11 Things You Must Have For Creating A Personal Brand

A strong personal brand is one of the most important things you can develop, but it takes a considerable amount of time, attention and effort. Just because you have a radio show doesn't mean your personality brand willgrow merely because you're being heard.

Instead, you have to work hard at it, crafting it to give you the best chance to end up with a desired outcome.

A strong personal brand is the most valuable assetair person­alitie­s have. Here ­are 11 ­must-havesto succeed.

Building a personal brand is like building a business. You have to identify your target clients, discover the best marketing methods, and relentlessly work to deliver your personality within the profile you've created.

Building Blocks of aPersonal Brand

With a strong personalitybrand, it becomes much easier to connect with listeners,not to mention clients, advertisers and online followers. All are important audiences for a contemporary air personality who depends on developing multiple verticals of promotion andrevenue. But to get to thepoint where your brand can pay off, youmust start with a solid foundation. More and more personal decisions and entertainmentchoiceshappen through online discovery.With thismany eyes searching and watching, it pays to build your personal brand in the most effective way possible, starting with you online presence, and you can't leave it up to your station or company to promote your personal brandwith your best interests in mind. You have to take action and be proactive, and this requirescareful planning.

Here are the things you'll need to have in place as you work to develop your personal brand.

Focal Point

Personalitiesworking to build a personal brand typically want to be known as specialistsin some area. One of the steps whencreating your personal brand profileis toidentify theone thing or two things thatdefine your passion ... what you want to be known for.

If you haven't done this yet, do it now! It's a fundamental stepin building your personal brand. If you don't know what your primary appeal is, you'll never be able to represent it properly, and your brand will be forever unclear.

An Elevator Pitch

Another step in the personality brand profile exercise is narrowing your character to a short summary. You've probably heard the term "elevator pitch," meaning that if you're riding with someone in an elevator, you have to sell your personality to them before the elevator reaches their floor and they step off. That meansyou've got about 30 seconds to explain what you do and how your brand matters.

Can you condense your brand down into a short pitch that's clear and gets the point across?
The same brief statement can be utilized throughout social channels and online bios to help followers and potential listenersbest understand who you are and what you bring to the table.
Make a list of the thingsthat makes you valuable, and don't be afraid to go into greatdetail. Once you have the information down, start trimming, and keep trimming until you get it down to a strong, impacting statement.

The Bert Show is one of the best positioned and clearly branded shows in the world. Their elevator pitch is tight and can be delivered in seconds:

Real. Funny.

Expanding on those two key words: The Bert Showis a cast of three main characters who relate to young adults living a young, active life through observation, humor and personal stories. This will be an important tool in yourpersonal brand toolbox.

AUSP

Your Unique Selling Proposition(USP) goes hand in hand with theelevator pitch. This is what sets you apart from others. If there are 2,000 other entertainers (and there are far more than that)offering the same basic proposition, why should someonechoose you?

Why should your audience pay attention to you at the expense of all others? And not just other air talent, but other personalities competing for their entertainment attention? What unique value do you offer that theycan't find with anyone else?

Your USP should be a succinct, single-sentence statement of who you are, your greatest strength, and the major benefit your audience will derive from it.

Perhaps your area of expertise is exploring, solving or just discussingrelationship issues. Or maybe it's that one single featurethat is a true can't-miss moment on your show each hour, such as Prank Phone Calls or Second Date Update.

This is a critical component for branding. You'll use this to craft your pitch, and it will be prevalent in virtually all of your marketing messages and outreach.

AClearly Defined Target

Defining your personality is only part of the journey. You have to know to whom you're catering. Building a brand is useless unless you're targeting the right people. Most personalities have never thought about their audience in enough depth to demonstrate their personality in a way that becomes meaningful to the target.

You have to define your audienceso that allcontent you create (on-air and off) is relevant, gets attention andturns into revenue opportunities (and ratings).

When you really know who you are for, and who you are NOT for, it gives you clarity in purpose. Without a target, you're just throwing darts blindly.

When you know your audience, you can:

• Create highly valuable content specific to theirinterests
• Findbrand advocates whowill embrace your message and help spread it for you
• Identify the best ways to engage your audience
• Know the placesto find them

Defining your audience takes time and research, but without a clearly defined audience, you'll never grow your brand. A great place to start is building a composite listener profile, as explained in the webinar on demand Know Your Audience.

