PatrickA personal brand is a way to showcase the brand of YOU to the world.
A personal brand is a way for people to get to know who you are! It’s a way for them to get to know what you are about, what you have to offer the world, and WHY you do what YOU do.
A personal brand is a brand about YOU!
And your personal brand is critical in today’s world because so much of the trust we build with people and businesses is done online first.
If you are interested in working with a business or a coach, going to an event or just purchasing a product, you are most likely going to do some type of research online first.
So it’s important how we present ourselves to the world, and that comes through building a personal brand and online presence that lets you shine so that you can share your message.
A brand isn’t just a name or a logo—it’s the way people feel when they think about a product, service, or company. It’s the vibe, the impression, the story people tell themselves about what that brand represents.
Sure, it includes the name, design, and logo—those visual cues that help us recognize it—but it also runs deeper than that. A brand sets a business apart, building recognition and creating value, not just for customers but for stakeholders too.
Think about it: when you hear "Nike," what comes to mind? Probably more than just the swoosh. Maybe it’s the energy of pushing past limits, the promise of high-quality gear, or the inspiration of their "Just Do It" campaigns. That emotional connection? That’s branding at work. It’s shaped by everything—from sleek advertising to how products are packaged to the customer service experience.
Branding is really the art of shaping perception. It’s about crafting and sharing a brand’s personality in a way that makes people feel something—and gives them a reason to choose you over the next option. When done well, branding creates loyalty and trust.
At its core, a strong brand invites people in and makes them want to stay. It’s not just about being seen—it’s about being remembered and valued.
Your personal brand is your reputation and you want to show the world who you are through how you show up. Your online personal brand is the “digitization of your reputation.”
1. Build clarity in who you are, what you offer, and what you really want
Your personal brand is a space to showcase who you are, what you offer the world, and WHY you do what you do.
The challenge is that it often takes a lot of self discovery for us to understand ourselves first before we know how we want to show up online.
I would recommend asking yourself a lot of introspective questions including:
- What do I love to do?
- What talents and skills do I have to share with the world?
- What am I really good at?
- What do I stand for?
- What are my core values?
- How can I help other people live a better life?
- What characteristics have others complimented me on?
- What do I get excited about sharing with other people?
- What do I really want, and why do I really want it?
When you start to answer these questions, you will start to dive deeper inside of yourself to pull out more of who you are. Over time, you will begin to understand more about you and build the clarity you need to create an authentic presence online.
If you are struggling to answer these questions, I would recommend that you ask these questions to your friends, family, co-workers or even your clients.
Quite often it is easier for others to see our unique qualities and what makes us shine than it is for us to see them within ourselves.
I also don’t recommend that you wait for absolute clarity before you get started taking action. The clarity you are looking for actually comes from the action you take.
So start to share more about your story online, create content that provides values and tells the story about what you are going through, and work on connecting with your audience, even if it’s just a few people, this will grow in time.
2. Determine what type of content you want to share and what you want to be known for
People have a tendency to put others into boxes, and that can actually be an advantage when building a personal brand!
It’s difficult for us as humans to remember everything about everyone we meet (or come across on the internet), and this keeps us focused on a few core things that we know about people until we get to know them better.
So we can use this to our advantage when building a personal brand because what you showcase to the world and what you talk about in your content is going to be what your audience knows about you. It’s not possible, nor should everyone online, know everything about you.
So choose 2 to 3 main themes that you want to talk about, and leave the rest for deeper conversations with friends and family.
Think about this question for a minute. “If I had a gigantic billboard with anything on it, what would it say, and WHY?”
Your personal brand and your online presence is your gigantic billboard. So make sure you stay focused on your message and create content related to the themes you want to present to your audience.
Also remember that your personal brand isn’t just a reflection of who you are today, it’s also a reflection of where you want to go. So building some understanding of your vision is going to be a powerful tool for building your personal brand.
If you need help to create a vision for a compelling future, please reach out to me, would love to guide you through an exercise on a complimentary discovery and alignment call.
3. Determine your mission statement
A mission statement helps your audience understand who you help and why you help them. It helps them clearly see whether what you have to offer is of value to them, and it helps them connect with your WHY.
Please don’t get discouraged if you find it difficult to write your first mission statement, it is often difficult for us to narrow our niche and get really clear on our mission until we have explored a lot of different paths.
