How to Define Your Personal Brand as a Content Creator

What’s up, guys? I’m Keely with ClickBank. 

If this is our first time (virtually) meeting, hello! I’m the Social Media Manager here at ClickBank and I have been a content creator myself for the last 8 years!

I know how important having a personal brand is as a content creator and I want to talk to you about how to find and define your own. Let’s do it!

Defining My Personal Brand

First, let me tell you a bit about my content creator journey, so that you understand where I’m coming from. Context is everything, and it helps a lot as we go through this journey together to find and define your personal brand as a content creator! 

In 2016, I started traveling A LOT! It was always my goal to travel once I graduated High School, so with nothing but a plan and some money I had saved, I started going on adventures! I started small, weekend trips to bigger cities like Seattle or Denver. I started blogging about my travels and posting about it on social media and it really took off! 

At first, it was mostly family and friends supporting my journey, but slowly my brand as a local “traveler” grew! I dedicated hours and hours each week to writing for my blog and even had a few smaller brands start working with me to promote their products. I had monetized my blog and I was stoked! 

In 2017, as a 19-year-old, I decided to take a solo trip to Europe. Of course, I blogged, vlogged, and social media-d the whole thing. It was incredible to be able to share that journey and my love for creating content about my adventures really sky-rocketed.

I continued traveling for the next three years. From Australia, to the fast streets of New York, and everywhere in-between, I was sharing my journey along the way. 

Then, in 2020, the world stopped and travel shut down. Who I was and what I did for a “brand” was suddenly stripped from me. I tried to pivot solely to home and lifestyle but it just didn’t land. It wasn’t what my audience was looking for and frankly, my heart wasn’t in it. My brand was so much more than that and you could tell in the content I was creating. It was a flop. 

So I had to turn inward and really define who I was as a person and as a content creator. What did I want to do, and how did I want to speak to my audience? I took a look at all of the things I loved and figured out a few things. 

1. I really love adventuring. It didn’t necessarily have to be grandiose adventures, but any adventure, big or small. 
2. I loved moving & exercise. Whenever I traveled, I shared a lot of movement and wellness tips along the way. This was something I was equally as passionate about. 
3. My audience enjoyed my travel and my movement content. How could I combine this into something that was my personal brand? 

Well to answer the last question, let’s start to break down a few things… 

If you’re a content creator already, whether you’re a podcaster, blogger, vlogger, or social media guru, one thing that will keep you and your content on track is having a personal brand you can stick to. This will help you with finding sponsors, becoming an ambassador for certain brands, and digging into different affiliate marketing niches to be able to monetize your audience. 

There’s a TON of different generic “brands” you can dig into, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to answer the question, “Who am I? What message do I want to put out into the world?” As a content creator, this will be one of your biggest guiding lights as you continue to post content and grow yourself as a brand. 

Having a personal brand has helped me IMMENSELY as I continue to generate content. From being able to determine what brands I don’t want to work with, to finding companies that align with who I am and what I believe in, it is truly the guiding force in what I create and how I promote to my audience. 

What Is Your Personal Brand?

Okay, I’ve mentioned a personal brand quite a few times now, but I haven’t actually defined what a personal brand is. Having a personal brand is simply the idea of defining and posting/promoting what you believe in and stand for as an individual. How do you want to live your life, what do you want to share with your audience, and how do you want to monetize based on those decisions? 

I’ll use my own example that I shared above. After a nice pivot, some internal thinking, journaling, idea jotting, I felt I had finally nailed down my personal brand: I was an adventure/travel/outdoor enthusiast with a passion for exercise and fitness and tying the two together. I stood for things like wellness, sustainable travel items, and anything that helped keep me moving while I was on the go.

This became my guiding light and has helped me find sponsors, affiliate brands, and ambassadorships to work for that have helped me monetize my audience and promote and talk about the things that matter to ME. It truly makes all the difference in the world. 

Why Do You Need a Personal Brand?