Thirst For Learning

To remain relevant, you must maintain the mindset of a perpetual learner, no matter how much experience and success you gain. Change happens fast, so adopt the "I am a student and always need to learn" attitude.

Tune in, listen, and stay up-to-date with industry trends.

If you fail to stay relevant, people will stop paying attention to you.

It never hurts to learn new things, develop new skills, and expand your knowledge. Go to Don Anthony's Morning Show Boot Camp.Read the trades. Listen to other shows. Become an Insider and get constantly updated advice and training.

A Strategy

Before you launch apersonal brand, you need a strategy that details how you'll promote it and make it famous. While it doesn't need to be as robust as a marketing strategy for a major brand, it's still a good idea tocreate a documented marketing planyou can follow.
This should include (but isn't limited to):

• Website development, creative and management
• Social media deployment and posting schedule. Which platforms? How often?
• Content marketing strategy: Promoting a blog, podcasts, audio on demand.
• Video strategy for expanding your brand online and via social media
• SEO and link building strategy with tactics to improve visibility;
• Community engagement strategyfor local sites and potential marketing partners.

As you start, it's a good idea to conduct a personal brand audit. There's likely a lot of online information about you already, since you're a public figure. But you should be managing the results when your name is searched. It's a good idea to conductextensive searches for your name and identity online.

This can help you manage anything that doesn't mesh with your brand image as well as show opportunities for your branding campaign once you get started.

This isn't a one-time audit, either. Schedule routine reviews of your personal brand to monitor how you appear on the web.

Your Own Website

You need your own site to manage your own brand. When you change stations or markets, what happens to your online profile? If you've managed it yourself, nothing. But if it's completely in the hands of others (your station or company), you start over when you move.

You certainly want to show off your expertise and the work you've done. You also want to make sure you control as much real estate around your brand as possible.

A branded website is another source of content that will show up at the top of the search results when people search for information about you, especially if it's populated with great content, including video.

Having a website ensures that you stay in control of the top search results rather than allowing third-party sites to shape your online image.

AStory

The strongest personal brands are carried by a story. When we build personality brand profiles for clients, the personality receives a thorough profile, plus a synopsis that defines who they are. This can easily turn into a story thathelps define you.

Think about some of the most well-known personal brands like Kim Kardashian, Mark Cuban, Beyonce, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, or Peyton Manning.

In every case, their stories are well known and the narratives lend tremendous weight to these people'sbrands, ultimately defining how wesee them.

If you specialize in more than one area or have a series of things you're passionate about, a narrative becomes even more important.

AConsistent Look

Brands often use style guides to define the appearance of their logos, fonts, and colors to represent themselves and their products/services. Thismay even include yourdress code, and how you appear in public.

Develop a logo that will translate to many uses and sizes. Create it in specific colors that define your brand.

Everything you do contributes to apersonal brand. Create a personal style guide similar to what the brands use. This way you have a consistent representation of your personal brand. This should include the wayyou dress, carry yourself, behave with others, and even write and respond to emails.

Competitive Awareness

Personal brand building isn't a popularity contest, but it does pay to know where you stand in the crowd. Occasionally, you shouldcollect data that will display the general query interest around your personal brand. You want to know some of the key metrics around your brand so you can pivot and act accordingly. If you enter Air Personality (Your Market), do you rate? How about Top Talent (Market)? Radio hosts (Market)? Funny Personalities (Market)?

You don't want to copyothers. Remember, you want to be unique. But, a competitive evaluationwill give you the insight to take ideasand do it 10times better so you can capture and hold the attention of your audience.

Publicity Photos

It's great if the station pays for your photo sessions, but if they don't, do it yourself. It's not that expensive. Get a bunch of different poses that represent different moods, with various changes of clothing.

When you start to promote your personal brand, you want to be easily recognizable. The more they feel they know you, the better chance they'll consider you a friend. As yourappearance changes (and, yes, youdo age), update your head shots and publicity photos.

Take pictures that represent the personality you're trying to portray, and use those images across all your social channelsandwebsites. And, pickthe one that best represents your character traits to use in small printed photos that can be handed out at appearances and events. Be sure to leave room on the photo to personalize an autograph (don't do the pre-printed signature).

Personal Brand Conclusion

Your personal brand is how the world sees you. For that reason, you need to polish your brand and give it a strong start. Starting with an ordinary anduninteresting brand is only going to set you back.

Including these elements will connect you with the right people. Those people will begin to identify specific reasons to love you. As you share information and build rapport, you'll be well on your way to becoming aleader on and off the air.