Branding – personal branding – should be closer to a personality than a brand.

Do you get an impression of someone’s personality (consciously or subconsciously) at the first meeting? With people, that means things like body language, attitude, and tone of voice, even physical elements that we know are not really part of their personality.

We make fairly quick judgments about things like trust and based on these early impressions we decide if we want to continue a conversation or consider a stronger relationship.

Does that happen with a brand? I suspect that companies not only have brands but a kind of personality – if their branding is well done.

An online personality – like online dating – can be tricky. I’m more interested in my online personality even if I know from a business sense it is my brand. If people come to this website and explore a bit, they get some sense of my personality. Hopefully, it resonates with them and they engage or at least leave with a good feeling. It has been shown that when people have an emotional connection to a brand – as is the case with a PERSONality – it is of much higher value in the longterm.

An article on cultivating your online personality is about companies and brands but it can apply to personal brands too. That personal brand comes from what is communicated in any personal contact you have with a client, your website, social media presence, and any other digital platforms.

It may seem strange to think of yourself as someone who has attached to your personality things like “copy”, a color palette, a font, imagery, etc..

That article recommends 3 things:

1. Choose and maintain a consistent tone
2. Help your audience associate a face (or series of faces) with your brand.
3. Make your aesthetic cohesive across all channels from logo and fonts to colors and style across all digital platforms.