166: {Interview} Unlocking Your Personal Brand with Melanie Borden

In this conversation, Melanie Borden  and I discuss the evolution of personal branding, particularly through LinkedIn, and the importance of visibility in today's digital landscape. Melanie shares her journey of building her brand, overcoming fears, and the significance of influence and virality in content creation. They explore strategies for effective content, the balance between personal and private sharing, and the mindset needed to combat imposter syndrome. The discussion emphasizes the need for authenticity and connection in a world increasingly dominated by AI and algorithms.

takeaways

• You have a personal brand whether you realize it or not.
• LinkedIn is the new water cooler for professionals.
• Fear often holds people back from visibility.
• 3% of LinkedIn users post content, indicating vast opportunity.
• Virality does not always equate to revenue.
• Growth, impact, strategy, and trust are key components of personal branding.
• A successful content strategy includes educational, personal, promotional, and user-generated content.
• Personal stories resonate more than purely professional content.
• It's important to disconnect from digital platforms to foster creativity.
• Remind yourself of your accomplishments to combat imposter syndrome.

Connect further with Melanie HERE or on LinkedIn HERE 

 IG @humantobrand

Purchase her book HERE

Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:01.516)
Welcome Melanie.

Melanie Borden (00:03.746)
Thank you.

Caroline Pennington (00:06.584)
So you and I have been connected on LinkedIn for a while and I am a huge fan of everything you've been doing, your work, I read your book, you are the founder of the board and group, bestselling author, speaker and go-to-market advisor. How did you do it?

Melanie Borden (00:21.774)
That's a great question.

Melanie Borden (00:25.726)
A lot of caffeine and a lot of trial and terror, if you will.

Caroline Pennington (00:35.556)
Okay, tell me more about that.

Melanie Borden (00:37.262)
So in 2020, when I decided that I am going to be visible due to the fact that I had no digital footprint, I was working for somebody else in marketing, but I didn't really feel comfortable with putting myself out there. And so what I decided to do was to start posting on LinkedIn. I saw this white space as an open opportunity.

that I didn't see a lot of people leveraging like Instagram or like X, Twitter at the time. And so I thought, well, why don't I just put myself out there and kind of see what happens? And then one thing led to another and I was kind of just posting once a week or so and then the pandemic happened. And then once the pandemic happened, I realized that if I didn't do something,

I watched so many people around me get laid off. And that's when I started seeing this major shift. You we all saw it of people that just like went online, the same people that were, you know, looking from home on, you know, different websites. They were shifting to LinkedIn instead. And then LinkedIn just became, you know, the water cooler place, right? So in the office, you would have the water cooler that people would go to, you know, you know, the vending machines or where there's coffee in the break room.

And then all of sudden LinkedIn became this break room that everyone was on all the time. And so one thing led to another, and I just continued to just self promote and self promote and put myself out there and talk about what I was experiencing. And flash forward six years later, here we are. And I worked in marketing and sales my whole life. And I think because of the fact that we have 19 in our birth year, and I talk about this a lot.

because we were not brought up with technology. We were not brought up, especially if you're not brought up in a family that's in the media or has some sort of a media type of a business, you're not really trained for this. And so it was just something that I have felt that has been a muscle that I had needed to flex. And it's something that I tell everyone, you might not necessarily think that you need or have to have a personal brand.

Melanie Borden (02:57.784)
But the truth is, is that you have one already and you're either gonna dictate what the terms are or somebody else or an algorithm well instead. And it's just been, well, I say trial and terror because it's been a lot of testing and figuring things out and algorithm updates and just trying to figure out where my lane has been. But when I left my last job, I really left without a plan. I left without a business plan.

And I just decided I'm going to start my own business. And I thought that having my network on LinkedIn would be enough to launch. And it turns out that it was.

Caroline Pennington (03:36.933)
I love that. okay, so I feel like LinkedIn is what Facebook and Instagram used to be 15 years ago. And the secret's getting out about that. So when I first started getting active on LinkedIn, and that was just two years ago in 2023, and I was still in corporate at the time, the average of people posting content was only 1%. And now it's down to three. So I wanna hear your thoughts on that.

Melanie Borden (04:01.71)
Look, I feel that there is still so much opportunity, because if you think about it, right? So 3 % of over a billion people. I I talk about this a lot because I love to support others who do what I do too, specifically women. And I look at it like this, even if I wanted to work with 1 % of my network.

There's no way that I could. It's just impossible. And so I do feel that there's a lot of room at the table for everyone still, because 3 % is still such a low number. It's still so low. There's still so much opportunity for so many people who think that they, you know, it might be too late and they can't do it. But I love the fact that LinkedIn is like Instagram and Facebook 15 years ago. I say that as business Facebook and people kind of don't like that I say that, but

I think it is like business Facebook. It's better than Facebook.

