Step-by-Step Guide: Audit Your Personal Brand for Success

A personal brand audit is a way to take a step back and evaluate how you’re currently coming across to others. Here’s a quick rundown on how you can do your own audit:

1. Define your brand: Figure out what makes you unique, what sets you apart from others in your field. Identify your values, your message, your unique selling points. This will help you to convey a consistent and coherent image of yourself to your target audience.
   
2. Know your audience: Understand who you’re trying to reach, their needs and interests, their pain points and how they perceive you. Research your target audience, find out what they want, what they expect and how they see you. This will help you to tailor your message and to create a more effective communication strategy.
   
3. Check your online profiles: See how your online presence aligns with your personal brand. Look at your social media profiles, your website and your blog. Evaluate if the content, the images and the tone of voice match your personal brand and if they are consistent across all platforms.
   
4. Take a look offline: Think about how you present yourself in person, including your appearance, communication style, and behaviour. Assess how you come across in a face-to-face meeting, in a video call, or in a public speaking event. Identify the elements that work well and the ones that need improvement.
   
5. Identify any gaps: See where your current personal brand falls short of what you want it to be. Identify any inconsistencies, any weaknesses, any missing elements that could be improved.
   
6. Make a plan: Use what you’ve learned to come up with a plan for improvement. Identify specific goals, strategies and tactics to enhance your personal brand.
   
7. Keep an eye on it: Keep monitoring and tweaking your personal brand as needed to make sure it stays relevant and on-brand. Personal branding is an ongoing process, it requires continuous monitoring, adaptation and improvement.