How I'd Grow A Personal Brand From Scratch By The End Of The Year
A YouTube coach walks through the exact 10-step sequence she'd use to build a personal brand from zero by December, from first post to an owned income stream.
Posted
2 days ago
Duration
Format
Listicle
educational
Views
6.5K
220 likes
57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A personal brand builds in a strict order: post before you know what to say, define the brand once patterns emerge, then layer on profile setup, an owned income stream, and platform-specific growth tactics.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You're starting completely from zero and don't yet know what your content niche or personal brand actually is.
You already post content but haven't set up a profile, bio, or link-in-bio system that converts viewers into followers.
You want a beginner-friendly monetization path (digital products, coaching, affiliates, brand deals) without a large existing audience yet.
You're deciding between Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok and want to know which growth strategy actually fits which platform.
SKIP IF…
You already have a defined personal brand, an owned income stream, and an optimized profile. This covers first-year fundamentals, not scaling tactics.
You want deep platform-specific SEO or algorithm mechanics. Each platform gets a single paragraph here, not a walkthrough.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
The video lays out a ten-step sequence for building a personal brand within a year, starting with creating content before you have clarity instead of waiting for a perfect plan. It moves through defining the brand around what makes a creator's perspective unique, setting up a search-friendly profile and value-driven bio, and building a link-in-bio system on an owned income asset like Stan Store. The back half covers five monetization paths (platform payouts, digital products, brand deals, affiliate marketing, and coaching), the audience-attachment levers of controversy, authenticity, and engagement, and platform-specific growth rules: niching on Instagram, search SEO on YouTube, and pairing consistency with strategy on TikTok.
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States the video's promise (10 tips to grow a personal brand before year's end) and cites Grace Beverly as an example of pivoting niches without losing an audience.
00:52 – 02:00
02 · Tip 1: Just Start
Post before you have clarity. Clarity comes from creating, not from a finished plan.
02:00 – 04:08
03 · Tip 2: Define Your Personal Brand
Defines personal brand as skills, values, experience, and personality, and points to a longer Caleb Ralston masterclass for a deeper framework.
04:08 – 06:35
04 · Tip 3: Set Up Your Social Media Profile
Profile photo, search-friendly name, and value-focused bio checklist; a student's bio rewrite alone brought new followers before she'd posted any content.
06:35 – 09:41
05 · Tip 4: Create a Link in Bio Strategy
Recommends owning an income destination within roughly the first three months, via Stan Store (sponsor segment) over percentage-based competitors.
09:41 – 12:24
06 · Tip 5: Understand the Season You're In
Reconciles conflicting creator advice (quantity vs. quality, sprints vs. rest) by tying each to the current stage of the creator's journey.
12:24 – 13:48
07 · Tip 6: Lean Into the Holidays
Plan content two to three months ahead of seasonal moments; a food-creator student grew over 50,000 followers pre-planning Halloween through Christmas content.
13:48 – 15:28
08 · Tip 7: Test Everything
Push variety across format, hooks, and CTAs instead of repeating one style; plugs her 70-plus viral hooks swipe file.
15:28 – 20:10
09 · Tip 8: Set Up an Income Stream You Own
Runs the five common creator monetization paths: platform payouts, digital products, brand deals, affiliate marketing, and coaching, using Emma Chamberlain as the ceiling example.
20:10 – 23:54
10 · Tip 9: Make Your Audience Obsessed
Three audience-attachment levers: controversy within your niche, authenticity, and direct engagement, citing Nara Smith, Emma Chamberlain, and Ryan Trahan.
23:54 – 27:48
11 · Tip 10: Play Around with Growth Strategies
Platform-specific growth rules: niche down on Instagram, lean on search SEO on YouTube, pair consistency with strategy on TikTok, backed by a 109-day, 128-video posting experiment.
27:48 – 28:03
12 · Outro
Closing subscribe and comment-request call to action.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Posting before you have a defined personal brand is the fastest way to find your niche, because you often learn you hate creating content you enjoy consuming.
A personal brand is the combination of skills, values, experiences, and personality that shapes how someone precedes you before people meet you.
