Branding Yourself

The third event of the marketing week took place this Wednesday, October 20th. The speakers were Reanne White and Fernanda Albanus. Introduction for the event was quite strong, Reanne asked the audience to contemplate the concept of personal branding, to which one of the audience members replied, “Personal branding is how you present yourself”, Reanne elaborated that what was said is true, however, a personal brand is much more than that, she quoted CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”. She added that a good personal brand is much like a pretty book cover, meaning that people are attracted to something that was made with effort and a sense of style in mind. That is essentially what people should thrive to achieve.

The second speaker Fernanda reinforced Reanna’s speech with instructions on how you can develop your own personal brand, a personal brand is your resume, it is your LinkedIn account. It is important that you put effort into your social media presence. Fernanda shared that the way a person dresses, behaves and their composure is what matters. People tend to perceive your personal mission and your aspirations as well, these are the things that might make someone join in with you on your path to success.

Fernanda later mentions the fact that a digital portfolio is essential for marketers, it can include all the projects you completed in school such as websites. She began to demonstrate her website, she stated that your own website can reflect onto your personality and current occupation, such website is useful as it tells your potential employers what kind of a person you are.

She went in-depth with the social media aspect of personal branding, platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn require “consistency and frequency” of posting because in return you might get “authority, credibility, and loyalty” from your followers.

In the final part of the event, Reanne came up to demonstrate how to use Canva, a digital design application that allows you to create: informational flyers, event flyers, video graphics, stickers, promotion flyers, logos, and even 2-minute business cards. She proposed that audience members go on and create their own personal brand logo and a business card within 10 minutes time limit. Reanne announced that the person whose business card will be judged to be the most creative and attractive will have 50 of them printed free of charge.

In the process of composure, each audience member got help and support from the speakers, they were enthusiastic to help each one of those that were designing their cards on Canva.

In the end, participants submitted their works and are currently waiting for the results from the judges. This third event of the marketing week raised a lot of interest in personal branding among the students, they were shown ways to elevate their social media presence as well as establish their own professional identity.