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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Personal Branding On Instagram For Beginners - 865
00:23:55
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You do not need to be young, good looking, tech savvy or rich in order to build a personal brand. You just need one thing. A story that can help someone. And if you're breathing, you have one. And I would actually argue you have many.
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Today I'm going to walk you through
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personal branding on Instagram for beginners. And before we get into the myths and tips about personal branding, let me share with you why I think personal branding is more important in 2026 and than ever before in human history. Number one, job security is almost non existent. Whether because of competition, AI or changing industries, keeping a stable income or a traditional 9 to 5 like you might have been able to 50 years ago is far less reliable today. Plus, with inflation, side hustles are becoming almost essential just to make ends meet. And while you can have a side hustle without a personal brand, your side hustle is going to be so much more successful thanks to your personal brand. Artificial intelligence relates to your personal brand not just in the fact that it could take your job, thus making having a personal brand necessary, but also with the rise of AI content, we are all asking the question, who can I trust? What media, what influencer, what business, what content creators can I trust can I look to for reliable information, for storytelling, for the facts? And building a personal brand is one of the most powerful ways to build trust and to counteract the AI epidemic and that we are being flooded with nowadays. And I know that branding or having a personal brand sounds scary, but I would argue that you already have one. The question is just whether or not you are intentionally shaping it, because we all have a digital footprint. Even if you have a private Instagram account, you have a digital footprint. Even if you live in the woods. Well, maybe, I guess if you live in the woods and you don't have Internet connection, you might not have a digital footprint. So you probably don't live in a cabin in the woods with no wifi. So in today's episode, I'm going to guide you through how you can intentionally shape that and shape that in a way that's going to be beneficial for you. And ultimately, I want you to think of your brand as essentially just your reputation, the way other people view and perceive you online. Before we get into the actual tips for personal branding, there are some myths that I want to debunk or refute or just talk about for a second. Number one, I'm too late. No, you're not. I know it might feel saturated and there's definitely way more entrepreneurs and content creators now than ever before. There's way more personal brands and influencers and now than ever before in human history. But it's still less than 1% of humans on Earth who are entrepreneurs or content creators. Ask any seasoned entrepreneur or talking head in the space that I'm in, and they'll tell you how. Just 10, 15 years ago, they were begging people to become entrepreneurs, and they were trying to teach people that entrepreneurship is an okay alternative to the traditional nine to five. And so while these things have become very normal and common Today, even just five, 10 years ago, they were very uncommon. And according to the numbers, they're still quite rare. The next myth is either I'm too young or I'm too old. Don't you want someone who looks like you? Do you only want people who are older or younger than you in this space? I think that that is absolute BS. We all want someone who looks like us. We all want someone who is our age. We all want to follow people who we can relate to. And so, no, you're not too young, you're not too old. You're just on a different path than other creators. I don't need to get into a side tangent about comparison is the thief of joy, and you're on your own journey. But it's true. These things are cliche, but they are the reality. You are on your own path. You are not too late or too early. You are not too old or too young. You are on your own unique journey. And. And because you even had the inspiration to click on today's episode, I would be willing to bet that you have stories to tell, and you have an impact that you can positively make on this planet. The third myth. I don't have a niche. Don't worry. We're gonna talk about that one later. And then, finally, I'm just not that interesting. Guess what? Almost no one is that interesting. Very few people are jetting around the world living crazy, extravagant lives. You do not have to live that style of life. And in order to have a successful personal brand, having a successful personal brand is so much more about connection, relatability, and authenticity than it is wow factor. So it's okay if you don't feel that interesting. You don't have to be that interesting. You just have to learn to tell stories in a way that can captivate, because then once people are captivated, they will relate and connect with you because you're a real person living a real everyday life. Now let's get into the actual strategy. I believe that there are three key elements of a personal brand. And the first key element is a promise. A clear promise on what people can expect from you every time you show up. And this doesn't have to necessarily be a topic. For example, a clear promise from me in my personal brand is that every single time I show up online, I'm going to do so enthusiastically. That doesn't mean I'm always going to be positive. That doesn't mean I'm always going to be happy. That doesn't mean I'm always going to be loud and obnoxious. I But I'm going to be enthusiastic with every single piece of content I create. Oftentimes, your promise might relate to your personality, because your personality is probably not going to