CHAPTER 8

Build Your Personal Brand Identity System

 

Design the Package

When I was living in Europe, I was on a BBC reality TV show pilot called Nice Package. Now before your mind wanders into X-rated territory, Nice Package referred to everything that surrounds someone—in the case of this reality show, someone you want to date. In this pilot for the series, a young single woman got to check out everything about three potential dates—everything, that is, except the guy himself. Together, we rummaged through the guys’ apartments, talked to their friends, drove in their cars, visited their favorite pubs, and so forth. I was the guest personal branding expert for the show and was tasked with helping her make sense of the brand environments of these three potential suitors.

Being on this show reinforced for me how much you can learn about someone from the things that (and people who) surround them. So when it comes to branding, it’s important to align everything that surrounds you with who you are and how you want to be known. When you do, you bolster your brand. When your surroundings are not consistent with who you are, you create confusion and dilute your brand. We talked about the external perceptions element—what people think about you—in chapter 2. And we’ll talk about your brand community in chapter 10—the people who surround your brand. In this chapter, we are going to talk about the packaging that helps deliver your brand to those audiences.

Specifically, we’re going to discuss your personal brand identity (PBID)—it’s the all-important container for digital brand you.

Let’s start with a mindset reset.

MINDSET RESET

First, we’ll talk about the individual elements of your PBID. Then, we’ll focus on applying your brand identity to your digital brand communications.

Your PBID is the visual vernacular for your brand. And thanks to the move to digital, it includes all rich-media elements that help you reinforce your personal brand attributes. This rich-media design system includes the visuals, sound, motion, and other elements you will use consistently as the wrapper to all your communications. This wrapper helps to reinforce your brand attributes and create recognition. Your PBID is made up of three elements: visual, audio, and video.

The visual elements include:

• color

• font

• textures

• images.

The audio elements include:

• scripts

• intro tracks

• microphones.

We’ll talk about video elements in chapter 9.

Now, you might be thinking: I don’t need a PBID. I work for a company and am planning on working for The Man (or The Ma’am) for the rest of my career. Well, that’s all great, but remember the career trends I discussed at the beginning of this book:

• You will likely change roles frequently throughout your career, even if you manage to stay at the same company for the long haul.

• Your company may not be around for as long as you’ll be working.

• Searching for a job is much harder work than having your ideal job find you.

• Digital branding requires that you convey a consistent message and exude a consistent digital personality.

And besides, you’ll be building a community of people (we’ll talk about that in part 4) who need to see you as a polished expert and thought leader; that requires you use a consistent visual system for creating recognition and memorability.

Of course, when you’re communicating on behalf of your company, you must follow their brand identity guidelines, but for all of your communications, your PBID is an essential element.

Choosing Your Visual Elements

Now let’s create your own language—the visual vocabulary of your brand.

Brand Color

Color is the most important of all of the visual elements of your PBID. That’s because color exudes brand attributes, evokes emotion, and creates recognition and memorability. NYU professor Adam Alter, who wrote Drunk Tank Pink, puts it like this: “Color sells, it persuades, it cajoles.”

Here’s a quick quiz:

Take a look at the brands in the left column in this table, and identify their brand color (Table 8-1).

Table 8-1. Name That Brand Color

BRAND	COLOR?
Avis
Breast cancer research
IBM
McDonald’s
Harley Davidson
Cadbury
Google

If you guessed red, pink, blue, yellow, orange, purple, and red/yellow/green/blue (in that order)—you score an A! You also proved my point about the fact that color can communicate a consistent brand identity.

Building Brand Hue

Color can be extremely powerful—especially on the web, or in all those situations that require you to convey your brand without the benefit of being there in person. When you develop a strategy for using color on all your communications and apply it consistently, you’ll become memorable, and you’ll stand out from others who do what you do.

When I say apply color to all your communications, I suggest you select one color and use it consistently. Resist the temptation to use all 64 colors in a box of Crayola crayons. Sure, in our quiz above you may have guessed the four colors of the Google brand, but the revenue of their parent company, Alphabet, was about $140 billion in their fiscal year 2018. So they likely have a lot more money for making their brand colors visible and recognized. Plus, they’ve now aligned themselves with the multicolor approach, so that option is off the table for you. Your assignment is to choose the single best color for your brand.

Do This, Not That

Do choose the color that best represents your personality.

Don’t choose your favorite color—unless it also expresses your brand.

