The Art of Personal Branding for Writers and Editors

Are you familiar with the marketing term “branding?” Branding is the art and science of creating and building an instantly recognizable persona that sums up the heart of the company’s features, products, services, and benefits.

Many people equate a brand with a company’s logo, but branding is more than a logo. It encompasses visual elements, to be sure, but also the company’s messages, tone, and voice, and how it interacts with the world. Some brands are innovative and clear; some are trustworthy and old-fashioned. The impression that the public forms of a brand is built on consistent repetition of all of the elements that make up a brand.

 

Why Brand Is Vital in Today’s Digital World

Why do companies pour so much time, money, and effort into their brands? A strong brand can be worth billions. That’s not a typo. Apple currently stands as the world’s most highly valued brand, estimated at $323 billion U.S. Amazon comes in second place with brand equity valued at $201 billion. If you think pouring millions into a brand advertising campaign is foolish, consider that maintaining brand equity is worth the investment for these companies.

Companies spend much time, effort, money, and attention on branding, hiring consultants, graphic designers, and marketers to craft their unique and often iconic signature brand. It’s what helps them stand out in a crowded global marketplace and why consumers are willing to spend almost twice as much for an iPhone as a cheaper Android-based model or a computer sporting the black apple with a bite out of it. It’s not the logo they are purchasing but the experience: sleek, modern designer, excellent UI/UX, performance, speed, and longevity.

 

Writers and Editors Need a Brand, Too!

As the freelancing world becomes increasingly crowded, writers and editors must develop a personal brand to stand out from a sea of others offering similar services. In today’s digitally driven world, freelancers who invest in their personal brand reap the rewards:

• Recognition: an instantly recognizable brand ensures you (and your work) stand out from the crowd.
• Credibility: a personal brand establishes credibility in your chosen area of expertise.
• Opportunity: individuals who develop their personal brand often find opportunities come to them rather than chasing opportunities. Because you are recognizable and credible, those searching for your skills easily find you online.

 

Building a personal brand takes time and effort. But the payoff for the time and effort invested into creating and sharing a personal brand can pay off in more lucrative freelance gigs, less time spent chasing your next assignment or project, and higher recognition in a crowded marketplace.

 

The Elements of a Brand

Before discussing the specifics of building your personal brand, let’s first look at what makes a brand. Brands are made up of individual elements that form the overall brand. Some of these elements may gain enough recognition or brand equity to stand by themselves as a symbol representing the entire brand ecosystem.

Examples include the instantly recognizable Chanel logo, the iconic and trademarked Tiffany blue color, and even the shape of a restaurant building. Pizza Hut, anyone?

The elements of branding are similar to the elements of good journalism: who, what, where, why, when, and how. Although marketers may each have their own method of identifying the components of a brand, in general, they fall into the following categories:

• Brand voice: how the brand sounds — the style and tone of written and verbal communications.
• Brand identity: how the brand looks — the logo, colors, photography, and other visual elements unique to a brand.
• Brand promise: why the brand exists.
• Brand values: what the brand stands for.
• Brand targeting: who the brand is for.
• Brand positioning: where the brand exists today (when) in the spectrum of similar brands.

 

Let’s take an example of a familiar and easily identifiable brand with considerable equity in the marketplace: McDonald’s. Nearly every town in America has a McDonald’s restaurant; 99% of people reading this have eaten at least one item from their menu.

• Brand voice: McDonald’s brand voice is friendly, warm, and slightly modern. Listen to their commercials. It’s all about food, value, and a trustworthy, repeatable experience.
• Brand identity: Every McDonald’s restaurant, with few exceptions, is identical. The golden arches are their most notable symbol. Even their foods are named “Mc” (McNuggets, Big Mac) as part of the brand schema. Inside a McDonald’s restaurant, the company colors — orange, yellow, brown — appear on the menus, walls, floors, tables, chairs, and employee uniforms.
• Brand promise: McDonald’s promises consistency and a tasty, fast, filling meal for good value.
• Brand value: Brand values can often be put into single words. For McDonald’s, I would name their brand value as “trust.” They aren’t selling food: they are selling trust, safety, and familiarity.
• Brand targeting: Right now, they are targeting younger generations. During the 1970s, when I was growing up, their target market was children (hence the Ronald McDonald clown, indoor and outdoor playgrounds, and Happy Meals). Later, after adding their low-cost breakfast items, they expanded to senior citizens. Now, their target appears to be urban young adults.

