The Formula for Personal Branding

My for­mula for per­son­al brand­ing is different.

There’s no short­age of online advice on estab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing your per­son­al brand.

But my per­son­al brand­ing for­mula is dif­fer­ent — it’s action­able.

Here we go:

Formulas for Personal Branding

There are plenty of sug­ges­ted for­mu­las for per­son­al branding:

Jennifer Holbus sug­gests the 3 C’s: Clarity, Consistency, and Constancy. Kimberly Moniz sug­gests the 5 P’s: Personal, Pointed, Prioritised, Purposeful, and Profitable. Abida Malik sug­gests the 4 C’s: Clarity, Consistency, Content, and Connection. ¹Holbus, J. (2018, October 24). The Three Cs of Personal Branding. Linkedin​.com. https://​www​.linked​in​.com/​p​u​l​s​e​/​t​h​r​e​e​-​c​s​-​p​e​r​s​o​n​a​l​-​b​r​a​n​d​i​n​g​-​j​e​n​n​i​f​e​r​-​h​o​l​b​u​s​-​m​b​a​-​c​l​s​s​m​b​b​-​c​c​mp/ ²Moniz, K. (2023, October 4). Crafting Your Impactful Personal Brand: The 5 P’s Unveiled. Medium. … Continue read­ing ³Malik, A. (2023, August 9). Unveiling the 4Cs of Personal Branding. Linkedin​.com. https://​www​.linked​in​.com/​p​u​l​s​e​/​u​n​v​e​i​l​i​n​g​-​4​c​s​-​p​e​r​s​o​n​a​l​-​b​r​a​n​d​i​n​g​-​a​b​i​d​a​-​m​a​l​ik/

Linda Evans sug­gests a frame­work where the first let­ters are not identic­al: Authentic, Compelling, Relevant, Cohesive, Trustworthy, and Consistent. ⁴Evans, L. (2021, April 29). 6 Attributes of Effective Personal Brands. Linkedin​.com. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6‑attributes-effective-personal-brands-linda-evans/

There’s a strong case being made for consistency:

Brand Consistency in Social Media = Followers sub­scribe now (today’s brand per­form­ance) on faith (tomorrow’s brand per­form­ance) via trust (yesterday’s brand per­form­ance).

I found these sug­ges­ted steps in the sci­entif­ic lit­er­at­ure: Introspection, Understanding, Developing, Mantra, Crafting, Digital Footprint, and Communicating.

“Personal brand­ing can lead to pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess by defin­ing your­self pro­fes­sion­ally through six steps: intro­spec­tion, under­stand­ing, devel­op­ing, man­tra, craft­ing, digit­al foot­print, and com­mu­nic­at­ing.”
Source: Medical Reference Services Quarterly ⁵Philbrick, J., & Cleveland, A. (2015). Personal Branding: Building Your Pathway to Professional Success. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34, 181 — … Continue read­ing

That is inter­est­ing, but where do you go from here?

The Power of Actionable Advice

Most online advice on per­son­al brand­ing is excel­lent and well-mean­ing — but also self-evid­ent. What would be the altern­at­ive to being authen­t­ic, con­sist­ent, and trans­par­ent? Disingenuous, incon­sist­ent, and incom­pre­hens­ible? I bet most aspir­ing per­son­al brands could’ve figured out as much.

But there’s a per­son­al brand­ing les­son hid­den behind all of these well-mean­ing but often non-action­able pieces of advice:

The “imme­di­ate” part is crit­ic­al — res­ults don’t neces­sar­ily have to be sig­ni­fic­ant. The inter­net is littered with con­tent telling people what to do in gen­er­al terms. As a per­son­al brand, you must find a way to break this cycle with­in your niche.

Think about it briefly: In this blog post, I’ve giv­en you an over­view of what’s been said else­where. That’s all good, but what action can you take based on that inform­a­tion? I’ve also poin­ted out that action­able con­tent is more potent than inform­at­ive con­tent, but how — exactly — does that make your inten­ded con­tent work for you?

It doesn’t.

The Formula for Personal Branding

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Doctor Spin’s Formula for Personal Branding

Here’s my action­able for­mula for per­son­al branding:

Stupid Majority + Smart Minority = PR Success

What do these con­cepts mean?

Stupid Majority = a major­ity of today that will stead­ily decline into a minor­ity of tomorrow.

Smart Minority = a minor­ity of today that will grow into a new major­ity of tomorrow.

So, what do you have to do exactly?

