Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Nina Zadeh at Sidewalker Daily and in today's video, I want to talk about some things you can do to build your personal brand. I work with so many of you creators, influencers, business owners that come to me and they're like, Nina, I want to develop my personal brand. I want to be a leader in my industry or in my niche. Help me do it. And I do this on my one-on-one coachings a lot. I do a lot of one-on-one calls. So today's video, I'm going to try to take some of the main things I go over on my one-on-ones. And of course, I can't give you customized advice here on a video, but I can share with you some insight. And of course, if you guys ever need some one-on-ones, we can get on that too. But anyways, I divert. So let's jump in into some ways to build your own personal brand. I think the most important step and the first fundamental thing I tell everyone is you need to be clear and cohesive. Who is it that we're trying to attract? And this really comes down to having a niche and being specific in who we're being known for. We can't be all over the place. So I'll give you an example. I recently spoke to a CEO of a beauty company and we were talking about her personal brand. She was like, okay, I want to set up an Instagram account about me, not about my business. But one of the things that we talked about was like, okay, well, that's great, but what are you about that still is going to help elevate or leverage your current company? Because again, it's like if I had Nina's data on Instagram, which I do, and then I was talking about things that had nothing to do with my business, there would be a little bit of a disconnect. So it always depends on your main objective. It really depends on what you're building your personal brand for. Do you already have a company and you're pulling out or do not have any company yet and you're starting from ground zero? Either way, being very clear and very cohesive will be super helpful in the first steps. We talk about this often with influencers and creators. A lot of times people who want to build a personal brand, maybe it's a local hairdresser or a real estate agent or someone who is, I don't know, I've had a dentist come to me before and say, I want to build my personal brand. So just because, you know, we're all trying to find ways to be influential in our niches and in our industry. But I think that is, again, the most important part is being very clear and consistent with your niche, who you're talking to and your content pillars. Like what is my personal brand about? And limit it to three things. We don't want to be super all over the place because it will be hard to grow that personal brand the same way I tell my influencers, right? So super clear, consistent and stick to three content pillars. Now with that, you also want to do research on what are other people that are similar in scope to you? What are they doing, right? So in this example with this beauty CEO, we looked at other beauty CEOs. We did some competitive research and we saw that there are other CEOs of other beauty companies and we saw how they position themselves on social media, right? And we were able to see that they really still leveraged their beauty companies and that, you know, we were able to see what are they doing? And it's not what are they doing to copy them, guys. It's just straight up competitive research to see what are other experts that are already in this space, that are already killing it, that are already doing well. Let's take a look at what they're doing, right? So that we can see how we can do it better. And not only how you can do it better, how can you add your spin to it? What do you like about what they're doing? What do you think that, you know, you don't like what they're doing? This will help you in the beginning process when you're just starting off. So take a look, okay? So like I said, if you're a real estate agent, who are the other big real estate agents that have built really strong personal brands? And this can help you start idea generating of what you want your brand to look like. How do you want it to be different than theirs? Or how do you want it, what do you think their brand is doing that's well? So it's always just keeping an eye out on other people in your space as well. Now, I think a big question when it comes to building out your personal brand is what's the reason? What is your why? And I don't mean your why is like, I always talk about the why, but in this instance, I'm not talking about it in terms of like, what is your impact? I'm talking about what is your plan for monetization? And I say this because let's just say, again, my beauty CEO, I asked her, I'm like, are we trying to drive sales to your beauty company ultimately? Are we trying to make this into the biggest beauty company in the world? And if that is the case, then we need a lot of beauty content. Maybe the CEO can do beauty tips and share her routine and all that sort of stuff, right? It's understanding your monetization because you want to know what type of follower you're trying to attract. And then you want to try to understand, okay, how am I going to monetize this follower in the future? Is it leading them to another product? Is it selling them a product directly? When you're building a personal brand, understanding future monetization is really important. So maybe you're like, okay, I want to create a book or I have a local business I want to drive traffic to, or maybe you want to do a course or you want to just set up your consulting, you know, one-on-one time, whatever that case may be. You still have to have that in the headspace while you're building it. Now, of course, if you're new to our channel, you may not know, but we have a course on monetization that actually will help you get into that monetization mindset. If you need help figuring out where you're going, how you're going to monetize your personal brand, what are the different ways that you can do so and get started? I will leave a link for that below so you can check it out on your own and see if you think it's a good fit for you. Now, a big part of developing your personal brand is not only figuring out your niche, like we talked about, but it's your special sauce. What makes you different? What's your competitive advantage? What's something that you can lean into that is special for you? And I call it the special sauce, but it's really leveraging your credibility and your experience, right? So for us at Sidewalker Daily, yes, we work with influencers, we coach them, we have products for them, but we've also spent a really long time on the brand side doing influencer campaigns for brands, right? So we lean into our professional credibility and