Personal Brand Exploration
Overview
Personal branding is a strategic marketing approach that allows you to successfully promote yourself for the sake of fulfilling your life’s work. Developing a strong personal brand requires you to clearly state who you are, who you want to serve, and how you are different than your competition. A successful brand delivers a clear, consistent, and constant message designed to help you achieve your career goals. But perhaps most importantly, a strong personal brand affords you a higher quality of life as you embrace your fullest potential through authenticity and transparency. Anne Morrow Lindbergh said it best, “The most exhausting thing you can do is to be inauthentic.”
Objective
The purpose of this project is to help you understand your personal brand and how to improve it. The Canvas concept is easy to use and serves as a practical visual framework that helps you understand why you are unique and how to let your future employer, customers, or clients know it. You will also continue to build the foundations of your digital portfolio website.
Introduction
To prepare for your project this week, complete the following:
Conduct the appropriate research as indicated below under the header “Research.”
It is up to you to discover and develop your personal brand. However, it is important to do the required research so that you can properly focus your brand on an appropriate target audience. In other words, you should be clear with your audience that you solve their problems and/or meet their needs/wants. You want to stand out above other people that you are competing against for your audience’s attention.
For most undergraduate students, your target audience will likely be hiring managers at companies that you want to work for. For entrepreneurs, your audience will likely be companies that you want to do work for, investors and/or people that you want to sell ad space to on a podcast, radio station or other media outlets.
For this project, it may be best to focus your search on companies that you would like to work for (or with as an entrepreneur) and your future occupation (or current). You will use a few websites to conduct your research and then reflect on your readiness to meet the needs of an employer or potential client.
Personal Brand Exploration
Research
In preparation for your project this week, please complete the following:
Go to Onet Online and research at least three occupations (job titles) that you think you might want to explore for your future. You may have to try a few titles for information since not all job titles will be found in this system. Take note of the information that comes up related to tasks, skills, knowledge, activities, etc.
Search LinkedIn and/or ZipRecruiter for different companies that you may be interested in working with/for. Take a look at the job postings that these companies have posted. Take note of the information displayed related to tasks, skills, requirements, knowledge, and education. You may also want to look up job titles and look at what individuals holding those positions do in their jobs (this may be listed on their profile pages).
Review the companies and jobs that you researched on LinkedIn and Onet Online within Glassdoor.com. Make notes of the content in the reviews for the companies, salary ranges, benefits, strengths and weaknesses, challenges, etc.
Search for a “career” page directly on the website of a few companies you would like to work for. This page is typically found in the footer area at the bottom of the site. Take a look at the job postings that these companies have posted. Take note of the information displayed related to tasks, skills, requirements, knowledge, and education.
Personal Brand Exploration
Instructions
Complete the following:
Personal Brand Exploration Presentation
Develop a presentation using Keynote or PowerPoint that explores the following components of your personal brand. Each component below with [RESEARCH-BASED] next to it must relate back to your findings during your research efforts and should have cited sources.
Title Slide – Include the title “Personal Brand Exploration,” your name, course, and date.
Identity – Briefly summarize what makes you unique. Include a glimpse into your core values or principles, culture, professional history, personal attributes, and more.
Profession – Which industry, market, and/or field do you want to work within? Be specific. Include three (3) job title variations you discovered on OnetOnline.org. Include a brief synopsis of how you approach your work differently than others through the prism of your top brand archetype (Week 1 discussion). [RESEARCH-BASED]
Target Audience – Which group of employers, customers, or clients need to know you? Address this both broadly and specifically. i.e., “recruiters and hiring managers at Company X” and “Jane Doe, HR Director at Company X.” Find three people within the broad category of your target audience that you will reach out to in the near future. Include a brief explanation of your plan to prepare for, make contact with, and follow up with all three of your ideal audience members. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Career Goals – List three (3) career goals you hope to achieve over the course of your life’s work. Do so by breaking these goals up into short-term (immediately following graduation), mid-term (5-10 years), and long-term (15-20 years) goals. Write your goals with specific and measurable attributes. i.e., “I will grow my brand awareness online by developing and consistently publishing branded content on my social media platforms. Specifically, I will increase my LinkedIn connections by 15% by December 31, 2020.”