change that much, whether you're recording a podcast, making an Instagram reel, or showing up online in any other way. And I don't want to scare you, I know I'm calling this a promise. But it can change over time. As your personality evolves, as you evolve, as you grow as a person. It's okay to change how you show up online, just as long as it's not like changing every single day or every single week. Over time, you will grow. Over time you will naturally change. And over time your promise will have to be adjusted. But I guess you could say you want to make a promise to always be true to yourself. But if you're taking notes or writing down a to do list from this episode, one thing to add to that list would be to come up with a promise or promises that can clearly define and articulate how how you intend to show up online every single time you do so. And like I said, the promise of what people can expect from you every single time you show up doesn't have to necessarily be a topic, but it can be so very likely. From me, you expect every single time I show up online that you're going to learn about social media marketing or maybe even more specifically Instagram, or maybe even more specifically Instagram reels or hook ideas or something like that. This is what my brand has come to be known by, but it didn't necessarily start out that way. And so I want to give you that word of encouragement that again, your personal brand can grow and evolve over time. But I believe it's very helpful to start out with a clear promise of how you intend to show up online and what you intend to show up talking about or discussing. The second key element of a personal brand is a clear intended audience. Now, there's two different ways that you can approach this, you can. And neither one of them is necessarily right or wrong. Your intended audience can be an audience that you choose, as in, I'm going to choose to specifically try to target moms over the age of 40. Or your target audience could be the one that you naturally attract. And neither one of these is necessarily right or wrong. Although sometimes I do hear people say, I really want to attract moms over the age of 40, but all of my followers are men under the age of 20. Well, you have two choices. Either you need to change who you want to attract, which I probably wouldn't suggest, because that means that you're probably changing what your product is for, or changing your messaging or your offering. Or more than likely, if you're attracting an audience that isn't aligned with who you want to attract, then something in your messaging, in the way you're showing up, in the way you're presenting, your content needs to be adjusted. But again, you can either choose who you want to attract based off who you want to attract, or. Or you can choose the ideal audience based off who you usually attract. You know, maybe you just find that men in their 50s really resonate with your content. Maybe you're not a man in your 50s, and you never would have intentionally tried to attract that audience, but your content just really resonates with them. And so you're going to run with it. You're going to use that audience that you clearly have a way of connecting with, and you clearly understand their humor, and you can clearly tell stories in a way that captivates them.
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And.
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And you're going to use that to build your personal brand. Something that I want to make sure that we're clear on, because I know it's one clear promise and one clear ideal audience. But these things can evolve and change, and they will evolve and change, and they will grow, and you will broaden out. So when I first got started with online business, some of you are familiar with the story I started with helping moms keep their teens safe on Snapchat. My reach has grown since then. My audience has grown since then. My followers and demographics have changed since then. I kind of like to analogize it to being like a tree. If you try to branch out and go in a million different directions and attract every single audience and reach all over and connect with all kinds of people at the beginning, then you're never going to grow to be a big, beautiful tree. You're just going to stay this little tiny bush on the ground. Your personal brand is never going to have Impact, you're never going to have wide reach. You're never going to be a successful personal brand because no one's ever going to see that little tiny bush. And the reason, again, that it's a little tiny bush is because you branched out too early. Instead, I need you to build the strong trunk, this solid foundation, and then you can branch out. Then you'll be this big, beautiful redwood tree and you'll have a wide impact and you'll be able to make a big income and you'll be able to impact a lot of people, and you'll be able to do all these amazing things through your personal brand. But it all starts with that one clear thing, one clear promise for one clear demographic of people. And when I say demographic, I really want you to consider every different category that you could possibly attract. Does their marital status matter? Does the number of kids they have matter? What about their religion? What about their level of education? What about their age? What about their experience? All of these different things are things that you might consider when you're defining who your target audience is. And then the third key element of starting your personal brand is picking one platform to focus on. One platform, meaning one social network or one kind of content. Maybe you're gonna start with Instagram reels, maybe you're gonna start with YouTube videos, maybe you're gonna start with podcasts. Whatever it is, pick one to focus on. That doesn't mean that you need to put all of your eggs in one basket, but put 10 out of your dozen eggs in that basket. Put most of your eggs in one basket so that that one platform can have success. If you decide, I