Everyone says you NEED one— but what does it mean to have a personal brand?

Personal branding is the act of marketing yourself and your career as a brand.

As content creators, it’s easy to associate followers with personal brand, but the term was coined long before that in Tom Peter’s 1997 essay “The Brand Called You.” It’s worth a read, but here’s the gist of it:

Building a Personal Brand without a Following

Now, how does this apply to UGC? I thought UGC wasn’t about follower count?

It’s not and I firmly believe you don’t need a large following to make five figures a month doing UGC—I know because I’ve done it and you can look at my low following on IG & TikTok for proof😅.

BUT that doesn’t mean I don’t have a personal brand. Remember, personal brand was around before social media.

So here’s how I did it…

Because I previously worked at a small interior design firm with no advertising budget, I knew I could gain clients through word-of-mouth marketing and networking. So I was confident I could turn 1-2 paid deals into 10-20 just by providing really good service and talking to the right people.

In the beginning my personal brand was simple: professional, easy to work with, give more than what was asked.

I knew this gave me a leg up on other creators (especially last year) because brands were dealing with complicated influencer deals, young creators who didn’t understand they were running a business, and there was a lack of reliability.

This led to multiple retainers and return clients whom I have been working with over a year. I haven’t had to do outbound pitching since last October and that’s all thanks to my personal brand. And for the most part, I built this on Twitter.

How to build YOUR personal brand:

Choose 1 platform in the beginning to really commit to and grow on, don’t spread yourself too thin. It isn’t just about what you do say, but also what you do not say.

Here are some DOs & DONTs of building a personal brand on your chosen platform:

Now, I know you might be thinking—people want transparency! Fake it to you make it isn’t authentic. I’m not saying to hide failures, I’m saying to market yourself just like a brand.

If Zara posted “sales down this month, please buy more clothes” what would your first thought be? —no one is buying Zara anymore, I guess I shouldn’t either.

Be authentic with struggles but make sure it’s giving main character energy!

⬆️ Which one do you think is more likely to receive an inbound?

Choosing Examples to Post

I can’t remember who posted this, but someone recently said—

If you post examples for lower end brands like SheIn, Temu, etc. those are the type of clients you’re going to attract and that leads to low-ball $25-50/video offers.

I hadn’t even thought about it this way, but it's true and I was unknowingly already following this advice.

I’m NOT saying don’t take jobs from dropshippers or create content for cheap products, I definitely have. But if you look at my page or portfolio, you won’t find them.

Early on I chose to post examples from larger brands or those that have a strong personal brand themselves. This is why gifted collabs in the beginning are important.

The next brand looking to hire you won’t know if the collaboration was gifted or not, but they will know the brand name.

I rarely get lowball inbounds and I truly believe this is why.

Client Relationships

This is an underrated component of personal brand. You need to create relationships with brands and agencies.

Having a good working relationship with your clients will lead to referrals. Just like creators talk to each other to warn about good and bad partnerships, the DTC/EComm community does the same. I’ve gotten multiple referrals from clients that have lead to on-going partnerships.

Being easy to work with will also lead to good reviews and testimonials. You should start collecting these from DAY 1 as a UGC creator! It’s one of my biggest regrets. Now I use TrustUGC and they make it really easy to ask clients for reviews. If they had been around a year ago, I would have hundreds of reviews.

Social proof is an immediate boost to your personal brand, so start collecting this ASAP. You can even collect reviews from gifted collaborations.

Building a Personal Brand WITH a Following

To put it plainly, if you build your follower count and have good engagement you will get higher paying work for a single video. You will increase your inbounds. No question, it’s fact.

But I will challenge the idea that it’s more money for the same amount of work.

Let’s say you’re a UGC creator who doesn’t put much effort into your social media following and you get $300 for one video. It takes you 3 hours to produce that video. As a successful micro influencer you get $1,500 for the same video and it also takes 3 hours. Is it the same amount of work? How many times a day does that creator post to maintain their engagement?

I still think they come out making more money, but not as much as it appears. It's only worth it if you really enjoy posting daily.

BUT if you build up your own social media account as a UGC creator you have:

• your own case study showcasing success in the world of organic videos

• your own platform to promote brand videos

• control over the narrative of your brand

• more streams of income as far as affiliate marketing.

There are a lot of pros going this route!

What Type of Account should I Make?

Once you decide to build a following for your UGC brand, the next question is what type of account to make. There are a few options:

1. UGC Account: post examples, share journey, tips, advice

2. Personal Account: no niche, just sharing life consistently

3. Niche Account: you pick your favorite topic and go all in

The best option is going to be the one you can commit to posting on consistently.

No matter the account you decide, make sure to still add UGC creator hashtags. TikTok is an amazing search engine, so if a brand types in “hair UGC creator” you want them to be able to find you.

Quick Overview

• the only thing you need to start is confidence in yourself and the brand you want to build

• the relationship with clients that no-one sees is important

• social proof = personal brand boost

• Every time you post, think about how it reflects your personal brand

• The more often you post, the faster you build a brand

• The more places you post, the more exposure your brand gets, the more inbounds you’ll get

• Quality posting matters, the product you put out will affect the clients you attract

• You’re only competition is your own imposter syndrome

• Be authentic, but stay on brand _{(UGH. it’s cringe to say, but so so true)}

Share your thoughts in the comments below or continue the personal brand conversation on Twitter! Tag me to discuss :)

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