Building Your Personal Brand: How to Tell Your Story

If you know how to use it, social media offers an incredible force of influence at the palm of your hands. By choosing the right platform, telling a compelling story and speaking to the right audience, you can be recognized for your expertise.

Just look at the latest batch of YouTube stars, like Bethany Mota.

ReadWrite recently reported that “nobody on YouTube is having it better right now than Bethany Mota, a 17-year-old.” After dominating the teenage fashionista niche, Mota has built a following of more than 7 million subscribers on her channel. She did this by drip-feeding a consistent stream of her personalized fashion tutorials, advice, reviews—all in her authentic voice since 2009.

Her story is pretty sweet and simple. Mota is an average, cheerful teenage girl passionate about her fashion-oriented hobbies. After building a following of like-minded tweens, her personal brand has landed her very own clothing line at Aeropostale and the cover of Seventeen Magazine’s YouTube issue.

There are quite a few things we can learn about personal branding from Mota. Choose a platform that resonates with your expertise. If Mota can carve a place in her niche, so can you.

1. Find Your Niche

Rather than speaking to a broad audience, think about your ideal reader. A good rule of thumb is to zero in on two subjects. For example, for Mota, her topic is lifestyle/fashion for tweens.

If Mota chose a broader topic of fashion for all ages, it would be hard for her to sincerely speak to the average 40-year-old while also giving fashion advice to 13-year-olds. Choosing a specific demographic helped her carve her niche and stay focused.

What two topics are you most interested about?

Data mining and basketball? You’ll definitely find readers who are passionate about insightful data about basketball games, players and game predictions.

2. You Do You

It can be tempting to copy other successful experts who already have a strong following on social media, but copycats rarely last. People—especially your potential boss—can generally sniff through an immitation.

Establish your own unique voice. In your own personality. You’re always going to be way more interesting than just a copycat.

“The biggest rookie branding mistake is to present yourself as not only an expert in the industry, but as a flawless fount of wisdom,” says Michelle Stansbury, CEO of Little Penguin PR. “Sharing the more human aspects of yourself will help build your brand with a heart and a personality.”

3. Start with Passion and Purpose

You don’t need a heroic story to establish an awesome personal brand.

Genuine passion and purpose are the keys to your story.

The origin of Apple Computer and Steven Jobs, for example, are totally intertwined, says Chip Bell, keynote speaker and consultant for many Fortune 100 companies.

“The first logo depicted a thoughtful Isaac Newton studiously alone under an apple tree,” Bell says. “And, just like its cofounder, the word Apple just happened to cleverly land in the phone book before Atari, another tech company getting its start at the same time.”

It’s all about homing in on the most interesting and relevant aspect of your story—you don’t need to tell all.

Melissa A. Rothermel Biernacinski, director of media relations at Imagine Communications, says it’s crucial to choose a story bite that reflects what you want others to know.

For instance, “Do you want your personal brand to reflect someone who gives back to the community?” she says. “Then make it known that you volunteer for X, Y and Z causes.”