How to build a personal brand in 2025: Our proven framework
I loathe the phrase personal branding — even though I’ve taught well over 25,000 people how to market themselves.
You’re a person, not a brand. You contain multitudes.
And yet, being “known” for something can make everything easier:
People come to you with job offers or client referrals.
You can charge higher fees — and get them.
Deals close way faster.
You can turn down projects.
You can get paid (a lot) to give speeches.
Publishers approach you to write a book.
Investors take your calls or even seek you out.
Sounds like the dream, right? It is — for millions of people, most of whom are grinding it out on their social network of choice, hoping for the right post to “go viral” and then it will quickly fall into place.
Unfortunately, personal branding doesn’t work like that.
Going viral one time might get you a lot of followers. It could even lead to some gigs and maybe a few speeches. But unless you went viral with the right audience who buys what you sell, you won’t see a lot of cash from it. And unless you can keep going viral with the same audiences, you will eventually get forgotten and blend back in with everyone else grinding it out. Harsh, I know, but it’s true. I’ve been there myself.
So, how do you build a personal brand that actually makes you money? And how do you do it in 2025 when AI content is everywhere and, as I recently wrote, social media is getting chaotic?
Here's how I recommend you build your brand this year:
1. Pick a niche.
There are riches in the niches. The people who stand out do so because they are remembered for one idea or topic. Here are some famous examples of well-known personal brands:
💡 Known for their idea
→ Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability
→ Simon Sinek: Start with why
→ Glennon Doyle: We can do hard things
📍 Known for a topic
→ Mel Robbins: Behavior change
→ Andrew Huberman: Neuroscience
→ Seth Godin: Marketing
But let’s make that a bit more accessible than the people currently topping podcast lists. Here are a few people who have focused on niches and are building engaged audiences around that expertise:
💡 Becoming known for their ideas
Erica Bethe Levin: Our babies deserve better food.
Neil Redding: We can co-create our reality with AI.
📍 Becoming known for specific topics
Adam Gore: B2B midmarket sales
How to pick the right niche for you
If it’s a topic, obviously pick one that aligns with what you’re selling or want to be hired for. If it’s an idea, it should be simple to understand while pushing the envelope. Nobody remembers the predictable, but they do remember provocative, contrarian, or seemingly bizarre ideas that needed time to marinate.
It will probably take time to hone in on the right niche — and you might cycle through a few of them before finding the one that a) people are interested in and b) drives your business or career forward.
It’s also smart to change your niche over time. Five years ago, I was known for being authentic on social media. Now, I’m building a reputation for making PR accessible to everyone. I consciously began making that shift in 2022 when I accepted that social media was becoming toxic and that PR would only become essential in a fragmented media ecosystem.
2. Go omni-channel with your personal brand
Yes, it would be great just to throw up a few LinkedIn posts and let the followers (and money) roll in. Unfortunately, this isn’t 2015. There’s a lot more competition here — and a lot of AI crap diluting the entire experience for everyone. But that’s not the biggest issue.
Our attention spans are changing, and we may not easily remember something we saw in a casual scroll. We need to see an idea or a person repeatedly before it sticks in our brains Then, once it’s in our brains, we need to be persuaded to take action.
In marketing, we call this getting people into “the buyer’s journey” and moving them along the path to buy something. Smart brand strategists do what’s called omnichannel marketing to reach buyers in multiple places and motivate them to buy.
Omnichannel marketing is why you suddenly see a new liquor everywhere — featured in a special cocktail at bars, announced as the sponsor of your favorite podcast, being drunk by characters on a Netflix show, spotlit in a commercial at the Superbowl, and listed as a must-get in GQ.
In 2025, your personal brand must be omnichannel. That’s the best way to cut through the noise and be remembered, considered, and ultimately chosen for the best gigs.
How to pick the right channels to build your brand on
This is a big question — and one that I regularly help executives and entrepreneurs with at The PR Accelerator, our full-service PR firm. Without knowing you and your goals, I cant advise you here. Instead, I can tell you what to consider.
Get a SWOT analysis of your personal brand.
You need an outsider to look at your online presence objectively and that of your peers/competitors to figure out a) where you excel and b) where there’s “white space” to stand out in your field.
It is too hard to do this yourself because you’re too close to it. Our egos also cloud our judgment and keep us playing it safe. You need someone who can tell you it like it is while pushing you out of your comfort zone.
