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For designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and content creators who want to level up their careers and creative businesses. Hosted by Philip VanDusen, Brand Consultant and founder of BONFIRE, this show explores personal branding, content creation, freelancing, and creative career growth.
Philip and his guests deliver practical coaching, strategies, and inspiration to help you market your work, attract new clients, grow your influence, and build long-term success. Covering personal branding, content creation, freelancing, digital marketing, and creative entrepreneurship, every episode is designed to support your growth as a creative professional in the Creative Economy.
Personal Branding Power Tips
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Announcer:
Welcome to the Brand Design Masters podcast. The show dedicated to helping you build the skills you need to design bulletproof brands for yourself, your business, and for the clients and customers you serve. And now here's Philip.
Philip VanDusen:
Hey everyone. Welcome back. We're gonna dive into a topic I know is really important to so many of you if you're a creative pro and an entrepreneur, and that is personal branding, but this isn't the same conversation we've been having over the last decade.
Today I want to introduce you to something I call personal branding 2.0, which is an advanced look at how personal branding has evolved. And how you as a creative pro can build a brand that opens doors, tracks, opportunities, and really future proofs your career. Whether you're running your own branding or design agency or working as an in-house designer, this is for you because personal branding isn't just a nice to have anymore.
It's a career insurance policy and a gateway to influence. So let's talk about what's changed, what's working now, and more specifically, five ways you can take action to build your brand in innovative ways. Alright, let's do this. Number one, leveraging new platforms and formats. The first big change in personal branding is the way we use platforms and content formats to build our presence.
A few years ago, having a polished portfolio and a LinkedIn profile and maybe some work on hands was enough. Well, not anymore. Let's start with short form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, and even LinkedIn have made short videos a huge tool for personal branding. Why is that?
Because they show not just your work, but your personality, your thought process, your values, and they show it quickly and authentically, and they make you a real human being and not just a profile. Here's a tactical tip. There's a really simple way to get started. Create a short video series where you share quick insights on part of your creative process.
For example, maybe three mistakes brands make in designing a logo or behind the scenes work in my client projects. Keep it real. Show your face. Be conversational, and don't overthink it. Now, the mindset shift here is key. A lot of us grew up in an industry where everything had to be perfect before it was shared, but today, audiences connect more with authenticity.
Than perfection. So don't be afraid to show what I like to call the messy middle, or even share failures because failures are relatable. Another shift is the rise of multi-channel micro presences, and this means spreading your influence and your presence around beyond just LinkedIn or Instagram into more niche.
Platforms, think Substack for thought leadership or Dribble for visual Experiments, or even Clubhouse if you wanna participate in live discussions. So why is this new? It's because audiences are fragmented now. Being active in multiple smaller spaces builds up touch points with different communities while helping you stand out.
And here's a pro tip, cross. Link your content between platforms. For example, turn a LinkedIn post into a Substack article or even a video snippet. Number two, owning your narrative, personal branding as storytelling. Let's talk about one of my favorite concepts, storytelling, personal branding. 2.0 is about telling stories, not just sharing what it is that you do.
We've all heard about the elevator pitch, right? Hi, I'm Jane. I'm a designer specializing in X, Y, Z. Well, here's the thing. A pitch alone isn't enough anymore. People want to connection. Your brand story needs to be multi-layered and human. Here's a tactical tip. Break your brand story into three parts.
Number one. Your journey. Share some moments that shaped who you are as a professional. Maybe you struggled to find your first design job, or you took a big risk that paid off. Number two, your mission. What drives you? Why do you do what you do? Where do your values come from? And number three, your vision.
Where are you headed? How can you help clients or companies achieve their goals? When you share your story, don't be afraid to weave in challenges and pivots because vulnerability, like I said before, really builds trust. You wanna know one power tool for storytelling case studies. And I don't mean just the before and after that we always show.
I mean, diving into your thought process, the challenges you face, the problems you solved, how you did it creatively. Case studies position you as a thinker, not just a designer. And here's a pro tip. Start viewing case studies as personal brand assets, not just client deliverables. Alright, now, number three, building influence through community and collaboration.
This is where it gets really interesting. Personal branding is no longer a solo sport. It's about community and collaboration. Let's start with community. One of the most underrated ways to build your brand is to establish yourself as a resource and a connector of people. This could mean hosting small virtual workshops or moderating panels, or simply sharing resources that help other creatives succeed.
So why does that work? I. Well, it's because when you position yourself as someone who gives you naturally attract people who wanna work with you, here's a tactical tip. Find a way to help your community, whether it's your peers, your clients, or other industry professionals. Maybe you create a resource library for other designers, or you host a monthly Zoom q and a.
