Must you have a personal brand online to sell digital products?

The answer is YES. But, why?

A personal brand is your online credibility sheet. If no one knows you, no one will buy from you. That’s the hard truth of marketing.

You must have a track record of giving valuable content, sharing your story online, and being a thought leader in your field to influence people to trust you.

So, how can you build a personal brand online as a digital creator?

• Define your niche
• Develop your unique brand identity
• Tell your story
• Build your audience
• Promote your brand
• Be consistent
• Monitor and evaluate your progress

In this article, we’ll go over each point in detail and how you can implement these strategies to build a personal brand online as a creator.

What is a Personal Brand?

A personal brand is the unique combination of skills, experiences, personality traits, and values that make you stand out from others.

It’s the image or perception people have of you, based on the messages you communicate through your actions, words, and appearance.

Branding and Comms expert, Blessing Abeng defines personal branding as “who you are every time your target audience interacts with you.”

Personal branding is a crucial aspect of success in any field, and it’s especially important for creators.

As a creator, your personal brand is your most valuable asset. It’s what sets you apart from other creators and makes you memorable to your audience.

Overall, building a strong personal brand can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field, increase your visibility and influence, and attract new opportunities and collaborations.

What Makes up Your Personal Brand as a Creator?

Your personal brand is made up of several elements, including your niche, brand identity, content, audience, self-promotion, and consistency.

Let’s dive into each of these components in more detail.

1. Your niche

Your niche is the specific area of expertise or interest that you focus on. This can be a particular topic, industry, or style. Your niche is essential because it helps you stand out from other creators and makes it easier for your audience to find and connect with you.

2. Brand identity

Your brand identity is the visual and verbal representation of your personal brand. It includes things like your logo, website, color scheme, tone of voice, and messaging.

However, Blessing explains branding as not only your logo, font, color, etc. In her words, “when people think about branding, they think about a logo, font color, product, etc. But all those things don’t exist in isolation. The uniqueness of how all those things come together is what makes you special and different from every other person out there.”

3. Content

Your content is the foundation of your personal brand. It’s the creative work you produce, such as videos, podcasts, blog posts, or social media posts. Your content should align with your niche and brand identity and should be high-quality and engaging to your audience.

Blessing further explains content as the interaction point between you and your audience. The content you share helps your audience take a mental note of who you are. It helps them form an opinion about you that either deepens or erodes their trust in you.

4. Your audience

Your audience is the people who follow and engage with your content. Building a strong and loyal audience is crucial for success as a creator, as it’s what drives traffic, engagement, and opportunities. You should be intentional about who you target as your audience and work to foster a sense of community among them.

Overall, building a strong personal brand is crucial for success as a creator, as it helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field, increase your visibility and influence, and attract new opportunities and collaborations.

How to Build a Personal Brand as a Digital Creator

Follow these steps to build a personal brand that helps you stand out from the competition, build credibility, and attract the right opportunities.

1. Define your niche

Defining your niche is a crucial step in building a strong personal brand as a creator.

Your niche is the specific area of expertise or interest that you focus on. It’s the particular topic, industry, or style that sets you apart from other creators and makes it easier for your audience to find and connect with you.

Oyekunle Damola is known online as an ads expert, while Patty the strategist is known as a business and marketing strategist online.

If you have an ad problem or you want to turn your business into a steady cash-making venture, you know which creator to approach.

By focusing on a specific area, you can develop a deep understanding of your topic and provide valuable insights to your audience. Additionally, defining your niche helps you stand out from other creators.

With so many creators in the market, it’s important to have a clear and distinct focus that sets you apart from others. This can help attract a loyal and engaged audience who are interested in your particular niche and style.

When defining your niche, it’s important to consider your strengths and interests. Think about what topics you are passionate about and what skills you have that can contribute to your niche.

You should also consider the needs and interests of your target audience. What topics are they interested in, and what questions do they have that you can answer?

Once you’ve defined your niche, stay focused on it and produce content that aligns with your niche and brand identity. This helps build consistency and recognition with your audience and reinforces your expertise and credibility in your particular niche.

2. Develop your unique brand identity

Your brand identity is the way you present yourself to the world. It should reflect who you are, what you stand for, and what you have to offer.

Start by defining your mission as a creator and what values you stand for. Ask yourself why you are creating content and what you hope to achieve through it.

Then, identify your target audience. Consider who your content is aimed at, what they are interested in, and what problems they are trying to solve. This will help you tailor your content and messaging to your audience.

Create a unique brand name and logo. Your brand name and logo are the visual representation of your brand identity, so it’s important to choose something memorable and distinctive. Think about what you want your brand to communicate and choose a name and logo that reflects that.

Develop a consistent tone of voice in your content. Consider how you want your audience to feel when they engage with your content and choose a tone of voice that will achieve that.

Finally, build a strong online presence and engage with your audience. Make sure your online presence reflects your brand identity and is consistent with your mission and values.

Respond to comments and messages, ask for feedback, and create content that your audience will love. Building a relationship with your audience will help you build a loyal following and strengthen your brand identity over time.

