How Personal Branding is Changing… and What You Need to Do Now

Personal branding is changing in real time. The first impression is no longer a handshake or a conversation. It is a clip you did not choose, a post someone else shared, a comment you left, or a quote that gets passed around without context.

What actually builds trust across today’s platforms? It’s the different channels and how they shape different versions of you. Consistency matters more than polish. Algorithms and AI search now “interpret” your reputation. 

Today you need to build a personal brand that holds up when you’re not in the room.

Listen For

:22 What if people meet your story before they meet you?
4:00 How does media reshape your message?
5:23 How do you stay consistent across platforms?
8:40 How do algorithms impact your brand?
14:34 Why does personal branding really matter?

Guest: Liz Brooks, Interview Valet

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Farzana

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Chapters

• 0:22 What if people meet your story before they meet you?
• 2:18 How do you stay consistent across platforms?
• 4:45 Are algorithms shaping your brand more than you are?
• 8:38 Can you earn trust without outside validation?
• 11:13 Why does your personal brand still matter?

Transcript

Solomon Ibeh (00:22):
Most people won't meet you first... they meet the story about you.

Farzana Baduel (00:22):
I hung on a wall for years, quiet, still watched by people who didn't look for long. I was good. I was real. I was there, but I wasn't famous. Day after day, I listened. Shoes on stone floors, low voices, a quick glance. Then they moved on. Then one morning, I was gone. Hands took me, feet carried me, doors closed behind me. The space I left behind felt louder than the room ever did with me in it. And suddenly, everyone wanted me. They printed my face. They talked about me in cafes. They argued about me in papers. They told stories about who I was and what I meant and why I mattered. Some people loved me. Some people mocked me. Some people swore they understood me. Most of them had never stood in front of me. They didn't all know the truth, but they knew the feeling.

(01:19):
 They knew the mystery. They knew the name. My name is the Mona Lisa, and the day I was stolen was the day I became the most famous of them all. Today on Stories and Strategies, we're talking about how personal branding changes when people don't meet you first. They meet the story that travels, the clip, the quote, the repost. Leonardo da Vinci painted me once. The modern world paints you every day.

(02:03):
 My name is Farzana Baduel.

Doug Downs (02:06):
And my name is Doug Downs. Our guest this week is Liz Brooks joining today from Santa Cruz, California. Hey, Liz.

Liz Brooks (02:13):
Hi, how's it going?

Doug Downs (02:15):
Good. Santa Cruz. Is that the town in Northern California from the Drew Barrymore show movie where they eat people? Is that like walking zombies and they're eating people all the time?

Liz Brooks (02:26):
Pretty close. You're thinking the Santa Clarita Diet. Oh, right. Yeah. No, we're Santa Cruz. So we have vampires. This is where they shot The Lost Boys. But Santa Cruz didn't want to be called Santa Cruz in the movie. They didn't want that personal branding, if you will. So they made them change the name to Santa Carla. So maybe that's where the confusion stems from there.

Doug Downs (02:48):
So you're worried about vampires.

Liz Brooks (02:49):
Santa Carla does not exist though. That's just a name they made up for the movie, but it sounds like Sanford.

Doug Downs (02:54):
Vampires, not zombies where there's danger on all the streets, every town.

Liz Brooks (02:58):
Yes. Yes. Shadows on every corner.

Doug Downs (03:00):
Liz, you're a senior client account manager at Interview Valet, helping leaders build real authority and personal brands by getting in front of the right audiences and showing up with a message that actually sticks. You've got a background in public relations, foreground in audio, and you're all about relationship building, strategic storytelling and being human. Not a zombie.

Liz Brooks (03:22):
That is correct. That's the goal.

Doug Downs (03:24):
Yes. And not sounding markety, which as soon as you sound like Dr. Seuss, marketing, I like it. Yeah.

Farzana Baduel (03:29):
So Liz, I'm obviously fascinated with personal branding, but what I'm particularly interested in and excited about our conversation is that you left the world of pitching to traditional media to really do a deep dive and a focus into podcast land. And so what I wanted to ask you is what is different about personal branding in terms of personal branding within the context of leaders appearing on podcasts as opposed to other traditional channels?

Liz Brooks (04:00):
I think with other traditional channels, and you will know working from traditional PR too, the message is hardly ever coming directly from the person themselves. It's a lot of times written from their end. It comes to our side on the PR company. We refine it from there. Then we send it to the editor. There's more refining on their end. So by the time you actually are reading the article or the piece, there's so many filters already layered on it. So I kind of compare it to an Instagram filter. You see somebody on there and then you see them in real life and they don't look anything like that. I think that's something ... And I would say the same with TV and radio, although that is a little bit different because ... And we'll talk about that later in terms of attention span, long form versus short form.

