Personal branding is a vital professional strategy. Utilize it to promote your profession and company while avoiding these six risks.
The idea is simple. Create a personal brand that showcases your skills, connects you with new people, and promotes your material and achievements. It helps you make new friends, contacts, and new sales and career prospects. However, you probably already know that personal branding is not without its risks.
Not surprisingly, entrepreneurs and marketers alike often value personal branding. And don’t be afraid to use your brand for social and political good, as McDonald’s is doing today. Despite its value, though, there are severe dangers of failure. Here are six common personal branding traps you’ll want to avoid.
1. Self-segmentation.
When beginning to build a personal brand or a blog, it’s preferable to focus on a narrow specialty.
For example, Mattress Clarity reviews mattresses, whereas Cupcake Project reviews cupcake recipes.
Simple.
The aim is to stand out from the crowd and provide a distinct viewpoint to the media, networking connections, and potential clients. It’s a good start.
There’s no assurance of ROI…and it may be too much work to maintain.
After months or years of hard work, it isn’t easy to see yourself outside of your niche. On the other hand, allow others to perceive you outside your place.
It’s similar to how performers become typecast after portraying the same character type for years. You are inadvertently pigeonholing your career. Often, showcasing your variety is the better strategy.
2. Diminished gains.
Personal brands take time to grow.
For example, entrepreneur and marketing expert Neil Patel has built numerous successful firms. He has poured hundreds of hours into his content strategy. His work is mostly predicated on advising others on how to accomplish the same.
Personal branding requires a lot of time and effort.
You’ll need to update your social media pages, provide fresh material, and interact with your followers often. And you’ll have to wonder whether all that additional time is producing the outcomes you need.
There’s no certainty of ROI here, despite the strategy’s general success, and it may be too much work/risk to maintain.
3. Difficulty offering authenticity.
You’ll need a “brand personality” to establish your brand.
Your personality may need to be enhanced by a specific charm, energy, or focus on certain attributes.
In the beginning, this personality will probably come from you — and it should. You’ll seem inauthentic if you don’t.
But as you grow and engage with more people, you may find yourself drifting away from your actual self. You’ll eventually feel risk hollow. That may affect you personally as well as your brand’s overall influence.
4. Overselling.
Your brand may potentially oversell your credentials.
Imagine you start creating blog entries that aren’t in your area of expertise. You begin to recognize that you reach a larger audience or in more media venues.
A recruiter may approach you and make you an offer for a job for which you are unqualified. What do you do? Come clean or “fake it ’til you make it?” A false self hinders your capacity to offer your primary goods and services.
It’s one thing to promote your strengths, another to overdo it to the point of deception. It’s not always easy to draw that risk line.
5. Risk making a brand out of a person.
Think up ways to present yourself as authentically as possible with your blog writings and other projects.
Interacting with readers through social media is fantastic, but nothing beats a coffee date. Recruiters may assess you based on your brand without ever meeting you.
In the end, a laser-like concentration may prohibit you from hearing about chances beyond your defined field.
6. Attracting bad press.
Of course, bad publicity is always possible.
You may draw more damaging than good attention if you misquote someone. Similarly, if you misrepresent yourself, or otherwise become engaged in a scandal.
But the more you put yourself out there, the better. This is a danger of content development and social media marketing in general, but personal branding is even more challenging to manage.
A stigma or a negative reputation may follow you around for the rest of your life. One Google search might bring up the event, which could jeopardize your future.
Wrap-Up
While personal branding has significant drawbacks, it is a valuable tactic for businesses and job seekers. Likewise, let’s say it’s a modern-day need.
Knowing the risks allows you to minimize them while maximizing the rewards. Along the way, it’s crucial to review your efforts, estimate your ROI, and just follow your instinct. However, you can always back out if it becomes unprofitable.
