To be successful in the workplace, you need to stand out from the crowd. What sounds so easy and self-evident is in reality a great mystery to many. Because no matter how well qualified you are, what certificates you can show, whether you have completed a bachelor’s or master’s degree and numerous internships – there is always someone who has the same or even better qualifications. What is needed is a personal brand that represents your strengths and has a reputation to match. How you can benefit from a personal brand in Kenya and how to build one…
Personal branding in Kenya: What’s in it for you?
Many applicants and employees believe that they do not need a personal tag. They consider their own professional position to be too small or insignificant. A mistake! A personal brand cannot only be built up in senior management, but is worthwhile in every area. Such an attitude shows an underestimation of one’s own worth and a lack of understanding of the importance of a personal brand.
Making yourself a brand can be worthwhile for everyone – especially if this project is implemented correctly. This includes presenting and marketing exactly those aspects of yourself that you want to use to impress others. If this succeeds, a personal brand has many advantages:
They show your strengths and personality , which makes you stand out from the crowd.
You develop a concrete profile with which you will be associated.
You will develop a reputation in your field that you can benefit from in the long term.
You build up a growing and functioning network .
You decide how you want to design your personal brand.
Today, more than ever, almost everyone is interchangeable. Even more so for the countless unnamed employees who, while doing important work, never achieve a status that could set them apart from all the rest. To put it bluntly: For a company it doesn’t matter who does the important work as long as it gets done. With a personal tag behind you, you gain more power over your own situation.
By concentrating on your area and interweaving your name as closely as possible with a subject area, you will go from being a replaceable employee to being a sought-after specialist and expert – which can not only be a great advantage for applications, but can also pave the way to higher positions.
Building a personal brand: This is how it works
Your personal brand plays an important role in the job and can also be formed there. By concentrating on special tasks and projects, making appropriate contacts with important personalities and making a name for yourself. However, a large and in many cases the more important part takes place online. Here you have the opportunity to position yourself specifically, to link your name to an area, a product or a keyword and to align your online activities accordingly.
In addition, you can reach a significantly larger audience here and you have a wide variety of platforms at your disposal to build up your personal brand: Especially in social networks and forums that deal with your topic, a targeted activity is worthwhile in order to build on your individual brand and perception work.
Anyone who deals with your industry should come across you. These can be your comments, with which you comment on relevant articles or posts, but even better are your own articles on the topic, which you publish on your blog and spread on social media yourself. The principle for a personal brand is therefore: Get out of anonymity, you can be found. These questions can help you find and build your personal brand:
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What is your goal?
If you want to build a personal brand, you first have to think about what goals you are pursuing with it. For example, do you want to establish yourself as an expert in the market to attract customers or are you looking for a new job? You can only really use your personal brand if you know your goal.
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What is your personal brand?
Perhaps the most important question: what exactly is your brand – what distinguishes you and what do you stand for? Become aware of your strengths and find aspects that make you different from everyone else.
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Who is your target audience?
Who is your personal brand aimed at? Often it is HR to find a job or customers to generate orders. Your personal brand and the actions associated with it should always be geared towards your target group. Ask yourself: What do I want the target group to know about me and how can I respond?
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How can you achieve this?
Once you have identified your target group, you still have to reach them. If you build your personal brand directly in your job, this is easy because colleagues, bosses and customers are in the immediate vicinity. The big social media platforms offer great potential online, but you should also go beyond that to participate in other forums and position yourself there.
Personal tag for applicants: 5 important skills
Applicants in particular can benefit from a personal brand to increase their chances of finding a job. In addition to time and commitment, a number of skills and abilities are also required, which applicants ideally already have or which they acquire during the development of the personal brand.
The second advantage: The skills that are important for building a personal brand also bring further advantages in the later employment relationship, since they are sometimes required by employers, but are at least valued in an employee.
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critical ability
It requires a certain amount of self-confidence , but above all an awareness of your own strengths and knowledge. You can only represent your personal brand authentically if you have the ability to take criticism.
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empathy
Empathy and knowledge of human nature are required. For your personal brand, empathy is particularly important in order to be able to identify the requirements and expectations of companies and HR managers in advance and to be able to react accordingly.
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persistence
A personal brand doesn’t grow in a week, so applicants need perseverance, patience , and motivation to persevere. Immediate results should therefore not be expected.
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passion
Ideally, your personal brand is based on your passion. What do you want to do or achieve and what do you want to stand for? Use the enthusiasm as a drive and basis – both for your personal brand and for your job search. Applicants who can convey your passion have a better chance of convincing recruiters.
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willingness to learn
If you want to build and maintain a personal brand, you have to be willing to keep learning and to incorporate the new knowledge into your actions. Experimenting and finding out what works – and what doesn’t – isn’t always easy, but it’s an effective way to keep your personal brand in the long run.
Authenticity for a successful personal brand: attractiveness and authenticity
When advertising on your own behalf and building a personal brand, you must not forget: The whole thing only works with the necessary authenticity . Anyone who wants to sell and present themselves as something they are not will be exposed quickly.
Don’t just write anything on the flags. It must be understandable and credible why you position yourself in exactly this way and not in another way. Ultimately, this only works with a holistic picture, appropriate expertise, experience and services. Talking about it, creating awareness and making your own brand known is just the next step.