Doug Downs (04:48):
How do you build one coherent personal brand? Personal branding has been around forever. I mean, leaders had to get elected, right? Going back to tribal times. But how do you build one personal brand when every platform, there's LinkedIn, there's Instagram, there's TikTok, there's my newsletter, right? My website. And we're so siloed. How do I create one personal brand when I kind of have different audiences with different mindsets at the time that they're consuming? When I'm on TikTok, I ain't thinking the same way when I'm on LinkedIn.

Liz Brooks (05:23):
Yeah, no, definitely. I think one thing that people get wrong when it comes to all of these multiple platforms and different types of content isn't that you don't have to change your brand or create a bunch of multiple personalities or multiple contexts for all of these different things. You just have to change the format. You need a clear core that's going to adapt to the context of every different platform. Also, I think with TikTok, LinkedIn, podcasts, all of those things, you have to keep in mind that people are showing up in different emotional and cognitive states. They're showing up for different reasons. So with TikTok, you need to make it a little bit more grabby, a little bit more entertaining. They're there for quick content. A lot of times they're just there for entertainment. So that's a little bit more short form. You have one or two seconds to grab their attention, right?

(06:18):
 Versus LinkedIn where people are trying to look for learning and authority. That's more where you can show that different, more professional side of yourself. And I'm not saying don't be professional on TikTok or anything like that, but that's also, I think, where you can lean more into the jargon and what it is that you're trying to do in a longer form content, as you can do with podcasting as well.

(06:44):
 And ultimately, just still be yourself across all the platforms. Don't try to be something different for each audience. But definitely keep in mind, if somebody's going to be on LinkedIn, they're looking for something different versus if they're on Instagram or TikTok, that's going to be a little bit more entertaining, more short form.

Farzana Baduel (07:01):
That's so interesting, Liz. I wanted to ask, obviously when we're pitching to say traditional media, there's always a news cycle that you have to fit into and align yourself with. I guess with podcasts, not all of them, but a significant amount of them are sort of evergreen from that perspective.

Liz Brooks (07:20):
Correct, correct. I mean, it depends, obviously, if it's a news podcast, that's very different. But yes, we do definitely look for more evergreen content with podcasting. That also comes to content repurposing, which you can use for your personal branding across all of these different platforms. I think one thing that our clients use for podcasting, it's not just about the podcasting, it's about all of the content with audiences months down the road.

Doug Downs (07:47):
Pitching has been around forever in PR, pitching newspapers. I just pitched a newsletter and successfully landed a story within a news, so we pitch everywhere. But you're also at the mercy of the algorithms these days when you're making a pitch. I think it was Jonathan Mast was a guest on one of our episodes for Xana. I think it was Jonathan said 52% of internet traffic now is bots. So the algorithm is our biggest audience, so to speak. I'm at the mercy of Google. You might have a YouTube channel, but you're at the mercy of YouTube, which is also Google. You might have a podcast, but you're at the mercy of the app, Spotify, Apple, Castbox, Castro. What does it mean to build a personal brand when the platforms are interpreting and distributing you? Never mind the people.

Liz Brooks (08:40):
Right. That's a really great question. And that's something that I personally have come across and struggled with promoting my personal music brand across Instagram and TikTok and things like that. Because

Doug Downs (08:53):
You've cut albums, so to speak, right? I don't know if albums get cut. You know.

Liz Brooks (08:58):
What I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, for better or worse, algorithms are now definitely a part of the brand ecosystem. They're not just distributing content. They're also interpreting patterns, what you talk about, how consistently you're posting, how people respond to that. I definitely have seen when I'm posting more consistently, when I am boosting my posts and getting a lot more responses, the algorithm spreads it a lot more and I get more attention from that. Once I stop, once the album has dropped and six months down the line, I'm feeling a little lazy and I haven't posted for a long time. And again, I'm using myself as an example here. Once I make a post a month later, the algorithm is not sharing it nearly as much.

(09:49):
 Also, something else, I think these algorithms and also large language models, which we can touch on in a second, I think it's pushing creators and brands more and more towards clarity, specificity and usefulness, not just buzzwords. That means that clarity and repetition matters more than perfection. And I think that's also part of personal branding is authenticity and consistency across not only time, but also across all platforms as you're building your digital library, if you will. So owning your channel still matters, but you have to understand how different platforms read you and when they decide to show you. And you can do all sorts of deep dives into each particular one to see how to master the algorithm if you want to do that individual research. Money also helps.

