How to Build a Personal Brand in 24 Hours
A two-day itinerary for finding your niche of expertise and sharing it with the world, fast
Personal branding is about creating opportunities. The challenge is that building a brand takes time, or at least so I thought. My mindset changed after my friend (and PR expert), Lucy Werner, told me that I’m thinking about it the wrong way. She quoted Gary Vaynerchuk, telling that ‘every single one of us is a media company’.
Lucy advised that I act like an agile magazine and share tiny bits of content on a weekly basis. The goal would be to increase brand awareness and boost my connections (without spending too much effort).
The thing is, I tend to procrastinate. But I mean, aren’t we all…? That’s why I decided to go on a 24-hour-super-focused-no-distractions hackathon to build my personal brand.
What does a 24-hour personal branding hackathon mean?
- Take two days off and book a hotel in which you could (comfortably) work without distractions.
- Disconnect from social media, including WhatsApp, for 24 hours.
- Define your goals, niche of expertise, platform, and target audience.
- Write as many social media posts and articles as possible.
- Create a weekly schedule to publish content for the next two months.
The outcome
At the end of the hackathon, you’ll have a batch of ready-to-be-published posts that otherwise would have taken weeks to write! All you’d have to do next is set time in your calendar to post them throughout the upcoming weeks. That’s one small step against procrastination, one giant leap for your personal brand.
How does it work?
If you’re interested in doing the personal branding hackathon yourself, I got you covered. Here’s a two-day itinerary that breaks down the hackathon into manageable chunks. I also added examples from my own hackathon to help spark content ideas. Let’s do this.
Timeline: Starting at 10:00 on day one and ending at 18:00 on day two.
Day #1
08:00–09:00 AM
Pack your stuff and start your day at a nice Café.
09:00–10:00 AM
Write a post about your upcoming hackathon and share it on social media. Then, turn off all social media notifications: Gmail, Slack, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and of course, WhatsApp.
Why write a post about it? So that people will know why you’re not returning to their messages… and a bit PR never hurts 😏
Tip: Do NOT be tempted to check for messages. I wasn’t as strong and checked my social media platforms occasionally. This was a HUGE setback for my progress.
Hackathon begins now.
10:00 AM –12:00 PM
Open a Google Doc and define the five fundamentals of your brand:
- Why do you want to build a personal brand?
e.g. I want to position myself as an online education expert. - What’s you're unique value proposition?
e.g. Practical tips from my experience as an instructional designer. - Who’s your target audience?
e.g. Educators, teachers, and fellow instructional designers. - Which social media platform will you use?
e.g. LinkedIn and Instagram. - What are your values?
e.g. Commitment, Creativity, Altruism, Empathy, Structure.
Why choose values? Gives your posts a tone of voice that is unique to you. Check out this list of values.
12:00–13:00 PM
Check-in to the hotel.
Tip: Make sure that your room has a comfortable work desk. You’ll be spending some time sitting at it.
13:00–14:00 PM
Treat yourself with a light lunch.
14:00–16:00 PM
Take a nap! You’ll be spending a lot of mental energy. It’s crucial that you restore powers for the second half of the day.
16:00–17:00 PM
Read aloud what you wrote so far, and finetune stuff if needed.
17:00–19:00 PM
Ideate.
Open a Padlet board and throw in as many post ideas as you possibly can.
How to ideate? Think about your target audience — What are their challenges? What interests them?
Tip: There are recommended formats for social media posts that are meant to educate and inspire others. Don’t try to invent something new, use them to generate ideas. Check the formats I used in the screenshot below.
19:00–20:00 PM
Dinner time.
20:00–21:00 PM
Take a walk. Even though this hackathon is work-focused, you still deserve to clean your head. My hotel was in central Tel-Aviv so I enjoyed walking through its old district and watching people go by, guessing — what’s their personal brand about?
21:00–23:00 PM
Organize your post ideas into categories.
One of my core values was structure. Therefore, it was important for me to understand what purpose each post serves and who it targets. Dividing the posts into categories enabled me to do just that.
23:00 PM–00:00 AM
Check if you received any important messages from your loved ones, and let them know that you’re alright. Then, I recommend that you do a 5 min. mindfulness practice (the one that helps you fall asleep) and go to bed. You deserve a good night’s sleep.
Day #2
08:00–09:00 AM
Breakfast at the hotel.
09:00–11:30 AM
Ok. Return to your room and start writing ✍️
Create drafts for as many of the post ideas you scribbled the day before. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar mistakes, you won’t be posting any of these posts today. But when you do, you’ll already have final drafts to tweak only a bit.
11:30 AM–12:00 PM
Hotel checkout.
12:00–14:00 PM
Continue drafting posts! Time is of the essence.
14:00–15:00 PM
Take a lunch break to give yourself one last boost of energy.
15:00–17:00 PM
By now you should have multiple (almost) ready-to-be-published posts. The key is to share them smart so that you increase exposure steadily. Open your calendar and put weekly reminders for posting your content, based on categories (e.g. Mondays for creative pedagogy, Wednesdays for personal growth).
Alternative: Put in reminders that are based on post formats (e.g. Top 5 Tuesdays, Advice Fridays).
17:00–18:00 PM
Write a final post about the success of your hackathon. Be proud of your achievement.
Hackathon ends now.
18:00–19:00 PM
Celebrate 🍾
Takeaways
The best word to describe a personal branding hackathon is ‘fun’. We rarely give ourselves the opportunity to reflect on our career goals and drives. If I have to come up with three recommendations, they would be these three:
Set clear goals before starting the hackathon (e.g. write drafts for at least 5 posts and one article).
Verify (in advance) that the chair and desk in the hotel room are suitable for long hours of sitting. If not, consider choosing a different hotel.
Share your success, that’s half the battle.
Good luck!
Liked my hackathon idea? Follow me on LinkedIn for more creative ideas.