Build your own programmer brand

John sonmez is the founder, author, and programmer of simple programmer and focuses on how to make complex things simple. He is a professional software developer, architect, and lecturer. He is interested in testing-driven development, how to write neat code, and Agile Methodology. John firmly believes that complicated problems can be solved in a simple way, and most elegant solutions are simple. Recently, John wrote an article about how to build a programmer's own brand, which caused a lot of repercussions in the community.

Your career is a software developer, but that doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention to brand issues. In fact, if you want to take your career further, you need to actively organize your personal brand by creating your own personal brand.

This article will help you build your own personal brand, but first I need to give a general introduction to the brand composition (the brand is not just a logo ). I will also introduce how to create an efficient personal brand by defining your career. Finally, this article will introduce four things to do to build your own personal brand.

　　What is a brand?

Before creating your own personal brand, we need to know exactly what the brand is. Most people think that a brand is just a logo. Although many brands have logos, they are not just logos. Logo is just one of the small components of a brand. The brand is actually a commitment. All brands are associated with expectations. When building a brand, you are actually building some expectations about you and your company, and you promise to fulfill these expectations. Think about popular brands like Starbucks. What do you think is the promise made by the Starbucks brand? When you enter Starbucks, you may have some expectations about what is on the menu, the way the waiters entertain you, or even the lighting you use. The reason why Starbucks is so successful is not its logo. On the contrary, Starbucks's commitment to you and other customers is itself an important element of the brand.

I think a brand must have the following four components:

• Information-What do brands represent?
• Visual effect-what is the brand's visual performance?
• Consistency-does the brand share the same information? Can I trust it?
• Repeated Exposure-can I recognize a brand that often appears?

The lack of these four brands is doomed to failure. A brand must have a clear and consistent information that can be visually recognized to achieve the effect.

We will analyze these four components in depth later, but now let's talk about what is a personal brand.

　　Personal Brand

If you can look at the problem from the seller's perspective, you can easily understand what a personal brand is.

Rather than regard your career as your current job, try to treat yourself as a vendor that provides software development services. If you work for someone now, you have only one customer. If you think about it from the seller's point of view, the personal brand will become more meaningful. A personal brand refers to the commitments and expectations of the services you provide. To create a good personal brand, you need to select a proper career. For example, you may choose the nosql database field. Maybe you want to become a nosql Database Expert. Maybe you are a test-driven Javascript development expert who teaches JavaScript developers how to write efficient tests for their code. The better your career matches the market, the better your brand will be in this particular market. When the garbage disposal machine breaks down, you call a repair man. Do you call ABC plumbing or garbage disposal fix-it man? If you have good professional skills, you will be more successful by creating a personal brand.

　　Information Creation

A major component of a brand is information, which is what the brand wants to express. A brand without information is nothing because it cannot communicate. The information should convey the meaning of the brand name and the expectations and commitments of the brand. If you really don't know what personal brand information is, you can first look at what value you will provide. What value do you provide as a software developer or software development company. Why would someone hire you? Information is the value you provide. Are you the best front-end developer that money can buy? Do you learn new technologies faster than others? What unique values can you provide to allow employers to hire you rather than others?

　　Visual Effects

Although logo is not the only element of a brand, it is clearly an important part of most brands. A good brand has good visual effects, and you are no exception. Obviously, you should first create your own logo. You can use either the company name or your own name. Both methods are effective. For example, I use simple programmer as my own brand and create a logo for this brand.

There is no need to spend a lot of money to design the logo. You can spend $5 on the fiverr website, and the effect is quite good. You can also find someone to help you with the odesk, which is very cheap. Your brand should also have a well-used color theme. I suggest using the same color theme on your online materials and blogs.

　　Maintain consistency

After the information and logo are done, you need to constantly use them to create a real brand. Consistency is a very important part of building a personal brand. Think about the personal brands you are familiar with. Will these brands change day by day? Do you know what to watch and when to view new content when visiting your favorite technical sites?

　　Exposure

If there is a lack of frequent exposure, you cannot build a brand. If you only see or hear a brand once or twice, it will not leave a mark in your mind, nor will it have any effect. To build your own brand, you need to frequently expose your information and visual effects to the same people. There are many ways to expose your brand, such:

• Create and maintain an active blog
• Write articles for magazines or post articles on other blogs
• Give a speech at user groups and meetings
• Appears on a podcast or other media
• Write a book by yourself or follow the traditional publishing process
• Contribute to Open Source
• Create a YouTube video or tutorial

In the beginning, you may only be able to complete a small part of the list above, but after creating a brand, you will get more opportunities to do more things, you can even do things that are not listed above. What matters is that you really need to provide value to others. If you provide value and make good use of your information and brand in a consistent way, you will create a good brand awareness and create more and better opportunities for yourself.