Caroline Pennington (04:58.948)
1 million percent and there's not so many ads that are spammy and people are more professional. They're nicer. All the things. I mean, I think the biggest thing that holds people back and I'd love to hear your opinion on this too, but they're just scared to start because they're, they're connected to their boss. So they're connected to their coworkers or their ex coworkers or whatever, fill in the blank. And the visibility is so high. That's what holds people back.

Melanie Borden (05:21.358)
Yeah, 100 % fear is definitely that barrier to entry. They're afraid that, you know, especially if the stakes are higher, right? So maybe they're private equity backed and they're meeting with their board in a couple of weeks and they want to get approval before a post goes out or they're afraid that it's going to land them in hot water if they post something that someone didn't approve or potentially they could have corporate guidelines that legal could be upset about.

if they post it. And there are so many of these moments that hold people back. And it's unfortunate because they're really just holding themselves back from accessing possibilities, right? It could be something for them, for their career that will help them, their families, their livelihood, whatever it is. I see it all the time. I know you do too. It's just, it's the...

Being afraid, it's never going to go well. You have to just do it. You have to just take it on and just go.

Caroline Pennington (06:31.372)
my gosh, do you know how many people told me podcasting was overcrowded when I started this? And by the way, I had literally no clue what I was doing. I'd read a blog that I Googled and found online. Like you just have to start and guess what? When you start, like no one is perfect or the best or whatever. You just have to start. That's the most important part.

Melanie Borden (06:49.516)
Yeah, that's the thing about starting. Everyone is a beginner no matter what they're doing. You know, I look at it like Instagram is an example for me. You know, I'm lucky that I have this audience on LinkedIn and all these people followed me to Instagram. But it's not because I grew my network organically on Instagram. It's not. It's because people followed me. It's the same thing with TikTok. I think I posted one thing on TikTok and it's just people who knew me from LinkedIn followed me there.

And you have to be a beginner. have to make mistakes, but that's how you grow. That's how you go from, you know, being entry level to, you know, being a champion is by doing the things and making the mistakes and then learning. And then you're able to speak to it. And then it's not so scary.

Caroline Pennington (07:35.214)
So why is it more important to have influence over virality?

Melanie Borden (07:40.676)
gosh. Well, what I'll tell you, and this is actually funny, and I kind of make a joke about it in my book because the reason I grew so fast is because I was posting viral content and I was just seeing what was working and I was really just following the algorithm. but influence is really what creates revenue. Virality creates dopamine. And this is the case for every platform. It feels so great when you have people that like what you do.

You get the applause. It sucks when no one likes what you're posting. When no one sees it, it's the worst. You're like, why? What did I do wrong? What could have done better? So that's why viral content people are so inclined. Also that people have this misconception that virality equals revenue. And it's so wrong. I mean, unless you're selling phones, know, something that everybody can use, it's very hard to make money from viral content. And

It's something that I have a lot of tough conversations with clients. I have had a lot of tough conversations with clients because they see sometimes the numbers that I put up and they're like, well, I want that. And like, well, this is like six years later and I'm obsessed with it. Are you obsessed with this? Are you going to commit to being online and commit to doing and responding and networking?

because it took a lot to get to this point. But if you wanna just have viral content, we can create viral content. But when you come to me and say, I'm not seeing the ROI, but I am feeling really good when I get a thousand likes or 500 likes or all the views, then it's totally different.

Caroline Pennington (09:22.468)
preach, preach on that. And one thing too, I'll say too, and as someone I've had, I had a lot of viral content when I was posting up recruiting when I was working in corporate. You attract so many people that are not your average client or not gonna buy from you or not get some money with you. And yeah, the numbers look good and it feels great, but like you're attracting people into your ecosystem that are not necessarily aligned with what you do professionally.

Melanie Borden (09:47.118)
100%. That is so true.

Caroline Pennington (09:50.893)
Okay. And your book, you talk a lot about gist growth, impact strategy and trust. Can you break down each one and why they are important?

Melanie Borden (10:02.306)
That's a great question. This is the first time I've gotten that question actually So all of those things growth impact strategy and trust the reason why I put those in at the end of every single chapter is because For every single thing that you're doing when you have a personal brand because the book essentially is about growing your personal brand You're growing in some capacity. So how does your growth impact your personal brand and

That is something that a lot of people don't talk about is what happens. And it's not just the external growth, but there's also a lot of internal growth that is really what triggered me to write the book was to talk about what happens to you, what happens internally to you, how you're growing. It's something that not everyone takes a deep dive look into themselves to say, this is how I'm growing, not just.

from a vanity perspective, from a metrics, also how am I changing as a person, as a leader? From an impact, the same thing, who am I impacting? How will it impact others? How is it impacting myself? And then obviously having a strategy, what are some pieces to the strategy that you need to have that might be missing that you can look at it from a different lens?

