Branding is not platform, or marketing. Here’s the real definition.

Branding (or personal branding) is a term that gets thrown around a lot lately. It seems that everyone’s talking about it, but only some actually know what it means. If you’re one of those who’s scratching your head at this jargon, don’t worry even big companies sometimes get the definition wrong, or incomplete.

I want to change that for you right now.

I’ve dedicated a large portion of my career to branding and preaching the personal branding gospel so-to-speak. The reason I do this is because I believe it is the most essential component of a lasting career.

Branding not as complex (or convoluted) as you might think.

Contrary to how many people use this term, I want you to know that it does not constitute becoming a sellout or a fake. You are not a Kardashian. You do not need butt implants, botox, or a boob job to have a brand.

And once you understand exactly what it is (and the power it holds)  it frees you up to be more authentically yourself while actually worrying less about your career and public image. Odd, right? Maybe that goes against everything you’ve seen so far. That’s good.

First, let’s break down the concept of what a personal brand is.

[Image Description: A Personal Brand: Your professional persona made up of a variety of elements including: your body of work, your name, your logo, color scheme, social profiles, social media personality, business practices, professional experience, etc. Think: Oprah, Stephen King, Ellen Degeneres, Mary Karr, Laverne Cox, Cheryl Strayed, Amy Poehler, Tyler Perry ]

Now, if that’s a brand, what is brandING?

[Image Description: Branding: Is simply the self-knowledge, strategy, planning, and actions that go into crafting your personal brand and displaying it to the world.]

How Branding is different than marketing or platform

I hope that this post helped clarify what a brand and branding is and how it is different than marketing and author platform. If you’d like to learn a bit more about why branding is important, and how to utilize it to build your writer brand, author platform and ultimately the writing or creative career you really want, check out the sister post to this one, called Why Branding is So Important for Writers and Creatives.