What’s your New Year’s resolution for your personal brand?

In such a hypercompetitive landscape, you can’t afford to be wishy-washy about your personal branding. You need to actively incorporate your personal brand into your content marketing strategy and make sure that your initiatives reflect your branding and contribute to achieving your overall goals.

Search Engine Journal goes into detail about the importance of personal branding; customers screen brands (and even other people) online first before interacting with them. Your target audience will have discerning preferences, so it’s important to put your best foot forward online. Having a strong personal brand can set you apart from other businesses and demonstrate your credibility and trustworthiness within your industry.

Like people, personal branding evolves. Different things will resonate with your audience, or certain marketing initiatives may not be as effective as they were in previous years. Knowing the incoming trends for 2024 can help you pivot and adapt your content marketing strategies if necessary. 

We’ve previously discussed the fundamental strategies you can use for building your personal brand, and these are staples you can regularly come back to as you prepare for the latest trends in 2024.

5 trends to watch out for in personal branding in 2024

We’ve shortlisted the top five trends in personal branding for the coming year.

Keep reading to find out more.

1. Balancing AI-driven tech with the human touch 

Artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent in our daily lives today, from work processes to customer experiences. This has led to polarising views about AI in the public — some love it, some hate it.

With the rapid advancements in technology, it’s inevitable to use AI-driven technology in some capacity, especially as you start implementing the initiatives in your personal branding strategy. What’s crucial is balancing that with a personal touch. 

You can develop a human-centred AI strategy by: 

• Define clear roles and responsibilities for AI and humans. You need to designate tasks that are suited for AI technology and humans. For example, automating the posting schedule for your content can be completed by artificial intelligence. But engaging with the comments on those posts is something only you or your team can do. Remember that tasks that need empathy and complex thought processes are best done by humans.
• Leverage AI for data processing but use human judgement for decision-making. Artificial intelligence can efficiently gather and generate data from your content marketing and personal branding initiatives, allowing you to see what works and what doesn’t. This can help you identify how to improve your branding strategy, and if there are any areas for improvement you need to address.
• Be open to evolving technology. Technology is constantly changing and advancing, so you need to equip yourself and your team with the necessary tools and knowledge to adapt to these advancements.

2. Developing a digital-first mindset as a competitive advantage

Having a digital-first mindset gives you a clear sense of how digital platforms move and change as they go through different trends, enabling you to shift your branding approach accordingly when needed.

A digital-first mindset helps you establish your brand presence online because you understand that the majority of people (including your target customers) are most active and accessible on different online platforms. This also opens you up to more opportunities when it comes to leveraging digital platforms and tools to your advantage, allowing you to reach your target audience more effectively.

These are the first steps you can take in adopting a digital-first mindset:

• Invest in a user-friendly website – Think of your website as the digital version of your office. It needs to be welcoming to your visitors because it’s the first impression they will have of your business. It also needs to reflect the aesthetics and tone of your personal branding so that you can encourage brand recall and recognition as you build a bigger audience base in the long run.
• Balance SEO optimisation with content marketing – SEO optimisation increases your ranking and visibility in search engines, allowing your content to reach more people. This needs to be balanced with a good content marketing strategy to ensure that you’re consistently producing high-quality content.
• Build a social media marketing strategy – Most of your web visitors will have come from seeing your content on social media platforms. You need to create social media content consistently to attract your target audience and expand your following. Your followers are more likely to visit your website once they know they can trust your content. 

3. Establishing thought leadership with visual storytelling

Visual content is at the frontier of digital spaces today. People prefer to consume short-form types of content because it allows them to absorb more information quickly. 

Visual storytelling is a good opportunity to demonstrate why you are a thought leader in your industry and why people will benefit from listening to your thoughts, ideas and opinions.

Personal branding involves establishing yourself as a thought leader, so visual storytelling can be a good opportunity to showcase your authority. 

Piece-to-camera videos are a classic way of introducing yourself to your audience and showing what you’ve got to offer as an industry expert. It adds a human touch to your personal branding efforts and encourages a genuine connection with your audience.

Visual storytelling can also highlight your brand values and principles through impactful images and audio effects. It shows people who you are and what you stand for, which is what they’re looking for in the brands they’re considering to support.

4. Increased social media engagement with industry content

No one exists in a vacuum, not even in social media. 

While you need to populate your channels with different content, you also need to make sure that you’re engaging your followers and peers online. Take the time to read other people’s posts and initiate discussions when you think it’s relevant to you or your brand. This is a great opportunity to expand your social circles and establish your online presence.

Maximise your social media engagement by responding to comments, mentions and messages promptly. Social media moves very quickly, so if it takes you weeks to respond to one comment it’s most likely the commenter has forgotten the post by now. Being timely and active with your responses also shows your audience that you care about what they think and that they’re important to your brand. 

5. Being vulnerable to showcase authority and credibility

People want authenticity and honesty from the brands they support. This doubles down for personal brands, where you’re highlighting your identity and values. 

Authenticity on social media can seem performative, even disingenuous, if not done correctly. You need to make sure that your content, including your personal posts, aligns with your values and principles. Audiences are smart, and they can see discrepancies in character immediately (and they won’t be afraid to post about it). 

Being authentic and vulnerable also means being open about the mistakes you’ve made in the past. This makes you more approachable and genuine as a person, and it can encourage your followers to stand by your brand.

Your personal brand is a dynamic part of your company, and you need to make sure your marketing strategy is ready to take on the challenges that come with the new year.

Is your personal brand ready for the year ahead? Contact us and we’ll help you develop a strong personal brand.