Gaige Keep: A Former Marine Sergeant-Turned-Marketing Guru Sheds Light On Building A Personal Brand

Creating a personal brand can be a daunting, mythical task. And one of the easiest ways to get lost in the process is to not know where to start. Even Oprah Winfrey began by going through several style iterations on a small local show before defining her voice into one of the most influential personal brands in the world.

In the evolving job market, it’s both helpful and necessary to stand out when applying for a job or starting your own company. A personal brand is for (almost) everyone.

Shazir Mucklai, the founder and CEO of Imperium Group, had a chance to chat with Gaige Keep, the CEO and owner of GaugeMedia. GuageMedia specializes in Brand growth and consulting for influencers, entrepreneurs, and business owners looking to take advantage of the massive opportunities that building a strong social presence can bring.

Here are some golden rules for creating an engaging, unique, and inviting personal brand.
If your personal brand isn’t telling a story, you’ve already lost half of your potential audience. 

Keep explained it best, he says, the most effective personal branding strategy these days is to build a true narrative - single character monologues are boring in Tinseltown, and even more boring for your personal brand. Keep goes onto say that no one wants to hear you shout about your brand into the social media void, so create a story around your brand that your audience can engage with. Allen regularly meets and chats with his audience in airports around the world, further developing his warm and friendly personal brand.

Furthermore, one of the best ways to tell that story is through written content or video. The most personal way to communicate online is with video. Simply use your smartphone to video message your clients, make a personal connection with prospective clients and connect with co-workers. After all, you always have your smartphone on you!”
Additionally, being consistent is very similar to having a narrow focus—it’s much easier to get recognized for one topic if you consistently create content and brand voice around it.

But Keep tells us that failure is tough, and all of us generally want to avoid it - that’s human nature. However, to have a personal brand that rises above the rest, you need to have a failure. Walt Disney spoke of this often when he reminisced about his failed first attempts at creating an animation brand. 

Image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay