PursYOU Volume 2: Brand Story & Objectives

It's time for the second volume of Pursyou: a personal branding series on paupursuespassion.com! Here, I'll be talking about the brand story and objectives. Remember how, on the first volume, we established how important it is to have YOU in your brand? This time, I'll expound on that a little further to help you set the right grounds to move forward smoothly.

Brand Story

The brand story is a simple narrative that says a lot about the main core of your brand. It's the heart and soul of why you do what you do by establishing why you're actually doing it in the first place. Okay,  that sounded a bit confusing.

Here's a little example of what I did for this blog.

"Why I do what I do" translates to "why I'm documenting this pursuit of a creative lifestyle" and "why I'm actually doing this" translates to my brand story.

How to craft your own brand story in 3 easy steps

1. Be personal. Consider the reasons why you came up with your brand in the first place. I'm pretty sure it's not something that you just randomly thought of doing so take a moment and look back at the possible reasons why your brand came to be. For me, I didn't want to lose sight of who I was and what I can do. I want to be able to inspire others, especially the younger ones, to not give up on what fuels them.

2. Don't think too much about it. Take a piece of paper or open up a blank document. Let the words flow. This is your story, so feel free to just write about it. You can refine it eventually but while you're still on the crafting stage, let your thoughts freely talk to you.

3. Look back at significant points in your life. Some of life's key events surely influenced you in creating your brand. Try to look back and note down those moments and see how they all connect.

During my 4th year high school retreat, we had an activity about giving ourselves "pageant titles" using the first letter of our names. I ended up with "Ms. Passionate" probably for the lack of other adjectives, but I realized this also spoke a lot about how I do the things that fuel me.

Also, when I was still actively contributing for wheninmanila.com, I had the chance to talk to senior high school students about keeping and maintaining an online presence. Months later, the brains behind #WIMterns (wheninmanila interns) / wheninmanila's internship program, Rebecca Lee, sent me a message with this:


It made me realize that maybe, just maybe, I can really spark people's sleeping desire to do something about their passions.

Objectives

While the brand story sets the ground, the objectives pave the path on where you want to go. It's all about keeping in mind what you want to happen which can help funnel down future plans for the brand.

Make your objectives realistic and personal to make those future endeavors a whole lot easier. Have around 3 concrete objectives to help you along the way.

Here's the one for Pau Pursues Passion:


For the blog, I've narrowed down my cluttered ideas into 3 objectives: to inspire, to motivate, to redefine.

To inspire you to pursue your desires, to motivate you to continue breathing life into your passions, and to redefine what you thought you could (only) do. 

The objectives are led by the brand story. Once you've got a concrete idea of what the story behind your brand is, the easier you'll be able to create specific objectives.

3 ways to create brand objectives:

1. Think long-term. In the long run, what do you want to happen with your brand? What direction are looking at?
2. Consider your audience. Think about how they can benefit from what you do. This is how you'll be able to deliver very well because what's guiding you is what people want of you, while you're doing what you love.


3. Be realistic. At the end of the day, it's always easier to fulfill and meet objectives that you know you can do.

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Now, to go beyond blabbering about Pau Pursues Passion, let me introduce a college schoolmate who recently launched her own passion project.


Outfits for Face by Paige Ranola is a makeup and fashion blog with an interesting story. Paige, the beauty behind the blog, used her early affinity with modeling as the inspiration behind her project. Part of her objectives for the blog is to be an online destination for all things beauty.

On the first Pursyou post, we talked about getting creative with the brand name. Paige also slayed it on this one as she combined her passion for makeup and fashion, creating the name "Outfits For Face". This is her channel to express how makeup is a form of art -- how it is all about making us women feel more confident by having makeup enhance our features (just like how well-tailored clothing does for our body) and not mask it.



To summarize our second volume for the series, here are our key takeaways:

1. Your brand story defines your starting point and serves as your guide along the way. Your brand story serves as the center of your brand.When you have a firm idea of why you actually do what you do, everything else flows smoothly. Keep in mind what you started as you venture through your journey.

2. Your objectives help you filter out future endeavors. The objectives serve as a destination. This is where you want to go and what you want to happen. When creating future plans for your brand, make sure it won't kick you off-course.

As you go along, your objectives will pave the path for where you want to go while your brand story will remind you on why you started.

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