The Impersonal Nature of Personal Branding

Words Nadine Thiedeke | Strategy Manager

Posted 01/10/2025

5-minute read

As AI changes content scraping and social media becomes searchable, we’ve noticed a trend of personal branding in business development.“You need to build your brand”, “you’re the platform, people need to hear from you”—then prompting ChatGPT to generate scripts for social media content.

To us, this feels insincere. If people are seeking your thought leadership, should they be your thoughts? AI isn’t going anywhere, so can it be used to support content without dictating it?

So we asked ChatGPT (we’re being ironic)…but not to be the creator, but as a research tool. This is what we learned…and wrote from our own perspective… because we think that’s how you’re supposed to use it.

Be authentic, please.

(ChatGPT may not require manners, but we certainly do.)

Audiences are increasingly wary. Not only are we tired of ‘perfect’ influencers that we’ve since seen the cracks in, but now there are influencers that aren’t real. So if you’re going to build a personal brand, at least make it raw and be vulnerable. We don’t want to hear about the accolades; we want to hear how you grew from failure. But, always bear in mind that if you’re putting your opinions out there, you lay your business at the feet of public judgement (it’s giving 1991 Gerald Ratner, a bad joke, and the demise of an entire jewellery chain).

Good writing never goes out of style.

(Are movies getting worse…or…was it who was writing while the writers were on strike?)

People have been telling stories since the moment we were able to. When the world was turned on its head during a pandemic, we sought refuge in music, TV, film, podcasts…strangely breadmaking…but mostly vehicles of expression and connection. To us, a brand isn’t about quantity—it’s an ever-evolving story. So if you’re going to talk about your business, get Tolkein about it—what are your origins, why do you do what you do, and show us the real people behind the work. For some reason, ChatGPT is so good at writing that it’s almost too easy to read and impossible to remember. So make your content feel like a real person, full of contradictions and unplanned moments.

Thought leadership is for leaders.

(This is about expression, not shameless self-promotion.)

AI sides with us on this one, that a modern approach to personal branding is less about self-promotion and more about self-expression. A personal brand should be built on your honest values as a person (no faking), and the journey should be specific to you (and how it might resonate with others). This allows your identity to evolve as you do, because…for now…people can still tell the difference between man and machine.

Create a distinction between what you share from your personal platform and what your business puts out. Your views may not necessarily reflect those of your employees, but they certainly will impact them. Leadership is a key driver for employee satisfaction, and we cannot ignore the impact our global climate has on our people. If you want to be a personal brand, when governments and institutions are failing, then be brave and speak from the heart. But if there’s a risk you may not be standing on the right side of history, perhaps it’s safer for you to stay on mute.