And ultimately what it all comes down to is trust. How do others perceive you? Do they trust you? Is it something that they're gonna take away from seeing you and feeling you? And this really also kind of eliminates the whole conversation about people that just use AI instead of using their voice because it's hard to trust someone who only uses AI.

and they're not using anything else other than AI. And listen, I love AI, don't get me wrong. I use it every day. But I think that there is an element missing when someone is just checking a box, to just check the box, to just get it out there.

Caroline Pennington (12:09.29)
Also, you can feel it. Like when I read these LinkedIn posts or Instagram posts or whatever, whatever medium it is, and it just feels like too professional, too cookie cutter to like, it's kind of ick to me, honestly. And I use AI. I'm an AI fan too. I use it actually with this podcast. but my post and my content, I like to have some Caroline in there. Like I feel like that's going to attract and that does attract people into my.

Universal ecosystem. And so if you're using chat dbt to do all of your content, stop. Please.

Melanie Borden (12:43.83)
Yeah, it's meant to be a thought partner. I mean, that's how I look at it. I used it a lot when I was writing my book as idea partner. I looked to Chad GPT to see if things made sense to kind of get ideas when I was hitting a wall and I didn't know where I wanted to take a direction with my book. People said you should never upload your manuscript. I thought, why not?

Why wouldn't I upload my manuscript into AI because to me, not only is it going to help me, but it's also going to help somebody else if they're looking for me or if they're looking to make some changes for their own brand on chat.

Caroline Pennington (13:26.34)
All right, so content's king. The creator universe is about a $250 billion with a B industry. Now in the next two years, it's gonna double and be over 500 billion. So if you're listening to this podcast and curious about content creation or becoming a creator, do it now. Now's the time to get into it. But in your book, you specifically talk about a formula that you use that I think is brilliant. And it's 25 % educational, 25 % personal, 25 % strategic promotion.

and 25 % UGC and community driven. So I love that. Can you break down each of those for those listening to this podcast? And I'd love to hear why you chose or why that formulas work so well for you.

Melanie Borden (14:09.89)
No, this is a great question. And it's a formula that I've been using ever since I've been active on LinkedIn. I just in the beginning didn't realize that I was following this formula. And so when I started creating my own content, it ended up bubbling up as this strategy and it works. These tactics work so well. So as an example, any time that you're connecting with someone, you don't want to just pitch them.

the second that you connect with someone. We've all had that experience, right? Where you can just come on and then they tell you, okay, thanks. But what you can do is you can promote yourself. You can tell people, this is what I do. This is who I do it for. These are the results I get. And this is how you can work with me. You don't have to do it every single day, but you can let people know. If you don't tell people and ask the question to work with you,

Caroline Pennington (14:43.64)
So good, so good, yes!

Melanie Borden (15:08.258)
And how are they going to know? I tell people that are in between jobs all the time. I always tell them, why are you not posting about yourself and promoting yourself? And they're like, I don't know. It's cringe. Like it's not. This is how I've done everything I've done. You have to ask. If you don't ask, the answer is always going to be no. So that's really the promotional piece of it is asking the question and putting it out there, whatever it is. And I'll give you an example. You and I were chatting right before we started recording.

about how I put out there on LinkedIn that I'm looking to go on 30 podcasts this year to promote my book. Well, guess what? As of today, we're in February. I've already been booked onto 15 podcasts. This is one of them. And it has all been from me putting out an ask and saying, I would like to go on 30 podcasts.

This is who I am. Let's connect. I'd love to go on your podcast. So it's not even something that's cringy. It's just letting people know because you never know who could be seeing you and watching you. And then as far as user generated content, one of the best ways to promote yourself is through the lens of someone else. People buy from people they know, like, and trust and they read reviews. So if you have testimonials, if you have reviews,

If you have photos from an event that you were at with a client or with coworkers, I mean, that's all user generated content. If someone is commenting on your blog post, if someone replies to your newsletter, that is a way that people can find you and also see that you are really who you say you are. And that again, eliminates that whole AI conversation of that was just something that was created by AI. Nope, these were actual people.

who wrote this really nice testimonial, or you may have a video that someone recorded of you. As an example, for you, for your podcast, you might have podcast guests that have been on that could either write a review for you or send you a video about your podcast if you're looking to find more podcast guests as an example. And then educational content is when you're teaching about what you do in your content.

