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🧑‍💼 Personal Brands: Content Production Systems, Nano-Influencers, Pseudonymity

by dru_riley

In this Trends.vc Report, we talk about how to build your content production system, how to differentiate yourself, what is a nano-influencer and more.

💎 Why It Matters

You have a brand. Whether you know it or not.

🔍 Problem

You need to show why you are worth trust and attention.

💡 Solution

Your personal brand determines if and how you are seen.

  • Charlie D'Amelio started as a down-to-earth TikTok personality. Now she uses her brand to add value to portfolio companies in her $25 million VC fund.
  • Sahil Bloom uses viral business threads to attract an audience for his newsletter. His audience is the perfect value add as an angel investor too.
  • Steph Mui’s viral tweets about the founder's struggles attract an audience for both herself and PIN.

🏁 Players

Personal Brands

  • Marie Kondo • Established herself as the face of ‘tidying’. Now she runs a major consultancy business branded the KonMari Method.
  • Bill Nye • Spent years crafting a persona as the world’s foremost science educator.
  • Casey Neistat • Used his unique video style to position himself as the king of vlogs.
  • Malala Yousafzai • Youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate. World-famous for her courage and education activism.
  • Gary Vaynerchuk • Positioned himself as the face of grit and entrepreneurial determination.
  • QTCinderella • Twitch streamer who leveraged her brand to start The Streamer Awards.
  • Mark Manson • Sells life advice that doesn’t suck.

Personal Brand Tools

  • Google Alerts • Get alerts from Google when you’re mentioned online.
  • Descript • Edit videos as easily as editing a doc.
  • Podcast Hawk • Get booked as a podcast guest on auto-pilot.
  • SpeakerHub • Build your professional speaking platform to get booked for events.
  • Twitter Streak • A free tool to track and increase your Twitter growth.

🔮 Predictions

  • More people will become nano-influencers. They will find narrow niches for their brands.
  • WeTheHobby streams on WhatNot to a small audience of loyal sports collectible enthusiasts.
  • Jen Lauren is a self-care video creator who can offer more of a personal touch than major influencers.
  • Jade Melcher built her brand on clean beauty and non-toxic living with high-quality product photography.
  • Nathan Young is well-known in the prediction market community. Outside of it, his name would be unlikely to ring a bell.
  • Creators will automate more aspects of brand operations. Such as creating content and engaging with other creators.
  • Pascio uses Tweet Hunter to write and automate his content schedule.
  • Kyle Handy uses Facebook’s creator studio to schedule his posts on real estate.
  • Youri van Hofwegen automated his Youtube content for 365 days and earned $47,000 from 2.6 million views.
  • Pseudonymous ‘personal’ brands will lower key-person risk.
  • BitClout founder ‘diamondhands’ raised $40m from Sequoia and other major investors.
  • Litquidity uses its brand to market content services, a job board and angel investing.
  • Parik Patel and John W. Rich create content on finance. They attract audiences with viral content based on their characters.
  • Youtubers like Dream attract millions of followers fascinated by anonymity. His voice was known but his looks were only recently made public.
  • Personal and professional brands will merge. People want to feel that they can trust you on a personal level.
  • Shaun White uses his personal brand to market Air + Style and WHITESPACE. Both brands reflect his energetic and avant-garde spirit.
  • Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the foremost marketing influencers. His famous personality helped him build a massive content business.
  • Ariana Wolf’s “personal professional brand” helps use authenticity to grow her design business. Yet she keeps strict boundaries about sharing her personal life.

