Personal Branding Advice to Ignore

Having helped hundreds of women shape and develop their personal brand, our team at The Collective Rising can safely say that we know a thing or two about successful personal branding.

 But just as it is important to highlight the best tips for personal branding, we also believe that professional women must be cautious of taking bad advice that actually has the potential to hurt their personal brand. We compiled a list of “branding” advice that will actually prevent you from building your brand, and even worse,  waste your precious time. 

Here is some of the most pernicious advice you must ignore:

“Just get out there.” It sounds like good advice, but branding needs to be focused. If you are just focused on being visible for the sake of it, this might increase the number of people who have heard of you, but to what end? Strong personal brands are known for something. You need to be clear about your brand promise before “just getting out there.” You must spend time getting clear about who you are and what sets you apart from others. Until you have that part of your brand in order, you’re not ready to start building brand visibility.

“Quantity matters more than quality.” Personal branding is about delivering value – not saying, “Hey look at me, just because I like being looked at,” over and over again. Ask yourself this question before sharing anything with your brand community: Will this be relevant and valuable to the people I am looking to influence? And only if the answer is “yes” should you share it.

“Just share other people’s content.” Sure, curating content is a great way to be visible to your target audience and make them aware of material they may otherwise not have seen. But just sharing content will have little impact on your brand. People don’t pay close enough attention to who shared the materials, focusing instead on the content itself and the person who originally produced it. . To connect the content you are sharing more closely to your brand, make what you are providing additional value by adding your point of view or letting the viewer know where in the piece they will find the greatest value. Then, your brand and the brand of the original content creator share a benefit.

By ditching these bad pieces of personal branding advice, you will begin to reap the real rewards that come with building your personal brand the right and strategic way.