Every color exudes certain personality characteristics. For example, yellow says optimism while blue connotes trust. Check out this video to help you identify the perfect brand color to reinforce your personality: http://360rea.ch/YourBrandColor. The video shows you what each of the six primary and secondary colors expresses.

After you watch the video, select the color that best represents your brand. You may want to go back to part 1 of this book to remind yourself of the most important elements of your brand—the brand attributes that are authentic, differentiating, and compelling to your target audience. Your color could be the one that exudes the largest number of brand attributes that describe you, or it could be the color that expresses that one word that is so important to who you are and how you want to be known.

Once you identify the best color for your personal brand, select the specific tint or shade you’d like to use. The best site to help with this is Pantone Colours. Once you know the Pantone Matching System (PMS) color, you can determine the HEX value. PMS color is for printed materials, whereas HEX is used for digital applications. You can convert your PMS to HEX easily here: https://360rea.ch/ConvertColor.

And since you are going to be using your brand color on the web, I suggest choosing one of the web-safe colors—the closest to the color you selected using the Pantone system. There are 216 web-safe colors. They’re called web safe because they display consistently on various hardware environments, operating systems, and web browsers. You can find a web-safe color resource here: https://websafecolors.info/color-chart.

Now if all this seems way too “designer” to you, you can always hire a designer inexpensively (remember, it’s an investment!) who will be able to manage all this for you. Upwork.com is a great resource for finding a graphic designer.

Once you have your brand color, whenever you need to create visual communications, you can apply it consistently. For example, the primary brand color I have chosen for myself is yellow, which exudes optimism and positivity.

Ways to Use Color

Here are some ideas for ways to use color for brand differentiation and memorability:

• Apply it to your personal website, blog, or vlog if you have one.

• Create your own stationery system—letterhead, business cards, envelopes, and so on featuring your signature color in those real-world communications.

• Develop PowerPoint/Word or Keynote/Pages templates that feature your brand color.

• Create branded thank-you notes to acknowledge others.

• Add it to your Twitter background.

• Use it in your YouTube channel. YouTube lets you choose the color of your channel or completely customize it.

• Update your Facebook page with your signature color.

• Make it the background color for your headshot or avatar that you post alongside your online profiles (in LinkedIn and other social media).

• Use it in your videos, as a background color and for the intro and outro. Or, do what IBM does in their TV ads and use the letterbox style, which features a band of color above and below the video.

• Use it as a screen saver as a reminder of your brand color.

• Include a dose of color in your email signature in all correspondence with your contacts.

Understanding Brand Fonts

Using fonts consistently can help people recognize communications as coming from you. There are two primary types of fonts—serif fonts (they’re the ones with the little tails) and sans serif, without the tails (“sans” means “without” in French). Times New Roman and Georgia are examples of serif fonts. Serif fonts have a long history. They’ve been around since the Roman Empire. According to Sarah Hyndman, founder of the Type Tasting studio, in an interview published on Moo.com, “Type is our voice, so the typeface you use very much reflects your personality. It works as a first impression, in a very similar way to our clothes. For example, if I set something in a serif typeface, it’s the equivalent of me wearing my glasses—it’s been shown that people interpret words in serif as well researched and more intellectual.”

Sans serif fonts are newer and more modern. Common ones include Helvetica and Verdana. Sarah advises that you use your typeface to tell the story you want to tell. “Your branding should reflect your personality or attitude—serious and well informed, open and modern, or relaxed and casual. For example, the Cooper Black font says ‘70s nostalgia and sunshine,’ while Benguiat says ‘80s authentic’ (think Stranger Things). Or you can use it to communicate with a particular tribe, using typefaces and tone of voice to connect with your target audience.”

If your brand is more traditional, serious, or formal, you might want to choose a serif font. If you’re going for a more modern and innovative feel, sans serif might be right. Whichever you choose as your primary font, use it consistently in your documents, PowerPoint presentations, infographics, and other materials.

Applying Textures

I’m a big fan of creating and using consistent textures. When you develop them as part of your brand identity system, you can select among them every time you have a new communication that demands a texture.

You can apply them:

• to your social media backgrounds

• on PowerPoint or Keynote slides

• as a background for conveying quotes or stats.

Figure 8-1 shows what one of my quotes looks like on the background my company, Reach Personal Branding, uses.

Use textures that help you reinforce your brand message. For example, if you are all about technology, you could use a circuit board texture. If you’re global, world maps might work.

