Brand Yourself – How I Communicate Who I Am
This is part 2 out of 4 posts regarding how I work with my personal brand. Follow this blog for the following Wednesdays to read all four posts. Part 1: How I Work With My Personal Branding – Who I Am
How I communicate who I am
Since my brand (like all other brands) is based on how I am perceived by others, communication is an essential part. However, if you do not have anything to communicate, then it is useless as a tool. This is very important to understand to be successful within personal branding. I use some very well known methods for my communication, such as physical meetings, voice communication via the phone or video conferences with AVEX and of course social networks and other digital communications.
Even if I am somewhat of a power user of social media, I still think that digital and printed media are secondary to the personal interaction. I bet most of you agrees with this, but even so I would still want to put emphasis on it, since it is very easy to rely on technology and not spend enough time on direct communication via either meetings, phone or video conference.
With this said, let’s look at how I communicate my past, my present and my future.
My history
Storytelling is a big part of any brand and I like to communicate my story. This encompasses who I was before I started to work with my personal development and then my personal brand. This is often communicated when I am asked what I do or why I am doing it. So far I have chosen to only communicate this when meeting other people, but I am considering working with a Nashville video studio to put a video on my website and my blog as well for a broader audience to better understand who I am and why I am so happy with whom I am. Of course, not every piece of my background is positive, but they have taken part in shaping who I am nonetheless.
I often use stories about my past on my personal webpage, my corporate webpage, my network profiles and my blog that reflect who I am, but the main focus on these sites is more about what I did, rather than who I was.
The Present Me
Who I am today is partially who I was yesterday and partially where I want to be tomorrow, which makes it dependent on the historic me and guides me into the future.
In a personal meeting, I try not to make it all about me, instead trying to listen more to the other person(s). But whenever I encounter a subject that is aligned with my skills, passions, or values, I have some anecdotes and stories that are not only interesting and amusing, but that also support my interest and expertise in that area. I always try to make it about the other person and base my communication on what they are interested in and how we can find win-win situations (whether talking about business or leisure). I am a strong believer in givers gain.
Of course, a part of me communicating who I am is me writing a blog about my ideas, my values, and my thoughts. But as I mentioned last week I also have my personal mission statement, short term goals that I communicate with my fiancée and my coworkers. The last couple of years, part of this communication has been done on Twitter and Facebook as well to express feelings, thoughts and state of mind.
The Future Me
Every year I present my goals to my friends and family, and encourage them to do the same. I also encourage them to share how I can help them reach their goals. I do this mainly because I love to help people, but it also strengthens my brand as being a caring and helping friend. I communicate other goals through social media, while on stage talking about personal branding or digital/social marketing strategies, or just during one-on-one meetings. What you want to be and achieve in the future is one of the strongest way of expressing who you are today.
I would love to hear what you do to work with “Who You Communicate Who You Are”. Please share thoughts and ideas by posting comments below!
Next week
Part 3: What I Do
Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding (covered in this blog) as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).His company, The Rynge Group specializes in market oriented small business and idea development, including social media strategies and implementations.