Personal Branding, pt 2

Greg Wyatt • May 6, 2024

In the last edition, I introduced how personal branding can support a job search, and why you should avoid the type of content many people aspire to - going viral.

You can read it here.

Today, we’ll get a bit closer to actually publishing content, with the principles that lead towards it:

Building your content philosophy and plan
Types of content to try
Weight and depth of opinion
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months

Next week, I’ll share some posts and content writers that show an effective approach. and which you can emulate.

Building your content philosophy and plan

Much is made about LinkedIn’s algorithm and how you need to do this that and the other to get engagement.

I think you can look at it differently, and still achieve much the same.

Get your core approach right, then you can tweak what you do to find the right gains. Rather than start with chasing engagement.

If writing content is an idea you’ve been toying with, it’s a good idea to think about the outcomes you want to achieve, and then work back to set a plan.

If the only outcome you are interested in is a job, the next question should be, is content the right area to focus on, or are there better activities to support your goal?

Everyone has different skills and outlooks on life. If it simply isn’t in your wheelhouse, there are other activities you can do that may be more effective.

These are the outcomes I aim for and see when writing content:

start conversations
help others
sharpen and spark ideas
raise awareness and trust
have a laugh and a chat

I’ve gained good friends I’ve never spoken to, and friendly acquaintances I only know through ‘comments’.

As well as paying clients, who’ve benefitted from my service.

And just as importantly, I have more credibility with candidates who place weight on LinkedIn content.

Content makes it easier for me to start conversations.

It’s important for me that I either enjoy the content, and its consequences, or find it fulfilling.

What I don’t do is talk openly about my personal life, family and challenges. Something I agreed with my wife when I started publishing content.

Instead, I show all of myself in my words, quirks and all. So that if we ever speak in real life, there isn’t much of a disconnect.

That’s my philosophy to content and the boundaries I set for myself.

What about the plan?

Writing content isn’t just about publishing LinkedIn posts.

Replying to comments. Commenting on other people’s posts. Continuing conversations in DM. These are all required to get content to work for you.

From a marketing perspective, these all have different places in your lead generation funnel:

Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Interest
Evaluation
Purchase

Each post, comment, DM and real-life conversation, can relate to these steps and support your goals, even if you aren’t treating these as a marketing activity.

Indeed you should be aware of how people react to your visible words, in a way you might not be aware of (more on this next).

It goes to follow that if you use LinkedIn for Personal Branding - everything you do should be intentional, even throwaway comments.

And of course, this all takes time to do.

I write six or seven posts a week, typically in the evenings.

For me, it’s a form of journalling, and there is a lot of content I’ll either never post or will revisit at a later date. A post normally takes me 10-15 minutes to write, and somewhat longer to edit.

I post mainly in the mornings, where I have a bit of time to respond to comments.

There’s a lot of investigation into optimal times to post, but I think it’s more important that you are available to foster any engagement by replying attentively in the first hour.

The course of a post is often dictated by the performance during this time.

I find if a post gets 20-30 engagements in 60 minutes, it will typically see 10 times that over its lifetime, which is mainly a week.

I actively reply to comments for around an hour a day, but I use LinkedIn for other parts of my role (research, business development etc), so I’m always online.

How much time can you set aside per week and per day for content?

Even if you only write a couple of posts a week, that will likely take a couple of hours.

You can expect low performance initially, with some exceptions, as it takes time to build inertia.

Set aside a sustainable amount of time each week, and commit to it over time - try for 10-12 weeks and track how things have developed.

You may find it becomes an enjoyable task, just try not to get distracted by engagement for its own sake, and keep your goals in mind.

Types of content to try

Engagement on LinkedIn is built primarily on relevance and relatability.

You can write a 100% relatable post that everyone takes relevance from, and see massive engagement. Though that engagement may not serve your goals.

Or you can write a post that is 100% relevant to the problems you solve in your career, and the people who will find it relevant are from a small niche facing the same problems.

This is why a photo of you with your dog will fly, while a carefully thought out post about the optimisation of widgets in a byzantine setting, will appear to be shouting into a void.

Who doesn’t like a cute dog?

Or you can blend the two, in many ways, through storytelling, pivoting observations into business content, and copywriting formulae like AIDA (attention interest desire action) and PAS (problem agitation solution).

I mix my content up across 5 pillars:

Job search advice
Recruitment advice
Market observations
Things that interest me
Satire

I find these interest different audiences, and their own networks sometimes come across my posts, starting new conversations and awareness in other areas.

Everyone will have different forms of content that will be effective for them.

