If you’ve decided to put this episode on, it’s probably because you want to know more about how to build your personal brand. Or maybe you don’t, but you’re constantly hearing how important it is to have a personal brand and you want to find out how much of it is bullsh*t.

Well, I’m going to answer that one for you straight off the bat… MOST OF IT!

Seriously.

I reckon that 99.9% of the stuff out there about personal branding now is absolute nonsense.

But the thing is… having a personal brand and what it’s about is NOT bullsh*t. Personal branding is actually incredible important and integral to running a business.

So, let me talk through what’s happening in the world of personal branding to make it almost all bullsh*t and help you wade your way through so you can spend your time wisely building yours.

First up, maybe we should cover what personal branding actually is.

It kinda sounds ridiculous that we have to explain it, as the name should really be a hint – it’s your personal brand. i.e. it’s the brand of YOU. Not a company brand, but you as a brand.

I guess the problem is, people don’t quite get what a company brand is either. I’ve been running a creative agency for over a decade now and have done countless branding exercises with clients and many genuinely have no clue.

They assume it’s a logo, or their colours/fonts.

So since people don’t have these attributes, what makes up a personal brand?!

The thing is, branding is not about the visual elements. Or people would end up judging each other by how they look. I guess people do, but that’s not what a personal brand is.

A brand is about emotion – how it makes the customer/audience feel. Do you trust that brand? Do they represent quality? What do you feel when you see their content?

So personal branding is the same thing – how do people feel about you? Do they respect you? Do they see you as a person of authority? Do you come across humble? Are you someone who believes in the greater good – purpose over profit etc.

Your personal brand is essentially like your reputation. The problem is that people see them as very different.

They see it as your reputation is something others perceive you to be, but your personal brand is what you portray to others.

And this is something I have an issue with.

Because then your personal brand can become fake. If this is a persona that you’re essentially putting on to come across in a way that you’re not, then this is incredibly disingenuous.

It’s truly ironic because most “personal branding coaches” claim that the key to building your personal brand is authenticity. And by definition, crafting an image of a person that you’re not is damn well inauthentic!!

So… your personal brand and your reputation SHOULD be the same thing. OK, you could be portraying yourself badly and then things get misconstrued and your reputation suffers a little bit, BUT if you have a consistent personal brand, then your reputation should be able to bounce back.

Now, I say SHOULD, because I’m sort of praying.

Recently, I’ve had scammers make a website claiming to be our agency and pretending to be me while scamming a bunch of people.

I received a long series of 1* reviews on our company page and people claiming I was a scammer.

This was so painful.

So, I wrote to each victim personally to apologise for what they went through and explained who I was and offered to talk to them all personally to assure them that it wasn’t me and I would do what I could to help.

Thanks to my personal brand, they looked me up online and could see that I was legit and believed me and felt relieved. Someone even took the time to write a 5* review about the experience he had with me and to let others know it wasn’t me doing the scamming.

So, my reputation is getting a bit of a hit, but my personal brand is sort of coming to the rescue.

Which is why I think they’re very much intertwined.

I guess your reputation can go up and down, but your personal brand should stay consistent.

The problem is, there are so many supposed experts out there that don’t really understand what personal branding is but are jumping on this trend because it’s an easy way to make money.

Even Wikipedia has an entry about personal branding with a big disclaimer at the top saying “THIS ARTICLE CONTRADICTS ITSELF!” And then a link to a talk page where it votes for the article to actually be deleted!

If something is sooooo badly defined and even the self-proclaimed world experts at this are getting it wrong, is this just a bullsh*t topic?!

I guess this is what the problem is and the reason I’m recording this episode.

I do think it’s really important to craft your personal brand, but I think it’s also filled with bullsh*t and listening to these supposed experts could land you into trouble.

Now, I’m not a self-proclaimed personal branding expert, but I’ve been in the branding industry for over 15 years and I have built a decent personal brand for myself which pays absolute dividends.

And since that’s the reason why most people want to build their own personal brand, I feel like I’m in a decent enough position to just explain what has worked for me and the clients I’ve helped and what to stay well away from.

So let’s talk about how to build your own personal brand.

First of all, when most people reference their personal brand, they’re almost always talking about how they show up online.

So, they’re talking about the content they put out on social media, their email marketing, their website etc. Perhaps even features they’ve landed in high profile publications like Forbes.com or Business Insider.

This is because that’s what personal branding is considered to be these days – just your online content.

But of course, it goes much more than that, and naturally if you’re building up your online brand, it’s most likely because you want it to lead to in-person work, or perhaps to land you a keynote spot at a conference.

And you will 100% have to learn how to show up in person for those.

But let’s discuss how to show up online.

One of the most common questions people ask me is: “Which marketing channels should I be concentrating on?”

So, this is probably the first time I’ve mentioned marketing, and I’m actually going to address that, to establish the difference between personal branding and marketing.