A bio built around the value the audience gets from following outperforms a bio built around personal facts like 'mom of three' or 'loves dogs.'
Getting a viral video with zero profile setup produces zero new followers, because the conversion happens on the profile, not the post.
Within roughly the first three months of a creator journey, aim to have one owned destination, like an email list or a paid offer, that isn't rented from a social platform.
Link-in-bio tools that take a percentage of every sale get more expensive than a flat monthly fee the more you actually sell.
Quantity-over-quality and quality-over-quantity are both correct advice, just for different seasons: quantity first to learn reps, quality later once you know what quality means for your audience.
Planning content two to three months ahead of a holiday season, instead of reacting to it, is what lets a creator ride the seasonal traffic spike rather than miss it.
There are five common monetization paths for personal brands: platform payouts, digital products, brand collaborations, affiliate marketing, and coaching or memberships.
Affiliate marketing has the lowest barrier to entry of the five monetization paths but is also the hardest to scale to a meaningful monthly number.
Sharing a strongly held, niche-relevant opinion is one of the fastest ways to build a fanbase, because it filters people into 'agrees with me' and 'doesn't,' and the first group becomes superfans.
Instagram's algorithm rewards niching down, while TikTok can grow a lifestyle creator with no niche at all, showing the same growth advice doesn't transfer across platforms.
Posting daily with no strategy for over 100 days produced only about one new follower per day, proving consistency alone isn't a growth plan without intention behind it.
For a new YouTube channel, ranking in search is a faster path to traction than chasing the homepage or suggested feed, because search doesn't require existing subscribers.
Takeaway
A sequence, not a checklist.
THE BUILD ORDER
Personal branding follows a strict build order, starting with creating before clarity and ending with platform-specific growth tactics, so treating every tip as day-one work just causes paralysis.
02Tip 1: Just Start
Post before you have a defined niche or personal brand. Clarity comes from creating, not from planning it out first.
Content you enjoy consuming isn't automatically content you'll enjoy making. You only find that out by trying it.
03Tip 2: Define Your Personal Brand
A personal brand is the combination of your skills, values, experiences, and personality, not just a color palette or a set of content pillars.
The thing that feels most mundane to you is often the thing that reads as most unique to someone else, so don't discount it.
04Tip 3: Set Up Your Social Media Profile
A viral post with an unoptimized profile converts almost no one into a follower. Fix the profile before you chase traffic.
Write your bio around the value the reader gets from following you, not around personal facts about your life.
Make your display name search-friendly, a role or niche term rather than just your first name, so people searching that term can find you.
05Tip 4: Create a Link in Bio Strategy
Aim to have one owned destination, like an email list or your own offer, within roughly the first three months of creating content.
A link-in-bio tool that takes a cut of every sale gets more expensive than a flat monthly fee the more you actually sell.
06Tip 5: Understand the Season You're In
Quantity-over-quality and quality-over-quantity are both right, just at different stages: quantity first to learn the craft, quality once you know your audience.
Match your posting cadence to your current season: sprint daily when you're testing, pull back to a few posts a week when you need rest.
07Tip 6: Lean Into the Holidays
Plan and film holiday-relevant content two to three months ahead so it's already posting when the season hits, instead of reacting to it.
08Tip 7: Test Everything
Rotate format, talking head, B-roll, green screen, reaction, instead of repeating one style for months. Repetition without variety is a common growth plateau.
09Tip 8: Set Up an Income Stream You Own
There are five common creator income paths: platform payouts, digital products or courses, brand deals, affiliate marketing, and coaching or memberships.
Digital products are the lowest barrier to entry because they don't require hitting a follower or monetization threshold first.
Affiliate income is easy to start but historically the hardest of the five to scale to a meaningful monthly number.
10Tip 9: Make Your Audience Obsessed
A strongly held, niche-relevant opinion filters an audience fast. The people who agree become your most loyal fans, precisely because some people disagree.
Audiences respond to a creator who drops the polished 'camera persona' and shows up the way they'd act off camera.
Personally replying to comments and DMs, even with something as small as a voice note, converts a casual viewer into an attached fan.