Whatever it is, try to be consistent with it. Another advanced strategy is collaborative content creation. You can partner up with other creative pros or influencers, or maybe even small brands, and that can expand your reach like nothing else can. It basically magnifies and multiplies your reach. For example, you can co-host a YouTube video or run an Instagram live together with someone else, or create joint content like a collaborative series on LinkedIn.
Collaboration not only gets you in front of a brand new audience, meaning the audience of the person that you're collaborating. But it also adds credibility to your brand. The mindset shift here is to stop seeing others as competition. Instead, you want to think of them as allies so you can all grow together.
As a creative entrepreneur, I know from personal experience, it can feel isolating to go it alone. So I want you to take a second and imagine being surrounded by other accomplished creatives who are just as eager to accelerate the growth of their businesses and personal brands as you are. And if you've been following me for any length of time, you know, I'm a huge advocate of mastermind groups and what they can do for you.
Both personally and professionally, and because of that, I wanted to let you know I've launched a mastermind membership community called Bonfire for Creative Professionals. Bonfire is a hybrid group coaching, training, networking, and accountability community. It's a place for you to make meaningful industry connections in build knowledge so you can really achieve your full potential.
The best part about it is that you aren't alone anymore. When you join literally overnight, you're part of a group of people who would do everything they can to help you succeed and build a level of confidence in what you're doing that you've never felt before. In Bonfire, you get biweekly video coaching sessions, a private online community.
A deep resource library of downloads, templates, tools, and tutorials, and you also get exclusive access to me as a mentor and a coach. So I want you to come check out Bonfire. Just go to philip van doon.com/bonfire and learn more about it. Again, that's philip van dusen.com/bonfire. BONF. I hope to see you beside the bonfire very soon.
Number four, embracing emerging tech and personal branding. Now let's talk about the tools that are helping us do this better and faster and smarter. Emerging technology, particularly AI and automation, those things have opened up brand building opportunities that we couldn't have even imagined a few years ago.
Let's talk about AI tools first. AI isn't just for automating tasks. It can be a powerful asset in maintaining brand consistency and creating content really quickly. Obviously, here's a tactical tip. You can use AI tools like Chat GPT to generate ideas for blog posts or scripts or captions, and you can use tools like Canva, ai.
Or Adobe Firefly to help you create design assets really fast that fit with your personal brand. And if you're creating video content, there's tools like Descrip and cap cut and runway that can really streamline your editing and your transcriptions and even your visual effects. And the mindset shift here is to see AI as a creative partner and to not fear it.
Replacing your skills, the human touch is still absolutely critical, and as a designer, you have the capability to take what AI spits out and turn it into really something fantastic. AI is just a new tool that gives you more leverage. Now let's talk about automation for brand visibility, scheduling tools and content repurposing platforms have come a really long way.
Today's tools don't just automate posts. They optimize them for audience behavior, and here's a tactical tip. Use platforms like Buffer or Later or Hootsuite to create automated posting schedules for social media. Then take it a step further with tools like Missing Letter or Metrical, which analyze your most successful content and help you repurpose that into new formats.
A single LinkedIn post can become an email and a video outline or a series of threads. The mindset shift here is to think about. Automation as a multiplier for your efforts. The less time you spend on repetitive tasks, the more you can focus on creating really impactful original content and building those relationships.
Number five is the mindset shifts for personal branding 2.0. The last thing I want to cover here is the mindset that you need to make all these strategies work. Personal branding 2.0 requires you to think bigger about your work. And about your impact. The first mindset shift here is to really to move from a portfolio mindset to a legacy mindset.
Your personal brand isn't about the work that you've done like in your portfolio. It's about the impact that you've made and are making. And so here's a tactical tip. Start showcasing the results of your work, not just the deliverables. Did a rebrand increase a client's revenue? Did your design, improve user experience?
Highlight those things. Now, the second mindset shift is about resilience. Let's face it, industries are changing so fast. Personal branding is your career insurance policy, and it gives you visibility and adaptability and leverage. When things shift in the market. And to do this, you really need to know your unique strengths and messaging so you can pivot when it's needed.
So that's it. Thanks so much for joining me today. And remember, personal branding isn't just about getting noticed or vanity metrics. It's about building a career and a reputation that you're proud of. So that's it. Stay creative and I'll see you in the next one. If you'd like to help support the Brand Design Masters podcast.
Please rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, if you wanna stay up to date on all our content products, courses, and live video shows, head over to philip van deusen.com/muse and sign up for the Brand Muse newsletter. That's where we share all the latest resources, articles, books, and videos that we recommend to help you build and improve your creative practice, personal brand, and business.
That's philipvandusen.com/muse, thanks again for listening. Bye for now.