Now, I’m not trying to give any of you an existential crisis. This isn’t a “who am I” deep, philosophical journey. (Although it CAN be if you want it to be!) It’s simply taking the small step of defining who you are as a content creator – and how you’ll speak to your audience. 

So don’t stress if you don’t want to be put in a box. Trust me, I don’t either. But I DO want to know the best way to speak to my audience as a content creator online!

I think it’s super important to have a personal brand for a number of reasons. Here are my top 3!

1) Doing Your Research

First and foremost, it helps you with research. 

For me, my audience is outdoors/travel people and exercise/fitness people. This means that I can do research on other influencers in these two arenas to find out how they’re targeting their audience and how I can do the same. 

It also helps me to find relevant content, influencers, brands, and ambassadors to team up with to create really amazing cross-promotional content as well. 

2) Understanding Your Audience

In addition to research, defining your brand helps you know how to talk to your audience, which is arguably one of the most important parts of being a content creator. 

I want to be able to truly connect to each person in my audience and create something that resonates with them. If I can’t do that, I’m failing at the thing I’m trying to do. 

3) Creating Better Content

Knowing my personal brand helps direct the content I’m making. If I start posting makeup tutorials, that’s not going to line up with my personal brand. 

On the other hand, If I make yoga videos or hiking videos, that’s going to align much better with the message I’m putting out to the world on my social media as a “nano-influencer.”

4) Monetizing Your Brand

Having a personal brand also ties directly into being able to monetize on your platforms. A lot of times, ambassadorships, brands, sponsorships, and affiliate programs expect you to have a specific niche or audience that you’re speaking to or speaking about. 

When you have your personal brand defined, you already know your niche and your audience, which makes monetizing your audience on the content creator platform of your choice that much easier.

Especially in the affiliate marketing world, the last thing you want to do as an organic content creator is start promoting products that won’t land with your audience. Knowing your niche and really digging into that is what is going to be the best course of action if you take up affiliate marketing as a side hustle. 

What Are The Benefits of a Personal Brand?

When I was lost in limbo as a content creator, I was promoting ANYTHING that came my way. I even promoted some different kinds of ranch dressings… hoping for something to land. And to be honest, the dressings weren’t even that good. 

I was totally lost, seriously! I had to really dig inward and find what was going to stick because it certainly wasn’t salad dressings. 

When I started posting more content about movement, different outdoor brands, and adventure hardwear like backpacks, suddenly, my content was sticking again! It was literally a night and day difference and I felt back to my old self. No longer was I stuck doing photoshoots with salad dressing bottles in my backyard, hoping for a quick buck. I was able to really dive into gear brands and apparel brands that resonated with ME and my lifestyle, and therefore resonated with my audience. 

Not to mention, there’s a ton of other amazing benefits of having your personal brand defined, besides not having to post about salad dressings. (No hate to those who do – that’s just not ME. But if it is YOU, that’s great!) 

Having your own personal brand also helps to set you apart. It demonstrates your abilities and special skills. Think of it as having a really precise resume with exactly the qualifications you need for the job. A brand highlights the best parts of who you are as a person and helps establish credibility in your content and as a creator to your audience. 

In addition, it helps with real connection. You know how it feels to see someone online who’s totally faking it for views or likes. There’s no real connection there. But that doesn’t have to be you! You can connect with your audience because you know who you are and what you want to promote! 

You have your brand, and that’s your guiding light! 

Defining Your Personal Brand as a Content Creator

We’ve seen some reasons WHY to create your personal brand and I’ve shared my own example, but now it’s time to truly define the term “personal brand” and look at what that means. 

I graduated with a degree in marketing, with certifications in communications, social media marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of the first rules of entrepreneurship and building a business is defining your business’s goals, brand, and mission. As a content creator, think of yourself as an entrepreneur, because that’s what you are, truly!

