I Want to Pivot My Personal Brand — 6 Experts Told Me How to Do It

Personal brand experts walked this writer through exactly how to switch up her personal brand — and offered some more general advice, too.

In my 20s, I fell down a health and fitness rabbit hole. Well, not so much ‘fell’ as hurtled head first, banged my head a bit, and didn’t emerge until a good few years later.

It did mean I went through a very intense period of saying no to dessert (would not recommend), but it also helped me fall in love with exercise (would recommend) — and almost accidentally, build something of a personal brand.

At one point, I’d started a fitness blog, landed a great job as a writer at Women’s Health Magazine, and dabbled in personal training. As a result, I built up a 6,000-strong following on Instagram.

But by my late 20s, my obsession with health and fitness had cooled to a much more balanced hobby — which was around the same time I moved into content marketing.

I still posted occasionally on Instagram, but since it was no longer my job to create content in the realm of the brand I’d built, my following and engagement waned. I wasn’t too bothered — until I warmed to the idea of cultivating a professional personal brand in content marketing to level up my career.

Creating content for Buffer has left me perfectly positioned to do so, and I’ve been actively posting on LinkedIn for a few months. I’ve also taken over as the host of a podcast on marketing, and I wanted to leverage other channels to promote it, too.

I realized it was time for a personal brand pivot. Could I flip the switch on my previously smoothie-filled feed on Instagram? Or would it be best to write that audience off completely?

Naturally, I put it to the experts. I called on a group of top-notch personal brand aficionados to see what they’d recommend — and asked them to offer some more general advice on how to pivot a personal brand, too.

Meet the experts

Adrienne Sheares, Social PR Expert, Principal Digital Strategist @ ViviMae Labs
Christine Gritmon, Personal Brand Consultant @ Christine Gritmon Inc.
Ghalib Hassam, Account Manager @ Kurogo
Kasey Jones, Growth Strategy Coach & Consultant, Co-Founder & Strategist @ Power Your Platform
Jack Appleby, Social Media & Creator Consultant, Creator of Future Social newsletter
Manam Iqbal, Personal Brand Expert & Partner @ 1115 Inc