Back when I was starting my career at the University of Cambridge, if someone had told me that I'd end up with more than two million social media followers, and regularly doing live streams online, I'd never have believed them. I just wanted to build a good reputation in my field; little did I know that would grow into a “brand.”

Today, building and maintaining my personal brand is an important part of my job. But it's becoming important in so many professions, way beyond the realms of influencers, entrepreneurs, and gurus. In this digital age, your reputation—everyone's reputation, really—exists in the online world as much as the offline world. You can take advantage of this to establish your expertise, network and make new connections, grow your career (or, if you're self-employed, generate new business), and, ultimately, build your own personal brand. Whether you're employed, self-employed, a leader in your industry, or someone who's just starting out in their career, being your own brand ambassador may just be the most important job you'll ever have.

What Is the Brand of You?

You're already familiar with the concept of a brand. In the traditional sense, a brand is the culmination of all those things that make a company stand out, such as its values, visuals, and tone of voice. Basically, anything that contributes to how people perceive a business, that's its brand. As Jeff Bezos neatly puts it, “Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.”

Increasingly, this notion of brand is being attached to individuals, giving rise to the term “personal brand.” Just as with a company's brand, your personal brand is the culmination of all those things—skills, experience, personality—that make you you. It's your reputation. It's what others might say about you when you're not around.

Whether you like it or not, you already have a personal brand. Everyone does. If I were to Google your name, what impression would I get of you based on the first things to come up (typically your LinkedIn and social media profiles)? That's your brand. Personal branding simply means taking control of that online reputation and shaping it so people see you in the way that you want to be seen. Do this well, and you can establish yourself as an expert in your chosen career, among people who have never even met you, and attract exciting new opportunities your way, by making sure you're at the forefront of people's minds when they think of your job or industry.

In short, your personal brand can help you stand out from the crowd, whether you're an architect, entrepreneur, designer, blogger, lawyer, or whatever.

This doesn't mean you seek to become world-famous. Sure, there are household names who have turned themselves into wildly successful brands, such as Oprah Winfrey (personal brand: helping people live their best lives) or Richard Branson (personal brand: visionary entrepreneur, risk-taker, daredevil). But there are also people like me—not a household name, but very visible in my field—who have built highly successful brands in various niches.

So Google my name and the first things you'll see are my own website, then my latest tweets, then my LinkedIn profile, then my YouTube channel, and then my other social media profiles. Even just a quick glance at these results is enough to tell you I'm an expert in future technologies, digital transformation, and driving business performance. You'll see the same (professional) photos of me, and read the same voice (mine). All of that contributes to my brand. It's consistent. It tells a story about who I am and what I do.

Now, I spend a lot of time on my brand, so don't be alarmed thinking you need to go to all these lengths—you don't. As we'll see later in the chapter, you can cherry-pick your preferred methods, start small, and build from there. For example, you might start by polishing up your LinkedIn profile, adding testimonials from others to your profile, inviting new people to connect with you, and perhaps eventually publishing your own LinkedIn articles in your field of expertise. Then you might build on that by sharing more content on Instagram or Twitter.

The point is to take control of your reputation and use these tools to your advantage, whatever that means to you.

You'll notice that most of this chapter is devoted to personal brand, as opposed to traditional networking approaches like going to local networking meetings. That's not to say in-person networking is no longer important; it's just that, in this digital-first age—and particularly with global teams and more remote or hybrid working—the emphasis is definitely tipping towards building and maintaining connections through digital channels. Sharpening your online reputation will help you do this.

Why Does Personal Brand Matter?

Getting hired used to involve looking for vacancies, submitting an application or CV, going for an interview, and then hoping your current employer would give you a good reference. But that is changing. Your next job interview could be a video call. You may never meet your manager or project lead in person. You may be part of the burgeoning gig economy and regularly scouting for new projects (see Chapter 11). And, importantly, as the talent pool is now global, you could be up against people from all over the world. There's also rising interest in recruiting “passive” candidates, where employers reach out directly to qualified people who aren't currently seeking a job. All of this means you need to stand out online.

