Personal Branding Tips for New Freelancers

Being a freelancer requires a lot of responsibilities. You are responsible for carving out an image and reputation for your brand and for promoting the services and products you offer.

Initially, it can be quite a difficult task starting out with creating a brand for yourself, especially if you are relatively new to freelancing. Consider these personal branding tips which I have found to be useful for new freelancers;

Carve Out a Niche

Starting out as a new freelancer, there are tendencies that you will most likely just do what others are doing or follow a particular model in order to excel. This is a really helpful step, it is always good to follow an already working model/have a role model in the same industry as yours- offering the same products and services.

Ensure that it is not a “copy and paste” model that you are working with. No idea is entirely new, all new ideas are refined from old ones. Instead of doing only what others are doing or only offering what they offer, why not offer something completely unique? Find your niche, sharpen it, and do what the others are not willing to do in order to establish it. Then others will want to copy you as well.

Originality is Key

“Talk the talk and walk the walk”. In order to make your brand reputation a credible one, make sure you deliver on everything which you say your brand stands for. Have certain proofs that speak for what they are- in this is the true essence of a brand. It is clear and evident to all.

Be consistent with your interactions, have a theme. Your brand and your personality should be one, don’t be afraid to infuse your personality into your work. Think speech, conduct, physical appearance, online presence as a few to start with.

As long as your presentation of self “agrees” with your brand, it is absolutely fine to be yourself. And, it makes it a lot easier.

Create an Appearance

An important thing you can do to encourage a solid personal brand is to create awareness for it. An effective tool for this is social media where a countless amount of people can be reached. Employing various social media platforms, you can gain maximum exposure and engage with the online community.

New freelancers can get off to a great start and more experienced freelancers can refresh and strengthen their personal brands with these three useful tips. Comment if you agree and if you have other tips to share with new and existing freelancers.