That SWOT analysis should look critically at what you’re doing well and where you can improve based on your talents, interests, and expertise. Ideally, the SWOT analysis should be combined with a realistic personal brand strategy you'll actually follow.
If you’re a time-pressed CEO with exactly 30 minutes to devote to your personal brand each week, then that strategy should include team members or an agency who get the ideas out of your head and turn it all into the right content for your business goals.
Pick two new channels to start.
We’ll assume you already have a website that is set up to capture leads and that you’re active on a social network — that’s one channel. I’m going to push you to pick two more channels at the same time because a) audiences are fragmenting, and b) it will take several months for all of this to start having an effect.
You don’t want to lose precious time to a slower channel like landing speaking gigs when you could also be going on podcasts to build credibility (and help you book better speaking gigs).
Pick channels that your target buyers trust for information and recommendations. These channels could be:
Targeted media outlets, including trade publications
Podcasts and live-stream shows
Specific blogs, newsletters, content creators, and influencers
Conferences, events, and trade shows
Channels should also be selected based on your strengths. If you’re a natural talker, obviously podcasts, conferences, and TV interviews are ideal. Contributing to publications and popular blogs is smart if you like to write.
Stay focused on your niche.
The people who become widely known do so because they are consistent. They kept talking and writing about the same idea or topic — over and over and over.
But they didn’t just regurgitate the same info on different platforms. They always tweaked the delivery for different audiences — including the examples and stories they used to drive home a point.
They also kept updating their material to include the latest research, tapped the cultural zeitgeist, and felt fresh to someone who had encountered their stuff before.
One of my favorite (and accessible) examples is our client, Ian Beacraft, CEO and Chief Futurist at Signal + Cipher.
In 2023, Ian broke through at SXSW with his viral talk, “How AI and the Metaverse Will Shape Society.” where he introduced the idea that we are now in “The Age of Creative Generalists.”
In 2024, after speaking worldwide (including on stage with leading tech journalist Kara Swisher) he returned to SXSW and spoke on the main stage. His talk, “Billion Dollar Teams: The Future of an AI-Powered Workforce,” shifted focus to how corporations can actually implement AI.
Next month, Ian will return to SXSW once more. His talk, “How Now to Screw Up an AI Transformation While Shaping The Future of Your Company,” gets even more into the weeds for organizations that have started integrating AI and are running into problems.
Yes, Ian has been talking about AI and the future of work for several years. But because he has worked hard to keep his content cutting-edge and relevant to specific audiences, he has become a sought-after speaker, often invited back to share his latest insights.
Remember, this is a long game.
Building your personal brand takes years. Nobody who rises to the top and stays there does it because they just happened to go viral one day on LinkedIn. They got there because they were strategic, disciplined, and pushed past their comfort zones.
But you can build a lot of momentum in 2025. Regardless of your starting point, here's what I'd do this year to build your brand.
Get interviewed on podcasts. Most podcasts always need guests, especially if they are niche or new shows.
Get published in legit media outlets and blogs. Almost every media outlet needs experts to write for them (and you shouldn’t pay to be featured in them; I’m looking at you Forbes).
Get booked to speak at events, conferences, and trade shows. Most conferences always need speakers. Now is the time to be getting yourself booked to speak at events happening this summer or fall. Got your eyes set on SXSW 2026? Get your topic ready by the summer and enter SXSW’s panel picker competition, where the public votes on speakers.
Get yourself onto panels. Not ready to speak yet? Panels are, hands-down, the best way to get yourself out there in a low-stakes environment. It positions you as an expert; you don't have to pay to be on it, and if you don't know the answer, you can punt to another panelist!
Look, I get it. This feels like a lot – especially if you're busy running a company, overseeing all the marketing for a brand, or doing everything yourself as a consultant. But the thing is, your peers and competitors do this kind of personal branding every day. The longer you wait to build a personal brand, the further ahead they'll get this year.
Putting aside your competitive instincts, think about the people you could help with a stronger personal brand. When you are better known, you or your colleagues can reach the people who are looking for experts like you and solutions like yours. You went into your industry, I suspect, to help people in some meaningful way. How many people could you positively impact if they just knew about you or your colleagues?
The good news is that you don't have to figure this out on your own.
Our team members are experts at personal branding, and many other options exist. DM me or email me at Tracy@ThePRAccelerator.com to schedule a time to discuss ideas.
You got this.