11Tip 10: Play Around with Growth Strategies
Instagram rewards niching down. A lifestyle generalist account is fighting the platform's own algorithm design.
TikTok doesn't require a niche to grow, but posting consistently with zero strategy topped out around one new follower per day across a 109-day test.
For a new YouTube channel, ranking in search is a faster path to traction than chasing the homepage or suggested feed, since search doesn't need existing subscribers.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Stan Store
A link-in-bio and storefront tool that lets creators sell digital products, courses, and bookings for a flat monthly fee instead of a percentage of sales.
TikTok Shop
TikTok's built-in e-commerce and affiliate system that lets creators earn a commission by tagging products directly inside their videos.
self-deprecating stat reveal, sets up the strategy pivot that follows→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
21:35
“It's going to bring people who agree with you into your creator hemisphere.”
distinctive coined phrase, quotable on its own→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
17:37
“Stan has so many of their creators making over six figures just from selling digital products.”
concrete income claim, sponsor-relevant→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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It has never been a better time to grow your personal brand online and in this video I want to give you 10 tips so that you could do just that before the end of the year. Right now so many creators are aspiring to have personal brands like Grace Beverly who can pivot from active wear and home workouts to productivity planners, healthy lunch boxes, and social media marketing all without losing her audience.
So if you're somebody who has ever been scared to niche down because you don't want to feel like you're trapped in a box, this video is for you. As always time stamps are low.
Use them if you need them. Let's jump in. Also, in case you can't tell, new setup because my office is completely a wreck under construction.
I'll show you behind the scenes right now. The people who are building our custom bookshelf, they took a break. And so I was like, quick, let me jump in and try to film some videos.
So for this video and the next video, we're going to have this simple setup and hopefully it does the job. Tip number one, if you Creating.
Just start creating and posting anything and everything that you want or have been wanting to create. This is what helps you get clarity. You don't have to have it all figured out and you don't need to have a perfect plan or strategy right away.
This is specifically for somebody who's like, maybe you've never created content before. Just start creating. Or maybe you don't have a clear idea of what your personal brand is yet or what you want to be known for.
It's okay to not have clarity yet. Just start creating. creating and then the clarity will come.
Because what you'll find is sometimes there's content that you enjoy to consume as a user, but you actually hate making that style of content. That's what I found. Like I enjoy looking at fashion content and like watching mom hack videos or watching workout routines.
But when it came to creating and posting under those topics and around those things, it was either I really don't like doing this or it just didn't feel natural. But I wouldn't have learned that had I. not just created what I wanted to create anyway.
Tip number two is eventually to define your personal brand. Now a personal brand is a unique combination of your skills, values, experiences, and personality that shapes how the world or social media precedes you.
The topic of like defining your personal brand and getting clarity on your personal brand, that is a whole thing that you could dive into. And if you really want to dive into this topic, I definitely recommend there's like two and a half hour masterclass that Caleb Ralston here on YouTube created. So if you want like a deep dive on, okay, how do I define my personal brand?
I would go and watch that video. But if you want just like a quick little snapshot of Jen. how to define your personal brand.
I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Defining your personal brand is more than just picking colors, fonts, topics, and content pillars to post about.
It's also about figuring out what makes you, your life, or your perspective on things unique. When you have that figured out, then you can really lean into that or showcase that within your content. Harvard Business School said standout brands have one thing in common.
They clearly communicate what makes them different. And ideally, that is what your personal brand will do over time. To help you brainstorm where you can begin, basically...
just like grab a pen and paper and brainstorm answers to these questions. Answers to all these questions can help shape your future content. I know that's very vague as of right now.
I'm trying to keep this short and sweet. There's really no easy way for me to be like, here's exactly how you can find what makes you unique because like oftentimes that comes over time. with creating content and discovering your uniqueness as a creator.
And also, oftentimes, the thing that feels the most mundane to you is the thing that is unique to other people's perspectives. So I know it's like kind of woo woo to be like, unique.
