Do I Really Need a Personal Brand?
The obsession with personal branding has turned LinkedIn into a competition of who can shout the loudest. Credibility is often the first casualty.
Over the last few years, LinkedIn has been flooded with self-proclaimed career experts preaching the gospel of personal branding.
Their mantra is simple: your profile is a sales pitch. Visibility is everything. Post constantly to stay top-of-mind.
Clearly, many have taken their advice.
What's followed is a deluge of profiles that all look the same, filled to the rafters with desperate self-promotion, wildly inflated accomplishments and toe-curling phrases.
LinkedIn feeds are cluttered with people incessantly posting nauseating life lessons and totally fabricated stories in an attempt to garner attention.
For executives, this approach can be damaging. At the leadership level, credibility depends on quiet confidence. Any indication that you're desperately trying to sell something strips away gravitas and erodes authority.
True personal brand is often the sum total of years of decisions, relationships and outcomes, conveyed through the respect of peers, the success of teams and the ability to influence industry conversations. It's not something that can be feigned.
Really, “Do I need a personal brand?” is the wrong question. Instead, ask yourself, “How do I want to be perceived?”
Your profile, the content you post and the discussions you engage in should all form a cohesive narrative about the value you offer and project authority and credibility, not detract from it by looking desperate or contrived.
To be clear, being visible does matter. LinkedIn is a huge platform and opportunities are only generated when people can see you. But obsessing over personal branding often misses the point. Authority on LinkedIn comes from consistently adding genuine value to decision-makers and contributing intelligently to industry discussions.
Share content that challenges assumptions, provide incisive insights and focus on the issues your audience cares about.
The true goal of your profile is to spark a conversation with people who matter. Real success on LinkedIn isn’t measured in likes or shares but in the quality of the conversations it generates.
Think of your personal brand, then, as the outward expression of your credibility and expertise.
A reputation that grows naturally will always hold more weight than one that feels manufactured.