We’ve discussed what personal branding is a lot already and it is in a way a form of marketing, but marketing itself should have different goals. Marketing should all be about promotion – a way to sell your services or products. Personal branding should not necessarily be about that. You are essentially selling yourself, but not directly. You’re showcasing your skills and expertise by providing thought leadership, opinion pieces and advice on your specialist subjects.

Therefore, your marketing content will be a lot more sales-y and it should be serving a direct purpose – to sell a product, get people to buy tickets for an event, or perhaps sign them up for a service.

Your personal branding content should be showcasing your knowledge on your specialist subject, providing value to your audience and showing why you’re someone people should know, like and trust.

What platform you do this on really depends on your business.

Many people choose their platforms, their marketing services or various other bits of business based on their personal preferences. But actually, the correct decision often isn’t about what you like personally; it’s based on what your customers want.

So, to find out which platform you should be concentrating on, you need to ask yourself – what platforms are my customers using? The answer to that should be where you concentrate your efforts.

I guess people also ask if they should be putting content across all the platforms as there’s so much attention on repurposing at the moment.

While it’s great to repurpose content and get more bang for your buck with the content you create, it can be super overwhelming if you try to create a strategy for 5 different channels before you’ve even nailed one.

So, my advice is to focus on one channel first. That’s why I spend most of my time on LinkedIn. This is where I put all of my thought leadership. I put a few lifestyle videos on Instagram and then I randomly angry tweet during the football. So, I really only use LinkedIn for business at the moment.

However, I’ve grown a decent and loyal following and I think it’s now time to branch out. Hence the reason I’m starting a YouTube channel and going to invest time in creating an overall social media marketing strategy across different platforms.

Something important to consider is also what type of content you like creating. (If you don’t like creating content at all, this may be a little harder and I will come back to that!) But if you like creating video content, then you probably should be concentrating on YouTube while looking at repurposing shorter versions to TikTok and Instagram.

Yes, I know I said don’t spend lots of time repurposing, but these days, with incredible AI tools like Opus Clip, you can have this all automated in a click of a button so you don’t even need to think about it.

Concentrate all your efforts on YouTube and then automate TikTok and IG.

If you’re more for written content, then I’d recommend starting a blog, create a mailing list and get busy on LinkedIn.

Now LinkedIn is the platform that I want to talk about right now, as this is the one I use the most and it’s the one that most people use for business purposes. So, there’s now a lot of focus on how to “build your LinkedIn”. So much focus that it’s causing completely unethical practices and fraudsters to come out of the woodwork and take advantage of the buzz.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry now claims to be a LinkedIn expert and drops into your DMs promising to help boost your profile and “guarantee” you results.

Let me just tell you something – anyone who says the word guarantee should not be trusted.

There’s that old phrase that keeps getting repeated – “There’s nothing certain in life other than death and taxes”.

Now, with these scammers, they probably aren’t even paying taxes!! So they’re definitely not going to guarantee you anything.

If you actually look at their profiles, they’re not even practicing what they preach.

So, let me tell you what nonsense is going on on LinkedIn right now.

You’re probably well aware that people buy Instagram and TikTok followers, and probably lots of people have bought X followers too. But did you know that you can also buy LinkedIn followers?

Yup – this is what a LOTTTT of these influencers are doing. One of the top influencers, who actually runs a personal branding agency (and claims it’s the best in the UK) actually even bought LinkedIn employees at the beginning.

She had no one working for her and used to pretend she had a team. She bought her employees and bought thousands of followers. But at least fair play to her, she did post every single day and consistently churn out content and now has an actual team.

Talking about faking it until you make it, eh!!

So, it gets worse that this. As you know, engagement is what it’s all about, on any of the social media platforms. You get more people liking and commenting on your posts and the secret “algorithm” then thinks your content is good and pushes it out to more people. This is how you increase your reach.

You probably will have heard about engagement pods on Instagram – people who are in the same WhatsApp or Telegram group and share their links in there and then a bunch of people all like and comment on your post to make it look like it’s valuable content.

It’s nothing new and it’s been going on for years. It’s totally against the platform’s guidelines and it could cause your account to get shut down but people never think it’s going to happen to them so they keep on doing it.

Now, this is absolutely RIFE on LinkedIn at the moment and you’re probably thinking… ok so what’s the big deal if it happens on every platform?

The big deal is the fact that this is what all the top creators are doing. The supposed influencers. They’re completely faking all their engagement.

If you look at any of the “top” guys, they post something, and in the first 20 mins, the same 30+ influencers all post a comment basically agreeing with them, no matter what they’re saying.

“Oh did you know that if you put nude pics online, it will increase your B2B sales by 69%?!”

“Wow – great advice mate.” “So insightful”, “Such good tips – I’m so gonna do this man”.

I’m serious – go have a look. OK maybe not the nude pics. But other ludicrous advice, or generic bullsh*t that isn’t insightful in the slightest.

They’re ALL doing it.

This is the equivalent of Kim Kardashian being in an Instagram engagement pod with Taylor Swift, Christiano Ronaldo and Adam Mosseri or something. I dunno. But can you imagine? If all those guys with the biggest influence are actually just manipulating the algorithm and just lying to you all day.

