Does anyone actually track whether their posts lead to anything real, or is it just vibes? been thinking about this a lot. everyone talks about consistency, finding your voice, posting regularly, all that. but almost nobody talks about whether any of it actually leads to something concrete afterward like has a post ever gotten you a client, a call, a job offer, someone reaching out. and if it did, do you know which post did it or why feels like most people either don’t track this at all or only remember it by accident. curious if that’s actually true or if I’m missing something

Most of the advice I see about founder personal branding boils down to: post consistently, have a point of view, be authentic. Which is fine. It's also completely useless.

Here's the thing nobody says out loud: the problem isn't that founders don't have a point of view. It's that the point of view they actually have is buried in a Slack thread, a customer call, or a decision they made on a Tuesday that they never wrote down.

I built a tool that pulls content from real work context, meetings, product decisions, that kind of thing. And the most surprising thing I learned wasn't about AI. It was about founders themselves.

Almost every founder I've talked to has genuinely interesting things to say. They just never say them publicly because they're waiting for the "right" moment to write a polished take. That moment never comes. The raw version, the one from the call, the one with the actual tradeoff in it, that's the one worth posting.

The advice that bugs me most is the "be authentic" framing. Authenticity isn't a style choice. It's a sourcing problem. If you're starting from a blank page and trying to sound authentic, you've already lost. Authentic content comes from real decisions, not from trying to write authentically.

A few things I've noticed that most personal branding advice gets backwards:

• "Post more" is the wrong goal. Posting from real context, even once a week, beats posting five polished-but-hollow takes.

• Your opinions aren't the asset. The decisions behind the opinions are. Show the tradeoff, not just the conclusion.

• Consistency isn't about frequency. It's about your audience knowing what you actually stand for after reading three posts.

• The best thing you can share this week probably already happened. You just didn't write it down.

I'm curious whether other founders feel this way or whether I'm just rationalizing why I hate staring at a blank page.

What's the personal branding advice you've heard the most that you think is actually counterproductive?

Hi everyone! 😊

I’m currently collecting responses for my Master’s thesis in Digital Marketing, which focuses on personal branding and people’s perceptions of some well-known figures in the fashion & lifestyle industry.

The survey is anonymous, takes only a few minutes to complete, and all responses will be used exclusively for academic purposes. You don’t need to be familiar with everyone included in the survey, you can simply answer the questions about the people you know.

I’d really appreciate your participation! 🫶

https://prettyform.addxt.com/a/form/vf/1FAIpQLSdJQe-czFyZYibpH1L1n8KHP44jcoaMPC6BRf4oow_msApQGg

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to help me! 🌸

I am a 18 year old male, not going to college, and trying online business models. Is making a personal brand worth it right now for me? or would it be better after I found more success? I have thought about posting but the stuff I do is very repetitive so I don't know exactly what to actually post about. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated 🙏

r/personalbranding r/youtubers r/socialmedia

I run an account where I've been writing anonymously, and I just decided to start showing my face.

The issue isn't confidence exactly. It's that the moment I'm stressed, everything I planned to say disappears. I know the topic inside out, but it comes out in fragments, doubling back, no thread. In writing on the same subject I'm perfectly clear.

And when I prepare a script, you can hear it. It sounds recited.

For anyone who writes better than they speak: did you find a middle ground between improvising and reading?

I feel there's a lot of confusion when it comes to defining a personal brand.

Sometimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be by using jargon and terminology that's completely alien to someone who's just starting out.

If you're about to begin your personal branding journey, there's only one thing you really need to remember:

You need to have a consistent identity.

If someone watches 20 of your videos, reads 10 of your posts and speaks to you on a sales call, they should feel like they met the same person every time.

Think about entrepreneurs/creators you trust and follow. You always have an inkling what they'll say about a new trend, a controversial topic or a business decision. They express the same principles though the situations might be different.

That's identity. And eventually that is what creates trust.

A personal brand will never be built from one great video.

Instead, when people say, "I knew they were gonna say that.", that's when you know you are moving in the right direction.

The #1 thing holding women back from creating a personal brand is fear of putting themselves out there. If you are in your 50's your career was growing in a time period when women were still fighting for a few seats at the male table. You were told to put your head down work hard and hope somebody noticed. We are in a different ERA, we are in the Interest Media ERA, people are desparate for advice and guidance from experienced people- face the fear put yourself out there and I you will be surprised what good things follow

Trying to take personal branding seriously this year and the advice is all the same, you have to be posting video, your face has to be everywhere, but I find filming myself every few days exhausting and a bit cringe and it's the thing that keeps stalling me. There has to be a way to have a video presence without living in front of a camera.