3. Tell your story

“If you don’t tell your story, somebody else will.” ~ Frank X. Walker.

If you are going to build a personal brand online, you have to share your story. It could be from sharing your work process to challenges you experience to making decisions, and everything in between.

Define your story. What led you to become a creator? What motivates you? What struggles have you faced and overcome? Sharing your story will help your audience connect with you on a personal level.

You don’t have to share deep stories if you don’t want to. But you should know that there’s a part of your story that can become someone’s survival guide.

Once you have an idea of the kind of stories you want to tell, create a content plan that aligns with your brand identity and goals. Consider the type of content you want to create, the platforms you want to use, and the frequency of your posts.

Focus on quality. Quality is essential when it comes to creating content that resonates with your audience. Take the time to research and develop your ideas, and invest in equipment and software that will help you create high-quality content.

Also, while you may be tempted to act like your favorite creator, know that being authentic is key to building a personal brand. Be true to yourself and your values, and don’t try to be someone you’re not. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and authenticity.

4. Build an audience

You have a beautiful story to share, it’s time to find people who will listen to it. And the best way to do that is to share your story.

Consistently create insightful, engaging content that offers something of value to your audience. This could be in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media updates, or any other medium that suits your style.

Leverage social media to your advantage. Choose the platforms that your target audience is most active on and use them to share your content and engage with your followers.

Respond to comments and messages promptly and genuinely engage with your followers. This helps your audience feel heard and seen.

As you grow, build an email list and use it to stay in touch with your audience. Email marketing is a more personal way to nurture relationships with your subscribers and promote your content directly to their inboxes.

By building an audience, you can then create a community around your brand. A community is a set of people genuinely interested in your work as a creator. Blessing explains the importance of a community this way, “There are three things a community would do for you.

A community will help you with visibility because these people are genuinely interested and will genuinely share your work with others. It will also help you with credibility because they’re sharing their experiences, stories, testimonials, and the fact that they trust you would make someone else trust you.

The third thing is that they will serve as a reference point for research because people would consistently keep telling you the new problems they’re experiencing in different ways looking up to you for solutions.” 

5. Promote your brand

This simply means talking about your personal brand and collaborating with other creators to boost brand visibility.

It’s important to promote yourself in a way that’s authentic and aligned with your brand identity and values.

Start by creating a strong visual identity. It can include your logo, color scheme, fonts, and overall style. Make sure your visual identity is consistent across all platforms to help people recognize and remember your brand.

Create valuable and relatable content online maintaining your visual identity to create a mental stamp in the minds of your audience and help them recognize your brand.

Collaborate with other creators or influencers in your niche to reach new audiences and build your brand. Look for opportunities to partner with other creators on projects or to promote each other’s content.

Attend events and conferences. Leverage in-person events to network with other creators and build relationships that can lead to collaborations and other opportunities.

Lastly, use paid advertising to reach a wider audience and promote your brand to people who may not have found you otherwise. Consider using platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Instagram Ads to target your audience with relevant content and offers.

6. Be consistent

Consistency is important when building a personal brand. It means showing up regularly and delivering quality content and messaging that aligns with your brand identity and niche.

When you consistently produce high-quality content and engage with your audience, you establish trust with your followers. They come to expect a certain level of quality and engagement from you, which can help you build a loyal fan base.

Additionally, being consistent helps you build recognition. Consistently creating content with a strong visual identity and messaging helps people easily recognize your brand.

It also helps you to demonstrate expertise. Creating content that showcases your expertise in your niche can help you establish yourself as a thought leader. When you consistently provide valuable insights and advice, people will begin to see you as an authority in your field.

By consistently creating high-quality content, engaging with your audience, and showcasing your expertise, you can establish trust, build recognition, and grow your audience over time.

7. Monitor your progress

A popular quote says, “If you can’t monitor it, you can’t manage it.” To know if you are doing a good job building your brand, you need to monitor your progress.

Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals that show growth. For example, you may want to increase your social media followers by 20% in the next six months or create a blog post every week.

Once you’ve set your goals, track your progress regularly. Use analytics from any platform you’re using to track goals.

Next, analyze the data you have to know what’s working and what’s not. For instance, you may find that your social media followers are increasing, but your engagement rate is low. In this case, you may need to adjust your content strategy to create more engaging posts.

Finally, use your analysis to adjust your strategy and improve your results. This may involve creating more targeted content, using different social media platforms, or engaging with your audience differently.

By monitoring your progress regularly, you can identify what is working and what is not, adjust your strategy, and build a strong personal brand online.

Ready to Build Your Personal Brand Online?

One of the reasons you have favorite creators in the first place is because you like their brand and have become a part of their community.

As a creator, personal branding isn’t something to leave to chance as it influences the sales of your digital products.

Without a credible brand online, no one will trust you or the efficiency of the products you’ve created. Take control of your personal narrative and show people that you know your stuff. That’s how you grow as a creator.

Next, leverage Selar to sell all kinds of digital products and get paid by anyone anywhere in the world. It’s really as easy as it sounds. And the best part? It’s FREE.