Personal Branding Canvas: Step by Step to Your Personal Brand

1. What does Personal Branding mean?
2. What is the purpose of Personal Branding?
3. What is the Personal Branding Canvas?
4. What is the Personal Branding Canvas needed for?
5. What does the Personal Branding Canvas consist of?
6. What are the benefits of a Personal Branding Canvas?
7. 5 + 1 Tips for Using a Personal Brand Canvas
8. Personal Branding Canvas Template
9. Which tools support you in creating a Personal Branding Canvas?
10. Conclusion

When it comes to building and strengthening your personal brand, personal branding is an essential component. Your Personal Brand tells your very personal story. 

Thus, you can communicate and show your ideas & visions, your expertise, your messages and your skills to the outside world, showing what you stand for. 

But how can you proceed in a structured way and plan your brand development targetedly? The Personal Branding Canvas is a visual model that represents all the important elements of your brand. It helps you define your brand and strengthen your position.

What does Personal Branding mean?

In Personal Branding, also called Personal Brand, the person as a brand is in the foreground. So Personal Branding is about how you position yourself as a brand. Similar to how companies build a brand identity, it's about presenting your unique qualities, skills and values to make a positive impression on your audience.

Strategic positioning for selected core topics is a crucial step in building a strong Personal Brand.

Personal branding means adding something to your own name: emotions, opinions, associations. And this happens through the written and spoken word. 

Jeff Bezos has put it to the point: "Your brand is what others say about you when you're not in the room".

Because everything you do, write or say ultimately affects your Personal Brand - positively as well as negatively. 

Effective branding is not only about attracting attention, but also about holding and solidifying this attention.

Every person is already a brand. The question is rather: Do you want to actively steer it? Here the answer should definitely be "Yes".

What is the purpose of Personal Branding?

At its core, personal branding is about making your own values, strengths & weaknesses, character traits, and competences visible. Digital visibility is nowadays a crucial factor for building trust with current and potential employees, customers and stakeholders.

A strong personal brand gives you:

• A positive image
• Visibility and reach 
• Credibility and Trust

Especially for female entrepreneurs, building a strong personal brand is of great importance. Why do customers choose certain service providers? Often, because they have already heard of them, because they are known, recognized and popular.

All this can be traced back to convincing personal branding. Therefore, it is essential for an entrepreneur to build a strong and authentic brand.

The ideal way starts with Personal Branding on LinkedIn. With over a billion users (as of November 2023), there is a wide spectrum of recruiters, decision makers, managers, CEOs and founders on LinkedIn.

The best time to start is now. The Personal Branding Canvas can make this start easier.

What is the Personal Branding Canvas?

The Personal Branding Canvas is a tool based on the well-known Business Model Canvas and was specifically developed for the reflection of a personal brand. It provides a structured way to define and visualize important aspects of your brand.

Your personal canvas helps you stand out from others and strengthen your position.

What is the Personal Branding Canvas needed for?

The Personal Branding Canvas is a structured guide, which helps you define your vision, values, strengths, weaknesses, target audience, communication channels, style and topics. It is a useful tool to develop a clear and thoughtful strategy for your Personal Brand.

The Canvas gives you a comprehensive overview of your identity, your skills and your goals. It helps you to build and use your Personal Branding strategy properly, to communicate your message clearly.

The Personal Branding Canvas is now your companion in all areas of your communication.

It becomes particularly exciting when you use the Canvas regularly and adjust it. Consider the individual steps as an iterative process. It's normal to go back several times at the beginning until you're satisfied with the result. The process itself is as valuable as the end result, as it probably provides you with new insights about your brand and your strategy.

What does the Personal Branding Canvas consist of?

Now it's time to elaborate on your Personal Branding Canvas. 

Step 1: Your personal Why

The underlying motivation and goal behind your brand. This step explores your deepest motives and goals of why you do what you do. Your 'Why' determines your entire positioning: your content, your profile, your perception to the outside.

Step 2: Values

The basic principles by which you act and make decisions. These values are the basis on which your brand is built and influence the way that you present yourself.

Step 3: Passion

The driving force that inspires and motivates you. The identification and emphasis of your passions helps to shape an authentic and compelling brand.

Step 4: Strengths & Weaknesses

An honest assessment of your abilities, talents, and challenges. You can be proud of your strengths, your weaknesses make you authentic.

Step 5: Goals & Non-goals

Defined goals to be achieved and a clear delimitation of what does not fit the brand. This creates focus and orientation.

Step 6: Target Group

A precise understanding of the target group allows for more targeted communication.

Step 7: Channels

The selection of the platforms on which you want to be active and visible. These include social media platforms, personal blogs, podcasts and much more.

Step 8: Style and Tonality

The determination of how to communicate. This creates consistency and a uniform brand voice.

Step 9: Topics

Identification of the content and messages that are to be addressed and shared. This allows to identify relevant topics and to set a clear focus.

What are the benefits of a Personal Branding Canvas?

A Personal Branding Canvas creates structure and clarity. It allows to visualize the brand strategy, identify weaknesses, and develop a consistent brand presence. In addition, it serves as a reference for future decisions and adjustments.

What has to be considered with the Personal Branding Canvas?

Honesty is crucial when creating the Canvas. A realistic assessment of yourself and your brand is important in order to ensure an authentic presentation. In addition, the Canvas should be dynamic and revised regularly to keep pace with your development.

5 + 1 Tips for Using a Personal Brand Canvas

1. Reflect and analyze carefully.

2. Be honest and authentic.

3. Update regularly.

4. Seek feedback.

5. Use this article and the attached template as a guide, not as a rigid template.

6. And most importantly: Have fun! 😃

Personal Branding Canvas Template

So that you can directly start with your Personal Branding Canvas, we have provided a template by our author Anja Pauli.

Here you can download the complete Personal Branding Canvas.

Which tools support you in creating a Personal Branding Canvas? 

 Canva Pro provides a user-friendly platform with numerous templates and design options for creating a visually appealing Personal Branding Canvas. With pre-designed layouts and customization options, individual branding elements can be easily integrated.

Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard, ideal for visualizing ideas. With Miro, dynamic mind maps and diagrams can be created to sketch brand strategies and share them in real time with others.

Asana is a project management platform that helps you organize the process of developing your Personal Branding Canvas. You can plan, assign and track tasks to ensure that the development of your personal brand runs smoothly.

Conclusion

Your individual Personal Brand accompanies you for a lifetime. It's not just about showing your best side, but above all about conveying authenticity and building trust through competence. 

The Personal Branding Canvas is a powerful tool to develop and strengthen your personal brand. By strategically planning and continuously adjusting each element, you can build a strong and authentic brand identity that sets you apart and makes you successful in the long term.