You Have a Personal Brand. Make It Work for You

Personal branding often gets a bad reputation — ironically. People tend to think it’s something important to only social media influencers. The reality is that we all have a personal brand whether we like it or not. When one person asks another about you, what they say is your brand; it’s how people see and discuss you and your work.

Jamé Jackson, who is a LinkedIn creator manager, has experience building her own successful brand — TheBlondeMisfit — and helping others do the same. She sat down with LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman on the latest episode of Get Hired with Andrew Seaman to discuss what people from across the workforce can do to build and maintain their personal brands. 

You can hear their conversation on the latest episode of Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

TRANSCRIPT: You Have a Personal Brand. Make It Work for You.

Andrew: From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's managing editor for jobs and career development. Each week on Get Hired, we talk about leveling up. Sometimes we talk about finding work. Other times we talk about excelling where you are right now. Through it all, we focus on how to stay true to yourself in the process. If the volume of headlines out there is any indication, chances are you've heard of the term “creator economy.” Basically it means that via the magic of our interconnected world, individual creators like your favorite fashion YouTuber, TikTok singer, or Instagram baker are making bank and having an economic impact. And since LinkedIn's whole ethos is creating economic opportunity for the global workforce, we are big on creators. We have a whole team of folks on our editorial team called Creator Managers, whose job it is to help creators build their LinkedIn presence. And my guest today is one of them.

Jamé: I'm Jamé Jackson. I'm a fashion and beauty commentator, journalist, content creator. I own my own brand, The BlondeMisfit, which has been around to talk about diversity in fashion and beauty since about 2014, 2015. I was having a lot of those hard conversations before it got really out there and everyone was talking about it. I've just had a really, really amazing career, just building fashion and beauty verticals, excelling in diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Now I get to do all of that here at LinkedIn on our community management team, who are the people in charge of essentially supporting our creators on platform. So we are here to help you carve your stories, share your wins, hopefully build your business so that you can find economic opportunities through LinkedIn.

Andrew: Since Jamé is both a creator herself and an advocate for creators, I thought she'd be the perfect guest to talk about a topic that I know some people dread. Dun dun dunnn: personal branding. Now don't touch that dial. It turns out creating a personal brand is less daunting and also way more broadly applicable than it seems. Whether you're a creator at heart or just looking for a regular 9:00 to 5:00 job, I think you'll get something out of this episode. So, without further ado, here's my conversation with LinkedIn's own, Jamé Jackson.

I am so excited that you're here because we're going to be talking about personal branding and becoming a creator. One of the reasons that I wanted to chat with you is because I think personal branding is so important. A lot of people, I think they get turned off by it because they think, "That's not for me. This is not my job," something like that. Can you tell us a little bit about personal brands and the breadth that they encompass?

Jamé: Yeah, totally. First of all, you are a brand, whether you want to be or not. If someone walks in the room and asks, "Hey, who is Andrew Seaman?" Someone's going to have something to say about you. All of those things are encompassing of your brand that you project out to other people. To me, you don't really want to find your identity through the place that you work, or the titles that you carry. You want to actually have your own personal ethos that then you carry into everything that you do. The difference of that is when you have a personal brand and you know what you stand on, you will attract the things that are in tandem with that personal brand, but you can also reject the things that are not on par. Your personal brand can actually open up a lot of opportunities. I would very much so argue that over the past especially five years or so, every job that I've acquired it's because they've seen the work that I've been doing externally with my own personal brand. You don't need to have a blog. You don't need to have 5,000, 10,000 followers on Instagram. You don't need to have 100,000 on LinkedIn. You just need to have some different characteristics that you really want to be known for and start putting yourself out there and building that so that when people speak of you when you're not in the room, that's what it goes back to.

Andrew: Yeah. I think what I always think of too is because so many people are out there and they think, "I need a job. I need to get ahead in my career," and they start thinking, "Okay, but what am I bringing to the table?" The thing is that, no matter what job you have, you still have some expertise and you have something to offer.

Jamé: Absolutely. I always am coaching, especially creators for LinkedIn, sharing your own personal story of how you became a brand founder. If you are from a marginalized community, what observations are you seeing in the industry that are helping or hurting you? Because people are going to resonate with those stories. It's like, "Okay, we just crossed our million dollar threshold." That's great, but to the everyday consumer, what does that do for them? Really leaning into your own personal story and your personal brand is really how I think you get in front of, and you differentiate yourself.

Andrew: Yeah. It creates community too, because while you are special and you bring these things to the table, there are other people who share those attributes. Can you give us some tips on how people can start building a brand and how they could utilize it to get ahead in their job search or career?

