Personal Branding Do’s and Don’ts: A Data Driven Guide

Is your personal brand costing you millions?
A LinkedIn study revealed that CEOs with strong personal brands generate 5x more social media engagement. Conversely, a study by Allegory found that 56% of C-Suite leaders believe a weak personal brand can damage a company’s reputation.

This data-driven guide explores the essentials of personal branding to help you leverage your influence and drive value for your company.

LinkedIn affirms that social selling
leaders create more business value.

Executive branding builds trust and accelerates decision-making processes, shortening the deal cycle. A powerful personal brand requires investment and intentional focus on specific principles.

Here’s how a data-driven approach can guide your executive branding efforts:

1. Know Your Audience

Start by leveraging audience insights. Platforms like LinkedIn offer advanced targeting options to identify potential investors, industry influencers, or future recruits based on demographics, interests, and job titles. Tailor your content and communication style to resonate with their specific needs and interests.

2. Define Your Value Proposition

What makes you unique?

Identify your core strengths, values, and expertise.

This clarity will shape your brand narrative, differentiate you from the competition, allow you to connect with potential employees on a deeper level, and enable you to build a positive employer brand.

Audiences crave genuine connections.

When you’re transparent, relatable, and true to your values, you build trust with potential customers and the talented individuals you need to drive your company forward.

This foundation of trust fosters long-term relationships with key stakeholders, ultimately propelling your brand and your company’s success.

Thought-leadership is a key driver of trust for CEOs.

84% of global respondents state they trust CEOs who are outspoken about industry issues, according to a study by Edelman Trust Barometer.

Share valuable insights and contribute to industry conversations. Regularly publishing high-quality content positions you as an industry authority and attracts a loyal audience.

3. Measure and Adapt

Track your progress. Analyze social media engagement, website traffic, and brand mentions. Use this data to refine your strategy and ensure your efforts are achieving the desired results. Look for metrics that align with your goals – website visits if you’re aiming to attract recruits or media mentions if you’re focused on industry recognition.

Here are the essentials of executive branding.

DO

A. Establish a Clear Personal Brand Identity

Self-awareness is the foundation for your brand and the perch from through which you can authentically communicate your value proposition to your intended audience.

Develop a brief, impactful personal brand statement that will be the cornerstone of your brand identity. This statement captures who you are and what you stand for.

Your personal brand statements must be articulated with clarity and conviction to set you apart while still resonating with your intended audience.

With 80% of customers saying they are more likely to trust companies whose senior management is active on social media, it’s clear that his strategy is a winning one.

Here’s excellent example of brand statement for a C-suite tech executive:

The brand statement is on point, with a clear focus on the executive’s leadership strengths and value proposition in the tech industry. The leader is positioned as a subject matter expert for the intended audience.

B. Be Consistent Across Platforms

Consistency makes all the difference in personal executive branding.

Once you establish your brand identity, perform a digital footprint check to ensure everything aligns with it. This includes making sure your visual and textual elements are cohesive across social media, your website, and your portfolio.

Your language and imagery should reflect your brand’s style and tone, staying true to your values. A consistent brand identity enhances recognition and recall, solidifying your presence as a leader.

The question is, how do you strike the balance as you build your personal brand in today’s world? How can you be yourself while still commanding respect and resonating with your audience?

C. Build a Strong Online Presence

The next crucial step is how you brand yourself on social media after curating a personal brand identity.

For starters, LinkedIn is one of the most potent and relevant social media platforms for personal branding and networking. Effective LinkedIn profile management highlights your expertise, achievements, and professional affiliations to boost your brand’s reach and engagement.

LinkedIn offers several other features like headlines and summaries that could be utilized to capture your personal brand identity and value proposition accurately. Aside from those, the platform also champions visibility and credibility through features such as endorsements and recommendations that often come from your network. Your network is your net worth, and what better way to grow your network than by regularly updating your profile with relevant and engaging content?

While LinkedIn is one of many viable platforms for personal branding and audience engagement, your target audience might be on other social media channels like YouTube, Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter). It helps to connect with them on their chosen platforms and tailor your content marketing and engagement strategies accordingly. These platforms should work for you to amplify your brand message.

DON’T

You might often find yourself buried in meetings and vital company projects, so nurturing your personal brand might take the back seat. Mistakes and pitfalls are bound to escape scrutiny when you have scant time to build your brand amid your busy schedule. Here are some tell-tale signs you must watch out for to ensure you don’t veer off the path.