In this way, building your personal brand can help you secure your next exciting job, or bring new clients your way if you're self-employed. But what if you're happily employed and not looking to jump ship anytime soon? Reputation still matters. Reputation is what helps you define your skills and knowledge, inspire trust, enhance your job security, expand your network, and progress your career. Essentially, having a strong personal brand is about bringing opportunities your way, whether it's getting a promotion, winning new clients, pulling in job offers, writing a book, or being invited to speak at next year's convention. It really does pay off. My very first book came about because a publisher saw I was writing a lot of content and sharing it online.

If all that hasn't inspired you to work on your personal brand, perhaps these sobering stats will: 70 percent of employers research candidates on social media during the hiring process, and 57 percent have chosen to not hire someone because of what they found online.¹ Your online reputation is therefore incredibly important. Interestingly, the same survey also asked employers what kinds of positive content led them to hire someone. The top results were:

• The candidate's profiles and information supported their qualifications for the job.
• The candidate showed creativity.
• The candidate's content conveyed a professional image.

For me, this perfectly illustrates the importance of curating your online reputation, so that it shows you as the knowledgeable, creative, thoughtful, authentic person you are.

The benefits of personal branding extend to employers, too. Having employees with strong personal brands help to give the business more exposure, improve your employer brand, and attract more talent your way. If you're an employer, it's well worth encouraging your people to invest time and energy in their personal brand.

How to Boost Your Personal Brand and Expand Your Online Network

Building an effective personal brand takes a bit of work, but anyone can do it. And the good news is, you can tailor your approach to suit you. In other words, please don't view the following tips as a cookie-cutter approach that you have to follow step by step. At the end of the day, personal branding is just about crafting your digital reputation—and the best way to do that will depend on your industry, your strengths, and your audience.

Let's begin with some general tips:

• Find your niche (then widen around the edges). For most people, establishing yourself in a niche topic is the best way to begin building your brand. I started by focusing my brand on strategic performance management, for example, then expanded into artificial intelligence and wider future trends. If you're an accountant, you might start by focusing your brand on business finance, then expand into business strategy and leadership. A photographer might establish themselves as an expert in food photography, then expand into entrepreneurship and helping others build a successful photography business. You get the idea: your brand can evolve over time.
• Think strategically. I've said it a few times in this book, but look beyond your own current job responsibilities. Try to take a longer-term view of your job or industry and identify the areas that will grow in importance over the coming years. One of those could be your niche, or an area for you to expand into in future.
• Write a personal brand statement. Early on, it's a good idea to identify exactly what you want your brand to be (keeping in mind that it may evolve over time). Distill this down into a short, snappy description of one or two sentences—your own personal tagline, if you like. For example, I'd describe myself as a world-renowned futurist, influencer, and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity. How would you describe what you do and for whom? You don't have to share this statement publicly, although it might inform your online bios.
• Consider adopting a brand name. Some people take personal branding a step further by giving their brand a name, like the Data Guy (tech and data expert) or Money-Saving Expert (personal finance tips). This may not be right for you—personally, I prefer to use my own name—but it may be worth considering.
• Start with small steps. Early on, everyone was telling me I should be doing YouTube videos, that YouTube was the place to be. But I just wasn't ready to take that step. I much preferred to focus on written content for my website, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Nowadays, I'm very comfortable doing livestreams and YouTube videos every week, but it took me years to get to that point. So don't put pressure on yourself to be on all the platforms at once or to adopt multiple content mediums. You can start small just by doing a bit more on your preferred social media platforms.

When it comes to using social media effectively:

