friends, colleagues, and managers is invaluable as you build out aspects of your personal brand. Don’t hesitate to reach out for feedback. 

Want feedback from someone who’s walked the walk? That’s what our mentors are here for! twenty helps young adults navigate their twenties, personally and professionally. We connect you with highly-vetted mentors and a thoughtful community to help you carve your own unique path.