Personal Branding
Your image and reputation are fundamental in branding. Through effective personal branding, you are able to control the way that the public views and perceives your brand; therefore, this is an essential step in the process of promoting your brand.
As mentioned by Forbes Magazine, personal branding is the difference between “Who are you? And “Thank you for being here” in your career. It does not necessarily mean that you have to be a social media influencer; it has to do with promoting and solidly establishing what it is that you stand for.
You may for example be offering something of legitimate value and significance; however without powerful personal branding, what you are potentially providing will not make its way to the appropriate target audience for your brand.
It is as a famous proverb by Mae West says, “it’s not what you say, but how you say it.” The way that you are promoting something is more important than what you are actually promoting itself. A picture is worth a thousand words, and what better way to promote yourself and your personal brand than through a photo itself?
Here at Brio Five, we will help develop your brand strategy and promote your brand in the most successful and effective way: through empowering personal branding photography.
Personal Branding Defined
Personal branding is all about the way that you promote your brand. Specifically, it is the practice of someone marketing him/herself and his/her career as a brand.
It has to do with not only establishing the impression and established image that you or your brand has in the minds of the public, but it also has to do with the way that you continue to express your brand identity.
Here at Brio Five, we believe that it is not about how you look, but about how you feel on the inside. The way you feel on the inside will express itself through a photo and will instantaneously reflect onto the image of your personal brand.
Why is personal branding important?
The base and success of personal branding has to do with inspiring others; what powerful brands do is build relationships and inspire followers. Inspiration occurs when your already existing or potential followers, are able to experience the value of the message that you are defining.
Inspiration is important because it creates positive feelings towards your brand and drives others to follow and trust you. You could be branding yourself, a good, or even a service; whatever it is that you choose to brand, effective personal branding will grant you numerous advantages.
Personal branding builds credibility, inputs trust, allows you to build significant connections and create brand awareness, grants your brand authenticity, and most importantly, personal branding boosts your confidence.
The success of your brand depends a great amount on the way that the public will perceive it. If your brand has a positive connotation to it, it will be more liked; this way, you will be more successful in promoting your brand and creating brand awareness.
5 Personal Branding Examples
1. Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama: writer, lawyer and Former First Lady of the United States. Michelle Obama dedicated her time to numerous causes during her tenure as the First Lady of the United States from the years of 2009 to 2017.
Causes that Michelle Obama fought for and supported included conservation, children, cancer, the environment, education, creative arts, homelessness, health, human rights, literacy, peace, hunger, philanthropy, miscellaneous, women, poverty, veteran and service member support and sports.
The causes and charity work that she continuously dedicated and committed herself to allowed her to show the citizens of the United States, as well as the world, that she was someone who genuinely cared about humanity. She developed her brand in such a way that she was able to show that she stood true to important human values and beliefs.
This way, Michelle Obama managed to connect with people who featured a very diverse variety of backgrounds, allowing her to build an especially strong fan base. She is someone who branded herself as a woman who truly wants the best for everyone and has become a role model for a very large number people.
2. Jay Shetty
Jay Shetty is a Indian-English motivational speaker and lifestyle vlogger. Jay Shetty was a monk, who in his early career, worked as a digital strategist at a Accenture, a global consulting firm. Today he is a storyteller, filmmaker and host, who has over three million followers.
He launched his Facebook channel in 2016; today he has gained over almost 2 million subscribers on Youtube alone, and has accumulated over onebillion views on his viral wisdom videos. He has partnered and been recognized by distinguished companies, such as National Geographic, Huffpost, Facebook, Snapchat, Forbes, Daily Mail, Vogue, BBC, Yahoo and Entrepreneur, amongst others.
Additionally, Jay Shetty has connected and conducted interviews with Tim Ferris, Deepak Chopra and Russell Simmons. He has been recognized on “Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2017 Europe” for being a “game changer” in media.
The list goes on; but how did he do this? Through personal branding, of course. Jay Shetty was able to effectively create an empowering image of himself and his personal brand. The videos that Jay Shetty creates make sure to keep viewers engaged, and most importantly, to inspire.
The way that Jay Shetty performs and the passion that he exerts in the videos that he creates and posts on social media are extremely empowering. This sense of empowerment that he expresses through his videos have allowed him to create a brand image so strong, that he has currently become an internationally acknowledged speaker and host, with videos with over billions of views to say the least.