And there's not like a quick tip for me to be like, this is how you find what's unique to you. But as you start creating and defining what you want to post about and talk about, you'll start to kind of get glimpses into your uniqueness the more you go. Tip number three is to set up your social media profile for success.
Everyone loves to skip this and jump straight into like growth hacks for creators. But if you've ever gotten a viral video and then got zero followers from it, then you've already experienced just how important it is to have your profile set up before you drive a bunch of traffic to it.
If you need even more convincing on how powerful just simply updating your bio can be, this is a screenshot from one of my students who literally hadn't started creating content yet. She just updated her bio the way that I teach and... automatically started getting new followers that's the importance of setting up your profile correctly here's a simple checklist that you can follow when setting up your profile or your bio have your profile photo represent your niche your industry or what you want to be known for if you're a travel creator Make sure it's a picture of you traveling.
If you're a foodie, have it be a picture of you with food. Make sure your name on both Instagram and TikTok, the bold section of your bio is search friendly. So not only is it like Millie, but it would say social media coach, because if people search for that on social media, they're like, let me look for a social media coach.
I will pop up because I used. search engine to my advantage. Make sure your bio is actually more about your audience and the value you provide to them as opposed to making it about you.
So instead of saying mom of three, loves long walks on the beach, two dogs, family blog, I don't know, pulling this out of my butt. Instead, the bio is going to be about Why someone should follow you?
What is the reason they should press that follow button? What's the value that they will get when they follow you? So it could be something like realistic homesteading for a family of five.
cooking, cleaning, and organizing your home under 30 minutes a day. That is a lot more captivating of a reason to follow someone instead of just talking about yourself. After you summarize what value you provide to people, then you also want to do a call to action at the end of your bio, directing people towards one of your offers or the link in your bio.
Now, if you've learned something new so far, be sure to give this video a thumbs up since it tells YouTube that other creators like yourself might find this video useful or valuable. And if you learn two new things by the end of the video, I'd love if you'd consider subscribing. to my channel since it's a completely free way to support me and it allows me and my team to continue to make free content like this for you every single week.
All right call to actions leads me to tip number four and that is creating a link in bio strategy. Now I want to say all these tips that I am sharing with you in this video I don't want you to feel like I have to do all of these right now oh my gosh I'm so far behind because All of these tips will happen at different stages in your creator journey.
So I don't want anyone to ever feel that pressure of like, oh, I have to do all of these things. I need to make money and I need a lot. Like I don't want anyone to ever feel that way.
But I would say ideally within the first like three months of your creator journey, you do have somewhere to direct your audience to. And it's someplace that you own. It's an offer you own.
It's like your email list. We've seen so many times. social media apps and talks of them being banned, right?
Or if your social media were to get hacked and you lost everything within a day. having another space that you've been growing that you own is your superpower. Now, whether it's by offering a free resource to build your email list or selling a digital product or selling your own online courses or starting a membership, whatever it is that you want to do with growing your email list or monetizing, the number one tool that I recommend literally to all of my students, no matter what stage they're at, is StanStore.
StanStore is literally the only and main tool that you need as a... content creator to help you monetize and basically go full -time as a creator. StanStore, for those of you who don't know, is a link in bio tool that allows you to make money.
You could sell your own digital products, courses, memberships, coaching, and more. They also have email funnels so you could start growing your email list and then nurture your audience as you grow your email list. Why I'm always the biggest advocate for Stan is because there's a lot of link in bio tools out there that, yeah, they help you.
monetized. You could sell your digital products, but they always take a percentage of your sales. So let's say there's a Lincoln bio company called Bink and Lio.
I don't think there is. So that's why I'm using them as an example. I have an account at Bink and Lio and I pay, I don't know, $15 a month to have an account.
I could sell my digital products. And if I sell my $29 digital product and I sell a hundred of those, I don't even get. all of that.
They're taking money from my sales. Whereas Stan, you pay one set price and they never take a portion of your sales. You get a hundred percent of your sales of your earnings and like, yeah, you're hard earned money as a creator for whatever it is that you're selling on their platform.
There's a million reasons why I love Stan, but that is always like the number one reason they push them so much is because it's one set price and you can make as much money as you want by using them. I've been working with Stan for the past few years now, I think since 2022.