Jamé: Yeah, totally. I always recommend taking out a piece of paper and writing down three characteristics, words, adjectives that you want people to know you for. For me, I want people to know me as charismatic, I want people to know me as energetic, and I also want people to see me as compassionate/passionate. Cool. Then you also have another column where you might also say, "Okay, so what are the things that I'm really, really strong in? How can I lean into those more?" For me, it was writing and sharing a personal narrative. I really love having conversations with people and getting to know about them and their backgrounds. I also love to amplify the causes that really matter to me, whether it's social causes or just things that I'm learning as I go along. Now what you start doing is you start putting all those pieces together. How can I now show up as the charismatic employee who also cares about social causes or shares with my other coworkers how I care about those things? From there, it's really a thing of now curating – I know that word can scare people – but curating now your experiences, especially on social, that support and amplify what you say that you are about. So much of being a concert creator is being who you want to be before you even are. You have to just start putting yourself out there and saying, "Hey, look, I'm already doing the work," because then it attracts those opportunities to you. Who knows, maybe you'll get that opportunity. Maybe you'll get something better, but you've already put yourself out there versus your competitors who ain't doing nothing and they sitting at home eating popcorn, watching Netflix. Now you're about to get the bag.

Andrew: Yeah, totally. If someone's hiring a news editor and they have two candidates, one has a really robust, curated social presence, they could go online and say, "Wow, look, they read this, they read that. This is how they think of this one topic." They could get to know you online through that brand and what you've been posting. The lift is a little bit lighter for them. By the time you sit down and actually have a conversation, there is almost a relationship built there. 

We're going to take a short break. When we get back, Jamé explains why finding a niche is key to building your personal brand. 

Andrew: We're back with Jamé Jackson, AKA The BlondeMisfit. Now, Jamé was a creator for years before she started helping creators at LinkedIn. When she started working here, those worlds very quickly overlapped.

Jamé: The first day I came into the office here, I was in the line for food and some girl tapped behind me. She was like, "Are you The BlondeMisfit?" I was like, "Oh my gosh," my diva moment. All jokes aside, I was just like, "Oh my gosh," because first of all, you never really are thinking that people are following you in that way. Then also, it instantly started a conversation out. It was one of those things where your personal brand is always going to carry over. Something you actually said earlier is something I want to tap into because I see this a lot, especially for the early 20 somethings who are just graduating. Sometimes you have to put the content out there for free. You have to pay your dues, sometimes in that instance. I went five and a half years before I ever got a dollar for The BlondeMisfit. Now I get five figures for something. It's one of those things where you have to put the work in, but here's the differentiator. Always assess with each opportunity if it is going to benefit you in some way. For instance, if you get a ticket to a really, really exclusive event, and they're not going to actually pay you to cover it, but you know if you're in that room, you're going to be around the industry people who you want to… you might meet the hiring manager for the job that you want. Take the opportunity. Take the opportunity. Everything in some way, shape or form can feel transactional, but it doesn't have to mean that there's a dollar sign in front of it. I think you will actually set yourself up for long term success by also playing into the idea that there are qualitative wins and there are quantitative wins in this game.

Andrew: Yeah. And I think one of the things that I always point out too, is that building a following or being a creator is often about providing value. I see that a lot of times with executive coaches or life coaches, where they'll be like, "Buy into my program and do all this stuff," and it's just ad after ad and I'm like, "But why?"

Jamé: Right. "But why? What do you have to offer?" Or when you are on social media and all you see is post after post after post and it's all sponsored and it's like, flat tummy tea. It's all these things and you're just like, "Dude, I don't even honestly know what you stand for at this point. Because one day you're pushing out dog diapers. Now you're pushing out tea to make me lose weight. Now you're pushing out the hair dryer that dries my hair in two seconds. What is it, Linda? What is it?"

Andrew: We all have those multi-level marketing friends.

Jamé: Right. Those hustle friends that are just going to find a dollar anywhere. Yeah. First of all, it actually goes the opposite way. It actually deteriorates trust and credibility. It makes it a lot harder for others in the industry who are actually really standing by certain things. Then, I really believe that you should also hone in on your niche and the things that make you different.

Andrew: One of the things that people sometimes don't realize, they often think social media and creating and things like that is something frivolous or it's not real work, but it's tiring too. For people who, they have a 9:00 to 5:00 and they want to curate a brand that will get them ahead and be a good support system for them, how do you suggest that they walk the line between building that brand and also protecting their wellbeing in terms of actually the workload?