 

I’m not privy to how McDonald’s determined their brand elements, nor do I know if these are 100% accurate. It’s what I’ve observed. You can play a similar game with other brands and try to identify their voice and visual identity.

 

Can Brands Change Over Time?

Brands evolve over time. As you can see from the McDonald’s example, a brand can begin with one target market and build over time. Other companies “rebrand” to update one or several parts of their brand elements. I’ve been part of teams rebranding iconic and venerable brands. It’s a balancing act of ensuring that a brand’s recognizable and beloved aspects remain while new, fresh elements are infused.

 

Personal Branding: A Game Changer for Freelancers

Personal branding allows freelancers to shape their online persona around their unique brand attributes and gain the instantly recognizable hallmarks of a strong brand.

Just as McDonald’s has its brand attributes, you have your own, too! You have a unique “voice” in the marketplace: funny, serious, quirky, and soothing.

You also have (or can develop) your unique visual identity. Your profile image, used across social media platforms, is an excellent start on your own personal brand. But other elements can also be infused into a personal brand to develop a recognizable visual identity. Selecting brand colors, or a small set of repeatable colors, to use throughout your website, images, and marketing materials is a quick and easy way to add a visual brand identity to your materials. You can even develop a logo inexpensively for your freelance business.

• Writers must consider brand positioning as well as their own brand promise.
• What do you stand for in the marketplace?
• Who do you write for — consumers or businesses? If consumers, do you specialize in writing for young adults, women aged 40 and over, moms, stay-at-home dads, or senior citizens?
• And what do you promise? A fun read that makes the audience laugh aloud, easy-to-understand technical information, or the latest, hippiest trends in fashion and beauty?

 

The unique combination of your own personal brand elements determines your unique personal brand. Each freelancer will have a different personal brand because no two people, not even identical twins, are the same. Give me five writers specializing in technology topics, and I’ll still have five unique personal brands.

 

Develop Your Personal Brand

Developing your own personal brand is similar to creating a company’s brand. It begins with a brand assessment.

If you were creating a brand for a company, you would start by assessing multiple attributes of the company. Most companies begin their branding process by convening a meeting of internal stakeholders: marketing and sales, operations, finance, accounting, and technology.

During this meeting, the meeting leader typically presents a series of questions for brainstorming. The answers and responses to a similar questionnaire for customers or clients help provide the person doing the branding with insights into the company’s products, services, unique attributes, personality quirks, company culture, and more.

1. Use personality assessments to better understand yourself.

“Know yourself” is a wise saying and the starting point for personal branding. Before building a personal brand, understanding your own strengths, weaknesses, communication style, and personality traits is essential.

Many good personality tests are available, and if you have access to them (Myers-Briggs, DISC, Enneagram, etc.), start with one of the better-known assessments.

One assessment that I highly recommend is the “Fascination” test created by Sally Hogshead. Sally is a well-known brand marketer, and I use her 49-grid Fascination profile for my clients. I also used it for my own personal branding and found that, when taken in conjunction with findings from the traditional personality assessments, it helped me build a personal brand that felt right for me.

 

2. Ask your clients and colleagues for some information.

This part can feel weird but bear with me. It’ s one of the best ways to understand the current personal brand persona you are projecting to the world. Often, what clients or colleagues express shocks you (in a good way!) and lends itself to new insights for a personal brand.

