Marketing yourself has become just as pivotal to your career as marketing your business. Marketing yourself is about building trust as an expert in the accounting field and interacting with your customer base, partners, and colleagues to build relationships for long-term success. When it comes to your business and the services you offer, it’s ideal that you look to position yourself as an extension of your brand and business. By doing so you’ll show your customers – existing and potential – that you’re not only passionate about what you do but you’re well versed in what you’re talking about. A key consideration to keep in mind is that a brand identity is not merely something you build from scratch. Personal brand journeys begin with who you are currently as a person and subsequently expand on that. First things first, you’ll need to define your identity, consider what audience you need to speak to and then develop the strategies to address and grow that audience. So how do you go about positioning yourself in a way that makes you – and your business – top of mind when people have a problem that needs solving? Here are 5 insightful strategies to implement:

1. Find Your Place The first step to building a sustainable marketing plan for your personal brand is to figure out where you and your business fit into the market. For instance, if you’re an accountant who specialises in working with government departments, who are your competitors and what are key opportunities within this niche space? Finding it tricky to identify where you fit in the bigger picture? Follow these key steps identified by The Ascent:
   • Research your market to discover underserved areas
   • Build out a few customer profiles to know who you’re talking to
   • Identify whether your business is niche enough or too niche – where your customer base is too small
2. Learn and Grow: While you might have an in-depth knowledge of your business and your offering, do you have enough insight into the market as well as your competitors? Learning as much as possible about the space within which your business operates is crucial to formulating a personal marketing plan that addresses critical areas in which to break through the clutter and stand out from your competitors. While tasks such as investing in additional courses and certifications, attending industry talks, or researching your competitors might appear time consuming, they are pivotal to arming you with the upper hand when devising your plan of action!
3. Get Social: Not only does social media offer a new avenue to connect and engage with key stakeholders, clients, and partners but the platforms enable you to casually introduce yourself and your business to your audience of interest. As the social space can be extremely daunting – with so many channels and content formats to choose from –you’ll ideally want to select one channel to start with and build up from there if you deem it necessary. What’s more, the need to know your audience on each channel cannot be overemphasised. For instance, the audience on Instagram and those on LinkedIn, are vastly different as they consume and engage with content in unique ways. LinkedIn serves as a professional hub to connect and engage with stakeholders from key industries who have the same interests as you. As such, this platform is a valuable channel to invest your time in. It also acts as a content hub to post essential insights, updates, and longer-form articles that you feel would be of interest to your followers. Here are some strategic ways to take advantage of LinkedIn as a means to establish a presence and market yourself in the social space.
4. Step Out Your Comfort Zone: Online learning and connecting across social media are fundamental tools to building out your personal brand and marketing you and your business, but it’s equally as important to retreat from the digital realm of your computer and connect in the real world. Forbes has mapped out 10 key reasons why networking should be at the core of your career, stating that it’s an avenue to new opportunities, keeps you top of mind among peers, and even improves your creative intellect. The pandemic changed the entire working landscape, and most people still spend a lot of their time working in solitude. While this might work for some and certainly comes with its share of benefits, flying solo is not conducive to connecting and growing your professional network. It’s time to physically get back out there, eyeball to eyeball!
5. Create, Create, Create:  You’re a business owner or a professional practitioner in your space for a reason: You not only have a wealth of knowledge, but you have a lot to offer your peers and customers. So why not share that? An essential element of marketing yourself is imparting your knowledge and insights with those who are interested in the subject matter. This works hard to position you as someone of authority and as a thought leader in your industry. Writing articles, blogs and opinions pieces or sharing regular updates or content on your social pages that you personally found useful are terrific ways to market yourself in that space and bring value to others through the work you do.