Jamé: I love this question because I actually just came off of a social media break not too long ago, for that exact reason. What I will say is not every platform will work for what you're trying to do, and that's totally fine. People have this idea that you need to have a strong social media presence on 3, 4, 5, 6 platforms. I'm like, dude, I don't know. As much as I would love to be, I'm just not a TikTok girl. It's okay. It's really okay. I would much rather save the dances for the dance floor. But it's one of those things where you have to figure out where would you want to show up? Where are the people who you want to build community with? Where are they? I would say that finding those platforms that you really want to be on is first. Then the second thing then is you figuring out your own personal cadence. How much can you actually do? For me, what I have done for years up until recently, when I finally was able to start outsourcing a few things was, coming home at night, taking a break in between, after job one, and then eating dinner and then for an hour or two, writing out my captions or picking out what photos I want for the week, then doing the captions later. Or maybe on a Saturday, dedicating that time to shoot photography or whatever have you. Obviously it doesn't have to be that expansive for everyone, but just finding a few minutes, maybe every day or every other day, to just give yourself a bit of a foundation to build on. Because here's the thing, guys. Oftentimes your favorite content creators are batching content. We're not creating all of this at the same time. I know y'all think that we are, and I'm so honored, but baby, when my posts go up at 8:00 AM, I am not up at 8:00 AM, pressing press, okay. I am not. I am asleep. Just start thinking about, "Okay, what three, four or five pieces of content can I work over?" then schedule out your content. Out of sight out of mind.

Andrew: Yeah. Also I think going back to the idea of creating your brand over what you want to be known for, and especially doing that niche approach where it's like, "Okay, here's my specialty within my field," is such a great way to go about it. Because one of the things that I notice is that the people who have the most staying power are the ones who are actually specialized in something.

Jamé: It's also funny to me because people don't think of that necessarily when they think of content creators, but if you think about almost any job profession, there's always something form of niche. Your lawyer is not a generalist lawyer, and if so, I don't know if that's what you need. I just think that there's just so much power in having an understanding of your industry, but then also having a very specific hyper niche focus on things. You think that you're shooting yourself in the foot by that, but actually you're really opening yourself up for the right opportunities that are going to actually be in alignment with who you are and how you want to build your career.

Andrew: Yeah. And for people out there listening that say, "Okay, listen, I'm a nurse," "I work in retail," or, "I'm an accountant," what is one thing that they could do today to really set themselves off on the right foot to start creating a brand?

Jamé: Well, obviously come to LinkedIn. I, again am very biased, but only because of the fact that I have seen people really build a unique community just by opening up and possessing a sense of vulnerability on the platform. I think right now is a wonderful time for healthcare workers especially to share their story. What that does is you start asking yourself, "Okay. If I were in someone else's shoes and they wanted to know who I am, what I do on a day to day," start sharing that. It doesn't always have to be the most prettiest, beautiful photos and your best days. People want to know the real. Even I sometimes go back and forth between “how much do I want to share with the world” and not. I have found that by also just showing people that I'm human, it also makes people feel a level of trust and compassion and community with me. I would definitely say getting on your social platforms and start sharing your personal story. Not the story that you want to curate, not the story that you think others want to hear, just exactly who you are. What will happen is over time, people will start engaging with the content. They'll start asking you more questions that you can continue to build off of. I always tell, especially my creators, tell the story that you think people don't want to hear because that's the one that they want to hear.

Andrew: Yeah. Also, one thing that you touched on that's really important is you get to decide what you show.

Jamé: You will not lose out on anything that is meant for you by not showing certain things. That is just, I don't know where people possibly got that from. You do not have to do that. I don't show my family. I don't show my partner. That's not their business. You absolutely do not have to put yourself in a compromising position to establish yourself as a thought leader or as a leading authority. If anyone ever made you feel like you have to do that, then they're not the right people for you.

Andrew: Before we go, is there anything else that you think people should know or anything that I didn't ask?

Jamé: One thing that I think is really important is that I think a lot of people are afraid to start personal brands because they think that once you're there you're locked in, and that's not true. The same way that you are not the same person today as you were five years ago, your brand can also change. The things that matter to you can change. It's really okay to grow up and your brand grow up with you. Don't be afraid to start your brand today because you're afraid that, "Oh, the person who I'm going to be known for today is the person I'm always going to be known for." You are allowed to grow and like trees, I think, you shed leaves over time. So you know, just get in there and have fun with it. This shouldn't be something that is terrifying. I think that your personal brand is the better version of your resume and cover letter, any day. Everything you're doing is working for your favor. Just got to believe it.

Andrew: Well, thank you so much Jamé.

Jamé: Oh, my God. Thank you, Andrew. Have me back next time.

Andrew: Of course.

That was Jamé Jackson, a creator manager at LinkedIn and @TheBlondeMisfit on all socials.

Remember: it's up to you to put our advice into practice. Still, you always have a community backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. You can also join my weekly Get Hired live show, every Friday on the LinkedIn News page. If you liked this episode, leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps people like you find the show. And of course, we'll continue this conversation next week, right here, wherever you like to listen.

Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Michele O'Brien. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is Head of original Audio & Video. Dave Pond is Head of News Production. Dan Roth is the Editor in Chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.