Building a strong personal brand that we are proud of is becoming increasingly important in today’s competitive market. Given the rise in the use of social media platforms and the increasing ease at which we each communicate with each other and compete for jobs, we each need to learn how to create a personal brand. Here are 10 steps to developing a successful personal brand. For more tips take a look through our 125 Personal Branding Tips eBook.

1. Think of yourself as a product. When you buy a product, you scrutinize its applicability to your need. You’re interested in its benefits, its features and its price. Anybody looking at you walks through a similar cycle of evaluation.

2. Identify brands that you think are fantastic. They may be so because you think them to be powerful, emotionally subtle or innovative. Whatever it is that you find compelling in these brands, do your best to learn from them the simple lessons that you can build into your own brand.

3. What are the assets around you that you project onto your personal brand and include in your personal statement or elevator pitch? Try to use a minimum number of words in your pitch and avoid business speak and generic and loose language. Be as specific as you can be about your strengths, about your achievements, about your ‘wow’ factor.

4. Establish what sets you apart from everyone else. Ask yourself what makes you different to other people around you. What can you offer that others cannot? What makes you unique?

5. Think about the right platform to present yourself on. You have choice of platforms on which to put your brand out there. These platforms include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and so on. Think about what media would be helpful to lift your brand into a more exciting space. It could be a YouTube video of you presenting a blog that you have written, for example.

6. Think about how to present and package yourself. Like any product, you have choice around the packaging you wish to use. Isn’t it fascinating how certain brands are so aligned to the presentation of the product that their packaging, from the moment you see the outside box, has you interested in what it is inside the box. Similarly, how can you think through the most effective way of self-packaging?

7. Make a good impression. When you are building your personal brand, test it. Test it with your market; test it with your friends and colleagues to see which structures within in it create a good impression.

8. Remember your personal brand is the window of your identity. It throws light on you as a worker. Showing your true identity at all times will help your personal brand to be consistent.

9. Apply subtlety to your personal branding. When people think about you, they’ll soon come to think, “I know more about this person than I probably realize”.

10. Build your reputation your way. Our reputation is intrinsically tied up with the lives and work of other people, both professionally and personally. Whilst we are dealing with our own personal brand, we must always remember the congruence of reputations that are involved in building our personal brand.

By Simon North, Founder of Position Ignition (www.positionignition.com) and the Career Ignition Club (www.careerignitionclub.com), the UK’s leading career change and career development company and platform. He is also the author of 125 LinkedIn Job Search Tips (http://www.positionignition.com/100-linkedin-job-search-tips). Follow him @PosIgnition for more help with your career challenges.