Curate Your Personal Brand: Maximise Impact and Career Opportunities (edX)

Branding is typically associated with – and studied within the context of - organisations, products and services. Personal brands are frequently overlooked or even dismissed, although ultimately it is your personal brand that influences career choices, shapes behaviours and professional practice. This course will walk you through the steps to create a consistent personal brand, and define how you want to be seen in the digital space and beyond.
Curate Your Personal Brand will help learners explore and reflect on their values, define their personal archetype, and discuss language that suits their unique brand. At the end of the course, learners will have a tangible strategy they can use to build their personal brand across multiple platforms.
This course helps learners develop and curate a personal brand, specific to their goals and career, enabling them to distinguish themselves and stand out in a crowd. In an increasingly digital world, personal branding is no longer optional; instead, actively developing personal branding across multiple platforms can build networks, community, and career opportunities.

What you'll learn
Learners will:

• Understand branding theory, its origins, latest insights across sectors and disciplines and its importance within a personal branding context.
• Explore and reflect on their personal values and characteristics.
• Develop their personal brand and understand what a personal archetype is.
• Understand the core elements of social media platforms and how they can be used to curate and amplify brands.
• Explore language that suits their unique brand.
• Develop a personal, actionable, multi-platform brand strategy.
• Apply concepts of shareability to learn how to write personal branding content.

Syllabus

This course consists of an orientation module and eight (8) content modules. A learner is expected to commit around 2-3 hours per week/module.

Module 1: What is Branding?
In this module you will:

• Explore key concepts associated with branding and how they relate to your personal brand.
• Explore the characteristics of strong brands, across sectors and categories.
• Look at examples of different personal brands and how professionals are using them.
• Explore the importance of trust and authenticity within the context of branding.

Module 2: Your Values
In this module you will:

• Explore and prioritise your personal values and passions.
• Discover your personal archetype and what distinguishes you from others.
• Draft a values statement that captures your unique characteristics.

Module 3: Your Brand Audit
In this module you will:

• Critically reflect on your existing brand and footprint.
• Examine the value of different platforms for your brand.
• Identify and priorities platforms to maximise the impact of your brand in a sustainable way.

Module 4: Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and Topic Wheel
In this module you will:

• Develop and commence curating your unique personal brand.
• Identify and share your purpose, i.e. what drives your unique brand.
• Critically assess, review and prioritise your brand’s audiences.
• Explore your own brand and build your topic wheel.
• Identify key topics that capture your passion, knowledge and unique personal brand.
• Identify influencers related to your key topics, that can help you amplify your voice, visibility and impact.

Module 5: Tell Your Brand Story with Authenticity
In this module you will:

• Understand the role of storytelling in building an authentic brand.
• Understand the different types of personal brand stories and platforms.
• Understand how to share owned and shared content.
• Develop knowledge in understanding the cultural relevance and how to use it to build your brand.

Module 6: Develop your Brand Strategy
In this module you will:

• Draft a unique bio, capturing the essence of your personal brand.
• Explore the power of image rotation to create brand familiarity.
• Draw on the power of the international peer community to gain feedback and confidence to share your personal brand.

Module 7: Execute Your Personal Brand Strategy
In this module you will:

• Draft a content schedule, to maximise the impact of your personal brand across platforms.
• Take your first steps, drafting content for a key platform.
• Draw on your community of global peers for feedback and inspiration.

Module 8: Pitfalls and Cautionary Tales
In this module you will:

• Explore challenges associated with digital footprints including cancel culture.
• Discuss what to look out for to avoid undermining your personal brand.
• Explore cautionary tales based on recent real-life examples, to help future proof your own brand.