Skills Analysis – Articulate your two (2) most notable hard (technical) skills and two (2) most notable soft (transferrable) skills to date. Indicate your proficiency in each skill by highlighting Novice, Adept, or Expert. Include two (2) most notable hard skills and two (2) most notable soft skills required in your trade and grade your current proficiency in each skill. NOTE: the purpose of this slide is to identify gaps in your skillsets, so focus on skills you can improve upon under the “required in trade” section. This information must be derived from OnetOnline.org and/or directly from a job description of a company of interest. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Promise – Include a single sentence that accurately reflects a promise you will make to your target audience. What value will you provide your audience? What promise will you make to your future employer, customers, or clients? What problem(s) do you solve? This will eventually be updated/revised as a version of the personal brand statement you publish on your About page.
Credentials – Include elements such as your work experience, education, awards, leadership roles, volunteer work, certifications, and more. Why are you credible? What makes you trustworthy to your future employer, customers, or clients? These credentials should speak directly to the “Required Qualifications” and/or “Preferred Qualifications” listed in the job description(s) you discovered during your research in Week 1. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Competition – Include two (2) separate slides comparing and contrasting your current personal brand with the personal brand of two (2) people on LinkedIn who would be considered your competition. One should be a fellow Full Sail student in your degree program or a recent alum from your degree program. Another should be someone currently holding a similar position to the one you are seeking immediately following graduation. Include at least these five elements in each review: (1) Industry Experience, (2) Education, (3) Leadership / Noteworthy Experience, (4) Skills & Proficiencies, and (5) Overall Online Presence. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Competition – See above. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Brand Position – Speak to your audience’s emotions in a statement that reflects how others will benefit from interacting with you. “It’s not a factual claim, but rather, an emotional reason for people to want to be around you. It should capture the essence of who you are and how you have defined your personal brand” (Joseph, 2013, para. 5). Why should someone hire or work with you rather than your competition? How do you want your audience to think of you? How are you different than your competition? This requires you to compare and contrast yourself to your competitors.
Personal Brand Exploration
Networking & Marketing – List three (3) industry events you will attend and/or professional organizations you will join over the next two years. Include the dates and locations for each. State the primary type of content you will produce and publish online on a regular basis. State the primary social media tools you will use to promote and disseminate your content while building your platform. Lastly, include how you will use your digital portfolio to help market your personal brand online. [RESEARCH-BASED]
Professional Development – Include formal education, technical and transferrable skills, and mentorship opportunities you will pursue based on the gap that currently exists between who you are today and who you are becoming professionally. This requires you to review the skills/experience gap you discovered while researching job opportunities in your field. What do you need to improve upon in order to reach your career goals and how will you go about making these improvements? What skills and abilities do you need to develop to stand out from your competition? What type of mentor or coach will you seek to help you develop professionally? How much time do you need to dedicate to these improvements? When will you complete each initiative? [RESEARCH-BASED]
Elevator Pitch – Write your elevator pitch using the following formula: Problem + Solution + Proof. i.e. “You know [problem]? Well, what I do is [solution]. In fact, [proof].” You must include your name and professional headshot on this slide as well.
EXAMPLE: Website Development: “You know how most company websites are out of date. Well, what I do is install software that makes it easy for people to update their own websites, without the need to pay a web designer each time. In fact, I installed the software for one of my clients recently and they saved $2,000 a year in web development costs.”
References – Include references slide citing all sources used throughout the presentation. Examples of required sources include LinkedIn, Company Sites, Glassdoor, Industry Sites, Oneto line, and ZipRecruiter. This must be delivered in proper APA-style formatting.
Deliverable
The presentation must be exactly 15 slides long (using the required template), including a title slide, references slide (APA format), and one slide per section outlined above.
The presentation should include imagery that connects to your personal brand and should detail your thoughts comprehensively using text since you will not be orally presenting the presentation. Use APA referencing style.