• Have a professional up-to-date photo in your social media profiles, and use the same photo across different platforms to ensure consistency.
• Clean up your profiles by deleting any content that you wouldn't want potential employers to see.
• If you want to keep one of your social media profiles strictly for personal content only, make sure you set your privacy controls to the max so that your profile can't be found in searches. For example, you might keep your Facebook or TikTok profile private if you want a space to share more personal content (although, as we saw in Chapter 4, always think carefully about sharing personal details on social media). Then you can focus your personal brand on other platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, keeping those profiles public so anyone can see them.
• Be yourself. While you want to cultivate a professional brand, it's important to let your personality shine through in your social media posts. Write in the way you'd normally speak. Be authentic. Be honest. Talk about things that really matter to you (rather than trying to hop on the latest trends). And don't pretend to be someone you're not. This is all part of ensuring your brand stays consistent.
• Share what you're learning. Something that I've found impactful—and easy!—is sharing interesting and relevant news stories from my industry on social media. This really helped me build my profile, and stay knowledgeable on what's happening in my field. To keep up to date with interesting and relevant news stories, you can subscribe to industry newsletters or, even easier, set up Google alerts for certain keyword topics. Do be sure to add your own message when you share something on social media—even if it's just “I came across this today and thought I'd share it. What do you guys think?” And do apply critical thinking (Chapter 5) to ensure you're sharing content from reputable sources.
• Join industry groups on social media platforms. Then make yourself known by engaging with posts, answering questions, and liking, commenting, and sharing other people's content in the group.
• Be generous with your time and knowledge. Basically, be helpful to others online by responding to questions and comments, and generally engaging with them. And do take the time to like or amplify other content that you found engaging, inspiring, or useful. It's all about being reciprocal.
• Make new contacts as often as you can, especially on LinkedIn. You can do this by identifying people you want to connect with in your field and sending a certain number of invites each week, with a short personal message. Make a habit of this and your network will soon grow.
• Create polls on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. This is a great way to pose interesting questions and boost engagement. You can always mix it up by posting a mixture of professional and more general questions.
• Post quality photos and videos from your work life. People love visual content, so if you're at a work conference, attending an industry event, on the way to visit a client, or whatever, share it. You can mix it up with occasional “everyday” photos and videos while still keeping it fairly professional (think your morning cup of coffee when you're working from home, the view on your morning run, that sort of thing).
• Really, you can post any sort of content that will help to cement your reputation—it could be advice, thought-provoking questions, excerpts from presentations you've given, pro tips, how-to content, or whatever.
• If you really want to establish your expertise, consider writing longer-form articles and sharing them on LinkedIn.
• If you're ever stuck for something to share, inspirational quotes always go down well.
• Use cross-platform tools to make your life easier. For example, you can use a tool like Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance and share posts across multiple platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter, all from one place. This means you can get maximum value from each piece of content, without having to physically post it in multiple places. The tool takes care of it for you.
• Try penciling in a specific time each day or week for social media. Building your brand doesn't have to be a full-time job, and you may actively want to limit the amount of time you spend on social media (it can be a huge time suck). So I find it helps to schedule posts in advance (see above), and block out specific times to check in with social media, reply to comments, and see other people's posts.

Looking beyond social media:

• Build a reputation within your industry, not just your current employer. For example, you might volunteer for industry steering groups, join cross-company committees and projects, attend conferences, and so on.
• Consider investing in your own website domain (either in your personal name or brand name). Only you can decide whether this is worth it, but I've certainly found it valuable, especially as someone who's in the gig economy and as someone who creates a lot of content.
• Explore other opportunities to share your knowledge, such as speaking engagements, writing a newsletter, or even writing a book—anything that helps establish your reputation as an expert.

Finally, while most of this chapter is aimed at individuals, it's really important that organizations also consider this new world of personal branding and what it may mean for their employees. A good starting point is to have clear guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable on social media. Beyond that, I recommend encouraging your people to share professional content online, talk about their work life and share positive work stories, and generally help build your brand online.

Key Takeaways

In this chapter we've learned:

• Your personal brand is the culmination of all those things—skills, experience, personality—that make you you. It's your reputation, essentially.
• Whatever your profession, having a strong personal brand can help you establish yourself as an expert, stand out from the crowd, and bring new opportunities your way—opportunities like getting a promotion, pulling in job offers, or winning new clients.
• The overwhelming majority of employers research potential candidates on social media. Yet another reason to carefully hone your online reputation.
• Anyone can strengthen their personal brand. It's just about crafting your digital reputation so others see you how you want to be seen. You can do this in very simple terms just by being a little more strategic with your social media posts, or you can go as far as publishing content and videos and having your own website.
• Good first steps are to find your niche, write your own tagline that defines your personal brand, then begin to improve your social media game.

Building your personal brand can seem like yet another thing on your to-do list, so it's really important you have strategies in place to manage your time and be productive, while maintaining a healthy work–life balance. Let's delve into time management in more detail and see what this looks like in our increasingly fast-paced world.