Personal Branding Done Right | Legendary Examples to Learn From

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I have earned a lifetime membership in a restaurant on the grounds of “customer loyalty.” Consequently, they bump up my reservations, provide numerous offers, and everything they can do to ensure I feel “premium.” However, I have noticed I still do not visit that restaurant often. They have an extensive menu, food is tasty enough to make me buy bigger size pants, and the interior and hygiene complement each other like twins – it’s all perfect. That is what the results of effective personal branding should feel like, right?

But all I feel is a sense of manacle around my feet and hand – it is not customer loyalty. 

If even providing reasonable and quality services doesn’t help a company with receiving a similar degree of returns from customers’ end, what does?

Personal Branding Starts from the Within

You already have a brand; you have been carrying it around since you didn’t even know it. Nonetheless, having a business changes the dynamics – as now you have your brand’s identity associated with you. Evidently, now personal branding involves you, your business, and the combination of the two. As a result, people presume that now logos, taglines, and campaigns are all they have to enhance their personal branding, and eventually, getting better at converting a lead into a sustainably loyal customer. 

Having said that, it is crucial to create a personal brand that is a balance of both you and your company. 

Related: 10 Golden Rules of Personal Branding

While building a personal brand, instead of changing logos frequently, or coming up with regular branding campaigns, personal branding should be an aspect that rises from the time you had your first draft of the business idea. Moving ahead, an interwoven element of design, packaging, and branding.

Examples of Personal Branding

We live in a world where reputation means a lot more than ever. Taking it up a notch, personal branding helps us combine relevance and differentiation with reputation. It goes without saying: this makes building an effective personal brand seem a lot more difficult and laborious than it is. Therefore, I have carefully hand-picked and profiled the best personal branding examples which show how it is done right. 

Trust is The Key – Brian Dean

With the increasing popularity and understanding of the importance of SEO, many individuals have tried their luck in the industry. Eventually, it has become difficult to place a finger on the ones who are legitimate. Nonetheless, with Brian Dean’s approach to show and prove his authenticity and expertise by every means possible, we now know his advice is anything but bogus. With his blogs providing true quality and detailed content, supported with data and honest testimonials, he and his personal brand speak all about trustworthiness. Moreover, the absence of irrelevant ads thrown at users helps with the entire user experience. 

United We Stand – Michael Jordan

True, a crowd chanting “we want Jordan!” has been made possible through Michael Jordan’s basketball skills. However, were his skills the only factor based on which he is considered as one of the greatest all-around players in the world? 

Well, no. It was not until his repeated defeats (and repeated wins) that he became a true legend. Moreover, he was determined to popularize the NBA in the late 1900s, which has proven highly helpful for the youth moving towards a career in basketball. Fast forward a lot of struggle, he has his own line of shoes that is working wonders even after his retirement. Jordan has certainly shown us the power of empowering a generation in its entirety. 

Read more: How Michael Jordan Became a Brand

Quality Over Quantity – Seth Godin

I have heard people say, “Seth Godin is the only one who can pull off that” when they accepted that a post was excessively short. Seth has set up himself as the expert on short blog entries. When the vast majority focus on 2000-word long-structure blog entries, Seth composes little pearls of around 200 words. He writes in a succinct and distinctive style that is simply forthright. Each post revolves around a single concept. Eventually, making this his personal brand. 

Furthermore, he has developed a standing as a business and marketing specialist in the course of the most recent 25 years. During the duration, he published over 20 books, generally with intriguing titles, for example, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable which sold more than 150,000 copies in over 23 print runs in its initial two years. Consequently, it is Seth that individuals need to hear from – not some organization.

Social Media Works – Kim Kardashian

Personal feelings aside, Kim Kardashian – actually, all Kardashians have entered into our lives one way or the another. What most of us do not know is that they are excelling at reaching us because their branding is on point. Their skills to leverage the media have astonished us while benefiting them for years. They have taught us the importance of rebranding (From Paris Hilton’s friend to The Kim Kardashian) and networking. If we dig a bit deeper, we could see how Kardashians have covered every aspect of personal branding and integrated each one of them with social media. 