Identify your Stupid Majority. For example, in my niche, the pub­lic rela­tions industry, there are plenty:

• “PR is all about pub­li­city and media relations.”
• “Digital com­mu­nic­a­tion is too tech­nic­al for PR professionals.”
• “PR pro­fes­sion­als must talk using cor­por­ate platitudes.”
• “PR pro­fes­sion­als must send out shitty press releases.”
• “Working with influ­en­cers is mar­ket­ing, not PR.”
• “PR will be okay once we fig­ure out how to cal­cu­late ROI.”
• “The PR func­tion should be rep­res­en­ted at the C‑level no mat­ter what.”
• “Corporate com­mu­nic­a­tion and CSR must be ‘boomer bor­ing,’ cringe, and woke.”
• “PR pro­fes­sion­als don’t have to know any­thing about web design, art dir­ec­tion, or UIX.”
• “To work with PR, you don’t have to know any­thing about PR his­tory, aca­dem­ic research, or theories.”
• “A PR strategy is the same as a PR plan.”

And so on. 

There are plenty of Stupid Majorities (and cor­res­pond­ing Smart Minorities) every­where — as long as you’re will­ing to scratch the sur­face. You must brain­storm and pro­duce a list for your niche or industry to get started.

Once you start gain­ing trac­tion, remem­ber that not every­one will love you. There’s the para­dox of prom­in­ence and the Norman axiom.

Learn more: The Formula for Personal Branding

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“Top 50 Over 50”

The example:

An industry col­league of mine noticed that our cul­ture cel­eb­rates youth. If you’re past a cer­tain age, you’re often regarded as “too old.”

There are “top 30 under 30” in the busi­ness world, but rarely “top 50 over 50.” This is, of course, stupid.

This is the drum his per­son­al brand has been banging on for the last dec­ade: art­icles, sem­inars, pub­li­city, and social media updates. Even though he’s made a dif­fer­ence, the fight with the Stupud Majoritl con­tin­ues. His per­son­al brand is more rel­ev­ant and in demand to this day.

At first glance, it is not appar­ent how “age dis­crim­in­a­tion” fits with a per­son­al brand in the PR industry. However, on second thought, PR is all about busi­ness rela­tion­ships and how the media por­trays the real­ity we all have to live in.

Next Step — Actionable Content

My per­son­al brand­ing for­mula is decept­ively simple:

Stupid Majority + Smart Minority = PR Success

Identify your Stupid Majority and become a cham­pi­on by provid­ing action­able con­tent for your Smart Minority. How come this works?

If you’re inter­ested in going deep­er, I sug­gest learn­ing more about:

In clos­ing, I won’t wish you Good Luck.
I’m wish­ing you a Happy Fight!

PR Resource: More Personal Branding

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Doctor Spin’s Personal Branding School

• The Formula for Personal Branding
• How To Build Your Personal Brand
• The Follower Contract
• How Ghost Followers Destroy Your Brand
• The Pixar Pitch (to be published)
• The Rebel Yell (to be published)

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: More PR Theories

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Doctor Spin’s PR School: PR Theories

• Public Relations Definition
• The Four Models of Public Relations
• PR Approaches: Excellence, Rhetorical, and Critical
• Priming in PR: The Subtle Art of Pre-Suasion
• Framing in PR: How To Bypass Confirmation Bias
• Kirk Hallahan’s Five Types of Publics
• The Stakeholders in Public Relations
• The Influencers in Public Relations
• The Publics in Public Relations
• The PESO Model: Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: Language of Fascination

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The Languages of Fascination

Author Sally Hogshead cre­ated the concept and the visu­al rep­res­ent­a­tion of the lan­guages of fas­cin­a­tion. Discover more at how​to​fas​cin​ate​.com.

“80% of people behave dif­fer­ently when they’re fas­cin­ated by a brand. They do research, talk to friends. In fact, con­sumers report spe­cif­ic phys­ic­al responses to fas­cin­at­ing products: a faster heart rate and ‘thrill’ of excite­ment.“
Source: Sally Hogshead ⁶Hogshead, S. (2024, October 10). How to Fascinate. https://​www​.how​to​fas​cin​ate​.com/

Hogshead’s mod­el is a help­ful primer for copy­writ­ing for per­son­al brands in all types of industries.

The 7 Languages of Fascination

• Innovation is the lan­guage of creativity.
• Passion is the lan­guage of relationships.
• Power is the lan­guage of confidence.
• Prestige is the lan­guage of excellence.
• Trust is the lan­guage of stability.
• Mystique is the lan­guage of listening.
• Alert is the lan­guage of details.

Hogshead’s 49 Personality Archetypes

Learn more: Take Hogshead’s “Fascinate Assessment”

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