A good way to think about what might help you is what you want your ideal readers to experience.

Do you want them to see you as a credible expert?

Someone who is authentically vulnerable?

Your warts and all personality?

Why you stand out in a sea of competition?

Someone who is thought-provoking, helpful, altruistic or something else?

The answers are much the same if you posed these questions of interviewing.

This is no coincidence, given your message should be consistently delivered no matter where it is received.

With that in mind, here are some content ideas you can try:

How you might solve a problem specific to your industry
Stories from your everyday life
The challenges in your job search
Observations on a news story and how it relates to your work
A flair post highlighting your availability
Asking for thoughts on an idea you are interested in
Sharing insight you find fascinating, whether that’s on films, video games, science, sport
Stories from your career, where you can show growth (everyone loves a good ‘hero’s journey’)
Business frameworks, processes and techniques you find useful - pomodoro technique, scientific method, STAR, what do you use?
Equipment you use for work
Developments in your workplace/culture
Thoughts on content you find inspiring
Memes, humour, satire

Google “content ideas for LinkedIn” (which came up with this article ) or ask ChatGPT, Gemini or others.

I wouldn’t use AI to write articles personally (although I do use them for ideation and to sense check).

However, many people use AI and get a lot of engagement, so there’s little reason not to experiment.

“Write me a post for LinkedIn that shows the link between Tesla cars and how to develop an HR strategy”

Weight and depth of opinion

A couple of years ago, I had a message from an out-of-work Sales Director, asking for some feedback.

He’d shot a video for LinkedIn, where he talked about why he should be snapped up, and received a lot of praise for the post. However he was confused because someone he trusts, a CEO, told him it was poor and made him look boring.

He knew I’d give him unvarnished feedback, which was what he needed, to find some clarity on what had happened.

Truthfully, the CEO was correct.

What had happened?

All of the positive engagement was from fellow job seekers, and people who wanted to support him. That he’d done it was praiseworthy in itself, and was rightly celebrated, rather than the quality of what he had produced.

However, none of them had hiring authority or were in a career similar to someone who would be his line manager.

The video didn’t show him how he comes across in person either.

The lesson I took from this is to establish the weight and depth of opinion, whenever you seek feedback.

While the positive feedback was great for validation, his video actually worked against him. What might happen if a hiring process thought his video was boring when the role being recruited for has persuasion as a key requirement?

I’m pleased to say his redo was excellent, showing off his charisma while delivering the same message.

Let’s say that the CEO in this story was called Steve.

Who is the Steve in your career?

Whenever you do anything, consider “what would Steve say?”

Whose feedback should carry most weight?

This is one problem with critical posts on LinkedIn.

For example, posts that criticise poor recruitment often get a lot of engagement.

But how does that post support the career goals of the author?

Could it backfire, if someone in a hiring process sees that?

A good analogy here is that LinkedIn is like an open-plan office. You may think you are having a private conversation, but what if the wrong person is listening on the other side of a partition wall?

You may never know the decisions they make, from the words they come across.

Is that fair? Probably not.

Does it happen? I’m afraid so.

Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months

Starting cold on LinkedIn can take many months to get traction.

That’s not always the case, but when your first post bombs, you might never think to do a second.

Going in with the expectation of little impact for the first three to six months is healthy in making a sustainable habit.

If you’re out of work though, three to six months may seem too far off to be worthwhile, especially if you need a job within a couple of months, and there are many activities that offer a quick turnaround, such as applying for jobs.

I’m sorry to say that I’ve spoken to many job seekers who’ve been out of work for more than six months, and have decided not to write content at the outset of their search.

But if they had, they might now be seeing the benefit of their work.

While negative visualisation is a helpful way to see why you might start a long-term activity now, here’s another one that relates to the philosophy section at the top.

Personal branding for me isn’t about getting a job - it’s about starting and continuing conversations with the right people.

It can be helpful in work when you aren’t looking for work. For idea sharing, networking, and keeping in touch. Even to promote your business.

And should the worst happen in future, when you find yourself out of work again, you’ll have that continued inertia from consistent posting.

So yes, it might not pay off in the short term, from a cold start, but if this is something you can sustainably do long-term, it can be an investment in your future.

As well as, if you are lucky, something that does pay off in the short term, such as if the right person sees your flair post.