want to have a personal brand that's omnipresent, I want to show up across every channel because that's what Gary Vee does, well, then you're going to burn yourself out and you're never going to have success on any platform because you're simply spreading yourself too thin. So pick one platform. And which platform should you pick? Well, the answer is going to vary based off of a few different criteria. Those criteria that you might want to consider are, number one, what kind of content do you enjoy making the most? Do you like, really love just yapping and creating podcasts? Do you love filming long form video? Do you love text posts and graphic design? Maybe you're going to create carousels for Instagram. Also, I want you to consider not just what you enjoy doing, but what you're really good at. And I say this because I truly believe that you can have success on Any platform. Sure, it might be easier to go viral on TikTok than it is podcasting. Sure, it might be easier to build trust through a YouTube video than through a tweet. But ultimately, I truly think you can have success on pretty much any platform as long as you're willing to put in the work. And I think you're a lot more likely to have success on a platform if you enjoy the kind of content that is normal on that platform and if you actually are good at creating the kind of content necessary for that platform. Now, of course, if you're not good at any content creation, and if you don't enjoy any content creation, then we need to have a different conversation. The conversation might need to be around who can you hire? Who can help you get good at these things? Who can you hire to do these things for you, to maybe edit your podcasts or create your graphic designs. But ultimately, if you want to build a personal brand, you as a person are going to have to show up in your content. Whether it is your voice, your face, your video, your streaming, whatever your words, your captions, you are going to have to infuse yourself and your personality and all that makes you you and into your content in order to build a personal brand. Some other things that you can consider when you're deciding what's my promise, what's my demographic, and what's my platform are what's a problem that I have uniquely or maybe recently solved? Like a big problem. I'm not like, oh, I didn't know how to tie my shoes, then I figured it out. But like a big problem or a challenge that you've recently overcome, and maybe you could create content around that. Maybe you could help a demographic of people who is just like what you just were, the demographic that you were just a part of, or maybe the demographic that you are a part of right now. Is there a special problem you've solved or something that you're. You're really good at compared to your friends or some other people that you know besides just your own problems? I want you to consider what problems are out there? Like, what problems are people talking about when you're talking to your friends, when you're conversing with your family, when you're reading forums and Reddits and group chats and comment sections? What are people struggling with nowadays? And I'm not saying, like, people as a whole. I'm not talking about all 8 billion people. I'm talking about, you know, if you were to say, hey, men in Missouri who are under the age of 30 and are married. Like, what's a big challenge that they're facing? What's something that they're struggling with? When I first created my original business, helping moms keep their teens safe on Snapchat, and I was building my personal brand around that topic, I identified that that was a problem because when I turned on the news, there was oftentimes stories and headlines about this crazy thing happened on Snapchat and these moms are worried about what's going on on social media. And this group was started to combat what's going on over on these social networks. And so I figured that there was a market for that besides just there is a market for that because it's a problem that people have. What are people already paying for? Because if no other product exists in this market and no one is paying for this thing, it might be a golden opportunity. You might be the first to market, right? You might be the first person selling shovels in San Francisco in 1849, or there could be a reason that no one else is selling it. Maybe there isn't a market. And so I want you to consider. Are other people already paying for this problem to be solved in some way? I also want you to consider what you're obsessed with. And I'm not talking about like a momentary obsession. I'm not talking like, Lando Norris won the Formula one world Drivers championship and now you're obsessed with Lando for a day. I'm talking about long tail obsessions. Things that you geek out over, things that you've been into since you were a little kid. Things that you could corner someone at a party and talk about for three hours. Things that if I were to put a microphone in front of your face and say, you have to talk about
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one topic as someone who cooks about 95% of their meals at home. And no, that's not an exaggeration. Usually the only meal that Tay and I eat out each week is our Sushi Saturday. What we eat, what we prepare, it matters a lot to us. And that's why I'm so excited to introduce you to our newest sponsor, HelloFresh. HelloFresh allows you to choose between more than 100 recipes every single week, including cuisines from all around the world and bigger portions that satisfy everyone. Over 35 of those weekly recipes are high protein recipes, which fires me up. And it allows me to feel great because I know that I'm eating wholesome ingredients like sustainably sourced seafood and 100% antibiotic and hormone free chicken and and of course most important of all is how it tastes. And let me tell you, it actually tastes really good. This helps me be a better business owner because I'm able to eat meals that taste good and help me feel satisfied.
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I don't have to spend as much
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time thinking or prepping each meal and I can make sure that I'm hitting my protein goals in the process. Go to hellofresh.com byt10fm to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife which is $144.99 value on your third box. This offer is only valid while supplies last. Free meals applied at discount on your first box for new subscribers only and varies by plan for the last few years, I've been using Notion to basically organize my entire life. It's so much more than just a to do list app. It's truly a one stop shop for organizing any area of your life or business.
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And it's not just great at organization,
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it's also great at automations as well. There's so many complex things that you
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can do and build that can happen
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automatically and instantly within Notion. And now for the first time, they are introducing Notion AI agents. The new Notion Custom Agents will allow you to automatically perform advanced tasks without you even having to lift a finger. For example, I built a Notion custom agent that automatically pulls the link to any reel that I have posted and then it pulls out the text that I say or the text on the screen in the first few seconds of the reel.
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Basically it pulls out my hook and
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then it's able to look at how that post performed and compare it to the hook, which allows me to see which hooks are actually working so so that I can reuse them and tweak them for future reels. Notion is an AI powered connected workspace for teams. Notion brings all of your notes, docs and projects into one space that just works. It's seamless, flexible, powerful, and with AI built in, you spend less time switching between different apps and tools and more time creating great work. Now with Notion's custom agents, busy work that used to take hours or let's be honest, didn't really get done at all Runs Itself the easiest way to think about the difference between a custom agent and normal AI is that normal AI requires you as the human to prompt it, but custom agents work for you 24, seven behind the scenes without you having to lift a finger. But don't just take my word for it. Notion is used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies and some of the fastest growing companies in the world like OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Try custom agents now@notion.com byt that's all lowercase notion n o t I-O-N.com by t to try custom agents today and when you use my link, you're supporting our show again. Notion.comBYT Are you ready to take your business marketing to the next level? Meet Brevo, the all in one marketing and CRM platform built to connect you with your customers, boost engagement and grow your business smarter. With Brevo you can manage all of your customer interactions in one place, nurture leads with their built in CRM, reach your audience through email and SMS and keep them coming back with powerful automations. But here is where it gets really exciting. Meet Aura, Brevo's AI Assistant. Aura helps you craft smarter campaigns by suggesting personalized content, optimizing send times, and even analyzing performance data to improve strategies in real time. It's kind of like having a marketing expert on your team 24, 7 and of course, Brevo offers advanced engineering analytics, seamless integrations and AI driven personalization. It's basically everything you could need to create seamless multi channel campaigns that hit the mark every single time. Get started for free today or use code TRIBE50 to get 50% off the starter and standard plans for the first three months of an annual subscription. Just head to www.brevo.com tribe and take your marketing further with Brevo and Aura
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for the next hour or else something really bad is going to happen. What is the thing that you would talk about for the next hour? Like what is the thing that you're sure you could geek out over? The thing that you are just obsessed with? A thing you had a hyper fixation on, something that you know a lot more about than most people. That might be something to consider when you're determining what your promise is, what your topic is that you're going to talk about, or the demographic that you're going to focus on. And then the final thing that I'll say about these three key elements is if you have absolutely no idea, I want you to just start posting one of the really cool things about the way the algorithms work nowadays. The TikTok ification of social media is that having one singular niche is no longer necessary for views. Having a niche is still essential for growing a following and building a business. But for getting started, for getting views, for going viral, it definitely is not necessary. So when you're first getting started, experiment play around. Try talking about different topics, try different kinds of content. And as you do so, don't just pay attention to what is getting the most engagement or the most views. Also pay attention to how it feels inside. Like what is the topic that as you go to talk about it or create content around it, it fires you up. You're like oh my gosh, I can't wait to make a new video about this. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to share my knowledge on this thing. Oh my gosh, I really enjoyed making that post. Even if it didn't necessarily do well. It brought me joy. Pay attention to that and it might be a clue as to what your thing should be when you do start to niche down or get a little bit more clear as to what that promise is and who your ideal demographic is going to be. Your Here are six posts that you can make to get started. Number one your origin story. This is kind of like your why why you care about this topic, how you got into this topic, how you got interested in it, how you learned more. Just kind of sharing some background and some details. Number two, your I wish I knew this sooner lesson. Maybe you're gonna give advice to yourself three months ago or three years ago, or when you were first getting started with the thing that you're obsessed with now. Basically share the thing, share the lesson, share the tip. And that you wish you knew in the past. Because if your ideal demographic does represent the past, you it will be something that they need to hear. Similarly, but slightly different. Number three is a beginner mistake, a common pitfall, a common trap. This could be a mistake that you made, or it could be a common mistake that you see other people making. Share that mistake and how to avoid it. Number four A tool habit or a resource that helped you. This could be an AI software. This could be a physical product. This could be a mindset shift. Basically just share something outside of yourself that has helped you. This will help get you used to recommending things to your audience and it will help get your audience used to what it's like for you to recommend, AKA sell to them in the future. Number five A little rant about something that is broken or misunderstood in your industry. You don't have to necessarily get controversial here, but think about maybe unpopular opinions or something that you could fix or something that you would do differently or just something that needs to change that relates to whatever your promise is going to be. And then sixth is a quick win for your viewers as you are moving through this process you're starting to identify who your target audience is and what that topic is that you're going to be posting about. So you can share with them a quick win, something that they can implement, something that they can do, a minor change, something that they can do in, let's say, 15 minutes or less and, and actually see results from. Then I want you to keep iterating and reiterating on these six posts. I don't want it to just be six total posts and then you're done and you come back and you're like, okay, now what, Brock? Keep recreating these, keep telling different stories, keep presenting these in different ways and your content will evolve and you will get better over time. Speaking of time, I want to be realistic with you about the timeline. Building a personal brand does not happen overnight. Building a personal brand takes time. Even the most viral creators you can think of, even the people who absolutely blow up and are getting hundreds of millions of views within their first couple months of creating content, it still takes those people time to build a true personal brand. People might see a viral post, you might gain followers, but those things are not a personal brand. Because remember, a personal brand is all about your reputation. And you don't have a reputation from a couple viral posts. So realistically, your first 90 days are all about messy action. They're about niching down, they're about figuring out your voice, finding your style, and just experimenting with different things. Assuming you stay consistent throughout that time from the four to six month mark is where you start developing your skills. You start refining your process, you start improving on the different things that are necessary for the the content creation and whatever platform you've chosen. This is where you start to hone in on your consistency. It's not just messy action of a post here and a post there. You're posting every day and you're starting to build slow momentum. That doesn't mean you're necessarily going viral or gaining that many followers yet, but you're building towards that. Month 6 through month 12 is where you start to build trust. Where you start to see the momentum and the hard work really paying off. Where you start to have a couple videos that are not necessarily going viral, but hey, they're really outperforming the rest. Maybe they're getting 10,000 or 30,000 views, maybe your following is starting to grow. Maybe you're over a thousand followers by this point. That's awesome. This is also where you're starting to see your first opportunities for monetization. Whether that's public speaking, whether that's brand deals and partnerships, whether that's creating your own digital product to sell, this is where you're starting to see, not necessarily dollar signs coming in, but, but you're starting to see dollar signs in terms of, hey, I could monetize this personal brand. And it's usually not until after that first year that you really start to see an income, that you launch your first product, or you do your first brand deal, or you make your first paid gig. It takes time, and that's really what I want to leave you with today. Thank you so much for spending your time with me in today's episode. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you learn something new. And if you want me to talk more about personal branding in the future, make sure that you hit subscribe. And as always, happy networking.