A. Don’t Be Unclear About your Brand

Personal branding is an intentional, strategic practice in which you define and express your value proposition. Consistency and clarity, as stated earlier, boost trust and credibility in your brand. On the other hand, inconsistency, confusing messaging, conflicting brand images, and vagueness do nothing but hurt your brand. A study by Saad emphasizes that consistent personal brand endorsement in corporate publicity as part of company and product brand strategy directly impacts company performance, reputation, and increases product sales.

For example, Paul, the CEO of a budding construction company, portrays himself as a visionary leader in one context but showcases risk-averse behaviour in another. This inconsistency can confuse the audience and erode trust in the executive’s brand. Moreover, it creates a disconnect between his audience and personal brand, undermining his credibility.

Additionally, trying to appeal to multiple target audiences will dilute your personal brand’s effectiveness. As the adage always says; Jack of all trades, master of none. When Paul talks about construction, infrastructure management, HR, and workplace culture, his brand message will lose focus and fail to resonate with his target audience in the construction industry. This lack of focus will diminish the impact of his brand and limit his ability to establish credibility and authority in any area.

Spotting inconsistency and opacity is quickly done through brand audits and research, which provide an accurate perception of your brand.

B. Don’t Neglect Your Online Reputation

As an executive, it’s crucial to carefully monitor and manage your digital footprint. Neglecting your digital reputation can have damaging effects on your brand and business.

This went along way to hurt his brand, resulting in long-reaching consequences for him and Turing Pharmaceuticals, which he had to part ways with. The company sued Shkreli for $65 million for breach of duty and rebranded to Vyera in 2017 and Phoenix AG in 2019 to avoid negative publicity.

For example, if “our” executive, Paul, receives constructive feedback or criticism on his professional performance or behavior and ignores it, that indifference will signal arrogance or a lack of accountability, damaging his executive brand in the eyes of his audience.

C. Don’t Engage in Excessive Self-Promotion

Personal Branding is a strategic asset for leaders. It’s the deliberate and strategic process of creating and maintaining a unique and authentic image that reflects your values, strengths, expertise, and vision. For C-suite leaders, it’s about establishing a reputation that resonates with your audience, inspires trust, and sets you apart in your industry.

While personal branding is about showcasing your unique strengths and contributions, excessive self-promotion can undermine your credibility and alienate your audience. Here’s how to differentiate between the two:

Audience-Centric Approach: Personal branding focuses on how you can serve and add value to your audience. Excessive self-promotion is more about broadcasting your achievements without regard for your audience’s needs.

Balance: Share your successes and milestones, but also highlight the journey, challenges, and learnings. This creates a more relatable and authentic narrative.

Engagement: Personal branding involves engaging with your audience, fostering relationships, and building a community. Excessive self-promotion often lacks this reciprocal interaction and can come across as one-sided.

Humility: While it’s important to highlight your expertise, acknowledging others’ contributions and successes shows humility and reinforces your authenticity.

A study by Professor Scopelliti found that recipients do not appreciate self-promotion lacking value.

 45% of people will unfollow a brand due to high self-promotion

-BuzzStream

Share your expertise and accomplishments in while providing value to your audience.

Keep in mind that excessive self-promotion without meaningful content can be seen as selfish and alienate the audience.

For example, suppose a business leader constantly brags about their achievements without offering actionable, practical advice or thought leadership. In that case, it diminishes their credibility and diminishes their personal brand. Additionally it creates a rift between their target audience and the message the executive is passing.

Offer practical insights to maintain credibility and influence within the industry.

As a result, several tragedies followed that negatively impacted the company. Had they controlled their narrative by accurately managing their brand online, it would have cushioned the fall and reduced the scandals that continue to haunt them in 2024.

To avoid over-promotion, focus on value creation, ensuring that your self-promotion efforts are aligned with your audience’s interests, enhancing engagement and credibility. Moreover, you can also respond to and engage with posts that align with your brand.

How do you build your executive brand strategy for success?

A leader who focuses on authenticity, value, and engagement can build a powerful personal brand that goes beyond mere self-promotion, cultivating trust and influence in their professional sphere that drives business performance.

Here are our recommendations to help you soar:

Executive positioning should be at the core of your branding strategy. This entails creating a narrative to position you as a thought leader within your industry, enhancing your credibility and influence. Your brand must, too, since you are already at the top of your organization.

Manage your reputation online by strategically curating a strong social media presence to solidify your personal brand as an industry authority. A McKinsey study affirms that it takes 16 touchpoints to turn a prospect into a customer, and each contact can determine 70% of brand perception.

You should strive to be different and unique. Your value proposition, skills, experiences, and perspectives should be showcased and well-articulated. This individuality is a powerful catalyst for personal brand recognition in the crowded market of C-Suite executives.