Build Your Brand – How to Self-Promote Yourself

“Just because I am quiet, and do my job head down, doesn’t mean that I should be overlooked! Where is my recognition?”

Many times, I have heard people complain about this at workplaces. Yes, your leadership and your team are indeed responsible to identify your value and give you the recognition you are due. It is also true that you hold the lion’s share of responsibility in your self-promotion. In this age of information overload, you need a way to highlight your abilities and your work in a noticeable way. Whether you are an employee vying to get recognised or a service provider trying to gain clients, creating your unique brand is an important step to your success.

Why Haven’t You Promoted Yourself So Far?

Before we start looking at steps to create your brand and put your name out there, it’s important to understand why you have not been engaging in self-promotion. The mental blocks and myths that prevented us from vocalising our worth must be rectified first.

You think your work should speak for itself

This is the biggest myth of them all. You are afraid that talking about your accomplishments would come out as boasting. Everyone has encountered that one co-worker who is constantly talking about themselves or name-dropping. We have all said to ourselves, "Nope, I will never be that person." The good news is you don’t need be!

It is not necessary to brag, but you must promote yourself without boasting if you want to be recognised. You could rephrase your successes as progress or lessons learnt. For instance, you might inform your team or post in your workplace channel that you have completed a complicated task successfully. Alternatively, you may write a social media piece outlining the takeaways from a recently finished project that was successful. 

You are shy or introverted

You are usually quiet; you think before you speak, and you don’t feel comfortable asserting yourself in front of a group. You don’t need to be vocal to highlight your unique talents. A quick Google search will reveal to you that a lot of famous personalities are introverts. Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling, Warren Buffet and Gandhiji were all introverts. Introverts are naturally reflective and analytical. You can use that to your advantage.

Later in this article, you will find ideas for marketing yourself. Find the one that works for your introverted self, and you can still be successful in highlighting your best self!

It does not come naturally to you

Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert we have all occasionally experienced imposter syndrome. A voice in our heads that questions us, "Am I talented or did I just get lucky?" or "There are people who have accomplished more than me. Does what I did merit discussion?” You must acknowledge that not every success can be attributed to luck and that every victory is significant in and of itself.

Start maintaining a "kudos journal". You don’t have to share this with anyone; it’s only for you. Think about your accomplishments that you are proud of once a week. It could be anything from a timely deliverable to lending support to your team or coming up with an innovative solution for a challenging customer problem. Make a note of it so you may refer to it and review your accomplishments over time if you ever begin to doubt yourself.

You are happy with where you are

That’s genuinely a good place to be and you should be proud of that! But you should reconsider marketing yourself for two reasons –

• According to positive psychology, happiness and contentment are largely dependent on regularly conquering small challenges.  

• People famously have short memories.

Keeping your name at the back of your team’s mind or on your client’s radar will help you in the long run to get those opportunities that will expand your knowledge boundaries.

Ways to Self-Promote

The first step is to identify the reason why you want to market yourself, and what you hope to achieve in the next week, year, 5 years, 10 years or in your lifetime. Pick strategies that you can sustain for a longer period that will help both your immediate and long-term goals.

Choose about 3 from the below list to begin with, that you can do in regular intervals -

• Thank your teammate. If you don’t feel comfortable highlighting your work, this is a good place to start. It puts your name out there but in a non-bragging way. Be genuine in your gratitude because it is easy to see through false praises.

• Share your code or deliverable. Without breaking licensing and intellectual property rules, if you can publish your code, document or design, do that. This will let your work speak for you much more strongly.

• Polish your LinkedIn profile. Whether you are looking for a new opportunity or not, keep your LinkedIn or other social media profile up to date. You will be surprised how many colleagues look you up.

• Invite your CEO or CTO to a team meeting. Even if you are a small organisation, chances are your executive team is too busy to be aware of your project’s milestones. If you take the time to check their calendars and schedule a milestone meeting, I am sure they will appreciate that and remember you from the invitation.

• Comment on other’s posts. Even if you do not have the time to write your own on social media, read posts from others and comment with relevant content. Please do not comment ‘CFBR’ or ‘I agree’ all the time. Make your comments meaningful and you will have similar impact as writing your own posts.

• Contribute to the company newsletter. Have a best practice document that you created for your project? Reach out to your company’s marketing team and check with them if they can publish this document in the company newsletter or the company’s blog. Your marketing team is always looking for new content. They will help you polish yours and happily publish it.

• Mentor a team member. Teaching is a great way to deepen your learning, help others and put yourself out there!

• Write recommendations for others on LinkedIn. Chances are they will write one for you in return! Like thanking your teammate, it is important to make it genuine.  

If you notice, all the above are simple self-promotion that does not take up a lot of time or effort. If you find yourself with a bit more time and motivation, you can try the following, which are more involved, but also more impactful.

• Write a blog.

• Get certified in your area of expertise.

• Publish articles on platforms like LinkedIn.

• Create a podcast or videocast.

• Contribute regularly to forums like StackOverflow.

• Participate or conduct in seminars or webinars.

• Publish technical white papers.

• Attend conferences or sign up to be a speaker.

When it comes to self-promotion, the possibilities are endless and you can do that without making it all about ‘me, me, me’!

What to watch out for

While marketing yourself, irrespective of where you are in your journey, don’t do the following.

-       Don’t fill your calendar with lots of activities back-to-back. If you start to dread your marketing strategy, you may throw in the towel altogether or your actual work will suffer.

-       Don’t compare your activities with others. Every person’s journey is unique. Be true to yourself.

-       Don’t beat yourself up. If you miss a deadline here or there, when it comes to your marketing activity, it’s okay. Something is better than nothing.

-       Don’t put yourself in a situation that you have not planned for. If you find yourself where you are not comfortable, walk away.

-       Don’t add too many unknown people into your network just to increase your follower count. In the end, your content will not reach the right audience if you are not catering to the right crowd.

For more ideas read - https://www.quietcollective.com.au/self-promotion-tips-for-introverts/ It has got a diverse set of tips from many industry leaders!

If you need more help with finding the next steps, reach out to me and I will be happy to have a chat!