☁️ Opportunities

  • Build tools to help creators automate aspects of their personal brands.
  • Creators use Synthesia to turn scripts into video content read by a realistic avatar.
  • Hassan El Mghari made a tutorial on how he used OpenAI and Vercel to build a Twitter Bio Generator.
  • SayHi generates thoughtful intro messages personalized to who you’re messaging on LinkedIn.
  • Virtual Youtubers allow a single ‘persona’ or channel to be a whole team. The actual gameplay and commentary no longer need to be done by a real person.
  • Use social proof to grow your personal brand. Mimetic desire shows that people are more likely to trust you if someone they admire trusts you.
  • Benjamin got many venture capital connections after a prominent investor followed him.
  • Therapist Phil Stutz and his tools for ‘life transformation’ are a trending topic. Jonah Hill featured his positive experience with ‘Stutz’ on Netflix.
  • Katelyn Bourgoin became “the customer whisperer” by helping and teaching marketers. She uses her reputation to get customers for Customer Camp.
  • Build a content production system to stay consistent.
  • Easlo uses Notion to manage his TikTok, Twitter and Youtube content in one place.
  • Dileep Karri wrote 30 essays in 30 days to boost his writing and build a content production system.
  • Jonathan Hawley published the framework he uses to lower friction when managing his ideas.
  • Atul Anand built an audience for his Notion templates by tweeting about the process.
  • Art Lapinsch built his brand around Biz Ops by asking for feedback on courses he makes.
  • Oliver Martinez hit $2,000 MRR and 40,000 Twitter followers by tweeting about his apps’ progress.
  • Karthik Sridharan shares how he grows Flexiple and buildd to $3,000,000 ARR to grow his audience.
  • Kieran grew his audience of no-code students by tweeting about his learning process. He's gone from non-technical founder to solo builder.

🏔️ Risks

  • Key-Person Risk • Some businesses are nothing without their Influencer-in-Chief. Learn how to make your business work even without you at the helm.
  • Platform Risk • Social media websites can suspend or shadow-ban your account. Diversification helps to avoid being de-platformed.
  • Legal • Beware of the legal implications of what you do online. Especially if you offer advice or run giveaways.

🔑 Key Lessons

  • Help people. The simplest way to build an audience is by offering real value. Share advice, tools and insights to get trust.
  • Start creating now. It can be scary to ‘launch’ your personal brand. Don’t let fear stop you from achieving your end goals.
  • Consistency matters. Nothing you do is as important to your personal brand as showing up on a regular basis. Learn what works by keeping the content flowing.

🔥 Hot Takes

  • You don’t need a plan. Many of the most successful personal brands started with creators enjoying themselves. Engage with your favorite communities and see what happens.
  • People will become impossible to cancel. There is a subculture for everyone. Especially those shunned by the mainstream.
  • Most personal brands were obsessed with conforming to social expectations. Now they will try to differentiate themselves.

😠 Haters

“I'm uncomfortable posting such personal content. Loss of privacy scares me.”
Lots of people feel this way. Building a personal brand doesn’t mean you need to share intimate details. There are many ways to add value and earn peoples’ trust without getting too personal.

“Building a personal brand takes too much time for an ROI that’s unclear.”
Just because you can’t measure the outcome like a paid ad doesn’t mean it’s not driving results. If what you’re doing is working, you’ll grow your network one person at a time. Your personal brand is a lifelong investment. Don’t chase immediate ‘sales’ and follower counts.

“Personal branding is a way for people to promote themselves and their own interests. It's not helpful for their company or organization.”
Why not both? Instead of stopping your team from building a reputation, support them! Feature the people behind your business and help them grow their brands. Everyone wins when your team has respect in your industry.

“I want to grow my personal brand, but I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t have any expertise that people would find valuable enough.”
What do you enjoy talking about? Write what you are most passionate about. Even if you lack a certain talent or knowledge, you can share your learning experience. It can be both entertaining and insightful to others.

🔗 Links

  1. You have a personal brand… whether you know it or not • The tweet behind this report.
  2. How to Use Twitter for Thought Leadership • How to use Twitter to grow your brand.
  3. Why You Should Craft a Powerful Personal Brand • Jake Jorgovan shares how his personal brand drives 68.56% of his revenue.

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dru_riley's avatardru_riley
on April 26, 2023
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