So just start somewhere, write out your first statement around who you help today and why. Then continue to refine your statement as you continue to walk through life until you feel like you have found one that resonates with your core mission.
I help __________ do ___________ so that they can blank _________ .
Watch the following video for some great information on helping you getting some more clarity on this topic.
4. Determine Your Personal Brand Identity. How do you want to be perceived?
You have an identity you showcase to the world, it includes every aspect of you that your audience gets to see.
Your identity includes how you show up online, how you speak, the values you live by, and even the clothes you wear.
So getting really clear about the identity you present to the world is important. It’s my opinion that we always want to showcase a truthful and authentic identity; but that doesn’t mean we have to show all aspect of ourselves either.
You can create a personal brand identity that you show to the world that is full of confidence, energy and strength. And that could be totally different from the identity you have when you are in your personal relationships. Maybe you want to be more calm and chill in your every day life, but when you show online you want to make the world see you as powerful.
This can relate to masculine and feminine qualities that we all hold as well. Are you showing up as a masculine driving force to your audience, or do you present yourself. with more feminine style qualities that are down to earth, calm and collected?
You get to choose your identity, so I believe it’s important to be clear about how you show up.
5. Grow your online presence and build your portfolio
Now let’s talk about some of the practical steps around building your personal brand portfolio.
How you build your personal brand online is a big part of building a following and showcasing yourself to the world in our current digital age.
Two main areas of focus are social media platforms and your own personal website.
would recommend trying to create synergy between the domain name you purchase for your website and the social media accounts you also have.
Take some time to consider:
- Purchasing your domain name
- Your Instagram account handle
- Your Facebook Page name
- Your LinkedIn Profile username
- Your Twitter handle
As you can see my Instagram is @patrickfarrell.life which also matches my website www.patrickfarrell.life
Therefore I have tried as much as I can to brand everything as patrickfarrell.life when I am able to. At the time when I started building my personal brand, @patrickfarrell was not available so I looked as I was creating my account what I could get across multiple platforms.
As you build out your social media platforms, be sure to incorporate your mission statement in your bio. I would also recommend linking your accounts together as much as possible.
You want someone that discovers you on Facebook to easily be able to navigate on your Profile to your Instagram page and website. You will want your Instagram bio to be linked as well to your website.
Essentially you want to make it easy for people to click through and find different places where you can be found online as this builds more trust in your and your brand.
It also helps your audience get to know you better because different platforms specialize in different types of content.
Lastly, as you are building out your sales funnels when you start to offer products and services, you are going to want to have all of these social media accounts easily linking to your website so people can purchase your products.
I would recommend that you build your website on Wordpress, but there are a few other widely used options including Squarespace and Wix.
If you need help with building your website or sales funnels, please book a call with me.
6. Create Your Pitch
As your personal brand begins to come together, you are going to want to help people understand more about who you are. And you are going to want to drive people to your online personal brand at networking events, conferences and parties.
Keep your elevator pitch short and sweet so that when you meet someone for the first time, they get a sense of who you are, why they should follow you and how you can help them. You’ll want to emphasize a couple key points and maybe also give them a short story to remember.
The key points could include things like your looking for a new position, the service you offer, your strengths in a particular field, or recent client successes.
Your pitch is also going to help you sell yourself or sell your products, which is most likely the reason you are doing all of this work in the first place.
7. Embrace Networking and Community Building
You wouldn’t be doing all of this work if there wasn’t a reason for it!
Some of the main reasons you would build a personal brand include:
- You want people to work with you
- You want people to purchase your products
- You want to find a job
- You want to be known as a subject matter expert in your field
So how do you actually grow your audience and get more people to follow along on your journey?
As you grow and expand your online portfolio of work so you can gain more trust in your audience, you are going to also want to grow your audience!
Yes there are lots of ways to grow your audience online, but it’s my opinion to also really embrace meeting and interacting with people OFFLINE!
Then as you meet people at different in-person events, and they see your amazing personal brand portfolio and all of your valuable content, they are going to be blown away and remember you the next time they need what you have to offer.
One more tip, this is an incredible podcast video by Lewis Howe’s with Rory Vaden about building your personal brand.
I hope this resource was helpful to get you started with some of the key steps to build your personal brand
If you need support, please feel free to apply to work with me. I have a package to help you Ignite Your Business and personal brand, you can find out more at https://patrickfarrell.life