I’ll give you an example of a good flair post, as well as other content and content writers to emulate, in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. this post is a day early, as I have a challenging work week ahead, so have written all my content early

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Introduction to personal branding

By Greg Wyatt • March 30, 2026

What follows is Chapter 39 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It's 10 months old, so surely the algorithm has moved on right? Indeed, my own content performance has tanked if you compare 2026 to 2025. Around 12 million views of my content last year, while if I extrapolate my year to date performance, it looks like a little shy of 640,000 views. My LinkedIn feed is quieter, yet real life relevant conversations go from strength to strength, many of which stem from my content. Look, I don't love the term, but I am a fan of putting your message out there, across multiple means, so that your most relevant audience might become aware of you. And perhaps your relevant audience is an audience of one, a person who can put you nearer that job. Which is the only algorithm you need. This is a three part series, with part 2 on " Content strategy and philosophy " and part 3 on " A flair post ". Click on the links for the unedited versions on Substack. 39 - Introduction to personal branding Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a free marketing platform, where you can build a reputation through the words of your posts, comments and messages. Personal branding is a viable tactic as part of a multi-channel approach to your job search and it can bring opportunities to you. I'll start off by saying I'm not a fan of the term personal branding. It can lead to make-work which can even get in the way of what you should be doing. Writing and using content to create experiences that support a job search is a great idea and calling it personal branding - as a discrete activity - isn’t a bad thing. I expect there are many mediums through which you can build a personal brand. I'll focus on LinkedIn because of how entrenched it is in other job search activities. What a personal brand is For businesspeople the idea is that by building awareness of your personality, lifestyle and what you're promoting, you also build trust. So that when people are ready to buy, they'll buy your products. The brand might be personal. The goal is sales. When you see personal branding on LinkedIn it’s often a business that promotes their services through the account of the author. ‘Here’s my puppy, buy my stuff.’ Take note that the target audience for these advice posts is the businesspeople above. And these posts often seek to part them from their money. Your goals are similar. If there’s a commercial outcome you want, it’s likely a single job, not a throughput of leads. You’ll also see that controversial content gets huge engagement and can also repel readers. If you need a job, what’s the danger of writing overly spicy content? Could a reader make a decision against you based on your words? How much you need any job should inform the experience you want to create for your readers. How it sits in your wider job search Publishing content is about raising awareness and starting conversations with the right people. This can be your profile, written posts, newsletters, (bestselling) career breakdown kits, videos, you name it - anything you can become known for. In many ways the hierarchy of relationships your content appeals to is the same as with networking. Content can be publishing posts, commenting on the posts of others, sending direct messages. I’d argue even your applications and interviews are part of your personal brand. I think of LinkedIn posts like a plumber’s van driving around town. Most of the time you’ll disregard the van unless it cuts you up with noxious fumes. When you have a leaky pipe, you’ll surely take note of their number. It can support an application if a hiring manager decides to surreptitiously stalk your profile. And it can work against you if it suggests problem behaviour. A good balance for content is the poster in my daughters’ primary school from a few years back: THINK. Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? Achieve those five points and content will rarely work against your job search. Content should be consistent with your wider activity. Which means that everything people (potential employers) experience of you is a complementary and non-contradictory message. Content that contradicts your CV or cover letter may lead to red flags, whether that’s fair or not. Content should be intentional. HOW TO GO viral, and why you shouldn’t Anyone who writes content will enjoy the sweet, sweet flow of dopamine when you see reactions and comments trickle in. Such as that first flair post announcing you are available to help your next employer with examples of your achievements and what you are looking for. Do that and you’ll get loads of engagement. Why haven’t you done it yet? Tag me in and I’ll support you. Or you can do what most people do and say, ‘I’m sorry to announce I’ve lost my job, please help’ and that will get loads too. Because it is relevant and relatable to fellow job seekers, recruiters and sympathisers. Then you feel the soul-crushing defeat of a well-thought-out post, highlighting a problem in your industry, with tumbleweed to follow. Both types of content have a place. That tumbleweed post is relevant and relatable to a niche audience. I try to take a land and expand approach to content - job seeker advice, recruitment advice and stories, ponderings and satire, which I use to tackle topics from different directions. Over the past three years I’ve had between 3m to 11m views of my posts and I’ve gained a bit of business through them too. What I don’t do is try to go viral anymore. Because when I have gone viral with a few 1m impression posts, it’s taken weeks to extricate myself from them and there hasn’t been real benefit. I find my tumbleweed posts start better conversations from lurkers - those that never engage publicly. I promised you I’d show you how to go viral. Here you go. Relevance + relatability + readability + entitlement. Maybe add a selfie. If that seems too simple, search for this sentence on LinkedIn: “An employee asked me if he can WORK from HOME permanently.” You’ll need to use the double speech mark to search on the phrase, and rank by Posts. ‘Does it really work?’ asked Charles. I told him to try it as an experiment. He rarely got more than a few hundred impressions per post. 170,000 impressions, 2,000 reactions. Pretty viral for a first timer. It is the wrong path. What do these posts actually say? Who are they aimed at? And if they don’t appeal to people who can help you reach your objective, what’s the point?