Melanie Borden (17:23.022)
I have been guilty of teaching a lot of different things in one post and not necessarily keeping it concise because I get so excited about whatever it is I'm talking about. But whenever you're teaching from a place, you're showing that you are the guide, that you are the leader, that you are the one that has this experience, and you are by default saying, I am the expert at what I do.

when you are educating others. A big commentary that I get on a regular basis is, I don't want my competitors to steal it, or I don't want this person to use it. Well, guess what? It's going to happen no matter what you do. So they're doing it anyway. So you might as well put yourself first and put yourself out there because no one else is going to promote you other than you. So you might as well showcase your gifts because that's what they're doing. And they're not thinking,

about you when they're out there promoting themselves. And then lastly is personal content. I think that there's a very fine line between personal and private. And I have this conversation also on a very frequent basis with people that, know, today as an example, I posted a photo of me and my kids and my dog. And, you know, normally whenever I do, and I don't do it that often, but every once in a while I do, because I'm showing them a human, I'm a real person.

I'm living and breathing. I'm not just AI. I do post AI photos, but today it happened to be a real one. And it just shows that this is something that is part of me and it's part of my brand is being a mom. And so a lot of people, instead of posting a photo of their family, if they don't want to post something that's personal, they can post a personal perspective about how they feel about a specific topic or something that they learned.

and what changed and the lesson or the takeaway. But stories, those personal stories are the most impactful for everyone to really be able to relate to you and to connect with you. And that mixture, doesn't matter who it is. Those pillars work for everyone. They really do. They really do. And you can break it down in so many different ways, too.

Caroline Pennington (19:41.477)
Mm.

Caroline Pennington (19:48.613)
All right, where's the fine line between the personal and the private?

Melanie Borden (19:54.275)
That's a good question. It's subjective based on who the person is. So I'll give you some examples, right? A lot of times what I see and you see and we all see are people that are putting on a performance for engagement. And it could be like, what going to my school, going to my children's concert taught me about

B2B marketing. Okay, I mean, that's like bridging the line of being performative. I mean, it is or, you know, maybe someone posts something and I've been guilty of doing this in the past to posting something very personal about going through divorce. Now, I'm not saying that that's wrong. It's just not everybody has the same idea of personal and private, personal.

content to me is so subjective based on the experiences that you've had and your comfort level with judgment also and what you feel like you want to share. know, maybe I don't want to share that my boyfriend and I got into a fight last night on LinkedIn, but you know, and what that taught me about talking to someone about the algorithm. I mean, you know, like you just

You kind of get the idea, but there's just this fine line and I really think it's subjective because it's easy to judge others based on the content that they put out and it's easy to form opinions. Now, if it's connected somehow to what you do now, maybe I'm a divorce attorney and me talking about my divorce is really helpful because there's women in my network who are over the age of 35 who are

you know, about to go through a divorce or have been through a divorce and, or maybe I'm a different type of lawyer and I'm looking to attract that demographic of women who are divorced. So it really just depends on really your end goal and why that works. But I will say that I have some moments that I look back on and I think to myself, why Melanie, why did you post that? What was the purpose?

Caroline Pennington (22:19.491)
with you a million percent. literally posted a picture. just went rogue one day and I posted a picture of my two wine reiners, my dogs, my podcast managers, and that popped off. went viral. And I'm like, this is like 10.

Melanie Borden (22:32.63)
Yeah, listen, I love the dog content though. I will tell you, I love dog content and everyone loves dogs. And there'll be people that'll say, this is LinkedIn, it's not Facebook. You you can't post this and you can't post that. you know, that's when I go back to something is private, something is personal. It's subjective. If you don't like it, keep scrolling. Thank you for the engagement. Keep scrolling.

Caroline Pennington (22:57.113)
Goodbye, LinkedIn police. And who are you anyways?

Melanie Borden (23:00.75)
Right, exactly. But there's so many different ways that you can talk about it. think that I'll even share that when I had a dog that passed away in June and I had always posted photos with her on LinkedIn because she was working remotely. She was my little assistant. She's my head of public relations. And so I a lot with her.

Caroline Pennington (23:24.869)
sleep.

Melanie Borden (23:27.212)
And I would get a lot of feedback and flack from the audience about this isn't Facebook and you can't post this here. I'm like, says who? Like, do you have a rule book in front of you that shows exactly what you can and cannot post? Can you point to the page in the directory that shows me that? Because I'd like to see it, because I never have seen it. If anything, when you post things that are personal, it just shows a different side of you. It shows that you're human and that you're real.