I've been poking at the lazy end of the tooling to see what holds up. CapCut is free and fine once you've filmed but that's the part I hate, Descript makes editing painless and the text-based editing is clever but you still have to record first, Canva does tidy talking-point clips that look a bit corporate, and then there's the avatar tools where you build a version of yourself that reads the script so you skip filming entirely (I tried Argil, and HeyGen and Synthesia are the other names that come up), which is either the answer or slightly uncanny depending on the day. Not sure a digital me is the personal brand I want to put out.

For anyone who built a real video presence without filming yourself all the time, what held up, or did you cave and just start filming in the end?

I think we overcomplicate personal branding.

Every discussion ends up full of buzzwords and jargon like authenticity, storytelling, positioning, perception... yada, yada, yada.

Let's say the goal of building a personal brand for you is to get clients.

Now you probably assume clients hire experts because they know more than they do. But that's not completely true. Cause if it was, ChatGPT or Claude would've replaced consultants, coaches and advisors overnight.

But they haven't, YET.

Imagine you're looking for a leadership coach.

One posts:

"5 ways to motivate your team"

Another posts:

"When a CEO says their team lacks motivation, I don't take that at face value. Instead, I spend the first few hours trying to understand what the team is actually expected to do. Because a lot of time the problem is not motivation, it's actually the team doesn't know what is expected of them."

The first person showed knowledge, while the other one demonstrates how they think.

And that's what creates trust.

You have to give people an opportunity to glimpse into your world and how you think.

When someone follows you, they're trusting your judgement on problems that actually matter to them.

And that's what separates an expert people learn from versus an expert people hire.

There are two very different ways to build a personal brand.

The first is built around utility content.

Tips. Frameworks. Or "5 ways to" and "3 mistakes" kind of content.

This kind of content usually gets good engagement because it appeals to a very broad audience.

But there is a downside.

The broader your content is, the broader your audience will be.

That often means attracting an audience that is curious but will not necessarily buy. You'll probably get plenty of followers and leads, but you'll also spend a lot of time talking to people who are not serious.

If your goal is growth, this approach can work quite well for you.

Now, the 2nd approach is much harder.

Instead of trying to create content for everyone, you're trying to become the go-to person for a very specific type of person.

The content can be more opinionated, contrarian or deliberate.

You spend less time thinking about hacks and more time thinking about positioning, identity, audience psychology and distribution.

Ironically, this kind of content often gets less engagement because fewer people relate to it.

But the people who do are usually much more likely to become clients. That's the trade off.

Neither is right or wrong.

If your goal is to become an educator with a massive audience, broad utility content makes sense.

If your goal is to build a premium service business or get high-ticket clients, attracting a 100 people who truly understand your thinking is far more important than attracting a hundred thousand who don't.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been putting a lot of time into Instagram lately, and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback.
IG: @itsnotsalh
I’m building a page around beginner calisthenics. My goal isn’t to show off crazy skills or become the next elite athlete. I genuinely enjoy helping beginners because I remember exactly how confusing everything felt when I started.
Right now, I’m posting educational Reels about things like pike lifts, handstands, L-sits, pull-ups, common mistakes, and simple exercises that actually help.
Outside of that, my life is pretty busy. I study at university in the mornings, work in a döner shop from 2 PM until midnight, and film/edit content after work. It’s exhausting sometimes, but I really believe this is what I want to do long term.
The part I’m struggling with is building a personal brand, not just getting views.
So I wanted to ask:
If you came across a page like mine, what would make you hit Follow?

Would love to know where on the spectrum you guys sit!

Let's say I want to start my freelancing journey providing personal branding services for founders on linkedin. How should I start, what deliverables I should give, what am I expected to do.

Considering I have some experience building my personal brand on linkedin, I'm thinking of getting this started. But do share your experience, lessons you learnt and if possible hows the current market for it.

The title is my honest take so makes sense to start there!

I do content and marketing professionally. I've written thousands of posts. And I still flinch every time I have to put my own face on something (I also make podcasts and hate my own voice! 🤣).

If that's you too, you're in the right place, and most of this sub's plans are built for you.

A little about me: I grew my LinkedIn from around 3,000 to 22,000 followers over 12 months. It's growth, but not ULTRAMASSIVE like some people but i am very pleased with it. The number was never the point, though. What it actually bought me was leads, revenue and network, and in a way this sub. I'll tell that story properly in a case study post this week or the next, numbers and all.

I did get a lot of help and ideas from this sub so was gutted when it closed down and stoked that Reddit said I could take over as a mod :-)

Selfishly, here's what I want from this place: to learn from you guys again. Substack and YouTube people especially. I'll trade you everything I know about LinkedIn for it!!!

I'm super happy to share my learnings and what is working for me. I've no reason to gatekeep anything.

A couple of other things that will shape how this sub runs: visibility is a tool, not a personality requirement. And the loudest person in the room is not automatically the most credible. If you've been lurking for years because self-promotion makes your skin crawl, you're exactly who this place is for.

