9 Tips For Building Your Personal Brand | Paga

Boost your identity and career by applying the personal branding we share in this article. Find out more below.

What Is Personal Branding?

Personal branding is a conscious effort made by an individual to create and influence public perception of them by positioning themselves as someone worth listening to. It is an intentional line of action which people deploy to make the general public to see them as the best in their field of endeavour, or a leading voice in a particular industry.

Personal branding refers to how you promote yourself. It is the expertise, experience and personality that you want everyone else to see about you. It could be a combination of how the media depicts you, the idea people get from the information they find about you online, and how people in the same industry with you tend to perceive you in real life.

6 Reasons Why Personal Branding Is Important?

It is very important that you put in the time and effort and build your personal brand, especially if you are looking to build a business that will stand out in a very competitive industry, or you are looking to carve out a niche for yourself in a certain field. Personal branding is essential for the following reasons:

1. A personal brand is key to the success of your business or career, as it revolves around how you present yourself to potential and existing clients.
   
2. It gives you the chance to figure out your strengths and emphasize on them. This will help to set you apart from everyone else and make sure that people see you in the way you want them to see you.
   
3. It helps to increase your credibility, either as a business owner or as a professional.
   
4. It helps to build your personal confidence.
   
5. Personal branding helps to increase your visibility, both online and in real life. When people know who you are, there is more access to life-changing opportunities.
   
6. Personal branding helps to expand your network and opens the door to partnerships that will be hugely beneficial in the long run.

9 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand

Building a strong personal brand doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from putting in the work over a period of time and taking a number of deliberate steps. Here are a number of measures that you can take if you want to elevate your brand from mediocrity to excellence:

1. Determine what you want to be known for: If you want to be taken seriously by the public, you have to decide what exactly what you want to be recognized for. You can’t be seen discussing about any and everything. What makes you stand out as a thought leader or influencer is owning your space in a particular field.
   
2. Define Your Audience: Beyond figuring out what you want to do, it’s also important that you decide and clearly spell out who you are talking to. Which demography does your product cater to? Which age group will you be addressing your content to? It’s a lot easier when your effort is targeted, rather than trying to appeal to just anyone. You can’t sell ice to an Eskimo, or sell coffee on the streets of Lagos on a hot afternoon.
   
3. Follow experts in your industry: One sure way to become better at what you do is to study closely and learn from those who have been there before you. If you want to be a filmmaker, it would be wise to follow the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, so you can find out how they got to the heights they now occupy.
   
4. Be consistent: Building your brand is never easy in the beginning, but giving up is an option. You have to keep putting yourself out there if you want to make that big break. Sometimes, all it takes is for one person to notice for the floodgates of opportunity to open.
   
5. Look the part: Personal branding is all about visibility, so it is necessary that your physical appearance aligns with what you are trying to put out to the public. For example, if you are trying to build your portfolio as a writer, no one will pay attention to your craft if your posts are riddled with grammatical errors.
   
6. Choose your platforms and communicate with purpose: Certain products are better suited to particular platforms. Note this and be mindful of how you curate your content. Someone who wants to a fashion designer or makeup artist is better off selling their craft on Instagram than LinkedIn.
   
7. Network & keep channels open: You need to stay abreast with what is going on in the industry within which you are trying to make your mark. An aspiring lifestyle blogger may need to visit YouTube frequently just to catch a feel of how best to market their product. Staying connected to the internet is easy with payment solutions like Paga, which allows you to purchase airtime and mobile data at the snap of your fingers; all you have to do is dial *242#.
   
8. Be open to feedback: You will never grow if you are scared of hearing strong opinions about your work. Feedback and (constructive) criticism are necessary to help you become a lot better at what you do.
   
9. Develop good money habits: In building your brand, it is dangerous to spend money recklessly. You have to be aware of what is important to splash your finances on, and what can wait for later. You can also set up a regular financial plan to help sort out your bills. This is easy with Paga, which allows you to set up recurring payments. This means that you can set up your account in a manner that it will be debited a specific amount at a specified time of the month for a particular service. It’s like a bank’s standing instructions, but for e-wallets. For instance, you can have your account debited for the sum of N10,000 on the 26th day of each month for electricity bills.

How to Automate Bills and Salaries with Paga

A recurring payment is designed to take away the burden of initiating a regular payment while ensuring you do not miss the payment. It is simple to set up. To do this: 

•  Log into your Paga account
• Select “recurring payments” from the list of services
•  Create a new recurring payment
• Select the service you want to create a recurring payment for
• Fill out the details of the recipient/beneficiary
• Set up the schedule and fill all required fields
• Review the details and confirm the transaction.

Opening a Paga account is pretty easy. To get started, click here to download the Paga app on your device, then click on ‘Sign Up’, and follow the instructions from there.