Choosing Brand Images

You’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images can go a long way to help you convey your message. So decide on the kinds of images that are right for your brand. First, decide if you prefer illustrations or photographic images. It’s more of a personal choice—you just want a plan to use them consistently so it is easy for people to recognize materials that come from you.

Incorporate images as a part of every article or blog you create. According to contentmarketing.com, articles with images get 94 percent more total views. If you’re going to go through all the work to write the article, add the picture to maximize the visibility.

So how do you find the images that are right for you? Here are some of my favorite free and royalty-free (or low-cost) resources for images:

• Pexels

• Unsplash

• Pixabay

• iStockPhoto.

In addition to the visual components, there are additional elements that will be important to you depending on what communications tools you plan to use to express your brand.

A Word About Packaging the Physical You

One of the questions I often hear as people are building their brand is: What should I wear? I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard, and I don’t want to look like I don’t care. Here’s my advice. For starters, remember that this question is not just about the face-to-face world. Deciding what to wear while delivering that keynote address affects the digital you because you want to be photographed and filmed while that keynote is happening, don’t you?

You might have your suits hemmed by a tailor, but “perfect fit” means much more than altering a seam. When you’re trying to figure out your fashion factor, “tailor made” means choosing an outfit that sits at the intersection of these three criteria (Figure 8-2).

Relevant: It’s appropriate for your target audience—those who are making decisions about you. If you’re a sales exec selling to Silicon Valley startups, you might not need to wear a suit and tie or a skirt and heels, but if you’re selling to banks in NYC, it might be the appropriate attire.

Authentic: It’s on brand. In other words, it feels right. When you wear clothes that feel right, you’re more confident, and you’re likely reinforcing your brand. I worked with a coach who always wore a different, colorful, striking pin. It became the accessory everyone expected her to be wearing.

Polished: It’s at the high end of the range of attire at your workplace. Every workplace has a range—on Wall Street, that range might be from sports coats and open-collar shirts to suit and tie or skirt with pumps. At a hip green manufacturing startup, the range might be shorts, T-shirt, and flip flops to khakis and a button-down shirt or slacks and a blouse. Put yourself on the higher end of the range.

Remote Control

Apply Your PBID to Your Social Media Backgrounds

Whether someone is checking you out on LinkedIn or reading your tweets, you want them to have a similar visual experience. You do that by creating consistent backgrounds for the social media and other communications tools you plan to use. This includes LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Here are some tools that can help you create a compelling on-brand background for your social media profiles.

Canva: This design tool will allow you to create backgrounds easily. In the search box “What would you like to create,” enter things like “LinkedIn banner,” and it will produce a canvas with the proper dimensions.

PicMonkey: PicMonkey is an easy-to-use photo editor that allows you to access templates to create a custom background for your profiles thanks to creative tools for photo editing and graphic design. The collage maker feature allows you to upload and organize several images to create a truly customized background—one that can feature images that bolster your brand message.

Fotor: Fotor has a built-in option for creating backgrounds for your social media tools. This makes it easy to design something that you can use in all your online profiles, creating a consistent look across all your homes on the web. Choose the “cover photos” option and choose LinkedIn. Then drag the selected photos into the screen. The editing tools will help you refine your work of art.

Adobe Spark: Adobe Spark is a photo editing and design tool that also includes templates for some social media backgrounds. It has an inventory of images and allows you to upload your own.

PhotoFunia: This tool helps you make your mark with photos by incorporating them into mock-ups of spectacular background images including magazine covers, billboards, art galleries, and movie posters. PhotoFunia has a large variety of special effects that will attract attention. Combine the images you create here with the collage maker feature from PicMonkey to wow people who are checking you out.

PIXLR Express for Mobile: PIXLR is a mobile app that allows you to crop, create collages, and add effects to images you have.

You need not make your backgrounds identical. In fact, a little variation is helpful to make the banner relevant to the platform. But when you use your PBID to create them, it will be clear that all of your social media is connected to you.

All these tools are not only helpful with creating your background images (also called banners), they will also be valuable as you start to create visual posts for your social media accounts. We’ll talk all about that in part 4.

Customize Your Email Signature

There’s one more form of communications you must consider as a tool for conveying your brand, and that’s the ubiquitous, somewhat dreaded email.

In addition to making sure what you say and how you say it reflect your brand, you have an opportunity to brand your emails with your e-signature. Your company could be anywhere on the scale when it comes to allowing you to customize your email signature, from “do whatever you want” to “follow this prescribed rule.” For those of you who have some or total control, here are the ways you can customize your email signature (and remember, even if your company is really rigid about this, you should nonetheless brand your personal email signature).