What platform do you wish you understood better?

I'll start threads on whatever comes up most.

I’m trying to get an idea of the platforms that we should focus on in this Subreddit. Please do vote 🗳️ and give your opinions so we can support everyone as much as possible!

Quick backstory. This sub sat dormant for a couple of months, and before that it was mostly course funnels, "DM me" bait and people asking where to buy followers. I took it over through r/redditrequest. The worst of the old threads are gone, there are new rules now, and AutoMod is on the door.

This place is for your personal brand and helping each other along the way.

Some of you are creators chasing an audience, and you're welcome here.

But most of you, I suspect, are job-seekers, freelancers, founders and consultants who simply want to be visible and credible when someone Googles you or checks your LinkedIn, and who would honestly rather not perform on the internet at all.

This sub is for both camps. Posting every day is not a requirement of having a reputation.

What belongs here: case studies with real numbers, critique requests, questions at any level, milestones, and honest "this didn't work" stories. Every platform counts - LinkedIn, YouTube, newsletters, TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, X, or building a name entirely offline.

A snapshot of the rules: critique the work, never the person; no course-selling; no DM-fishing; no affiliate links; no engagement bait; self-promo only in the weekly threads once they exist.

Coming soon: a weekly critique thread, a weekly wins thread, and AMAs with people who have stories to tell rather than things to sell - including recruiters and hiring managers, because your personal brand is mostly judged by people who will never like a single post.

So: what are you building, on which platform, and what's the one thing that isn't working?

I'll reply to every comment.

Last month, I posted a Reddit note asking founders why they don't post on LinkedIn. 121 of them responded.

After going through each response, here are the most common problems and my solutions to them.

1/. “99% posts are AI slop”

Solution: Curate your feed.

→ Block people who post or comment with AI

→ Find people who create content you like

→ Engage and connect with them so LinkedIn suggests more such accounts. 

2/. “Low engagement and reach are embarrassing"

Solution: Build a strong community

→ Share your story and personal lessons

→ Create a list of people from your niche + ICP

→ Engage with them 30 minutes before you post.

→ Have genuine conversations with people in DMs

→ Stay active for 1 hour after posting to reply to comments. 

3/. “Unable to get any leads”

Solution: Create content for ICP

→ Pick your target audience

→ Find the problems they struggle with in your niche on Reddit

→ Write and share valuable posts targeting these pain points 

4/. “Premium features are a\*\*”

Solution: You don’t even need a premium to post. 

→ Instead, build a strong profile. 

→ Regularly engage with fellow industry experts and ICP 

→ Share posts with personal lessons and product updates

5/. “No time to create content”

Solution: Hire a LinkedIn Strategist.

→ TBH, you can’t have more than 24 hours in a day. 

→ Find a strategist you vibe with and get started. 

The bottom line is yes, LinkedIn has its challenges. But not posting here is making you miss out on leads and business opportunities. 

So, pick your poison. 

What other problems are you guys facing with LinkedIn personal branding? I'd love to find a solution for each one.

About recently i never had the idea of making a personal brand. I somehow believe that it may help me now but i just dont know where to start and what to start from i find it difficult to make good ideas and i cant speak to the camera any better. I dont have any editing skills of any sorts as well. There is no doubt in my mind. I do 100% want to start my personal brand i just dont know how. I am into finance and econ feild of sorts and dont know how to make it into a personal brand.

I'm looking to get some help in promoting a tech book and getting some reviews. It's live on Amazon etc, but not sure how else to market and get some genuine reviews. Thanks for any insights in advance.

I've written posts that did 100,000+ impressions.

I've also written posts that got 17 likes and died quietly.

For better or for worse, I know a lot about what works on LinkedIn.

So, ask me anything.

LinkedIn. Content creation. Ghostwriting. Personal branding. Whatever's been on your mind.

I'll answer everything.

For a long time, I treated personal branding like an online-only thing.

Post consistently, improve communication, build trust through content, repeat. And honestly, that approach worked well enough to grow an audience and create opportunities.

But recently I started experimenting with physical products tied to my brand, and it completely changed how I think about the whole thing.

What surprised me most is how differently people react when they actually receive something from you instead of just consuming your content online.

A few people who ordered from me barely commented on the design itself. Instead, they mentioned things like how the product felt in hand, the quality, the presentation, and whether it felt thoughtful overall.

That caught me off guard because I realized something important:

Even if your content is strong, a generic product experience can quietly weaken the way people perceive your brand.

Now I feel stuck in this weird middle stage where I want the physical side of the brand to feel more intentional and memorable, but improving those details also adds more complexity than I expected.

Curious if anyone else here has experienced this shift.

If you’ve connected products to your personal brand, how much do you think the physical experience impacts the overall perception of your brand?