We spoke to Amy Cartwright, One Agency’s resident social media mastermind, to unravel the truth behind the smoke of personal branding.

What is a personal brand?

It’s a reflection of your unique skills, experiences, values, personality, and how they’re perceived by others. Personal branding is about shaping how you want people to view you, whether that’s in your career, social circles, or any other aspect of your life.

Do you need a personal brand?

Yes, cultivating a personal brand is really important in today’s professional and digital world. It’ll help you to establish your identity, enhance your visibility, build credibility and trust, network, and stand out in a competitive environment. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, job seeker, or professional looking to advance in your career, a strong personal brand will help to create valuable opportunities for you.

Why is personal branding important?

In a general sense, personal branding is important because it shapes how others perceive you and helps to distinguish you from people in your field. 

As my background is in social media, building my personal brand on social media was a no brainer. Most notably, I’ve been the face of One Agency’s TikTok and Instagram which has been invaluable to me.

If you choose to build your personal brand on social media, you’ll be provided with a platform that allows you to engage with a global audience. Two key benefits of social media are that it allows for real-time interaction with your community, and secondly, social media platforms and algorithms are constantly evolving, thereby providing you with a unique opportunity to experiment with new formats such as Reels, carousel posts, live videos, or polls etc,. 

How do you build your personal brand?

• Think about something you’re well-versed or opinionated on. For me, that’s trends and pop culture
• Define your goals and your USP (unique selling point)
• Identify who you want your target audience to be
• Create your brand manifesto
• Run a background check on yourself to make sure when your name is searched online, nothing potentially damaging appears
• Create an online portfolio, blog, social media page, or website
• Begin!
• Include your own insights into trending topics, and never cover stuff for the sake of it as it’ll weaken your position
• Network
• Ask for feedback and adapt accordingly
• Monitor your progress and be honest with yourself
• Remain authentic to yourself and be consistent

Don’t panic.

Social media is built upon algorithms, and algorithms are famously unpredictable. One week, it’s madly in love with you and wants to show you off to everyone in its life, and then the following day, it pretends like you don’t exist – trust me, I know. Don’t worry, the algorithm ebbs and flows and it’s natural for your content to perform differently throughout the month. Focus on being consistent with posting and community engagement, and the algorithm will reward you.

Now, with everything you’ve learned, it’s your turn to get started! If you’d like to learn more, call One Agency on 0330 400 4169, or send an email to [email protected].