3. Oprah Winfrey
Legendary Oprah Winfrey, is an American film actress, media executive, philanthropist, talk-show host and television producer. She is universally best known for hosting her talk show, known as “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which aired 25 seasons from the years of 1986 to 2011 and proudly made her the first black female host of a nationally syndicated daily talk show.
Following this internationally popular talk show, Oprah Winfrey was able to launch her very own television network, known as Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
The way that Oprah was able to portray herself on her talk show and the way that she very powerfully interacted with her audience was extremely inspiring. She made her brand meaningful and stood especially strong on “speaking her truth,” something that she herself claims, is “the most powerful tool we all have.”
Oprah is known to have openly discussed her childhood traumas. Through this, she emphasized the importance of genuinity within your personal brand. Being authentic, honest and true are important when trying to portray and maintain a positive image towards your target audience. That is because in our world today, especially, people like transparency.
On a separate note, it is important to acknowledge that Oprah is known to have resisted calling herself a brand. Oprah insisted that she was a person and did not want her brand name to make her lose the connection that she was developing with fellow humans.
This is where you have to establish what you want: are you more interested in promoting yourself, or are you more interested in promoting the good or services that you are providing through your brand?
By personally branding herself, Oprah was able to connect and build a sense of trust with her audience, on an especially deep level, allowing her to truly show the world who she was and what it was the she was standing for.
This is the reason why a personal branding photoshoot could truly change your brand identity towards the best; because you are showing your audience who you, yourself, are.
Through personal branding and by establishing the above mentioned qualities within her brand, Oprah was able to become the extremely empowering, inspiring and accomplished women that she is today.
4. Logan Green
Logan Green is a co-founder and the current CEO of the Lyft transportation network company. Logan Green joined many who strongly stood up against Donald Trump’s immigration ban. This ban has revoked over 100,000 foreign visas and has strongly affected a number of individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Many spoke out against this decision, as it ignited great controversy. In January of 2017, Logan Green released a series of tweets concerning the travel ban.
Through his social media posts, Logan Green was able to show to stand true to the company’s beliefs, supporting the Lyft community by strongly withstanding the executive order as Lyft is known to have built a very diverse and conscientious community
Logan Green’s strong support for refugees and immigrants in the United States has not only helped him strengthen his personal brand and create a very genuine and empowering personal brand image, but it has also benefited the company tremendously. It is really all about how the public views you, and in this case, Lyft is definitely seen as “the good guy.”
5. Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg is known as the COO of Facebook. She has been working and making an impact at Facebook since March of 2008 and was elected as the first women board of director at the company in 2012.
In March of 2013, Sheryl Sandberg published her book with the name Lean In, in which she talks about the difficulties of being a working mother and the struggles she has has faced trying to balance the two together. Through her book, Sandberg was able to connect with other mothers who could resonate and who were facing similar troubles.
Sheryl Sandberg has built a strong reputation as a support of women within the workplace. The way that Sandberg has branded herself has given her the image of a strong advocate for women, this way also empowering Facebook and its brand identity as a whole.
6. Huda Kattan
The Dubai-based Huda Kattan is a makeup artist, beauty blogger, and entrepreneur, who founded her beauty empire—Huda Beauty cosmetics line—in 2013. Huda Kattan currently has over 32 million followers in instagram alone; over 3 million subscribers on YouTube; 6.4 million likes on her Huda Beauty Facebook page; and 156 K followers on Twitter.
Huda Kattan, however, had a very humble beginning in her career. The transparency that this incredibly successful beauty blogger created and her openness concerning the challenges she had to face in her everyday life, both current and growing up, were huge factors that pertained to her incredible fan base.
Huda Kattan started her business by first creating her blog and establishing her personal image. She eventually turned her blog into her current million dollar brand: a perfect example of how effective personal branding can lead to great success.
Final Thoughts
Personal branding allows you to connect with your audience in a way that forms a unique and genuine connection. This genuine connection is extremely empowering and it is what brings your brand’s identity to the very next level.
Here at Briofive, we want to help to show your audience who you you truly are, because it is not simply about how you look; it is really about how you feel on the inside.
Reflecting that is what brings out the truest form of authenticity, and authenticity and personal branding go hand-in-hand. That is exactly what we specifically specialize in here at Briofive: personal branding through authentic portraits. We want to make experts looks like experts, to evoke confidence and to impress influence.
Trust us to bring out the very best version of you with the simple click of a camera.
Book a Call with Los Angeles Professional Brand Photographer Sandy Grigsby.