Differences in Personal Branding Vs Business Branding

Let’s take a look at some differences between both, to help determine what’s right for you.

Personal Branding

As the name suggests, building a personal brand means that the brand centers around you and is Independent of any external business entities. Your personal brand is YOU. You are the expert and the leader. People are more likely to engage with and trust a person than a brand.

Your personal brand is your values, your mission, your beliefs, your messaging, what you are doing, and who are you doing it for.

One of the advantages of personal branding is that you have all the tools at your disposal to start working on your brand from day one such as social media, a personal branding website, and logo packages. If you decide to change your business offerings, you will not necessarily need to change your branding as it is associated with you.

Personal branding is an ideal fit for single-person businesses such as authors, artists, speakers, and coaches and enables you to find more opportunities as a freelance speaker or coach.

While personal branding is most preferred by entrepreneurs and marketers, it is important to understand that there is a lot of time and effort associated with building content every day on social media and staying authentic. That sometimes may not be the best strategy for your end goal.

Business Branding

Business branding is all about branding the corporation, the mission, values, and customer offerings. Business branding is more than just a name and a logo, it should reflect what your business stands for. It determines the vision and the personality of your brand.

Simply put, your brand is your promise to a customer.

It takes a lot more work to create a business brand upfront, but it is worth the effort. As you start setting up the branding, you will get a better idea of the brand identity you want to establish in the market as well as provide you with a strong sense of what your business should offer going forward. With a business brand, you create an intangible asset that you can sell in the case you want to pivot into another direction.

However, it can be hard to enter the market when you are competing with already established brands in the space and it can take years for you to justify your price points and offerings against established competitors.

A personal brand and a business brand can be built in tandem with each other, instead of choosing one over the other. While you are trying to set up your business brand, you can build your personal brand by creating content on your expertise and what your business has to offer. You can also appear in interviews, podcasts, or even personally spread the word about your business. It is the ultimate happy medium, especially for small to medium-sized businesses.