Do you want to be an expert or do you want to be a content creator?

(how not to build your personal brand)

This might sound like a clickbait headline—it's actually a much needed reframe of a problem I think a lot of us freelance / solopreneur / consultant / portfolio-careerists are grappling with while trying to build our personal brands online.

Writing this has been a perfect example of that grappling. A version of it briefly lived on LinkedIn as a post before I realised that not only do I need to start taking my own advice generally, but also the advice that I am literally sharing in these words.

So I deleted it and brought it over to The Parenthesis which was always intended to be the home of my ‘how’ i.e. my personal process, ‘building in public’, reflections on my career etc.. That was always the intention, but then I started to get a little carried away with posting anything and everything on LinkedIn…

So if you’ve been grappling with personal brand building, take this as your sign to get intentional about what and where you’re posting, too.

The experiment

Over the past year I’ve spent a lot of time on LinkedIn (probably far too much).

Partly experimenting with how I show up and partly conducting a digital safari to see how other people are showing up.

I had very little strategy beyond getting comfortable sharing my voice and hoping to organically discover what works for me. In the process I’ve explored a spectrum of content, from the professional to the personal, seeking that sweet spot of topics and delivery that both feels natural and resonates.

Meanwhile, I’ve been consuming and engaging with the content of a cacophony of thought leaders—from brand and marketing, to sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and beyond—who inspire me and whose careers I admire, trying to understand what works for them.

There is definitely algorithmic bias at play (obviously you end up getting served more of what and who you engage with), but the shared qualities of the voices who are most visible and getting the most engagement seem to be delivering on the trinity of:

Quality – a distinct point of view, unique insights, a differentiated perspective
Consistency – in the above and in the overall style and format
Frequency – posting multiple times per week or on a regular schedule

Yes—very ‘florals for spring’ (i.e. not groundbreaking in the slightest).

But as I’ve absorbed this ‘gold standard’ approach through so much exposure, doubt has crept in. I know I have a distinct point of view, but is it resonating enough? Am I trying to be too ‘unique’ at the expense of being understood or engaged with? Am I posting enough (probably not)? Am I being consistent enough (definitely not)?

Is this the only way?

The uncommon advice we all need to hear

Jules Fedele sparked the much-needed shift in my perspective on this in a recent edition of her weekly newsletter The Portfolio Careerist. She shared her ‘unpopular opinion’ that the generic advice for building visibility online, i.e. "post consistently, show up daily, and prioritise quantity to feed the algorithm", is not a universal success formula.

Returning to my roots, employee to CEO mindset shifts & ignoring bad advice

Why? Sacrificing quality for quantity might actually damage your reputation, rather than enhance it, and:

"In a portfolio career, your reputation is your most valuable asset."

Analysing the data from her own clients she found some fascinating insights including:

📌 Those who posted less frequently but with higher quality insights converted 3.5x more followers to clients

📌 Portfolio careerists who showcased their natural profile strengths (whether as researchers, experimenters, networkers, or problem-solvers) commanded 40% higher rates

Obviously showcasing your expertise and posting frequently are not mutually exclusive, and there are plenty of people who (at least by appearances) seem to be winning at both. The point is you don't have to do both in order to succeed and you should be optimising for quality, not quantity, if you're trying to position yourself as an expert.

"Sacrificing depth for algorithm-friendly frequency is a short-term strategy with long-term consequences."

Jules' recommendations? Take a "reputation-first approach":

⚜️ Create content that demonstrates your expertise, not just your personality

⚜️ Focus on solving specific problems rather than general visibility

I don't know about you but this advice feels like pure relief to me.

Quality and thoughtfulness are so deeply ingrained in me as an ethos I would warrant they're in my DNA. But I had been feeling guilty, not just at my inability to show up consistently or on some kind of schedule, but to even care about doing so. Combined with a growing sense of pre-emptive failure along the lines of, 'oh well I'm not able to keep up with XYZ so I guess I'll never see their level of success'.

So what is your end goal?

It doesn’t have to be a binary choice between content creation and expertise positioning. But I think many of us have been overindexing on the former (🙋‍♀️)—dedicating it far too much time and headspace.

Instead of trying to be content creators, we could do with remembering what we're ultimately trying to achieve and refining our personal brand building strategies accordingly.