Tuesdays with Toolulu: Personal Branding

Thanks for visiting Craft Critique! If you've come here from a search engine or from a direct link, you might be missing out on more content! Please visit CraftCritique.com. And for more amazing content such as projects, artist interviews and more, sign up for our Monthly Newsletter.

It's time again for some business tips from Toolulu. Our last article was all about setting goals. Did you do your homework? Were you inspired to set some specific and attainable goals for your business?

Today we're focusing on branding. Some of you are promoting a product. For some of you, your product is you. Personal branding is a term that gets thrown around a lot, and some people question the use of that specific term. Any way you look at it, you're presenting an image (or your personal brand) and people make judgments based on how they perceive you or your product. You want to make sure that your personal brand truly represents you.

A couple of weeks ago we gave a presentation where we discussed this very topic. We used an activity where we each came up with three words to describe our brand. For example, mine might be crafty, speaker, blogger. Everyone at the meeting was then given a sheet of stickers and given the instruction to go around and "tag" people with words that they felt they portray. Some of these people knew each other but others had to go on first impressions alone. Even the way we dress and carry ourselves send a message.

Here is what people had to say about me. I got quite a few crafty and creative. I was surprised to see just as many label me as helpful. It's not inaccurate. I love to help. It's just not something that I was actively trying to portray or promote about myself. This isn't a bad thing. But now that I know people see me as helpful, I might use that a little more in my overall marketing strategy.

Through this exercise I could see that if I want to be known as a speaker and blogger, I need to work a little more on portraying that. I can tweak my efforts to include things that show the other aspects of my personal brand.

Homework

Choose the three words you want to describe your brand.

Do a little crowd-sourcing. Ask people you know, your blog readers, twitter followers, facebook friends, etc... to use one word to describe your brand. Ask at least 10 people.

Are you surprised by the results? Are you sending the message you're intending?

Use the results to make more informed decisions for your overall branding. In business, knowing what people think of you (for good and for bad), is a great thing. Get out there and start asking!

Toolulu.com is a social media marketing company whose tagline is "We Know Our Craft". The women behind Toolulu are Christy Nelson and Deb Averett--avid crafters and designers who also happen to know a thing or two about business. They will be providing a series of articles for Craft Critique over the next several months focusing on building a craft business with a focus on social media.