You'd be shocked by how often I get asked “what am I doing wrong?" or "why isn't my personal brand growing like yours?”.
So, I thought I’d break down the 7 things that I know you’re doing right now which are stopping you from growing the personal brand you want.
It's also stopping you from accessing the opportunities you want. I call these the fatal flaws.
They’re some of the easiest mistakes to make—and also some of the easiest ones to avoid.
#1 Overthinking it.
Let me be clear - your personal branding content does NOT need to be perfect. And I get it; you want to look smart. You want people to think you’re an expert because that is what builds your personal brand, right? Well, yeah. But if your spending 2 hours writing a post that is going to be read in 7 seconds, you’ve entirely missed the point of personal branding.
You don't need to optimise your content to the point of no humanity. Not everything needs to be planned, formatted, or efficient. Lean into imperfection. Show your rough edges. That is what will make people like you. THAT is what puts the *personal in personal branding. So stop wasting time trying to make your content perfect, and just get it out. Done is for the message, and perfect is for your ego. And trust me when I tell you, your ego IS the enemy.
#2 Being vanilla.
There is a time and place for vanilla, and it’s usually by the seaside in an ice cream cone, not in your personal branding online content. If you want to stand out, you have to be okay with people disagreeing with you. Actually, people disagreeing with you is a good thing - it means you can either challenge them or have a good old discussion in the comments section. This not only shows you’re open to new information but also shows you’re open to discussing things that you don’t agree with. Which further builds your credibility as an expert in your space.
So, stop worrying about everyone not liking you. You don’t even like everyone. The worst thing people can be towards your personal brand is indifferent because if they’re indifferent, you’re not even interesting enough to be disliked.
#3 Worrying about ‘adding value’ aka looking ‘smart’.
You don’t need to post ‘smart’ content to be valuable. Memes are valuable. Videos of dogs with zoomies are valuable. Nostalgic movie clips are valuable. 1000-word newsletters about the fatal flaws killing your personal brand are valuable. Get it? Value is defined by the person reading or engaging with your content. You don’t need to be intelligent to add value in your personal brand content, it just needs to resonate and make sense to it’s intended audience.
And that could be with a meme OR a how-to guide on brain surgery.
#4 Not engaging with others.
This is where you’re most likely to be letting yourself down. You’re spending hours writing and putting out your own content, but aren’t engaging with other people. You’re talking at them, not with them. I once left a comment on someone else’s TikTok that got 52,000 likes - and generated me a few extra thousand followers. If you want people to be engaged in your content, you must also be willing to engage in other people’s. It’s called social* media after all.
#5 Inconsistency.
Building a strong personal brand is 10% content and 90% consistency in posting it. Think about it: doing 1 mammoth gym session a month isn’t going to get you the gains - but doing 45min-60 mins 4-5x a week will. The same goes for your personal brand. You have to be consistent in your posting schedule.
- LinkedIn: 3-5x per week.
- TikTok: 4-7x per week.
- Instagram feed: 3x per week.
- Instagram stories: 2-5 per day.
- (X) Twitter: 3-5 per day.
Please note: You DO NOT need to build your personal brand on all platforms. I was on LinkedIn for 2 years before I tried anything else… find where your core audience is and stick to it until you’re comfortable it’s growing by itself, THEN move on to new and shinier things.
#6 Forgetting to remind people what you’re selling.
If you’ve got something to sell—a product or service, or even yourself—steady on—I meant into a new job—you need to remind people what you’re selling. Once a week, post some results, a testimonial, or tell people about a project you’re working on and what the results are. Here's an example.
Why is this important? Because likes don’t pay your bills. If you want to generate leads out of your personal brand, whether that’s recruiters into your DMs OR actually a new business, you have to give them a reason to buy from you beyond just knowledge. Why does the ‘screenshot’ results post work? 92% of people trust the opinion of strangers over a company brand. If you’re going to tell people how amazing you are at what you do, get your customers to tell your next customers for you.
#7 Pretending to be someone you’re not.
The final point, and the most important, is the most fatal flaw you can make when building your personal brand is pretending to be someone you’re not. People can see through inauthenticity, and more importantly, if you’re someone completely different online than you are in person, when people DO meet you, your credibility and trustworthiness are shot. Be 100% ok with the consequences of being yourself. Afford to tell YOUR truth. Be empathetic and considerate in your delivery, but don’t be inauthentic in your message. If you're lucky enough to be different, act like it.
I hope this helps unpick some of the blockers that are currently stopping you from building your personal brand - and attracting the opportunities you deserve.
And if you’re still stuck, download the LinkedIn Playbook.
It’s the exact framework that helped me get to 200k followers - and $4mil business revenue.
💜