Doug Downs (10:46):
Right. Promo. That's actually not to be forgotten, right? A little bit of cash helps push you in front

Liz Brooks (10:52):
Of people. Yeah. And I think that's one thing too that still stands to fact, social media, all of these platforms has definitely made personal branding more accessible, reaching different audiences, but ultimately having a PR team behind you, having money to boost your campaigns online, no matter what, we're still boosting campaigns. Each post you make, think of it as a campaign. So at the end of the day, yeah, money does still matter. It still helps to help those algorithms notice you, if you will. But ultimately, yes, clarity, consistency, that's always going to help too.

Doug Downs (11:31):
Farzana, I'd ask you to take your buds out here so you can't hear me talking, but my question is actually for you. So my hero on the personal branding side, Farzana, is kind of becoming you because you have a podcast. You sort of had two podcasts that you do, this one and then The Week on Spun. I know that's a huge time commitment. I see you in my socials all the time. You're at events every night. You're traveling to Sri Lanka, you're going overseas, you're in New York a ton, you're managing social channels, website. How are you seeing the way people read your brand differently across different channels?

Farzana Baduel (12:10):
I think it's interesting because in PR, one of our sort of classic cornerstones is third party endorsement. So for a long time as PRs, we've always been trained that actually the credibility comes from earning from the gatekeepers, from the journalists and all the conference organizers that invite you in to speak at a conference or on an award jury that awards you this great win. So the podcast era has been really fascinating because people are able to have their own podcasts. They don't need to earn the right to be on a podcast necessarily because actually, as Liz said, it's increasingly accessible. And what is quite interesting is actually it shows that trust can be earned. When you don't have a third party endorsement, you can actually earn trust by showing up, being authentic and connecting. And people have done that through just social media lives. People are doing that through podcasts.

(13:05):
 And I think it also, people build emotional relationships. And I don't know, Liz, if you could share with us any of your thoughts or respects with regard to the fact that audio is a very intimate and sort of trust building medium.

Liz Brooks (13:20):
It certainly is. And when you were talking about traditional PR too, how winning awards, the publications that you're on, all of those things is kind of borrowing authority from the establishment that gave you the award, from the publication that published your piece. I think likewise with podcasting, when you appear on a podcast, you are borrowing the authority and the trust of that host and of their audience. And they're already, to your point, so much more emotionally invested with that host, with the stories that they tell that I think it's just more impactful and again, more authentic when you're able to connect across video or audio. But to your point, Farzana, video, we're oftentimes watching that with friends and family. Audio, we're doing it by ourselves with headphones. So we truly get to process it by ourselves in our own thoughts without outside voices, throwing in their multiple opinions and distracting you from the core message of what it is that you're listening to.

Doug Downs (14:24):
Let me ask the obvious question about personal branding. Why does it matter? Why don't I just make a great product or a great service, offer a reasonable price?

Liz Brooks (14:34):
Well, let's look at Elon Musk as an example. He has a lot of great products out there. Everybody loved Tesla for a really long time. He actually had a pretty good personal brand for a while and then he's kind of, I don't want to say gone off the rails, but his personal brand has changed a lot over the past couple of years. And as such, we have seen Tesla struggling. I think a lot of his products and companies have been facing a lot more backlash than they would have otherwise. And it's not because of the products themselves, it's because of the person behind those. So personal branding is incredibly important. Ultimately, people aren't going to buy a product or subscribe to something from somebody that they don't like or that they don't trust or who they feel is selling snake oil. You know what I mean?

(15:29):
 I would say if I had two choices, if I was buying two sponges and one of them was more green-friendly, I like the company, but I'm going to go for the brand that I like better, even if the two products are comparable and one of them is slightly cheaper, I'll still probably go for the one that I like better just from their branding. So whether that's a person, whether it's a company, and again, it can transfer from the person at the company, depending on how outspoken and well-known the CEO is. But I think we can all agree that's incredibly important.

Farzana Baduel (16:04):
Thank you so much for your time today, Liz.

Liz Brooks (16:07):
Thank you.

Farzana Baduel (16:07):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Here are the top three things we got today from Liz Brooks. Number one, one core, but different formats. Same identity everywhere, only the packaging changes. Number two, fit the viewer's headspace, adjust the tone for the platform, not who you are. Number three, personality builds trust. Sound like a real person and people connect faster.

Doug Downs (16:38):
Excellent. If you'd like to send a message to our guest, Liz Brooks, we've got her contact information in the show notes. Stories and Strategies, co-production of Curzon Public Relations, Stories and Strategies podcasts. Thank you to producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And first, I was talking to someone recently who told me, "I know what I'm like in person, but I have no idea what I feel like online." And that really stuck with me because most people, they don't meet us first anymore. They meet a clip, a headline, a comment, a post, a quote that somebody else shared. That is the first new impression in 2026. So would you do me and Farzana a favor today? Introduce us to someone. Forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.