Getting Personal: How Creating Brand ‘You’ Can Transform Your Business

While most CEOs readily understand the need to build brand equity at the corporate level or for products and services. Very few companies understand the substantial benefits of increasing their personal brand equity.

The simple fact is that many business founders and CEOs completely miss out on one of the most powerful branding strategies available in today’s digital marketing market – creating their own personal brand through Digital PR.

When reading news articles, listening to interviews on the radio or watching TV interviews, you’ll notice that those professionals usually have positioned themselves as innovators and thought leaders through a carefully managed PR strategy and personal branding campaign.

These individuals may or may not have anything more to offer than their competitors or peers in their industry other than the fact that they know how to brand themselves as experts as they’ve commented on topical news stories to build their relevance and authority in the press.

Picture a very successful high, profile person like Martin Lewis. He is a public figure that you’ll instantly recognise in the media for his financial knowledge and being outspoken about the Cost of Living Crisis in the UK. He has built his empire by giving Britons helpful financial advice. He has completely changed the way we absorb content centred around finance. He produces helpful guides and content relevant to users online about saving money, avoiding debt and understanding credit cards. By stepping out of his comfort zone and putting his name in the press as an outspoken financial journalist and broadcast, he has been able to build his empire.

Martin Lewis founded the website MoneySavingExpert.com and sold the website in 2012 to the Moneysupermarket.com group for up to £87 million. However, even though he no longer actively produces the article himself, he is still featured in the national press. The website he founded has become one of the most reputable websites in the consumer market.

Using personal branding and an effective media strategy by writing stories centred around questions about finance has helped position Martin Lewis as UK’s top spokesperson for money advice. This personal branding case study is a perfect example of how CEOs or celebrities have established themselves as experts inside their desired sector as the media has given them that credibility through brand mentions and offline media appearances.

When a company’s CEO is viewed as an expert and leader in their market, it makes them more valuable to the company. It is an actual win-win scenario in that the founder and digital marketing team who knows how to manage their brand equity increase the enterprise’s brand equity.

Having a personal branding strategy allows companies in the digital space to have the ability to use the press to expose their brand to new audiences and gain new leads or sales as people are more likely to Google them after a media mention or feature.

At Embryo, we understand that CEOs who run a global enterprise will encounter many operating challenges as a matter of routine. Risks, opportunities, challenges, and even corporate crises can be addressed much more effectively when the CEO’s personal brand has been created by design to add value to these endeavours. In today’s complex global economy and media landscape. A well-crafted personal brand strategy is no longer a luxury but essential to boost your brand awareness and digital PR strategy.

Regardless of how you feel about the following list of individuals, you must agree that Martin Lewis and other public figures in the press have done a remarkable job of building a personal brand that has often times resulted in the creation of modern-day empires.

Think of Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and a whole host of others, and you’ll quickly see just how powerful a solid personal brand strategy has revolutionised their brand as people can put a face to the brand. In fact, spend some time Googling these names or browsing through social media, you’ll instantly spot the brand mentions and how they’ve created quite the following simply by creating a personal brand that ties into their companies. Investing in their marketing has become one of the essential requirements for these companies’ success. You can see how it’s been a great return on investment for the founders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, considering both of these founders are two of the wealthiest people in the world.

The reality is that most of us will probably never achieve the status of ‘celebrity’ or become Hollywood icons. However, increasing your personal brand equity is good for adding value to your company’s brand, leveraging your earning power, business growth and marketability.

Personal branding is far more than an ego-play; it is a smart business. If you don’t know how to create a strong personal brand, the following tips from will put you in the right direction:

1. 1. Invest in your digital marketing in order to build your brand – Adding personal branding to your marketing strategy will enable your PR team to secure brand mentions, coverage and links across various news outlets. Putting a face to comment is essential for media opportunities, and more often than not, journalists ask for imagery and comments from senior board members for their articles.
   2. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there – Personal branding is far from scary. If anything, it gives founders of small to larger companies the opportunity for people to understand their brand as they can share their thoughts in stories that are relevant to their target audience. Giving your consumers a complete vision of your brand and allowing them to have the opportunity to learn from you will increase your credibility in the press.
   3. Keep on top of trending news stories and provide comments to the press – Keeping on top of the latest social media trends and news stories is essential for personal branding as you want to comment on articles that are trending that day. Using expert comments and data as part of trending news stories can help boost organic brand searches and keyword rankings.
   4. Have a process agreed with your team when it comes to providing quotes – When it comes to personal branding for CEO comments, a process needs to be agreed upon when it comes to ghostwriting and proofreading. If you’re writing comments on behalf of a CEO, these must be approved by the person mentioned before sending them to the press.
   5. Don’t miss the deadline – Most personal branding opportunities have strict deadlines, and the person giving comments must be aware of the PR process, which will help you secure that media lead. Whether that’s an online feature, in-print feature, or TV interview, a reporter will specify what they need from a CEO for their article or TV appearance