How to package personal brands?

Previous post

With Kai-Fu Li, I spoke about the advantages of packaging personal brands. I have been busy a few days ago and haven't finished my subsequent topics. Taking advantage of the free time this weekend, I have to finish the previous unfinished topics, so as not to be treated as a eunuch post.

★Nonsense written in front

◇ Why should I write this post?

IT Technicians (especially programmers) in China tend to be introverted. I have seen many colleagues with excellent abilities. Because they are not good at packaging themselves and have been buried for a long time, their personal abilities cannot be effectively used. This
Both individuals and companies are quite unfavorable (double-win ). Therefore, I wrote this post to help these students change this situation and create a win-win situation for individuals and companies.

◇ Who is this article applicable?

First, the packaging of personal brands is based on personal strength. Without strength, it is easy to fall into the "show" astray. If your abilities are insufficient, you should first consider how to improve your personal strength, rather than personal packaging. This post is useless for the moment.

In addition to strength, we also need to look at personal wishes. Some people are naturally low-profile and do not like to show up. Some people, for various reasons, do not need to rely on their own brands to get the associated benefits. If you belong to these people, then you don't have to waste time reading this article.

★Three aspects of Packaging

After talking nonsense, let's get down to the truth. I personally think: Building a personal brand is essentially the same as running a company brand. So I used some marketing terms to demonstrate it. The packaging of personal brands focuses on three aspects: Brand audiences, brand positioning, and brand promotion. These three aspects complement each other, but the lack of one is ineffective.

Taking into account the position of this blog, this is mainly the IT company's wage earners. Later I will talk about how to implement these three aspects based on the characteristics of the company's employees.

★Brand audience

◇ What is an audience?

In layman's terms, the audience is the objects that influence the brand ). If there is no audience, the brand will lose its meaning. In addition, the type of the audience directly affects how the brand is positioned and how it is promoted. Therefore, I will talk about the "audience" topic first.

◇ Definition and segmentation of key audiences

Theoretically, anyone who has direct/indirect contact with you may become the target of your brand. However, based on the principle
,A small group
The audience will generate brandMain
. This "small group" is"Key audience
". Whether the key audience can be clearly defined will directly affect other subsequent steps.

To determine the key audience, it is generally necessary to divide the audience (including analysis and classification ). Common audiences can be divided into the following types: colleagues, friends, family/relatives, netizens, classmates, etc. Suppose you want to improve your reputation in the company. Obviously, "colleagues" and other audiences are most relevant to your goals and should be defined as key audiences.

After defining the key audience, we need to further segment the audience. In general, colleagues can also be divided into: Your superiors (including indirect superiors), colleagues in the same department, your subordinates (including indirect subordinates), and colleagues in other departments. For some companies, the coupling between departments is very low. Colleagues from other departments can also remove them from the "critical audience" category.

Through such definition/subdivision, you can clearly define the brand packagingKey
Target group.

★Brand Positioning

After finishing the audience, you have to think about it.Each category

Audience, how to position the brand. In other words, What image do you want the brand to be in the eyes of such audiences? For example, Google is positioned as "Search", so when everyone sees the name "google", they will first contact "Search ".

Positioning is very exquisite and can be called an art. Run the question a little: Jack Trout, the famous marketing bull. For details, see "here

"), I wrote a book called" positioning "specifically to introduce the art of positioning. Next time, I will take the time to introduce it to everyone.

The positioning of personal brands should take into account the following points:

◇ Reflect your own expertise

First, your positioning should be commensurate with your own expertise, that is, your strengths and circumvent weaknesses. This principle is simple, so I don't have to pay for it.

In addition, each person has more than one specialty. Even the same specialty can have different packaging methods. Therefore, we need to weigh the weights and select the most appropriate specialty and the most suitable positioning for this specialty. The following is a detailed description.

◇ Avoid others' expertise

What is "avoiding others' expertise? Let's look at a recent case. At the end of May this year, Microsoft launched a new website

(Chinese name: Bing ). Microsoft attempted to use this website to challenge Google's position in the search market. But this time, Microsoft learned the Live Search Lesson and learned how to be smart. He did not position Bing as "Search"
Search engine ", instead, it positions Bing as a" decision engine ). This avoids direct competition with Google.

The same is true. If you have just joined a company, several colleagues in the company have been recognized as "C ++ experts ". Unless you are sure that your skill is far beyond those of these people, you should not turn yourself into a "C ++ master ".

◇ Uniqueness

The so-called "uniqueness" means that your personal brand positioning should be able to stand out in a unique way.

For example, many people know that gagalin is the first guy to enter space. Who is the second astronaut? Few people know (including me ). For another example, who, after magelun, made a second global voyage in the fleet? It is estimated that few people know about it.

Suppose you are good at both technology and management. However, there are already many technical veterans in the company, but they lack management talents. At this time, you should highlight your management capabilities in the positioning process. In this way, it is "unique ".

◇ Overlapping with the company's value system

If you want your personal brand to exert its influence in the company, you must consider the company's value system when positioning a brand. For example, your company is developing J2EE applications. Even if you have a strong DOTNET skillsNo

He attempted to position himself as a "DOTNET master ". Most of the results are poor.

★Brand Promotion

Finally, let's talk about "promotion ". The so-called brand promotion means advertising. Its essence is to exert influence on the audience. There are several tactics for employees in the company.

◇ Increase exposure

It is not difficult to increase the exposure. There are n alternative ways. If your company has an internal BBS (or something like this), you can often post valuable information on it; if your department
There are regular technical exchanges and technical training. You can volunteer to talk about theme you are good at... in short, you can seize various opportunities to show your expertise.

Remember, the features you show are selective and must match your previous positioning. If the features you present are irrelevant to the brand positioning, the theme will be diluted and the effect will be poor.

◇ Help others more

Never think that helping others is your own loss. In most cases, helping others is helping themselves, which is a win-win situation. The "increase exposure" mentioned above is mainly to improve the visibility. "Helping others" not only improves the "popularity", but also improves the "reputation" (remember the previous post ).

Are the three "Degrees" mentioned ?). Therefore, the effect is better.

◇ Exert influence through communication

You can increase communication opportunities with key audiences, and use the communication process to influence them to achieve (targeting this type of audience) positioning.

For example, you have determined that your boss is a key audience and want to position yourself as an employee who is good at management. Then, when reporting your work at ordinary times, you can give more thoughts and suggestions on management, and give more information you have learned from management books. Maybe your boss looks at you from now on.

This is simple, but it is difficult to operate. First, you must have certain communication skills to exert influence through communication. Second, your audience must be generous (not so jealous ). About the first point (how to exert influence), I am introducing social engineering.

. Some specific skills are limited by space. I will not elaborate on them here. It is recommended that everyone have a look at the book "influence" (for details, see "here

"). As for the second point (whether the audience is generous), you have to be lucky.

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