we still work with brands, right? So a big part is figuring out what makes you different in this space? What makes you special? Why should people come to you versus someone else? And really honing in on your key messages, your special sauce, and making sure that you can put that into your copy, your content, your website, because it's a really important part of your own personal brand is where you came from and maybe how you got there, right? There could be some credibility that you want to include. Now, something I think a lot of people forget or don't do soon enough when they're building out their personal brands is securing their social handles, okay? Now, people ask me, Nina, do I name my brand under my name? Do I give it another brand name? Again, I can't tell you on this video, this would have to be a one-on-one call because I don't know your situation, right? I don't know. So many people have business partners. Maybe it's not, like my company is not called Nina Zeta, right? We're called Sidewalker Daily. We're an agency and I'll leave that for another story, but these are decisions and business decisions that you need to make. But securing your social handle is something you should do once you've figured that out, because you want to make sure that you have access to the same social handle as your personal brand, your website name, a domain name. That way, as you grow, you know, you don't want to leave that behind and then be like, oh, I didn't take that handle on Instagram or I didn't take that website domain name. So those are things that you can do just easily to make sure you secure them. Now, I can't talk about personal branding without talking about branding itself and logos. Now, when you develop a personal brand, it is so important to stick to traditional branding tools when it comes to how you look, right? And when I mean how you look, how you look online, like your actual brand, your colors, your fonts, your, you know, your aesthetic. How are you presenting? Being a personal brand is, again, you're not just a person anymore. You're really trying to develop a brand out of your persona. And all big brands have mission statements. All big brands have, you know, tone and their own brand decks that talk about, okay, these are the colors for your own brand or these are the fonts. And this will help you with that idea of cohesiveness that we talked about in the beginning. You know, here at Sidewalker Daily, we always recommend for branding, you know, not to have more than two fonts, for example. You don't want it to be like all over the place, maybe three at max, a header font, a subheader, and then your paragraph font. You're going to want to have certain brand colors as well, right? And making sure that those colors are consistent. You're like, Nina, well, where are those colors going to even live? Well, maybe it's on your Reels cover on Reels or your thumbnail or your website. Having brand colors is a part of building your personal brand. Having, like I said, fonts that represent you, like having a very, you know, cursive type of font gives a different brand persona than someone who is using like really, really intense font, for example. So these are choices that you'll make, but they ultimately represent how you want to be known and how you want to look online. And just to kind of tie this in, maybe it's part of branding a logo. People ask me, do I need a logo? It's part of the branding space, right? So yes, having a logo is something that a lot of personal brands, they want to develop. They're looking to get into. And here at Sidewalker Daily, we help you guys with all things branding. Like we can develop that brand deck for you that will help you, you know, decide your fonts, your colors, your mission statement, all of that good stuff. The words associated with your account. I recently worked on a deck for a creator and we were like, okay, these are the words, right? Fun, charismatic, outgoing, bold. And like just knowing those words is very different than like sultry, you know, seductive. So like finding different words is a really great exercise to help you figure out how do you want your brand to be known for online? What's the vibe that you're giving off? So definitely something to consider. And knowing your elevator pitch, I cannot stress the importance of that when it comes to your personal brand. Being able to say, okay, this is who I am, this is what I do, and this is what I can do for you. And really working on, again, your mission statement, who your company is, or who your own personal brand is, excuse me. Being able to articulate that in a room full of people, this is going to help you. It's a great exercise to get you on track and feeling confident about, you know, what your brand is all about. Now, I do think it's important to talk about content when it comes to your own personal brand because your content reflects your brand. What you put in your captions, even your own editing style, right? Your tone, the type of content that you create. Like at Sidewalk or on Instagram, maybe on Reels, we do some silly, fun Reels. And that's kind of, again, part of our brand. We've decided to like lean into that area. Some people, some creators I work with, or some brands I work with, they go a very different route. So it's figuring out your content also reflects your brand. And not only, like I said, the actual stuff that you're posting, even your captions, right? The words that you use. Are you like, hey guys? Are you like, hello there? You know, it all really comes into what it is that you are trying to let people know about your brand, just through words, right? And them stumbling upon your account and seeing, you know, how you talk to people. All of this reflects your own brand. And when it comes to personal branding, guys, I'll leave you with this. What do you want to be known for? Answer that question and you'll be able to really decide what you want your personal brand to be about. What do you want to be known for? What's the mark that you're trying to leave? And this is a great guiding principle. And like I said, guys, we offer a variety of different ways to help you on your personal brand from website design, to media kit design, to one-on-one coaching, to consulting, to all of that good stuff. So if you need a little hand holding in this or need some of those assets to help you really define what your brand looks like, reach out to us. We are happy to help. Anyways, guys, let me know if you enjoyed today's video. If you're interested in more things branding, I'd be happy to create more videos on this topic. Let me know in the comments below. And as always, like, comment, and subscribe. That's how you support our channel. And I will see you guys in the next video.