I genuinely love them. It's a tool that I will always stand by. And if you want to have a full walkthrough tutorial for how to set up your own stand store, I do have a full tutorial on my channel that I'll link above.
So you can watch that video next. And I want to say thank you to stand for sponsoring this video. Tip number five is understand the season that you're in.
If you are an aspiring creator, you are probably consuming all the creator tips out there. You're watching YouTube videos like you are right here.
Hi, hello. You're listening to podcasts. You're looking at tips on TikTok or Reels.
You're trying to consume and learn as much as possible, which is good. We love learning. But what you'll start to notice is that there's sometimes like mix of opinions or conflicting advice with so many opinions and educator creators out there.
And it can be confusing. For example, you'll see in one video, somebody will say. quantity over quality like just post post and put as much content as you can out there and then in another conversation you'll hear somebody say quality is better than quantity because if you have a bunch of just bad posts they're never going to perform you want to take your time and be intentional and really make quality posts so i feel like we're constantly getting like this crossfire of feedback and there is no like right or wrong feedback there.
I think it's like right tip at the right time. There will be a time where quantity is better than quality. Like if you are just starting, trying to think quality first is going to be overwhelming.
You're going to be like, oh shoot, I don't know how to make quality content. I don't have a good camera. I don't have audio.
Like forget about quality. Just post and learn how to be a creator. Over time, as you get your reps in, you get 10 posts up, 50 posts up, 100 posts up.
Over time, you'll start to learn. what quality means to you and what quality means to your audience.
And you could start to pivot to, okay, I'm going to start doing quality over quantity now. This goes for so many tips in the industry. There's going to be a time where it's time for you to just throw spaghetti at the wall and try a bunch of things and not have a strategy or care in the world, just like literally throw spaghetti at the wall.
And then there's also going to be a separate time where you want to take a step back and be more intentional with your posts and pause to think a little bit. about strategy before just like putting a post out there. There's going to be a time to do a 30 day sprint or a hundred day posting sprint where you post once or twice a day for every single day.
And there's also going to be a time where you're going to want to be in a season of rest and post maybe twice a week or three times a week. Knowing what season you are in as a creator is extremely helpful and giving yourself grace to be like, okay. This is the season I'm in and I understand being a creator means my seasons will change and I'm willing to be flexible as these seasons ebb and flow with me and my lifestyle.
Tip number six is to lean into holidays and seasons. This one is specifically for this video where it's like, if you want to grow your personal brand by the end of the year, because we are. in the perfect time like if you're watching this video when this video goes up it is the perfect time to start planning ahead with the seasons and the holidays because when you're posting ahead and thinking ahead you're able to ride those waves and get a lot of rapid followers during the holiday season of course this is only relevant if you can make certain holidays fit within your niche or your industry for example i had a student who is a food content creator and in august september we started planning and filming out content for her to post in October so that before October hit.
she was already posting about Halloween content. And then mid -October, she started kind of sprinkling in Thanksgiving content. And then early November, she started sprinkling in Christmas content.
Like being able to think two months in advance so you could start filming and editing and prepping so that you could post early is a huge superpower. And when she did that, oh, I don't remember the number. I think she ended up growing over 50 ,000 followers.
I'll put her stats up here, but it was insane. what just simply posting ahead of the curve for three months. can do to your growth.
Tip number seven is to test everything, please. This is like everything, everything. Test your hooks, test the type of content you're creating, whether it's vlogs, talking to the camera, B -roll with audio, green screen, reaction content, test your call to actions, test different topics or video ideas, like just test it all because too many times I see students and creators just lean into one.
style of content and it's usually always like the b -roll videos where it's like a seven second clip with motivational text and like they just do that for like months and they're like i'm not growing and it's because you're not adding variety to your content test everything and be willing to push yourself out of your comfort zone, talk on camera, try to film yourself in public, you know, like try all the things and test everything because the more you do that and push yourself out of your comfort zone, the more you're going to grow as a creator, the quicker it is you're going to see the results and the growth that you want to see because you're challenging yourself instead of trying to like force yourself into a box.
