How Personal Branding Can Elevate Your Career

What do peers in the medical community think about you as a health care practitioner (HCP)? How might they feel when they hear your name? What do they know or perhaps communicate about you?

You can leave the answers to those questions to chance, or you can influence how they’re answered through personal branding.

Every HCP can build a personal brand. From the content on your practice’s website, to the article you contributed to a medical journal, to your LinkedIn profile, every piece of information about you contributes to your personal brand.

The key is to take an active role in defining and communicating your personal brand, so it accurately reflects the reputation you’ve earned.

What Is Personal Branding?

Your personal brand is the way others perceive you and the promise they expect you to deliver. Your brand is based on knowledge, experiences, stories, values that define who you are and what you stand for, as well as your value to an industry or community.

Personal branding is the process of establishing and amplifying your brand and presenting yourself in the best possible light. In the medical community, HCPs often use personal branding to position themselves as trusted thought leaders who command respect and instill confidence among peers, patients, and industry stakeholders.

How to Advance Your Personal Brand

There are well-established platforms for creating and distributing content that amplifies your personal brand, including but not limited to:

• Live events
• Webinars
• Blog articles and newsletters
• Social media (personal brand page, organization brand page, group discussions, etc.)
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Traditional media (paid advertising, article contributions, etc.)
• Press releases

As an HCP, expanding the reach of your personal brand to connect with stakeholders outside your professional network is essential.

Medical knowledge hubs offer opportunities for knowledge sharing, joint research, networking, and other ways to collaborate with peers. Publishing original content in medical journals and on the websites of medical societies and associations can elevate your personal brand in terms of trust, credibility, and thought leadership. Once the content is published, it’s equally important to promote it through proven social media marketing strategies.

For example, two physicians developed research-driven, clinical practice guidelines with 44 recommendations for caring for critically ill infants and children in pediatric intensive care units. These guidelines were published by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, along with links to additional content from the authors, including a blog, podcast, and videos.

In addition to conveying your knowledge and expertise in a specific niche or area to a highly targeted audience, publishing content on these platforms can provide a window into your core values and your ability to solve problems and show empathy.

The Benefits of Personal Branding

By taking a strategic approach to personal branding, developing your own voice, consistently creating, sharing valuable content, and targeting the right audience, you can advance your career in many ways.

Practically speaking, personal branding increases exposure for yourself, your practice, or any initiatives you may want to promote. This can help generate more referrals and increase patient confidence in your expertise and capabilities. You can also attract funding for research, special programs, and nonprofits that you support.

Beyond the walls of your practice, personal branding can lead to invitations to deliver presentations at live and virtual events, sit down for an interview, participate in a roundtable, and contribute an article to a publication that caters to professionals within your discipline.

As a result of successful personal branding, peers and industry leaders will be more likely to perceive you as a go-to resource of knowledge whose unique perspective and insights can add value to their medical organizations and the communities they serve.