And then they then have the audacity to sell you courses and tell you how to grow your following and increase your engagement using their tried and tested techniques!!

It’s one thing claiming to be something you’re not, but I think the bit I hate the most about all this is how it is making the smaller creators feel.

There are people who spend hours and hours creating content each week, commenting on posts all day, in the hope that their content will be seen by their target audience and they can land some business.

They are doing everything these creators are telling them – using their “simple system” that helped them grow to 100k followers in 90 days, but they’re barely getting 100 followers in 90 days.

These genuine people who have invested their hard-earned money and all that time into building their personal brand now feel deflated, disappointed and just outright defeated.

What is the actual point? Or, perhaps, these people can do it so easily and I can’t and so therefore, I’m completely worthless.

It’s so sad to see and I’ve had to help so many people through this slump.

Unfortunately, there are always going to be people who game the system. It’s the same with everything in life. Some people are cheaters. That’s just how they are. Many people are desperate to look popular as some form of self-validation. Even if it doesn’t make them any money. In fact, even if it costs them thousands to get this image.

Because for some of the creators, they are indeed PAYING for this luxury. It’s pretty ludicrous.

So, what can us “normal folk” do about this?

I guess the first thing to do is to concentrate on our own strategy and ignore what others are doing.

But definitely be more aware of what’s going on.

Before you blindly believe and take advice off these guys, actually check their credentials. What actual results have you seen them do before? How many years of experience do they really have? Do you even know of any clients they’ve worked with?

What do others say about them who are not in their inner circle?

Have you spoken to anyone who’s genuinely worked with them?

A lot of these people spend money to put out chiselled content and look good, but behind closed doors, it’s a different story.

Really take the time to evaluate the value you’re getting from their content – is it actually a personal opinion on something and they’re adding their own insight after years of experience? Or are they just regurgitating something they’ve read online and not offering anything else of value to it?

That’s the huge difference between those who are fexperts and those who are legit. I actually did a previous episode on how to spot a fexpert, which is my made-up word for fake expert.

Someone who’s legit and got tons of experience and knowledge, they always have extra bits to add that will be useful to their audience.

So how do YOU build your personal brand and not fall for all these gimmicks.

Well, first of all, please don’t get sucked up into this hole of the fake engagement. Even if you’re not on LinkedIn and you’re building on X or Instagram, these guys are doing the same thing on here. Even YouTube. I’ve seen one guy buy himself a fake award and bought all his subscribers and views to make it look like he’d achieved it!!

The level of fakeness is unreal, so you have to ignore it.

Instead, go back to the old-fashioned ways of creating a content marketing strategy:
– Who do you want to target – build personas for them
– What type of content do they digest?
– What channels are they spending time on?
– What do they find valuable?

Start building authority by putting yourself out there and showcase what you’re good at and constantly engage with your audience.

If I was building my personal brand from scratch, I’d probably concentrate on YouTube, as I really like video, but this is NOT the same for most people.

If you don’t like getting in front of a camera, I’d use LinkedIn.

X is actually an interesting place to grow and I think it’s the least time-consuming too. So, if you think you have decent bits of content to pop on there each day, it might be worth doing so.

LinkedIn has always been the best place for me because it responds to a variety of types of content. You can easily connect with your target audience on there and I have found some incredible people to network with, who have actually become friends.

It just can get a bit overwhelming and depressing when you see all these people gaming the system. I’d say just remove all these posts from your feed and curate it.

I actually started using a new piece of software called Aware, which has been really incredible – they allow you to filter out your LinkedIn feed so that you can just see tailored feeds based on your audience.

So, you can target exact clients, influencers you’d like to connect with, potential talent etc. and filter them all as you wish.

It saves you so much time and energy as then you don’t see all the drivel and the posts that trigger you.

I will put a link to that piece of software in the show notes.

The main thing is to just run your own race and do what’s right for YOU. There’s so much advice out there and people don’t even follow it themselves. They just do it to sound smart, but they’re off doing their own thing.

So, don’t follow it thinking you’re going to get the same results. They manipulate the results themselves and you will never achieve what they have.

Therefore, if you want to build your personal brand, my final advice is:
– Work hard at your own content in whatever format you feel comfortable with
– Engage with your audience, no matter how small they are
– Be true to yourself…. Always

I’ve been doing a lot on personal branding lately as it’s such a big concern for so many people that I work with.

You can also check out our episode of No Bullsh*t Talks with Izzy Prior, which is out tomorrow, and so will already be out for most of you listening to this. She exposes a lot of the bullsh*t on LinkedIn too and talks about what it’s like being an influencer in this industry.

It’s definitely worth a listen if you found this episode valuable.

Thank you so much for listening and supporting this show. If you do find it useful, then I’d really love for you to submit a review for me, as it will really help the show.

That’s it from me now and I will see you next week for another episode of Sniffing Out the Bullsh*t.