How to build your personal brand when transitioning into Tech
If you are reading this, you are probably looking to start a new career or are already employed and want to change how the public sees you. My name is Adeola, and I have been a marketing strategist for almost two years, and I recently switched to a new profession in software development, which you can read about here.
What is a Personal Brand?
Personal branding is the story people tell about you when you’re not in the room.- Jessie Maltin
A personal brand is simply how you want people to see you. This is done by creating an image of yourself for the outside world.
Why do you need a Personal Brand?
If you don’t share your ideas, no one will know if they’re any good. — Dorie Clark
According to Smart Insights (2022),4.62 billion people around the world now use social media, and 424 million people have become new users within the last 12 months.
Since more than half of the world’s population uses social media, promoting your work online is more important than ever because it allows you access to billions of people globally, be memorable, and be able to stand out from the thousands of people like you.
One thing I was conscious of when transitioning was the significance of making myself and my work visible. As a marketing strategist, I worked with people in various industries who wanted to build their personal brands and become thought leaders in their industry. This seemed extremely straightforward in theory — all I had to do was create something and post it — but I soon found that in practice, it was far more difficult than that. I needed to have a strategy.
How to build your personal brand
The process of developing a personal brand can be overwhelming, and not knowing where to begin makes it easy to become frustrated. Here’s how I went about building one, so you don't have to worry about it.
1. Who are you?
It takes a lot of reflection to build a personal brand. You must ask yourself, “Who am I?” identifying your skills and area of expertise. By doing this, you can create the narrative about yourself that you want to tell the world.
Figuring it who you are can be difficult, and while some people may have it figured out, not everyone does. One way to approach this is to ask friends and family for help, or you can obtain a piece of paper and try to put down adjectives that you think best define you.
2. Find your niche and do a lot of research
Find the industry or niche (social media marketing, data science, product design, etc.) where you want to make a name for yourself and the specific target audience you want to speak to (students looking to learn about personal finance, or mums transitioning into a new industry). Study people already doing what you’re doing and what makes them appealing to their target audience.
By identifying your niche, you’re more likely to stand out in the market because you’ll be providing solutions to people who require what you have to offer.
For myself, I wanted to talk about transitioning into a new profession, show off the things I developed and designed, and create a community to make people’s transitions less difficult.
3. Create Value
Consistently provide valuable content that is helpful to your audience, and showcases your expertise.
Create entertaining and educational posts in your niche that will be shared on your social media platform. Google Trends, Buzzsumo, Ubersuggest, and Answer the public to help you develop content that your audience is likely to listen to are all tools you can use to accomplish this.
Your content can be in various formats Reels, articles, infographics, videos, etc. I for example make use of Instagram Reels and TikTok a lot because I prefer to create short informative tutorials.
4. Optimize Your Online presence
Just like customers search online when they're trying to buy a product, people who would like to work with you are likely to search online for you.
So, get a Website. The best part is that you don’t necessarily need to know how to code for this because there are so many no-code tools like Wix, Web flow, etc. that would help you with this. A website serves as your online portfolio when you’re applying for jobs because it allows you to easily showcase your work, your personality, your experiences, etc. You can also go a step further by providing useful content on your website that is likely to appeal to your audience. You can read more about my experience building mine here.
Build your social media presence. There are many social media platforms available today, so it’s crucial to pick the ones that suit you the most because they’ll help you develop your brand voice and reach different audiences.
Some things you can do:
- Fill out the required information. Visitors to your page will be able to learn more about you by seeing who you are, your background and experiences, your education, your certificates, and other information by doing this
- Share consistent informative content. Everyone loves people who create value, so share valuable posts that your audience can relate to. This could be in the form of text, polls, infographics, video, or even audio.
- Use a professional and consistent image. Turns out I’m not the only one who has my name in the entire world. But using a consistent image makes it easier for people to find you and also showcases you as a professional.
- Use keywords and relevant hashtags. Make it simple for your audience to locate you by using hashtags in your posts and using keywords that are relevant to your brand or career throughout your profile.
- Make connections with others working in the field you want to enter. These can be professionals in your industry, recruiters, or thought leaders in your field.
5. Join Communities and collaborate with people in your industry
It's not enough to just create content and post them on the internet. Create or join communities within your niche that will allow you to contribute, learn from, and make friends with people you can work with to demonstrate your collaboration skills and join forces to develop answers to issues your industry is facing.