Make a list of people you’ve worked with who may be amenable to answering a few quick questions. Give them a deadline to ensure they focus and reply. Then, ask them the following via email:

• What would you say if you had to describe me to someone else?
• What do you perceive are my greatest strengths? Weaknesses?
• What do you like best about working together?
• What three adjectives best describe me?

 

You’d be surprised at how accurate these results can be. My own self-assessment began over 10 years ago with these questions. The answers were similar from the six coworkers, colleagues, and clients I polled. They saw me as trustworthy, professional, diligent, and brilliant at marketing. They also all said — and this was hard to hear but important — that I tend to get impatient when people don’t understand me. That I can get annoyed at little things. That when I get stressed, I take it out on others.

It may differ from what you want to hear, but feedback like this is invaluable. Many years after I did this first round of personal branding questions, I took a test from A Deeper Way (ADW) called the Personal Profile, and guess what? The results said the same thing — and pointed out that when I am under stress, I become short-tempered. Now, who would have thought . . . ?

 

3. Make a list of your best qualities.

Take the results from 1 and 2 and list your strongest assets. Your list may include words like mine, or perhaps you’re more creative, quirky, thorough, or funny than I am. Whatever they are, these are your words, and for now, just for your eyes only.

 

4. List your services.

Easy, right? Make a list of the services you offer. Then, rate the list on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least and 5 the greatest, in the order you sell them. Then, do the same thing again, except mark the list on a scale of 1 to 5 with how much you enjoy providing the service.

Where these intersect becomes part of your brand focus.

 

5. List the industries you provide services to.

Repeat exercise number 4, but instead, list industries you provide services in — and rank the list the same way on a scale of 1 to 5. Now think about how often you work with that industry and how much you like the industry.

Where the two intersect becomes your industries served.

 

What’s Your Most Important Quality?

What makes you uniquely you? What is the one thing that comes up over and over again when people talk about you, post feedback about you, or share testimonials about you?

How about when you were a child — think back to your school days in your teenage and college years. What were you like then? Are you the same way now?

These attributes, over time, when combined with the feedback sessions you’ve completed with clients and your own self-assessments, provide the locus from which you can develop a personal brand.

 

Building a Simple Brand: Visual and Verbal

Let’s say that after completing a self-assessment and asking for feedback, your list of brand attributes looks like this:

• Extraverted
• Funny
• Creative
• Sincere
• Problem Solver

 

Great! Now look at your list of services and industries:

Services

• Advertising writing
• Marketing writing
• Sales brochures
• SEO copy
• Product descriptions

 

Industries

• Insurance
• Banking
• Real estate

 

Building a personal brand on such qualities, services, and industries is fun! Although we might think of insurance, banking, and real estate as dull or stodgy, many companies in these industries would LOVE to find a creative advertising copywriter who is funny and fun to work with.

 

Developing a Visual Brand Image

Your visual brand should reflect you. All freelancers should have good quality, professional headshots taken by a photographer. Wear colors that flatter you, make you feel good about yourself, and align with your brand. Use the same or similar images across your social media platforms and your website to ensure quick recognition with your audience. You don’t need a logo with a personal brand; however, your portrait quickly becomes as important as a logo.

What about colors? Start with a color that feels “right” for you. People naturally gravitate toward brand colors that reflect their personalities. Go to a paint store and pick a few chips out that feel like your personal brand. Take these paint swatches and snap a photo of them separately against a white background. Then, use websites like Coloors to match the HEX# (a number that identifies a particular color and shade consistently across all digital devices). Write down the number as you will need it for your brand.

Coloors also has a color generator, which can help you choose additional colors for your brand palette. Like an artist’s palette upon which a painter splashes colors he mixes into a painting, a brand palette provides 2–3 colors, plus black and white, that should be used consistently and can be mixed and matched for variety.

When you have all of your colors, write down the numbers. I like to make a card on Canva or PicMonkey or any design software with my colors on the page in circles and the HEX# below them.