If coming up with content ideas or you're stuck on like the whole hooks, how to come up with a good hook, I put together a document that has over seven 70 viral hooks that you can steal for your videos. I literally did research.
I've spent hours just like trying to find viral hooks and then putting some of the proof within the workbook as well so that you could see the hooks in action. So these are the exact hooks that I've been using in my content the past few months. And so if utilizing viral hooks in your short form is something that you're interested in doing, I'll leave a link to that down in the description.
Tip number eight is to set up an income stream that you own. I know we talked a little bit about email lists and just like setting up a stand store.
This is specifically like income. If you want to be a full -time content creator.
You want to grow a personal brand. Making money is going to be a part of that. And this is one of those tips where I'm like, all these tips are going to happen at different phases.
You don't have to jump right in with, okay, I need to set up an income stream, especially if you don't have clarity on like defining your personal brand yet. But eventually this one is going to have to come up. And when it does, I want you to be able to have income stream ideas that you can pull from.
Now, there are so many ways that you can make money as a content creator or with a personal brand. I have plenty of videos here on my YouTube channel that teach. how to make money with your creator business.
So I just want to talk about like the main five that creators use for personal brands right now. So the first one is platform monetization. This one is not an income stream that like you own, but it's a great.
starting point to get your foot in the door for making some money online. This is the most common on YouTube with like YouTube AdSense creators getting paid for their views on YouTube videos. And then we also see this on TikTok.
Creators can also get paid for their views on TikTok videos. I feel like TikTok has probably the most diverse platform monetization options because they also have a TikTok shop where it's also affiliates, but it's platform monetization affiliates specifically. So I think TikTok has good monetization options.
for short form creators. The next income stream is selling digital products, courses, or memberships. Honestly, this is my personal favorite way to get started with making money online because it's just like the lowest barrier to entry.
You don't need to wait until you hit certain monetization requirements. You don't need to wait until you hit a certain number of followers. If you have clarity on your personal brand, your target audience, and how you can serve your target audience, you know a problem that you could solve for them, you can set up your own digital products or course.
and start making money from the jump. Again, you could do this through Stan's store. Stan has so many of their creators making over six figures just from selling digital products through Stan.
A third and very common one is brand collaborations. I love me some brand collaborations. I'm not like getting brand collabs, but I love talking about brand collabs because I feel like it's the most intimidating and seems like the hardest way for personal brands or creators to start making money because like just getting started with collabs, I feel like that's the hardest thing to break into.
But then like once you start, the snowball just rolls. Again, I have plenty of resources for free here on my channel that teach you how to get started with brand collapse. Next is affiliate marketing.
I touched on this a little bit with like TikTok shop because TikTok shop is a platform monetization affiliate opportunity. But if you don't have access to TikTok shop or affiliate. options like that, you can start making your own affiliate income.
You just apply to different affiliate partnerships like Amazon Affiliates, where if you are, let's say, a fashion creator and you're always showing your outfits, your purses, your clothes, you could set up your own kind of link and bio or LTK is a common one where you link all of your clothes and anyone who shops through those clothes, you earn a percentage of all of those sales.
Again, this one I feel like is very low barrier to entry, super easy to get started. And probably the hardest one to build to like a big number per month, like six figures a month. I feel like for me, affiliates have been the hardest one to build, but.
Depending on your niche, it could be really powerful for you. And then the fifth one is one of the first ones that I used when I was growing as a content creator, and that is coaching or memberships. I see a lot of like YouTubers or podcasters having memberships similar to Patreon, where members can pay monthly to get access to a membership and get exclusive content or conversations with their favorite YouTuber or creator.
Again, you could do this through Stan's store and you earn 100 % of the earnings, whereas Patreon takes a percentage. He could also offer coaching. and do like group coaching or one -on -one coaching.
Again, this might be a little bit different if your personal brand isn't educational, but it is something that I did when I started. So I thought it was worth mentioning. There are so many other ways that you can monetize as you grow.
