Personal Branding Doesn’t Have to Be That Serious
Have you ever tried to figure out your personal branding and somehow ended up with 47 more things to think about?
What’s your brand archetype?
What does that colour communicate?
What are your three core brand pillars?
What’s the deeper meaning behind the props you use in your photos?
…yeah.
Can we just calm down for a second? π
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE strategy.
It’s literally part of what I do, and yes, all of those things can have a place when you’re building a personal brand.
But I also think we’ve made the visual side of personal branding way too serious.
Not every single thing needs to have some deep strategic meaning behind it.
Sometimes you can wear the leopard print because you freakin’ love leopard print. π
It doesn’t have to represent your courage, confidence and ability to disrupt an industry.
Maybe you just… really like leopard print.
And honestly?
That’s personal branding too.
Personal Branding Isn’t About Inventing a Persona
One of the biggest misconceptions about personal branding is that we need to create some carefully constructed, more interesting version of ourselves.
We don’t.
Your personal brand isn’t a character you’re playing online.
You don’t need to choose three arbitrary personality traits and then figure out how to perform them convincingly on Instagram.
And you definitely don’t need to attach a strategic explanation to every colour, outfit, prop or photo you use.
Maybe there’s a colour you’ve loved forever, so of course it ends up all over your brand.
Maybe you’re rarely seen without a Diet Coke in your hand.
Maybe your dog comes everywhere with you.
Maybe you’ve worn bright red glasses for the last 15 years, have a mildly concerning collection of colourful shoes, or spend half your life at the same little coffee shop.
None of those things sound particularly “strategic.”
But they’re the things people remember about you.
And I think this is where people sometimes get personal branding backwards.
We’re not trying to invent a more interesting version of you.
We’re paying attention to what’s already interesting about you and bringing more of THAT into your brand.
What Actually Makes a Personal Brand Feel Personal?
This is one of my favourite things to dig into when I’m working with someone on their visual brand or planning their personal brand photography.
Yes, I want to know about your business.
What do you do?
Who do you work with?
What are you selling?
What do you want to be known for?
How do you want people to feel when they interact with your brand?
That’s the strategy part, and it matters.
But I also want to know about you.
What do your friends tease you about?
What are you always wearing?
What’s permanently sitting beside you while you work?
Where do you actually spend your time?
What do you genuinely love?
What’s something your clients would immediately recognize as very, very YOU?
Those little details are often where the really good stuff is hiding.
For example, if your dogs are a huge part of your life and your clients already know all about them, bring the damn dogs to your brand photoshoot. π
They don’t need a strategic job title.
They don’t need to symbolize loyalty or connection or your nurturing leadership style.
They’re part of your life. They’re part of what people associate with you. And including them immediately makes your photos feel more personal.
That’s enough.
How Your Personality Shows Up in Brand Photography
This is where personal brand photography gets really fun.
Of course we need the useful photos.
The beautiful portrait. The working-at-your-laptop shot. The image with negative space for website copy. The photos that clearly show what you actually do.
But sometimes the photo that makes someone stop scrolling isn’t the perfectly polished one of you working at a laptop.
It’s you sitting on your kitchen counter with a glass of wine.
Walking your dog.
Wearing the ridiculous shoes.
Holding the Diet Coke that’s basically become an extension of your hand.
Or doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with your job… but everything to do with the person behind the business.
Those images give people little pieces of information about you before they’ve ever met you.
And when you’re the face of your business, that’s incredibly valuable.
If leopard print has practically become part of your wardrobe’s DNA, WEAR IT.
I’ve worked with clients whose signature style is so recognizable that leaving it out of their brand photos would actually make the photos feel less like them.
We don’t need to invent symbolism for it.
We just need to notice it.
Your Visual Brand Can Have Personality Too
And this doesn’t stop with your photos.
The same thinking can influence your entire visual brand.
Maybe that leopard print makes its way into a few of your Canva templates.
Maybe the bright colour you’ve loved forever becomes part of your brand palette.
Maybe your website incorporates an unexpected pattern or graphic element.
Maybe your typography feels playful because YOU are playful.
Maybe your brand is colourful, eclectic and a little bit weird because a beige-and-black minimalist brand would feel absolutely nothing like you.
Your visual branding should give people clues about the person and experience behind the business.
That doesn’t mean throwing every single thing you like into Canva and calling it a strategy. π
It means paying attention to the visual cues that genuinely feel like you and deciding which ones deserve a bigger role in your brand.
So… Where Does Brand Strategy Come In?
Right here.
Because I’m definitely not saying strategy doesn’t matter.
Strategy helps us decide what to emphasize.
It helps us figure out which parts of your personality support the way you want your business to be perceived.
It helps us create consistency so your website, brand photos, social media graphics, colours and fonts all feel like they belong to the same business.
And it helps us make sure we’re creating something that doesn’t just feel like you, but also makes sense for the people you want to attract.
What strategy doesn’t need to do is manufacture a personality for you.
If you’re warm and funny and a little irreverent, we can work with that.
If you’re polished and sophisticated and love beautiful things, we can work with that.
If you’re colourful, loud and obsessed with leopard print…
Oh, we can DEFINITELY work with that. π
The strategy gives those things direction.
It doesn’t create them.
Your Personal Brand Probably Already Has a Personality
This is the part I wish more business owners understood.
You probably don’t need to sit down and figure out how to add more personality to your personal brand.
There’s already a whole person sitting there.
You.
So wear the leopard print.
Bring the dog.
Order the Diet Coke.
Use the colour you freaking love.
Wear the red glasses.
Bring the ridiculous shoes.
We’ll figure out the strategy around it. π
Because your personal brand doesn’t need more personality added to it.
It probably just needs more of the personality that’s already there.
And when your visual branding and personal brand photography actually reflect that person?
Everything starts to feel a whole lot more like you.
Want help creating personal branding that actually feels like YOU? Let’s chat. We’ll talk about where your brand is now, what feels like it’s missing, and the best way I can help you bring more of yourself into it.