And we're so in this like world of AI where nothing is real and no one feels anything and algorithms dictate everything. So that's my take on personal versus private.

Caroline Pennington (24:06.949)
Yeah, I'm with you a million percent on that. So your book is called Theater of the Mind. And a lot of what you talk about in this book is about how our mindset or the fear of failure or imposter syndrome, all of those things fill in the blank. That is the biggest thing that holds people back. Why do they need to not let the not let it hold them back? And how do they do that? I mean, how do you push through those imposter syndrome days or push through those days? You're like, I don't have any content to post or whatever like

What's your best advice?

Melanie Borden (24:38.018)
That's such a great question. So a couple reasons or a couple of things that I would say that you can start immediately doing. So number one, fear is a liar. And it is your brain trying to protect you and it is trying to protect your body. Fear essentially in your body, if you're afraid of posting something, you're afraid of what can happen, the consequences, it's no different than your

thinking that you're in the middle of a jungle and there's a jaguar about to attack you. Your body has the same reaction as that would happen. So a couple things that I tell people and that I actually practice myself a lot because I had so much imposter syndrome when I was writing this book. know, reminding yourself and looking at proof. And that could be...

going through your office and looking at awards you've won. That could be going through your files. And I talk about how I have these two binders from 2002 where I save everything. And I look at everything that I've accomplished in my career since 2002. So that way I can look at it and say, my God, this is me. I did do these things. You know, I print out emails. I print out screenshots from LinkedIn.

I definitely am a hoarder of positive things that have happened for myself as a reminder. And as I was writing the book and getting super stuck, I was thinking about this. And so that's one way just to remind yourself. Another thing is we get so stuck in this hole from dopamine and from getting the applause from these platforms and getting the algorithm to notice us. And you can do as many tactics as you want. But at the end of the day,

It's, like to say it's make believe because it really, it really is. What was really important is like preserving your brain and preserving your mind. And one of the greatest ways to do that is completely to disconnect from it. And people might say, well, I don't want to disconnect. I want to post more. But one of the best ways that you can post more is to go into nature, literally completely get off your computer, get off your phone and go for a walk outside. Go. If you live in a city, find a park.

Melanie Borden (26:57.912)
Go sit on a bench. Notice the sounds around you. In the spring, I loved hearing all the lawns getting cut, and you smell the grass in the fall. You smell the leaves in the winter. You're freezing, and it's icy out. Being in nature gives you so much that can help you get creative. And then you get ideas. mean, some of the best ideas, I don't know about you, Caroline, but for me, some of the best ideas that I have are not when I'm.

doing anything online, it's when I'm running, when I'm outside going for a walk, when I'm taking my dog out. That's when I get ideas is when I disconnect from it because it gives you that creative juice, if you will.

Caroline Pennington (27:39.301)
Now I'm with you a million percent too if I need a break and I know when I need a break. And you know listening to this, like if you're, you know when you need a break or when you need to put the phone down or whatever. And even if it's just for 15, 20 minutes, it makes a huge difference. And I'm with you, I, for me, I don't know why, but on Saturday mornings, my brain is very creative and active. And so even if it's 30 minutes or an hour, I'll go into Microsoft Word, like brain dump all my.

creativity or my content ideas and then you know when Monday rolls around when I'm frantically you know come back from the gym and try and take the dogs out and let life is life being like I don't have to think about like what am I gonna post today because I'll just pull it from my Saturday tab and I'm with you on the going back and looking at awards and stuff I have a email folder like a kudos and I'll go back in there and be like okay what are nice things clients have said about me before if I'm having a bad day so I love that advice

Melanie Borden (28:36.814)
Yeah, and you know what also helps to calling someone that you used to work with that you might not necessarily work with anymore just to catch up. Just like a 10 minute conversation or 20 minutes if you haven't talked to a while just to say or calling that person that is your high person that gets you back on track to remind you of who you are. Because a lot of times we get so focused on being in the work and doing the work and we have life is happening and there's a lot of chaos in our world that

Sometimes it's good to have that person that you can call on to be like, can you just remind me for the next five minutes of how great I am? Because I forgot.

Caroline Pennington (29:16.346)
my gosh, I love that. So as we wrap up, how can our listeners find you?

Melanie Borden (29:20.878)
Oh, that's a great question too. So you can find me on Instagram. My handle is human to brand. You can find me on LinkedIn, Melanie Borden. My website is www.humantobrand.com and you can find my book on Amazon theater of the mind and wherever books are sold.

Caroline Pennington (29:40.055)
And I will tag everything in the show notes. So thank you so much for joining. I appreciate you.

Melanie Borden (29:44.366)
Thank you so much.