Nothing but the truth. Innovation from Iteration, pt 4

By Greg Wyatt • March 26, 2026

I was tempted to use another Tom Cruise AI image for this article, but his hands ended up looking like feet, which wasn't a true representation of him. Probably not fair to use AI in this way either, stealing copyrighted material without permission. And so I use this AI 'stock image' instead, which is probably also highly unethical, but feels more suitable and sufficient . Anyway here's an article about why the same principles are crucial for good recruitment: ‘True and Fair’ is an accountancy concept that lies at the heart of reporting, and can be applied effectively in recruitment. Its meaning is that any financial statement made about a company should accurately and completely represent its financial position and performance. The role of auditing is to confirm that documentation meets this definition. Do so and everyone knows what they are dealing with. HMRC, shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees – useful, and in many cases necessary, to have access to a true and fair view of a company’s accounts. Can something be true and not fair? In 2001, Enron went bust, a huge scandal with real-life repercussions that led to new legislation in the US. Their accounts were true, in that they conformed with the required laws and standards. However they had an incredibly complex reporting structure which made it impossible to see the overwhelming debt they had. Poof! Bye-bye a $100bn company when this all came out in the wash. How about fair but not true? This can happen if a situation is described which gives a fair picture but lacks accuracy. An example here could be the UK politician who HMRC deemed behaved fairly but made errors in his tax reporting. Only a few million quid plus penalty. What types of recruitment documentation does this apply to? Three key ones that spring to mind (although there’s no reason it can’t be applied everywhere): The job description. The job advertisement. The CV. If these three documents were always a true and fair representation of either a job or a candidate, you’d interview and hire better candidates who stick around longer. With the caveat that these documents should also be ‘suitable and sufficient’, if you remember last week's edition. Documents are the first step in a recruitment process, relating to a decision to apply and the decision to interview. Is it not the case, that the second most common complaint in recruitment is “not what we expected”? Therefore, if we nipped this complaint in the bud, with true and fair documentation, wouldn’t life be better for everyone in the recruitment process? What does true and fair mean in recruitment documentation? I think it has to cover three points. 1/ factually correct 2/ shows context suitably 3/ describes sufficiently An immediate objection might be that job descriptions are always true and fair, but I’d argue this is actually rarely the case. If you recruit for a new role, do you audit your job description against the current context? If you have a generic job family description does it show the specific day-to-day duties of a role? Have things changed in the current role that makes it different to the last time you recruited? A common scenario in recruitment is that Greg resigns, and the hiring manager says “we’d love someone just like Greg”. Yet if Greg resigned, wouldn’t someone just like Greg be at risk of resigning for the same reasons in future? Would now-Greg have applied for the same role that then-Greg applied for? Which definition of Greg is the true and fair one you’d hire? It feels strange writing my name like this. There are lots of different situations in which a job description that was true and fair a few years ago is no longer so. The only way to ensure it is true and fair, is to audit documentation prior to going live. You may think a fully representative and accurate contextual analysis is too time-consuming for most vacancies, especially where it doesn’t actually matter if there is some inaccuracy. “Oh yeah, that’s not relevant anymore”. But if you have a key hire that can make a difference in your business, ‘true and fair’ should be the starting point, each and every time. If you have a systematic process that finds truth and fairness, you’ll see the benefit of applying the same across any vacancy – for the reason that the time invested at the outset is offset by interviewing fewer unsuitable candidates and wasting less time and resources overall. And what should be the more important reason of better recruitment outcomes. For any project I take on, this is the first step – getting the documentation in order. Get it right and everything flows from there. It’s a key reason behind my nearly 100% fill rate. It’s also one of the reasons my average tenure is over 4 years for key hires. These achievements don’t come down to chance. They come from my process. If you've forgotten why suitability and sufficiency is the other pillar, here's an example that isn't suitable: Nineteen experiential bullet points might be true and fair but will also encourage ideal candidates to run away screaming. See you next time. Regards, Greg p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services: - commercial, operational and technical leadership recruitment (available for no more than two vacancies) - manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client. This can be a large as end-to-end delivery of a programme of vacancies, or as small as writing one job advert for a key hire- recruitment strategy setting - outplacement support