You Don't Need to Become an Influencer to Become Known For What You Do
If you’re reading this it’s probably because you asked yourself whether you need to become a full blown influencer before anyone takes any notice of the work you do! The idea that you have to become an influencer stems from your point of reference, you have an outdated idea of what personal branding requires and that idea is costing you a lot. Many of the most capable people I meet are convinced that the only way to become visible is to turn into a full-time content creator, posting daily, filming themselves in the car and sharing details of their private lives with strangers which works very well for some but it’s not a recipe for success for everyone. However this pressure to perform also means that many of those capable people decide to stay quiet instead, which feels like a sensible choice until you notice who is winning the work.
What is the difference between an influencer, an expert, a thought leader and a public figure?
These four terms should not be confused but once in a while they do and that confusion is the root of most resistance to visibility. An influencer earns their living from attention and engagement, which means their audience size, engagement rates and personality are the product and they are paid to sustain a constant stream of content. They have built a community based on who they are and their relatability and ability to influence their community makes them money. An expert is someone with deep, proven knowledge in a particular field and their value comes from what they know and have done rather than from how many people are watching. A thought leader is an expert who has developed a distinctive point of view and shares it in a way that changes how other people in the industry think or act, while a public figure is someone who is widely recognised beyond their field, often through politics, entertainment or major media. You can be an expert who is respected and recommended as a thought leader without being an influencer or a public figure at all, and for most professionals and entrepreneurs that is exactly the position worth building.
Why do senior people resist personal branding?
Senior professionals tend to resist personal branding for reasons that are entirely understandable and most of them come from having watched the wrong examples. They have seen colleagues overshare, chase likes with thin content or turn every small win into a performance, and they have concluded that visibility is something for people who lack real substance. There is also a genuine fear of judgement, since the more senior you are, the more you feel you have to lose by saying something imperfect in public and a real concern about time, because a demanding role leaves little space for a content calendar.
Underneath all of this sits a belief that good work should not need promotion, which is lovely in principle but the rules of the game of life and our world do not operate like this. Hiring panels, buyers, investors and event organisers work with limited information and limited time, so they lean on the people they have already heard of, which means that senior people who stay silent are often overlooked in favour of less experienced people who are simply easier to find. I say this very often in my personal branding training sessions and watch the fear take over the energy of the room as they imagine what that looks like for them until I talk everyone back to reality. You can be visible without being over-exposed.
Visibility and exposure sound similar but describe very different things, and understanding the gap between them removes a great deal of anxiety. Visibility means the right people can find you, understand what you are good at and see evidence that you are credible, which is a deliberate and controlled process that you shape through what you choose to say and where you choose to say it. Exposure tends to bring scrutiny and attention from people who will never become clients or colleagues. Most professionals and entrepreneurs only need the first and can happily ignore the second but it is very important to focus on visibility strategically otherwise exposure comes when you chase popularity and attention for the sake of it.
You do not need to share your personal life
One of the most persistent myths about personal branding is that people will only trust you if they know about your family, your holidays and your morning routine. Some audiences do respond to that style of content but it is a choice rather than a requirement and plenty of highly respected professionals share nothing personal at all (you can use me as an example!). Trust in a professional context comes from evidence of how you think, how you work and what you have achieved, which you can demonstrate entirely through your ideas, your experience and your judgement. So how do you stand out? Don’t run away from who you are. You have a unique personality, you should embrace it and when you are telling a story you can incorporate that personality they way I manage to tell a joke about being born in Hackney every time I make a speech. You are in complete control of how much to reveal and can stop at whatever point feels comfortable. The boundary between your private and professional life is yours to draw, and drawing it clearly tends to make people respect you more rather than less.
You do not need to post every day
Daily posting is a strategy designed for people who make their living from attention. A single well-considered piece of content each week or even each month that shows a clear opinion and reflects real experience, will do far more for your reputation than thirty rushed posts that say very little. Consistency matters more than frequency because people form an impression of you over time and need to see that your perspective is stable, thoughtful and recognisable. This means that you have to be patient but you also have to do the work to grow your visibility capital so to speak. I also want you to remember that good quality content can last longer than chasing trends so I would much rather you take your time to put our content than rush to keep up with chasing a daily algorithm.
What is minimum viable visibility?
Now if you’re really not keen on being visible there is a compromise and that minimum viable visibility. It’s the smallest amount of public presence that allows the right people to understand what you are known for and to verify that you are credible and it is the concept I would encourage every busy professional to at least start with. In practice it usually involves a handful of simple things done well, including a current and clearly written professional profile that says what you do and who you help, a regular contribution to one place where your audience already spends time, and a small body of work such as articles, talks or case studies that proves you know what you are talking about. Beyond that, it helps to be easy to reach and easy to quote, so that journalists, event organisers and potential collaborators can find a way to contact you and a clear summary of your expertise when they go looking. This level of visibility might take an hour or two a week, and for many people it is enough to change how they are perceived, because the standard for being findable and credible is much lower than the standard for being famous.
How do you choose the right platforms for your objectives?
The right platform is the one where the people you want to reach already spend their time and this could change depending on your goals. If you want to be found by senior buyers, corporate clients, investors or industry peers, a professional network such as LinkedIn is usually the most efficient place to start, because your audience is already there in a working mindset. If your aim is to be recognised as an expert by the media or to attract speaking engagements, contributing to trade publications, podcasts and industry events will often carry more weight than any social media following.
If you are wary of social media altogether, you can build a strong reputation without it, through a well-built personal website, guest articles, speaking, a newsletter and simply being generous with your expertise in rooms and committees where your peers gather. Personal branding without social media is entirely possible but it works best when you choose one or two channels that suit your temperament and commit to them properly rather than spreading yourself thinly across all of them. You have to commit though. Don’t start something that you can’t finish - commitment leads to rewards and you deserve to reap those rewards.
How can you stay private and still be professionally visible?
Staying private while becoming professionally visible comes down to making deliberate decisions about what you share and where you share it. You can keep your personal accounts locked down, separate your professional presence from your family life and decide in advance which topics are off limits, while still publishing your professional opinions and expertise in a way that builds your reputation. Many of the most respected people in their fields are almost entirely private outside of their work and it has never held them back, because what people remember is the quality of their thinking rather than the details of their lives.
Being known does not require you to change who you are, give up your privacy or spend your evenings creating content, and the version of visibility that actually works for most professionals and entrepreneurs is quieter, more focused and far more sustainable than the version they have been imagining. Start with the smallest amount of visibility that lets the right people understand what you stand for, build it around your ideas rather than your personality, and let it grow at a pace that suits your life and your work.
When you’re ready to take your visibility and personal brand to the next level get in touch.