Your colors and your portrait become the central part of your visual brand. What about images? Think about consistency there, too, especially if you use licensed stock photography. The brand “tone” should be reflected in your image choices. If you’re funny and quirky, look for funny images, quirky angles, and more. If your brand tone is professional and dignified, think along those lines when choosing stock images. Colors, pictures, and other graphics work together to enhance your brand image.

 

Your Personal Brand: Description

Now we get to the fun part: writing your new profile description. This is where you can reflect your personal brand to the world! Sharing a consistent profile description on social media sites and your own website, and on sites you write for, also helps you build your personal brand.

Return to your list of attributes and qualities. Using our example of a funny, creative person who writes marketing copy for the banking industry, I’ll put together a sample of her profile below.

[You] + [results achieved] + [industry] + [service] = your profile message.

Our quirky copywriter might have a short bio that looks like this:

I generate leads for real estate agents by providing creative marketing and advertising writing.

Or, how about this, jazzing it up a little:

Tired of the same old boring finance copy? I write quirky, fun, creative, original sales copy for insurance, banking, and real estate. Plus, I’ll make you laugh. Ready to work?

Once you have something that appeals to you and feels right, use your new profile copy and image on all professional social media platforms.

 

Consistent Deployment of Personal Branding Builds Recognition

Remember that branding isn’t just visual and written. It’s also what you say and do and how you interact with others.

 

What If My Personal Brand Fails to Resonate?

Whenever I have seen a brand fail to resonate with the target audience, it’s usually due to one of the following factors:

1. Your personal brand must reflect the inner you to resonate with your target audience. You won’t get traction over time because it won’t feel “right.” Others will also perceive the discrepancy, like an instrument slightly out of tune in an orchestra. If you’re fun and quirky but trying to act serious and professional, you’ll feel constricted and bored — and it will show.
2. On Monday, you roll out your new brand message, portrait, and colors. But by Wednesday, you decide you don’t like orange, hate the banking industry, and change everything. This kind of flip-flopping never gains traction, confuses your audience, and doesn’t build a brand.
3. Giving Up. Lastly, giving up too soon can also cause a brand to fail. It can take many months of consistent hard work, sometimes longer, to truly see an impact.

 

Nearly every industry has room for originality, so I advise people to refrain from matching their brand to the industry. Matching brand attributes and values to the core of who you are builds an authentic, original personal brand. There’s only one you; if you try to be anyone but who you are, it won’t feel right to you or your audience.

 

It’s Your Turn: Build Your Personal Brand

Now it’s your turn! Building a personal brand can be a fun, creative exercise. Getting to know yourself via personality tests; asking for feedback and being open to receiving it; playing with color, photography, and words to describe yourself, your work, and the results you achieve for your clients; then deploying it across the digital landscape can be a fun marketing activity that also generates results.

And what results you can achieve. In today’s digital landscape, where potential clients have the attention span of a goldfish (8 seconds, in case you were wondering), being instantly recognizable — and your fabulous original self — is what will help you gain recognition for all the right things, stand out from the crowd, and attract the best clients to your doorstep.

 

 

Jeanne Grunert is the president and founder of Seven Oaks Consulting, a business-to-business content marketing agency. She is an award-winning writer and direct marketing expert with over 30 years of writing, marketing, and business experience. Prior to founding Seven Oaks Consulting, Jeanne led marketing for divisions of McGraw-Hill Education, Teachers College Columbia University, The College Board, and retail, publishing, and financial service companies in the New York City area. Known worldwide for her exceptional leadership and communication skills, Jeanne works seamlessly across cultural and corporate barriers to achieve outstanding results. She holds an M.A. in writing and an M.S. in direct and digital marketing (awarded with distinction) from New York University, as well as certifications in social media marketing, content marketing, and adult education. Originally from the New York City area, Jeanne currently resides with her husband, John, and many pets on a 17-acre farm in rural Virginia. When not leading marketing teams through her work at Seven Oaks Consulting, she enjoys gardening, reading, cooking, and writing mystery novels.