It'll just vary depending on your personal brand. I mean, you could take a look at Emma Chamberlain, for example. She's one of the personal branding OGs.
And since launching and starting her career as a creator, she's opened Chamberlain Coffee, has launched... coffee shops, has their own coffee brand. So obviously there's other avenues as you grow.
But again, clarity on which options to take will always come through taking action. So just keep posting and keep getting clarity on who you are as a creator and all those monetization opportunities will follow. Tip number nine is to build an audience that is obsessed with you on or off social media.
I feel like this is another one of those like woo woo tips where it's hard to break down practical tips or things that I could say where I'm like, do this and it's going to make people obsessed with you. So it does feel kind of more like a vague woo -woo advice.
There are, of course, some things you can do. So I'll like share some tips. But again, action brings clarity and the more you are creating, the more you'll figure out what quirks and uniqueness you have that draw people to you.
One thing you could do to capture attention is just like be controversial and that doesn't have to be a bad thing if you don't want it to be. It's one of the fastest ways to grow an audience or grow visibility and the reason this works so well is because if you share a very harsh or strong opinion, you will quickly find people who are on your side and vice versa, you'll quickly find people who are not on your side and completely disagree with you.
Like if I say i think toilet paper should always come like over when it's on the wall as opposed to under and anyone who goes under is not okay that could be a very strong opinion you know that could be controversial but again you want to be controversial within your niche within your industry share your thoughts your opinions and it's going to bring people who agree with you into your creator hemisphere those are likely the people who will become super fans And the more vulnerable you are with your controversial thoughts and opinions, and the more people agree with those, the more obsessed I think people could.
be with you. I think a good example of this is Nara Smith. She posts somewhat controversial content but her fans will defend her to the end of times and defend her against any sort of negative comments or hate that she gets on her content and if you go this route just make sure you're being like true to yourself and you're not just saying controversial things to say controversial things or saying things you don't actually believe in.
Only use it when it makes sense for your industry again but it is a great way to lure people. in who think similarly to you. Another thing you could do is be authentic.
in real I think people right now are just craving authenticity online and again Emma Chamberlain is a great example of that she just showed up so unapologetically herself and it was a breath of fresh air to a lot of her audience where I feel like a lot of creators at that time in her realm always showed up like perfect polished aesthetic makeup gurus and she was just like herself messy hair she really did a great job being herself on camera too.
I think a lot of people have like a camera persona that they will accidentally pick up as soon as they press record but as soon as you press record you could see her genuine personality like it felt like you were facetiming with a friend. Another way to help your audience like be obsessed with you is like engaging. with your audience, replying to their comments.
A creator who does this really well is Ryan Trahan. In his video comments, he'll reply with like voice notes to people who are commenting on his videos. He replies to DMs.
It's just like this level of personal engagement that's so powerful and when you get a response like that as a subscriber or a follower you immediately feel way more connected to that person and definitely become way more of a fan. Tip 10 is to play around with all the growth strategies.
This is kind of like test everything, but I want to talk specifically about growth strategies. Because again, the goal of this video is to help you grow a personal brand by the end of the year. And the best way to grow is by using growth strategies.
And each platform has their different nuances and preferences for helping somebody grow. For example, on Instagram, niche down. That's going to be your best growth strategy.
Period. If you want to be a lifestyle creator, Instagram is not for you. Instagram was not meant to help lifestyle creators thrive.
That's literally how their algorithm was created, was to help niche creators thrive. So if you have a niche, Instagram is going to be your best bet. For YouTube, lean into search engine and really try to study SEO specifically for YouTube because SEO for YouTube is actually not that complicated or hard.
It's really simple. And if you could figure out how to show up in search results. That, as a new creator, is going to help you get the most traction.
And over time, as you're getting discovered in search, you can expand and try to rank on the homepage and suggested. But start with search. That's going to help you grow.
TikTok. Cool thing with TikTok is you don't have to niche down. You don't.
You could be a lifestyle creator and you could still thrive on TikTok. But that doesn't mean you could just casually post willy nilly with no strategy for forever and expect to grow. I mean, maybe that's what some creators did.
