Personal Branding: TOP 7 Trends in 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic gave way to the New Normal of doing business, bringing with it many changes to the way people interact and transact. If you’re planning to apply for new work as the year nears its close, you have to make sure you’re up to speed on the best modern communication methods to separate yourself from the pack. Resumeble lists down seven of the most important personal branding trends 2021 to convey yourself more effectively in your job hunt and personal branding resume in the post-COVID-19 world.

1. Teleconferencing savviness

We are now deep in the era of virtual connection, with teleconferencing and chat apps becoming a more widespread avenue for people to communicate. Taking this into consideration, you have to make yourself available in platforms that will allow you to interact with people who can help you grow your brand (and ultimately, land that job). Depending on how savvy you are with these platforms, you might need to learn new communication tools and level up your knowledge and skills in them.

Easily one of the biggest personal branding trends 2021, some of the preferred video meeting apps in use today include Zoom, Slack, and Skype for Business. Among the strategies used by brands to grow their reach include offering video consulting services, producing creative content, hosting an online discussion, and more—techniques that you can readily and easily apply to your own brand as long as you have basic teleconferencing knowhow. Of course, the most important teleconferencing skill of all is to be comfortable and confident in front of the video camera. Take some time to consider how you can harness visual media to stand out and get noticed.

2. An influencer mindset

Influencers are always on their best behavior—at least, from the perspective of their social media and online channels. As you can imagine, behaving appropriately and reliably online takes a lot of hard, grueling work, but that’s what it takes to maintain reputable branding. This not only means that you should post only positive and meaningful content, but you should also strive toward cleaning up your online image by hiding or deleting anything inappropriate that you may have posted in the past. Don’t forget to Google yourself, because you never know when there’s something online that could be damaging to your reputation, such as a shared photo by a friend, or an old blog displaying your youthful naiveté on sensitive topics.

3. One with the community

Being a part of a community is an important aspect of developing one’s personal brand. Marketing requires an audience after all, and a community can serve as your platform for spreading your personal branding message. Shared interest groups, virtual events, small video group chats—attending activities and happenings with like-minded people, both online and offline, is an easy way to build the network necessary to grow your brand.

Additionally, with today’s strong emphasis on social justice, it can certainly help to find a cause you can get behind and support. That way, not only are you growing your personal brand, you’re also giving back to the community. Not to mention, appreciative people that you’ve helped along the way will be more than happy to spread the word about your brand.

4. One-on-one engagement

One-on-one video calls are rapidly growing in popularity, and are one of the biggest emerging trends for personal branding. More than a simple way of checking up on friends and acquaintances, more and more marketers are using it to grow their personal networks. Due to the intimate nature of the one-on-one conversation, people are more inclined to open up, which can lead to many networking opportunities, according to many of this particular trend’s supporters.

One interesting technique employed by expert marketers to boost their one-on-one engagements is linking an online appointment scheduling software like Calendly or Appointlet with their video conferencing app of choice so people who may want to chat can simply check that person’s schedule and set up an appointment. Should you decide that this is a personal branding avenue that you might want to take, it’s imperative that you set aside time for potential one-on-one calls, because you never know what opportunity may lie ahead. It could be a recruiter, or it might be someone who can refer you.

5. Intrapreneur vs. entrepreneur

More than ever, modern organizations are encouraging their employees to take ownership of their job, giving them more freedom to be creative in how they go about doing their tasks and responsibilities. Intrapreneurs, by definition, are workers under an organization who practice an entrepreneurial mindset, which ultimately makes them more of a partner than an employee. By working as if the company is his or her own, employees become more empowered, effectively elevating the organization as a whole.

So how does this apply to personal branding trends, you may ask? Companies are actively seeking applicants with an intrapreneurial mind, so it helps to imply in your resume that you are willing to be an intrapreneur to make their organization more successful and innovative. You can do this by showing in your cover letter that you have a good understanding of their organization and have looked into the areas where they can improve. You also have to show that you have an honest desire to be a part of the company and its success.

6. Storytelling

A carryover from last year’s personal branding trends, storytelling remains an important personal branding tool for 2021. That said, storytelling has always been an important part of marketing, as it helps excite the audience’s emotions, thereby giving them a sense of engagement and a better understanding of who you are. Everyone craves a good story, and the more honest, personal, and affecting the story you share, the more people will listen, and the faster your brand will grow.

Stories can be told in various ways through various tools to spur your personal branding on social media 2021. These include video, photo, or written text. Regardless of the method you choose, the most important consideration is to create something that your audience can relate to. Telling a relatable story that will entice your audience to know more about you is one of the most effective personal branding trends you can use.

7. Metrics

Metrics are your way of ensuring that your personal branding in 2021 is working. Now before you get turned off by an image full of complicated mathematical equations, you’ll be glad to know that some personal branding metrics are pretty basic, and it’s pretty simple to quantify. These include the number of subscribers, mentions, blog comments, and even sales. Note these numbers on each of the online platforms where you have a presence, whether it’s Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, etc. Keep track of the fruits of your branding labor by regularly checking your growth rates in these metrics.

Of course, if you want to delve deeper into the nitty-gritty of your personal branding in 2021, there are apps—like Heap, Mixpanel, and Firebase, to name but a few—that can help you measure hard numbers affecting your reach, page visits, engagements, and more. Though they offer a bit of a learning curve, these tools are extremely useful in helping you measure and analyze the results of your own online personal branding campaign so you can identify which of your efforts bring you the most success.

Need personal branding resume help?

Knowledge of trends can only get you so far in your job search. Perhaps most important of all, you need to have a well-written personal branding resume that urges recruiters and hiring managers to want to get to know more about you. Resumeble has a team of expert resume writers who will work with you one-on-one to develop the resume that will get you there. Send us your current resume today for a free, no-obligation evaluation to see how it can be improved to get the results you want.