Bella’s Scribblings: Personal Branding

Bella Osborne

Now here’s an interesting phrase I heard recently ‘personal branding’. My immediate thoughts were ‘Someone has a new tattoo’ which was closely followed by ‘or pencils with their name on’. Do you remember the pencils by the way? They were great, new school term, new pencil case and your own pencils with your own actual name on them – genius! (Makes note to order some for myself)

Anyway, it turns out I was completely wrong on both counts. Personal branding is all about you and it’s is quite important if you are promoting yourself or your own business. We are all familiar with big company brands like Disney, Coca Cola and Cadburys but what does it mean for us as individuals?

So I did a bit of research (which we all know means I watched funny cats on You Tube for 20 minutes and then googled personal branding). There was loads of content to read but here are the highlights I picked up that I thought might be useful:

• Personal branding is about thinking of yourself as the product you want to sell – about making the impression you want to make with others
• You need to establish what your personal brand is by being clear on:

o   What is unique about you?

o   What do you want people to remember?

o   What impression do you want to make?

o   How do you want to make people feel?

• Social Media is key to personal brand. Every tweet and every FB entry is all promoting your personal brand, so are those entries promoting you as you would want? Are they consistent with your brand?

It’s an interesting concept but it feels like a very restrictive one. Personally I’m a big believer in ‘What you see is what you get’ so for me I’m going to pretty much carry on regardless. That does sound really flippant but I guess I am already displaying the personal brand that I want people to see. I’m no expert but I’m happy to share what I’m learning as I’m fumbling my way along as a writer. I don’t always stand out from the crowd (unless I do that snorty laugh thing). It sounds too exhausting to try to be an aspirational brand 100% of the time and I need to conserve all the energy I can. I would like people to connect with the real me, rather than a brand I have invented or even honed.

So in short I’m going to leave branding to the big companies*. This is me. The End.

*apart from the pencils with my name on, clearly we all need some of those.

Bella has just finished her first novel, Acting on Impulse, which earned her a runner-up place for the New Talent Award at the 2013 Festival of Romance. Every fortnight, Bella will be sharing her experiences and advice as a new author. She also has her own blog – www.bellaosborne.com

by

Bella Osborne

Bella’s first novel, It Started at Sunset Cottage was released by Harper Impulse. She was a runner-up for the New Talent Award at the 2013 Festival of Romance and a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.