They just never, never tried and accidentally went viral. But I put this to the test where I posted every single day for, was it 109 days? I posted 128 videos over 109 days to see if posting with no strategy, but still being consistent would help you grow.
And I only grew one follower a day. So consistency is only this much of the equation. If you pair consistency with strategy on TikTok, that is where now we are growing 10 to 30 ,000 followers every 30 days.
Because yes, there's consistency of posting three times a week. But we're pairing it with strategy and being intentional and researching our competitors and the topics we post about to try to make the most enticing videos. So when I say test different growth strategies, you can test talking about different content pillars, right?
One way is to rotate through your content pillars and talk about all the different topics, right? Another way to try to grow is utilizing SEO. And that works across all three platforms.
So try SEO strategies. Another growth strategy is... doing competitor research and seeing the competitors in your industry and trying to recreate videos that are performing well for them in your own uniqueness.
You could try the repeatable series strategy where you like create a signature series and you hope that like over time doing the signature series, that's what people discover you by and that's what you become known for. Series are really strong. They keep people coming back.
They help people binge your content, which increases your views. And since they want to come back for more, you get more followers. course there's hook strategy I love love love me some hook strategy when it comes to short form I have done full deep dives talking about hook strategies and hook layering because it is what's working on social media right now specifically in short form and if you want to dive further again into hook layering and what that means I have this video here that you can watch over on my channel and overall I know these are just general tips, but if you want like a deep dive, a three hour masterclass that teaches you how to go from zero to full time content creator, I made a video for you here on YouTube.
It's completely free. It's my zero to full time content creator masterclass that took me, I think it was seven hours of filming and more like 40 hours of. scripting and planning.
My team and I put so much energy into this masterclass so that you can literally pursue your dreams of being a creator and grow a personal brand as soon as you want to. So be sure to watch that video next if that's something that you are ready to do. Now, if you'd be interested in seeing a separate YouTube video talking about how to create a signature series with short form or any of the other topics that we talked about in this video, just let me know down in the comments so that we can make that in a few.
upcoming video. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Follow your joy.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Millie opens with a promise: ten concrete steps to grow a personal brand before the year ends, framed around creators like Grace Beverly who've proven you can pivot niches without losing an audience.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
16:08list
The 5 Creator Monetization Paths
Platform monetization
Digital products, courses, or memberships
Brand collaborations
Affiliate marketing
Coaching or memberships
A ranked-by-difficulty menu of the ways personal brands make money, from lowest control (platform ad revenue) to relationship-driven (coaching), with digital products flagged as the lowest barrier to entry.
Steal forany creator offer ladder or monetization roadmap
10:00concept
Season of the Creator
Frames conflicting creator advice (quantity vs. quality, sprint vs. rest, throw-spaghetti vs. intentional strategy) as correct at different stages, not universally true, so the right move depends on which season you're in.
Steal forresolving contradictory advice inside any how-to content series
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
07:38product
“the number one tool that I recommend literally to all of my students, no matter what stage they're at, is StanStore”
Native sponsor read folded into Tip 4 (link-in-bio strategy) rather than a separate ad break. Builds credibility first by naming a hypothetical percentage-based competitor before naming Stan by name.
Add Modern Creator as a preferred source and Google shows you more of our breakdowns in Search, Top Stories, and AI Overviews. It only changes what you see, and you can undo it in your Google settings anytime.
Add to Preferred SourcesOpens your Google source preferences with us pre-loaded. Tick the box and you're done.
A creator walks through every tab of Instagram's free Edits app, cuts a real reel from raw footage on camera, then weighs CapCut's rights-grab terms of service against just how good the free alternative already is.
A creator ran 75 Instagram Trial Reels over 15 days to pressure-test the platform's most-hyped growth hack — and found 90% of the payoff came from just two videos.
A rebuild of a two-year-old ChatGPT workflow, now wired through Claude's native Canva integration — most of the runtime is the unglamorous setup work that has to exist before one-prompt batching works at all.
A single-host, desk-shot tutorial walking total beginners through the mindset, gear, shots, storytelling, and editing habits behind vlog-style YouTube content.
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