Why academics need to build their brand - now.
No where is it more apparent that your work is your brand than in academia. For academics, your work - research and teaching - is everything: it is the accumulation of what you’ve been trained to do, and you’ve now reached the point where you can focus entirely on that goal. But despite knowing and living that truth, academics often still don’t take the time to develop their personal brand, thinking that their work will speak for itself.
While the work is incredibly important as a reflection of your personal brand, developing a persona for the person behind the work is just as important as the work itself sometimes. Top academic research journals do promote the work they publish inside their covers, but the weight and reach of those journals only goes so far.
At the same time, you should be working to establish your own voice outside of the research articles and publications. Building a voice and a persona around your research can establish you as a thought leader within the space, allowing journalists and reporters to reach out to you for quotes and interviews, thus furthering the reach of your research and your brand. By allowing yourself to have a specific tone, voice, and narrative that drives your work, you can stand out in a crowded field, and become the first to be invited to conferences, talks, workshops, and guest appearance opportunities.
But how do I get started? This is the number one question I receive when talking to people about their personal brand.
Here are a few questions to get started on thinking about your personal brand:
Who do I want people to think of when they hear my name?
What are the key points I want highlighted from my overall work?
Are there key points in my publications that I can use as talking points and sound bites to pitch myself as a thought leader and expert on the topic?
What is the tone in my research?
What are the goals I want to achieve with my research?
Who do I want to interact with my research? Why those audiences? How do I want them to interact with it?
While this is not a comprehensive list, it can help you understand where you might be headed with your work and how you as a person can place yourself within that work.
From there, there are a few key communication pieces that can start driving your brand:
Create a personal website. Not just an academic website that only has a link to your current CV. A website with colors, pictures, and a design that gives a view an understanding of how professional you are and what your particular focus is. It should be clean, easy to navigate, but also incredibly informative.
Create a twitter. If you haven’t been already, start tweeting. Immediately. Post about your research, by tagging journals and other researchers in similar fields and disciplines to engage and interact. Interact on their pages and with their research and thoughts. Post about your day-to-day thoughts, reactions to current events, involvement in other aspects of academic or outside of academia. Show people who you are and let them get an idea of what goes on in your head.
Write something other than a research publication. Take what you know and synthesize it for the masses: write an article for a more mainstream publication. This could range from still rather scholarly publications such as Stanford Social Innovation Review or Harvard Business Review (try finding the relevant one for your discipline), or something pretty mainstream such as Forbes, Wired, or Bloomberg News. Or even write something for your local newspaper or magazines in your town. This not only gives you practice at building those sound bites and talking points, but it puts your name on something that will be in front of a more general audience, thus giving you more opportunities for name recognition.
If you’re looking for examples, take a look at these scholars who have successfully developed their personal brands:
If you’re interested in talking more about developing your academic personal brand, feel free to reach out at any time to discuss how I can be helpful in taking you to new recognition.