The standard important stuff:

• Your name (the way you want people to use it) along with your job title and company.

• Contact details. Make it easy for people to connect with you. Include your business phone number, and include your company’s website.

• Logo. Include your company logo.

• Icons with hyperlinks to your social media accounts, especially to your LinkedIn profile.

Remote Control

Choosing Your Audio Elements

What’s audio doing in a chapter about visuals? Audio is an important medium for bringing your brand to life because when people listen to your voice, they form a visual image of you in their mind’s eye, and that enhances the emotional connection being formed throughout the development of your PBID.

How could you go about adding an audio element to your suite? One word: podcasts. They’re a powerful vehicle for expressing your thought leadership. Twenty-seven percent of men and 24 percent of women listened to podcasts in the last month (Edison Research 2018). Monthly podcast listeners grew to 26 percent year over year (HubSpot 2018).

Writing Scripts

If you’re a fan of podcasts and decide that it’s a productive way for you to reach your target audience, then you’re going to need great content. You may not have time to produce 30-minute podcasts on a regular basis (and your audience will only tune in for 30 minutes if the content is truly superb). A two- to five-minute message that delivers real insight on a regular basis is more likely to develop a following than an hour-long show of rambling and self-promotion.

Either way, you’ll need a solid plan for each podcast. A script doesn’t have to mean that you write down every word you want to say and then read the whole thing out loud. That might be effective if you have an engaging speaking voice, but a script can simply be your written plan for what your listeners will hear. You could start out with an ad lib before reading a series of eye-opening statistics on new developments in your field. You could use your podcast to call an expert, and (spreading the word about her brand, too, of course) you could record her answer to a question about a current topic in your industry. There are unlimited ingredients you could choose for your podcast. Just make sure you have a great game plan before you begin and choose ingredients that will resonate with your audience—while building a strong, memorable mental image of you.

Choosing Intro Tracks

Make sure to begin and end your podcast with an audio bumper (a special sound effect or series of musical notes that last for just a few seconds). This will create an aura of professionalism and polish, and this consistent audio cue will become associated with your personal brand. When used consistently, it will make your recording recognizable and memorable. Can you hum the four-note Intel inside sound?

My favorite site for royalty-free music is audiojungle.net. Search under logos and idents. Then choose the mood you’re looking to convey.

Recording Audio

Your computer surely has a microphone, or you can activate a phone app to make your recording, but the principle of professional photographs holds true for recordings as well: Poor technical quality makes you look (and sound) like an amateur. A high-quality digital microphone, which you use to export the recording as an uploadable file, could be a good investment if you’re not happy with the sound levels on your current devices.

And just as the background image for your headshot matters, the background noise for your audio matters, too—except that there shouldn’t be any background noise. Always record in a space that’s free of sirens, barking, and chattering.

Not sure how to blend your tracks (the bumpers, voice recordings, and other elements) into one podcast? Apple computers come with GarageBand, and PC users can download Audacity, a free open-source software. Both of these programs can be used for deleting a hiccup, fading the volume of your bumper music, and making other final edits. If this isn’t how you want to spend your time, hire an audio editor who can mix your ingredients into a masterpiece worthy of your brand.

Brandi Brainstorms

• Color: Orange—because the word determination.

• Fonts: Avenir—a simple, modern font.

• Textures: Connoting both global and modern.

• Images: Brandi chose to go with photographic images instead of illustrations. Her reasoning—they are more sophisticated, and she can use her own personal library of photos she has taken from around the world.

• Audio: Brandi wants to eventually host a podcast with brief tips on how to collaborate and build harmonious teams.

Summing Up

Now you’re convinced of how important packaging is to reinforcing your brand, and you’ve determined your brand color, fonts, and so forth. Bravo! Once you’ve applied your PBID to each of these elements—from the way you look to the way you sound—you’ve taken a major leap toward bolstering your brand with your community. And now you’re ready to kick it up a notch. In chapter 9, you’re going to put your brand in motion—motion pictures that is. We’ll focus the entire chapter on the most powerful tool for delivering a complete and compelling message in the digital world: video. I’ll convince you about the power of video and help you find the right video tools and formats to use to make your brand stand out, all in an accessible way so that even technology novices and technophobes can have fun working with this all-important medium.