Hearing Personal Branding advice as soon as you open your front door can get overwhelming.
Why?
Because everyone claims to have the perfect solution for you and your business. (Side eyeing everyone.)
You get bombarded daily with countless tips, strategies, and “must-follow” rules from the many self-proclaimed experts and marketing gurus (who might have a few AI accounts following them and boosting their engagement).
And no matter how many:
- Experts you follow,
- Courses you buy, or
- Articles you read …
You will still feel lost about what’s right and what’s wrong for your personal brand. But here are some key pillars to guide you to figuring out what works for you the best:
- Tracking your results religiously,
- Dropping what doesn’t help you anymore,
- Testing different personal branding approaches,
- Keeping what works for your business alone.
The truth is quite simple budd. You see, what might work for the next person might not work for you. Your personal brand needs its own path, not a copy-paste solution from someone else’s success story.
So the advice for today is: don’t follow all advice. Listen to them, but take only what works for you alone.
- Make data-driven decisions,
- Measure your results from them,
- Pick a strategy, and
- Test it thoroughly.
Keep with the trends, but don’t follow the crowd blindly. Here’s to stop overloading yourself with conflicting branding advice that makes you question your font choices and life decisions. So start searching for some sass, clarity, and zero buzzword-induced migraines, and pick what works best for your business.
- Trendy ≠ Timeless
Not every hack out there on LinkedIn is meant for you.
You’ve heard it all:
- “Carousels are King!”
- “Reels are the new resume.”
- “Write like you’re texting your ex, but make it inspiring.” (Uhh, excuse me, whatt??)
Trends on LinkedIn are like TikTok dances. They’re fun, chaotic, and everyone starts doing it at first. The truth is, just because something’s trending doesn’t mean it’s worth bending your whole strategy around it. Some trends just aren’t for all, and the sooner you realize this, the better.
So What Can You Do?
Start focusing on the format last and prioritize the foundation first. Meaning, if you’re a B2B consultant, a long-form text post will be more valuable over a meme. And if you’re a sports coach, storytelling and motivational narratives could outperform listicles. Whichever format you choose must fit your tone.
For Example: Remember Clubhouse? Everyone was on it, and then suddenly, it went poof. Now it’s just a digital desert with echoing rooms. Similarly, don’t ever, ever bet your brand on a trend that might ghost you faster than that flaky date you met last Tuesday.
- One Person’s Gold is Another Person’s Gimmick
Somebody posts at 5:15 A.M. on Wednesdays and swears it changes their game.
Another person uses emojis like seasoning in their LinkedIn posts, strategically sprinkling for a max punch.
Then there’s another who never uses hashtags or emojis, and still goes viral every week.
The moral of this story? What’s gold for one might just be glitter in your case; shiny, exciting, and completely useless. Train your eye to spot them.
So What Can You Do?
Gather data from your audience. Then post about it, observe, and repeat. Allow your target audience to tell you what’s gold. And when you begin opting for personal insights and dig into patterns in engagement over parroted advice, you’ll start seeing the results you want.
For Example: A solo entrepreneur, Lisa, tried the “no-niche, post-everything” model and lost half her engagement. But when she began narrowing down her posts to productivity tips for freelancers, her engagement bounced back, and she started landing podcast invites and client calls.
- You Don’t Need a Personal Brand Bible
You just need to learn how to filter out what you don’t need.
There’s so much advice out here that you’d think building a personal brand required a PhD and a Pinterest vision board made of recycled TED Talks.
Like come on, not all advice is created equal. And you? You need a simple filter and not a five-course meal from someone who discovered Canva yesterday.
So What Can You Do?
Create a customizable filter. Something like this:
- “Does this advice align with my goals?”
- “Does this advice reflect how I want to show up for my audience?”
- Can I sustain this advice without burning out?”
If the answer is NO to even one of the above, then you’d best keep scrolling. Your sanity will thank you in advance.
For Example: A startup founder, Dave, followed the “Post Daily for Visibility.” Sure enough, it worked for 2 weeks, but when the 3rd week came around, the burnout hit Dave like a speeding truck. He ran out of ideas, forcing him to switch to 1 post per week. Ironically, he now leads with in-depth storytelling, giving him the room to breathe and opportunities for better traction.
- The Must-Haves are Often Just Nice-to-Haves
Ah, yes, the Holy Trinity of personal branding pressure 101:
- The colour palette,
- The professional headshot as your profile picture, and
- The signature tagline that captures your essence.
All these are good, but if your content has no soul or value inside, and especially nothing of you, then you might as well just be posting a blank square with #authentic.
Makes no sense right?
So What Can You Do?
Prioritize the following:
- Clear messaging in all your posts,
- Relatable storytelling, and
- Consistent delivery.
Everything else can just be accessorized later.
For Example: An early-career professional, Ahmed, was stuck on a project for weeks, designing a logo and colour theme for a high-ticket client. He finally launched a content series without them and still gained 500 followers in a month. Ahmed’s secret was dropping the perfectionist mindset and instead sharing valuable content. It was a simple content series with actionable career tips and an honest tone. That’s all. Fancy visuals are nice-to-haves, not must-haves, especially when you’re just starting your personal branding journey.
- Your Personal Brand Is a Compass
Meaning, you’re not a product on a shelf right? You’re a person, probably one with a story worth sharing and a caffeine addiction from scheduling chaos daily.
So, chuck the “5 Pillars of Personal Branding Perfection” out the window and ask yourself:
- “Where do I want to go?”
- “What kind of target audience do I want to serve?”
- “What do I want to say to them?”
- “What can I offer my audience?”
Your personal brand must never lead with pressure or trends, but with understanding and purpose.
So What Can You Do?
Go back and visit your goals often. Ask yourself:
- “Am I here to grow as a thought leader?”
- “Am I here to land clients?”
- “Am I here to build trust with my audience?”
Let these questions guide your decisions. LinkedIn algorithms change all the time, but what shouldn’t change is your direction.
For Example: A business coach of 5 years, Luke, stopped obsessing over LinkedIn growth hacks and instead doubled down on live Q&As and voice notes for engagement. With time, his personal brand grew deeper, and his client base, though not large, became loyal.
Final Thoughts: All Advice Must Only Assist
Advice must never overrule, but only help you.
Because at the end of the day, your personal branding journey isn’t a game of “follow the shepherd.”
It’s more like building IKEA furniture. It can be confusing at times, where you’ll occasionally miss a screw or a step, but eventually it works best when you follow your own instructions.
You might think and feel pressured when you see people speeding ahead of you.
But just like the tortoise, slow and steady gets you good results.
Build your brand on your terms and on your time alone.
And that, dear friend, is what makes your business worth remembering.
So what’s it going to be? Will you keep chasing every new branding trend out here?
Or will you finally start finding what truly works for your business?
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