Personal Branding - Let’s dig into it.
All images on this page are from a personal branding shoot with the brilliant education coach Jo Wheeler - www.jbwcoaching.co.uk
Magnetic branding happens when “strategy and creativity come together” - Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is the story you tell about yourself and the creative ways in which you choose to tell it. It is how you show up in the world. The success of a personal brand is when enough people are telling the same story that you are telling, that it generates trust and investment. The difference between a personal brand and a business brand is simple, the former is the person and the latter is a product or service. I am the photographer (the person) and I have a photography business (the product). Your branding is the story that you and other people tell about you and/or your product. You want to be in control of the story. People don’t invest in your brand unless there is a master storyteller behind it that they trust. To get to this point of trust in your brand you need to marry strategy and creativity.
Neumeier lays out the following 3 questions that you need to answer that will enable you to know and communicate what differentiates you from the crowd and also attract your dream clients:
Who are you?
What do you do?
Why does it matter?
To answer these questions, you have to understand your brand inside and out. Armed with this information you can then create a strategy that communicates your brand effectively through your chosen avenues in a visually compelling way. Paying branding specialists to help you hone your brand, your story and your strategy would be the crème de la crème, but not everyone can afford that. So here are some helpful ways into thinking about your brand to get your creativity zinging.
Think of your brand as a person:
What kind of person is it? A zen master, a rock chic bar owner, a pro gamer, an academic surrounded by books in a quiet library layered with Persian rugs, a florist that crafts magnificent floral designs that adorn the entrances and walls of boutique perfumers, a chef that creates mouth-watering feasts in a Michelin star restaurant on the shores of Scottish lochs.
Where would it hang out? The mountains, high flying boardrooms, barefoot on green grass, stretching out the stress in a pilates class, paddle boarding a Cornish cove, wild foraging, lifting weights at the gym, sipping artisan coffee down a cobbled London street.
You get the picture. You want to get the feel of your brand before you dress it up. Like attracts like and to create a brand that attracts your ideal clients, it needs to be authentic. This takes a bit of digging, but it is worthwhile before you head into any brand identity (the aesthetics - what your brand looks and feels like).
“Why aesthetics? Because it’s the language of feeling, and, in a society that’s information-rich and time-poor, people value feeling more than information.” Neumeier
Ultimately, your brand (the way you present yourself or your product to the world) is about attracting your ideal clients and fostering trust. You don’t want to say yes to everybody, you want to work with and attract people who are magnetically drawn to you and that will make your work all the more exciting and satisfying. This is the purpose behind magnetic personal branding photography, capturing your passion and telling your story through aesthetically compelling images.
Next week we’ll keep digging deeper into personal branding - think personal branding M.O.T. Sign up below to receive my blog straight into your mailbox.
“Glenda gave me a five star experience, caring about every detail of my personal branding process. The prep before our shoot was thorough and she was willing to go the extra mile to get the best outcome for me. The final product is a bank of photos I am so happy with. High quality, professional photos that I will be able to use for years to come.”
