
If you have lost your job in this covid-19 era or you have been unemployed for a while now or you’re a student who is at home and wanting something productive to do, one of the ways you can grow yourself and reap the benefits someday soon is to build your personal brand.
Having a personal brand establishes your credibility and exposes you to life changing professional opportunities.
In an age where everything is going digital, the surest way to build a personal brand is through maintaining a blog.
But what is a blog?
A blog is simply a website that provides information about a certain topic. And the topic could be anything from sports, technology, food, Muslim culture etc
So how does one go from maintaining a blog to building a personal brand and making a career out of it?
Maintaining a blog and producing relevant content establishes you as a thought leader on the type of content you produce. Readers soon begin to associate you to the expertise you share and before long you’re known as an expert in the particular area and sought after.
In this post, we will take a look at how to go about using a blog to build your personal brand and make a career out of it.
Find a topic to build your brand around
What is it that you will like people to know you for or associate with your person. When someone hears your name someday, what do you want to be the first thing that comes to mind.
What comes to mind when you hear the name Manasseh Azure Awuni, an investigative journalist? How about Zion Felix, an entertainment analyst?
You’re able to associate these topic areas to the names because they have a topic around which they are building their personal brand. And this is the same thing you have to do for yourself.
In choosing a topic, you need to choose one you can consistently provide relevant information for. Your chosen topic should be something you really love to do or something you have many years of experience in.
If you lost your job in the banking sector cleanup after many years of experience, perhaps your topic area should be on economics, financial literacy or something related to your work experience.
If all you have is a hobby or an activity you’re passionate about, your topic could be around that thing. Do you like jogging and meeting new people? Your topic could be on jogging or healthy exercise.
Are you married and will like to share your marriage experience? That could be your topic area.
Bear in mind, whatever topic you choose, should be something you’re okay being known for.
Get a website
Remember, a blog is a website. Your blog being a website makes it easily accessible to anyone on the internet. And this is a great thing. The brand you build could easily reach millions of people in Ghana and beyond due to it being online.
If you have chosen a topic, you need to next consider getting a website. If a blog is a website, a website is simply a domain name and hosting linked together.
There are two ways to get a website; using free website platforms or paying for a domain name and hosting.
Getting a website the free way
There are many platforms online that will allow you to create free websites. I’ll mention just two of them.
- WordPress.com
- Blogger.com
There are downsides to using these free websites though. You will have an unprofessional web address. For example, instead of your web address being something like www.moonaga.com, you will have to make do with something like www.moonaga.wordpress.com or www.moonaga.blogspot.com.
If you’re looking to build a strong personal brand, this is not a good way to go.
Another downside is, free websites do not give you enough control over the website. You have many template designs to choose from but once that decision is made, you cannot tinker with the chosen design any further.
Paying for a domain name and hosting space
If you are serious about building a strong brand, this is the way to go. By paying for your own domain name, you get to control your web address and how the structure and design of your website is. You get to have a www.moonaga.com type of web address.
WIth a paid hosting, you also have full control of the content and files of your site.
Produce content around the topic for your website
The time is now set to start building that personal brand. Start writing articles or producing video around your chosen topic for the website. The content you produce should be something that people will find worthy of reading.
Anytime you write something on your blog, make sure to share with friends and family on social media. Social media has a network effect as one person who reshares what you have posted could get many thousands of readers for your blog.
To reach the goal of building your brand, you will need to be consistent. The content you produce should be published daily or weekly. If you’re not consistent, you will fail at building that brand.
And make sure to not lose control and start writing about all kinds of topics. If you stick to writing on one topic, you will quickly be associated with that topic and your brand would have been built.
Making a career out of your brand
If you have managed to stay consistent around your topic and continue to produce useful content, you can make money from your brand. Almost naturally, when people need expert advice on that topic, they will reach out to you and if you are not the “pro bono” type, you can charge for the advice.
You can also partner with people in the market of your topic and advertise products on your website. For example, if your topic area is on parenthood, you can get in touch with maternity clinics, kids clothing shops etc to advertise their products on your website for a fee or commission.
If your brand is really a good one, you could become an ambassador for a baby product.
After your brand is built, there are many ways to make money out of it.
Some blogs to inspire you
Here are a few blogs maintained by Ghanaians that will inspire you.
- Parenting blog – tdzifa.wordpress.com
- Finance blog – www.ceditalk.com
- Food blog – www.naaoyooquartey.com
Conclusion
The real challenge to building a personal brand is the commitment to producing useful content consistently around your chosen topic. If you are truly committed, you will quickly realize that it’s not as difficult to build a brand.
Remember Kalybos? The only boss with one S? In producing funny skits consistently, he built a brand for himself around comedy and now has a career in comedy. You can also do the same and become a big brand.
Take the first step today.
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If you’re considering starting a blog, we can build one for you for just Ghs350 (domain name and hosting inclusive).
Moonaga digital