Leaders’ personal branding, so called boss branding. Inseparable from the employer branding. A great opportunity to strengthen the position of an expert, manager, business owner, team leader, and in the same time attract talents to the organization. 

Each of us has a personal brand, but we are not always consciously working on improving it.

Personal branding has many definitions. Wikipedia promotes the definition of a marketing strategy related to investing in building personal reputation and increasing personal value in the labor market.

I would personally add to the definite: the value we bring to others’ lives. Personal branding is and honest and authentic communication of who we are, what we know and what kind of experiences people working with us have.

I support leaders, managers, business owners with their personal branding because it is strongly connected to employer branding. When choosing new employers, we look at employees. (Employee Branding). We observe and asses if we want to apply to their teams.

Higher exposition of leaders, managers, owners and board members is due to our curiosity “who runs the company?” 44% of candidates google their potential bosses**

We want to meet leaders on LinkedIn. 79% of your employees are expecting you to join them in social media*.

Over 80% of candidates (in Poland)*** wish to talk about the recruitment process with their potential manager, 30% with the owner of the company or the CEO. That means that business executives are being googled more and more each day. Because candidates are hoping to have a possibility to talk with them directly.

Clients declare that CEOs active on LinkedIn boost up the credibility of companies they represent. Over 35%* will buy more willingly from companies whose CEO is active in social media.

Over 22% of candidates* aged before 40 also feel attracted to the company as potential employer if the CEO is visible in social media.

Example comes from above. If you are encouraging employees to share content about the organization in order to support the employer branding, you also have to engage. If you are launching an employee advocacy program in your company your board must be on board as well. Support by commenting the content you employees share and lead by example also share insights on company culture, employer branding, recruitment opportunities. (more on the content that leaders can share will be revealed in the next articles;-)

In year 2020 we have observed a strong shift of trust towards business leaders. This year we most willingly listed to news about how the company is dealing with the pandemic situation and most of all how the employer is taking care of their employees. Leaders were pointed out as most reliable source of information after doctors and tech experts. We were hoping they will take a stand in the pandemic situation and communicate with the market, not only internally with employees but we wanted them to come out and lead external communication. We, candidates, clients, observers wanted to know if brands are taking seriously the matter of their employees’ safety.

I have supported dozens of managers in the field of personal branding in social media, especially in communication on LinkedIn. I never convince them what they should do or shouldn’t.

I base my trainings on best practices, share knowledge, experience and tips how to significantly increase the recognition and achieve personal branding and employer branding goals.

I organize closed trainings for companies, lead on-line workshops in English and support also 1:1 consulting sessions.

*Sproutsocial: #BrandsGetReal: Social media and the evolution of transparency **PwC „Młodzi Polacy na rynku pracy” (2020) ***Pracuj.pl raport Preferowany pracodawca czyli jaki.