Former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée once said, “Advertising is saying you’re good. PR is getting someone else to say you’re good.” If you want to promote a personal brand, this nugget of truth works like a pointing stick toward how to effectively shape and promote your public identity.

It’s one thing to claim to be something, and another to have your audience affirm it about you. This is why PR is such a powerful tool for selling a successful story, whether you’re an influencer, business owner, or content creator.

What Is a Personal Brand

A personal brand is your identity. It’s who you are–a combination of who you pitch yourself as and who your audience perceives you to be.

For example, are you a sustainability warrior who embraces the zero-waste lifestyle? Or are you a go-getting entrepreneur who started a successful business after a series of failures and missteps?

These are what you may call umbrella stories or concepts around which your public image revolves. They help audiences find you. They ensure that your message stays on course and consistent.

But it doesn’t end there. The tricky part is making sure that your audience sees you the way you want them to. Your story can only be successful if it strikes a chord with your audience. People don’t just follow anyone on social media. It always comes from an “Aha!” moment where they feel they’ve found someone they relate with and enjoy listening to.

And this is where good PR comes in.

PR in Personal Branding

What effective PR does is connect you with your audience. It tells your story in a way that allows people to find you, relate with you, and affirm your narrative.

Nowadays, people relate not so much with brands, but with the people behind them. We want to hear the success stories, the rags-to-riches testimonies, the insider talk, and the behind-the-scenes goings-on that make people human and within reach.

But it takes effective storytelling for these to come across the way you intend them to. This is because there are many factors that come into play when audiences understand a story.

So you might make a post on social media and intend to say one thing, but unless you take into consideration where your audience is, the narratives that persist around you, and the social climate of the time (among others), it will be tough to tell how your message will be received.

PR, on the other hand, helps you create a great story–one that’s authentic and relatable, shapes it specifically for your intended audience, and ensures that it gets the right reception.

Strategies for Effective Personal PR

So how can individuals employ effective personal branding PR strategies? Let’s look at four key things you need to start doing now:

Create a Story

Make it easy for people to figure out who you are. This will give your audience a reason to pay attention to you. If you’re just starting out, this will be your biggest challenge but also your greatest opportunity.

Define why people should pay attention to you and what value you add to their experience. In other words, it’s crafting an identity in a way that’s focused on what it can do for others. Are you here to make people laugh, and give them a break from their stressful routines? Do you want to inspire others about the value of hard work?

Whatever your story is, let it be something that’s true about you and that will evoke your audience’s emotions. Make them laugh, cry, or be inspired to reach for something they’ve always dreamed of. You may even encourage them to care about taking action on causes that you believe in.

But remember that it takes an understanding of nuances in your culture and audience to drive your point home. As you define who you are, you have to know who they are too.

Be Out There

At the start, people won’t know who you are yet. The good news is that there’s an easy remedy to this. Social media is a useful platform to be visible and put out valuable content yourself.

Depending on what image you’re trying to promote, useful content can be anything from tutorials on YouTube, personal stories or reviews on your blog, or entertaining videos on TikTok. The more visible you are, the more opportunities you create for people to get to know you.

It’s also important to choose your platforms wisely. So if you’re a niche expert, such as a social media marketing guru or a finance whiz, you might want to put out podcasts on Spotify or publish an eBook on Amazon or iBooks.

Get Media Coverage

You will need a friendly relationship with the media to encourage coverage. The way to do this is not so much being chummy with the journos, but being useful in their work.

But this is one of many PR challenges for individuals in personal branding. How do you not just get your audience to notice you, but also to let the media know you’re worth covering?

Your press releases and other content have a better chance of getting picked up when they are newsworthy, complete, and authentic. There are far too many influencers online today. You need to be “real” and different to have a shot at getting interviewed at all.

Also, the age-old press release isn’t dead just yet. It’s just that you need to leverage your relationships with the media more in order to gain coverage.

Employ a Coherent PR Strategy

Many influencers and content creators today rely far too heavily on luck when trying to make it. Sure, a spontaneous gimmick may get you trending for now, but establishing your personal brand takes more than a break.

So picking up bits and pieces of PR may do you some good, but you need a solid PR strategy to achieve long-term results. Remember that good PR doesn’t happen overnight!

Working with top PR agencies in the Philippines gives you the advantage of a sustained, coherent effort to build a credible name and tell a story that resonates deeply with your audience.