6 Things You Are Doing to Damage Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

6 Things You Are Doing to Damage Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Are you investing time into building your personal brand, but it seems like no one has noticed? Your brand is very sensitive and even one little mistake can damage it. Whether it’s the way you’re communicating your message or how you interact with your audience, you may be unknowingly hurting your personal brand. If you can’t figure out why your brand isn’t getting the attention you want, here are six ways to tell you may have a personal branding crisis in your hands: 1. Too much self-promotion on social networks. Its important for people to find balance when promoting their brand through social media. While you need to promote your own content to build credibility for your brand, its easy to fall into the trap of too much self-promotion. Dont spend all of your time on social media blasting your brand. If you want to be influential, communicate your message through sharing your content and balancing it with news about the latest industry trends. 2. Your brand lacks consistency. You finally have your blog and Twitter account up and running, but after a week of being consistent with creating content, you become too busy and eventually forget about your profiles altogether. This is a huge flaw in personal brands because people forget about the key to a strong brand is consistency. Even if its a weekly or bi-weekly blog post, never let your followers feel like you disappeared. 3. You aren’t using your brand to network. The biggest advantage to having a personal brand is the network you can build. If you havent taken the time to reach out to professionals in your field, you arent putting your brand to use. Building a brand isnt only about making an online presence, its about building connections and creating an audience. 4. You never proofread. Make sure you proofread everything you publish on the web! From tweets to blog posts, review everything before you post. If you have one grammar or spelling mistake, this can seriously hurt your brand. When you make an error, it makes you appear careless and your audience will stop taking the time to read your content. 5. You lack credibility. Is your claim to fame your expertise in advertising or leadership development? Then make sure everything about your brand reflects your profession. Your followers will expect you to talk about the latest news and advice about your industry. If you arent displaying your passion throughout your brand, no one will believe your expertise. 6. You dont provide something unique. The purpose of building your personal brand is to market what makes you a unique professional. Its important to find something which sets you apart from the other people in your field. If your brand is blending in with the rest of the professionals in your field, then its not strong enough. Whether its a hobby or an interest, try to incorporate it into your brand in order to make yourself stand out. Personal branding is all about consistency, finding a balance, and making the most of your network. Be sure to center your brand on something that makes you unique and try to connect with people of similar interests. Your brand can be the most powerful thing you can do for yourself as a professional. Make sure you are aware of these signs in order to prevent a personal branding crisis. What do you think can damage a personal brand? Share your thoughts below! Author: Heather R. Huhman  is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder president of  Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. She is also the instructor of  Find Me A Job: How To Score A Job Before Your Friends, author of  Lies, Damned Lies Internships  (2011) and  #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle  (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for  numerous outlets.