I am Ruslan Smirnov, an influencer. Social media platforms are changing, and building your personal brand isn't simple. Today, I leverage my rebuilt life; I work in social media marketing, and I found that I have a traumatic brain injury.
Good morning. 🌅 A new semester, new steps to build a personal brand on social media, but the same journey of rebuilding.
My name is Ruslan. Smirnov. Remember when I started building my LinkedIn account, creating my Squarespace portfolio, and setting up my social media profiles? I thought I was building up my personal brand. Well, today is the first day of fall at SUNY Orange (OCCC). I am taking intermediate algebra and computer literacy. Being back on campus brings back memories of my summer psych class and how much my definition of a “personal brand” has changed.
I thought for me it’s easy steps; social media for personal branding is not just a logo, a website, an Instagram profile, or a well-written bio
It starts with your story.
The Start of My Personal Branding Strategy Journey
Long before I became an SEO strategist and founded Memorable Design LLC, I worked in social media marketing and creative design.
The image above is from a different time in my career. Other name(s): Visual identity was different. Various phases of my life.
And then my road changed.
Living with the effects of a traumatic brain injury has required me to relearn many areas of my life. Over time, I started to link my recovery, mental health, education, design, marketing, and SEO experiences together instead of viewing them as separate chapters.
Part of that story was returning to OCCC.
Studying psychology over the summer gave me a different perspective on mental health, behavior, emotions, and my own experiences. Now fall begins with intermediate algebra and computer literacy, two completely different subjects that challenge me in two different ways.
And that is something personal branding has taught me:
You don't need to erase your past to build your next chapter.
What Are the Steps to Building a Personal Brand?
When people search for how to build a personal brand, they often start with social media.
I would start earlier.
How do you build a personal brand? Know your story. What steps in building experiences have shaped you?
Your story and a strong personal brand give people a reason to remember the person behind the title.
What do you want to be known for as you build your personal brand?
My professional world is SEO strategy, branding, design, content, and digital growth. My story also involves education, TBI recovery, accessibility, and mental health awareness.
What are the steps to build your personal social media presence
1. Gain practical experience; social media allows me to understand that content is a reflection of what you are actually doing. Your personal brand is stronger. To me, that means attending OCCC while still working on SEO, design, client projects, and memorable design.
2. Share the process instead of the product. Success stories help, but so do the hard mornings, lessons, experiments, mistakes, and little wins along the way.
3. Get your name out there. This is where SEO comes in as a part of personal branding. Search engines, and increasingly AI-powered search experiences, should be able to know who you are and what you do from your website, author profile, social accounts, portfolio, articles, images, and expertise.
6. Be consistent, but allow yourself to evolve. Check out my old creative work in this post. My brand today doesn't look like it did then. It should not. The person behind it has also grown up.
Tools like Canva and Notion: From Summer Psychology to a New Fall 🍂
Today, I walk into Intermediate Algebra and Computer Literacy with much more than books.
I bring my experience as a TBI survivor, mental health creator, student, designer, entrepreneur, and SEO strategist.
Those identities don’t conflict.
They tell my story together.
That’s why I build my personal brand around social media. It’s not about creating a perfect version of yourself for the internet. It’s about finding what makes your experience meaningful, building real expertise around it, and communicating it consistently.
Remember, my summer use of social media in psychology class became part of that journey.
My first Fall morning at OCCC becomes another chapter.
And Ruslan Smirnov isn't simply a name I'm trying to rank on Google.
It’s a story I’m still building online; personal branding on social media today is often just about driving sales.
My journey begins again. 💙💛
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