Defining your personal brand as a content creator means building an effective brand that allows you to sell yourself, in true entrepreneurial spirit. Basically, it means identifying who you are, your goals, your mission, and what you’re delivering to the world. It’s how you present yourself to the world on the internet, whether your content is through blogging, vlogging, social media, or podcasting. It helps you to reach your goals as a professional on the internet!

How you use and apply your personal brand is ultimately what allows you to monetize your audience, create meaningful and impactful content, and grow as a content creator. It is what keeps you on the path to growth and success! 

How to Create a Personal Brand 

I’ve told you the why, the what. Now it’s time for the how. Let’s put this concept into action and go through the nitty gritty of creating a personal brand! 

1. First, you need to set goals. This is going to guide you through the rest of the steps to creating your brand. Your goals are everything. For me, I set goals based on the kind of life I wanted to live, the kind of content I was willing to promote, and the types of brands I wanted to work with. Take some time here to really decide for yourself; what do I want to come out of this? What will make me feel happy? What will make me feel like I’ve reached success? 
2. Next, it’s time to audit yourself. This is where you look internally and assess your current existing brand. This is the perfect time to decide what works for you, what doesn’t, and what you want to expand upon. 
3. Once you’ve done your personal audit, research some niches you’re interested in. Maybe you’re really into pet products, but not sure what other influencers and content creators are in this area. Now is the perfect time to research, assess, and take note of the other competitors and fellow creators in your niche(s) of choice. 
4. The next step is defining your audience. This one is huge as it will guide a lot of your decisions. Who do you want to be speaking to? And how to they like to engage? What is the overall demographic of the people who would be engaging with and seeing your content? The more details about your audience, the better you can connect with them once you start creating content. 
5. After that, I like to create a mission statement. This doesn’t have to be extravagant, just something that keeps you on the right track. This is very personal to you and how you choose to live your life and create your content. 
6. Then, it’s time to decide on your brand and stick with it. Let this guide you in all of your content creation, audience monetization, and everything in between! 
7. Finally, it’s time to take all of this information, including what your personal brand is, and create a strategy and start building out your content. For more information on that process, check out my other resource where I break down how to create affiliate marketing reels, shorts, and TikToks. It should point you in the right direction of creating your content if you’re looking to create on social media. 
   • I make reels like this a lot, using a trending sound, some in-app editing, and a good descriptor with my tags to the different brands I use!

FAQs

Why Do I Need a Personal Brand? 

We’ve highlighted a ton of amazing reasons and benefits of having a personal brand! 

At the end of the day, the “too-long-don’t-read” version is this – your personal brand defines how you speak to your audience, the kind of content you create, who you work with, how you monetize, and acts as a true guiding light to keep you posting about the things that will land best with your audience. 

What if I Choose to Create Content Without a Personal Brand? 

Then I’d say good luck! 

It’s not impossible, but having a personal brand is truly going to help you hone in on the content and audience that is best for you! If you’re truly wanting to hack it as a content creator that can monetize their audience, the best and most straightforward way is to define your niche, audience, and brand. 

What Are Some Examples of a Personal Brand? 

A few content creators that are great at sticking with their personal brand that we’ve enjoyed are: 

IdahoHuskyPups on Instagram

Lindsay_Poulson on TikTok

TheMTeaStudio on Instagram (and TikTok) 

KaylaDonelSmith on Instagram 

SuccessWithSam on YouTube (and Instagram) 

Each of these creators brings something unique to the table with their content. It’s easy to see who they’re speaking to, what they’re promoting, and what their brand is. 

Check out their pages for some more inspiration!

Wrap Up

When it comes down to it, defining your personal brand as a content creator is such a huge step in your content creation journey!

From personal experience, it can truly make the difference of a paycheck or not, and more importantly, make a difference in how happy or unhappy I am when it comes to creating the content I’m posting on social media.

Take the time to create a brand that aligns with you, your goals, and how you want to create, and then get out there and start creating, monetizing, and having an awesome time!