Personal Branding Trends For 2022
Your personal brand exists, whether you are consciously cultivating it or not. And everything you think, do and say contributes to it. Because of that, it’s important that you’re actively stepping out from behind your corporate persona and projecting your authentic and aligned persona into the world.
But, as with anything, personal branding trends change. And to stay relevant, it’s good to understand what these are, and if we need to change as well. So here are personal branding trends for the modern workplace in 2022.
Top Personal Branding Trends For 2022
Be human
Soft skills are key because they show your humanity, empathy and authenticity in an impersonal, online world. They allow a point of connection, which is what we all seek. The best way to do this is to include your own personal response and professional insights when you share content. Do you like it? Relate to it? Agree with it? Let the listener know.
And don’t strive to be perfect. Authenticity is much more valuable today. Just be human.
Be consistent and reliable
This is more than posting content daily, weekly, monthly. It means building a reliable, trustworthy personal brand that is aligned with your corporate identity. How do you do that?
Create a look that is consistent with the look and message of your brand.
Use your corporate colour palette and typefaces.
Use hashtags that are intentional and helpful in building connection.
Ensure your images, graphic style and design elements are consistent and that your company logo and name are clearly visible.
Be proactive with your engagement. When you work remotely, or your business exists online, you must pursue human engagement and remind others of your existence!
Reach out to colleagues, clients and potential clients for feedback.
Go to networking events and make genuine connections.
Call someone within your industry.
Have coffee.
Be easily contactable through your website, and reliably respond when someone reaches out.
Create videos
Experts believe that videos are one of the best way to put a face to the brand and provide a channel for your customers and clients to get to know you. And video is becoming an increasingly popular and wide-reaching form of digital marketing. This is especially true when it comes to the short-form formats – such as Lives and Reels – that are essentially taking over social media platforms.
Whether you embrace professionally produced brand films, or quick Lives, video is vital in 2022.
Read more: Top Digital Marketing Trend for 2022: Short Form Video Advertising
Share your social concerns
Many companies today see the value in being at least something of a social enterprise. Employees, customers, clients and other stakeholders hold expectations that businesses and their leaders are contributing consciously to something bigger than themselves. Consider how you can align your business with a social driver, and you’ll find that you have higher customer loyalty as a result.
Publish more
Whether it’s books, podcasts, videos, social media posts or blogs – in 2022 personal branding trends include publishing more. Employees and clients are craving that authenticity that is about more than just the bottom line. They want to see you – see your personal brand – and see how you work, what you care about, your personal life and more. Workplaces (yes, even if you’re a sole trader) need to be humanised. And that needs to be shared with your viewers.
Once you get all the information you can, you need to summarise it into one place. Then you can use that summary information to draft a composite example of the person, or persona, that you are attempting to engage within each group.
Read more: 7 Steps To a Showstopping Brand Video Script
Plan podcasts
Podcasts continue to rise in importance and popularity in terms of personal branding trends. And we expect this to really explode in 2022. After all, it’s a fantastic way to both share your thought leadership and show who you are.
If you have a podcast, continue to commit your time and resources to it. If you don’t, you might consider starting one. Or certainly reaching out to become a guest on others’.
How Our Branding Agency Can Help
Building a personal brand can help you reach new clients, cement existing relationships and elevate your business. But you’ll need to be both authentic and consistent in order to build the necessary engagement, credibility and trust to leverage your branding into loyalty in 2022.
At Primer Associates, we do the work to ensure you are creating an authentic and unique personal brand that aligns with your corporate brand. We do the research, create the strategy and roadmap. We are aware of your competitors, the content you need to be creating and the audience with whom you seek to engage.