So, you have decided that having a purposeful personal brand is important and you’ve sorted out your goals. Awesome. Now what? Well, like branding for business, you have to figure out who is actually going to care about your brand and therefore “buy it.”
At Broadreach, we always find ourselves reminding clients that they can’t (and shouldn’t) talk to everyone, because ‘everyone’ is not a customer, employee, friend, or general stakeholder in their organization.
For example, if you sell and green/sustainable product, you should be not spending a lot of time trying to convince the Baby Boomer Republican who drives a Suburban and owns a generator that could power a small village to buy that product. Could you win them over as a customer? Yeah, sure, but it’s going to take A LOT more effort (and time and money) than convincing a Millennial Whole Foods shopper who packs a reusable water bottle with them at every step. Pick your battles and pick them wisely.
Figuring out who cares about your brand takes a process that we call “Audience Identification” and is self explanatory. With personal branding, however, determining your target audiences is a bit more complicated and requires you to have a good look at yourself and your goals. It also takes some research.
In my personal branding journey, I want to be seen as a creative, intelligent, fun and successful PR professional. Ok, Why? Maybe I want to be the President of Edelman one day (hey, it could happen). Who are my allies in achieving this goal? Who might be a roadblock? Start a list of people or a type of person that fit these categories and think broad- you can always narrow down the list later.
I’m not going to list all of my potential audiences here, but here are some target ones:
- My family and friends– they are my personal support system and I look to them for help and advice for most everything in my life
- My Broadreach peeps– Obviously, I am learning how to be a great PR professional at Broadreach PR. I wouldn’t be writing this blog post without Broadreach
- PR Industry Leaders– I may not know these people personally, but I keep tabs on who the top pros in my industry are by following top blogs (shout out to Peter Shankman, Todd Defren at Shift Communications, and Ragan’s PRDaily), reading PRWeek for info on the top rated professionals and contributors, noting PRSA Award Winners, and yes, I might moderately stalk these people on Twitter.
- Industry Organizations– In Maine, we have the Maine Public Relations Council. Nationally, there is the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America), The Institute for Public Relations, and a vast many others that get a bit more focused in area of expertise as you drill down.
Yay! I know who I’m talking to! Now it’s time to figure out how to reach them and what I’m going to say…. Stay tuned for The Personal Branding Journey Pt 3- Communication Channels. (the perfect line shouted into the wind will not actually help)
~Kate