Keep it Casual – Alice Thorpe

While many influencers try to hide their casual side, presuming that when it is business it should seem business, Alice has turned the tables for herself. She delivers a great deal of informative and engaging content for designers on YouTube and on her own site. She’s the sort of expert that never speaks condescendingly to her crowd while ensuring her image is easygoing and clever. This, associated with her abilities makes for captivative content. 

A significant piece of a brand’s identity is tone and voice — think Apple, Progressive. How they address their intended interest group gives us a sense of what their brand is and how they want to run the same. Your brand ought to be genuine and Alice works really hard to reliably impart her true personality through the entirety of her awesome content. For instance, her YouTube bio read “freelance graphic designer stumbling through life one pixel at a time.”

Communicate – PewDiePie

From posting weekly vlogs using pieces of equipment bought by selling artwork from his grandmother’s gallery to going back and forth on the 1st position of YouTube’s most subscribed channel list, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (a.k.a. PewDiePie) has been it all. Regardless of his official position on the platform, he is loved by his fans to an unimaginable extent. Yes, he certainly has fallen down the road several times, and that is where PewDiePie has proven how crucial authenticity and communication are for an influencer – and for everyone else as well.

Hustle and Hit Hard – Gary Vaynerchuk

In the event that hustle was a religion, Gary Vaynerchuk could be the savior. All things considered, he transformed the family alcohol store into a leading e-commerce business. It’s the sort of story of overcoming adversity that gives every entrepreneur a new goal. 

Read more: 4 Branding Tips from Gary Vaynerchuk and Entrepreneurs Who Built Brands the World Can’t Ignore 

In the fullness of time, Gary Vaynerchuk has proceeded to turn into the representative for business visionaries and any individual who needs more from life. His message is to move ahead without concerning the restrictions of society and work on discovering what you’re enthusiastic about, and how to transform it into a paying opportunity. He is one of the greatest examples to demonstrate that a solid character gives individuals trust in what you do.

Compete Till You Win – Roger Federer

World’s highest-paid athlete at the age of 38 years, Roger Federer has been breaking records off-field and on-field. Known as the legend of tennis, he has simply – not easily, believed in himself to be the same. Result? He won Wimbledon six times in 7 years. 

Another lesson he has taught brands is to take risks. As he took an off from tennis for six months to only come back stronger, others surely tried to fill in. As per Roger, that is where most of us are wrong; competition should always be seen in the long run, and you’re already one step ahead of your competitors.

Innovation Never Fails – Elon Musk

You could be a well-established programmer or someone at a distance from technology, regardless, you must have come around the mention of Elon Musk and his inventions. Infamous Tesla’s unbreakable glasses fiasco, remember? Similar to this, Mr. Musk has faced his fair share of criticism from experts and novices. Nevertheless, he managed to astonish us all with technologies that were supposedly far in the future. For some, he is an irrational and egoistic rich person who spends a fortune in getting meaningless tasks done. Whereas, others see the results he brings from such seemingly bizarre approaches. Regardless, his drive to follow innovation stirs our creative and innovative aspects in productive ways. 

Change Starts at Home – Oprah Winfrey

I couldn’t possibly wrap up personal branding examples without mentioning the queen of personal branding. She is one of only a handful of individuals on the planet who everyone knows just by the pop-up of her first name. 

Oprah unmistakably knows her own brand and has figured out how to profit from it in a manner that only a couple of others have achieved. This has caused her to carry on with her dream life, and get paid to do it. However, personal branding has a more extensive significance for Oprah. She has found that she can utilize her brand to help change individuals’ actions. Oprah sees that there are two basic pieces of her personal brand. One is the requirement to be on toes and consistent. When people see that individuals reliably see her acts with a particular goal in mind, it makes them think, and thus, adjusts how they act. Be that as it may, associated with this is the requirement to be true to your goals. She has undoubtedly proven that intention plays a crucial role in building an effective personal brand.

To conclude, 

Along with these examples, there are a hundred ways to learn how to build a personal brand and maintain the same throughout time. However, knowing and implementing are two different concepts but with a line that is getting more blur by the day. While I suggest learning from others’ experience is a great tool, I’d like to mention that it is your personal brand, only you can do it right. Start messy, do it now, all the above-mentioned legendary personal brands did not get it right on the first day – and one thing they all have in common is the beginning.