I remember a time when Instagram was just people being people. Back then, you posted a picture because you liked it. You posted your lunch. You posted something funny because you thought it was funny.

You didn’t need to pretend you were super successful to sell someone a course. You didn’t need a content strategy for your personality. People were just people.

Then we realized Instagram could make money. And that’s when everything changed.

Before Everyone Became an Annoying Creator

When Instagram first started, it felt like a place to share your life. Not your business, not your funnel, not your personal brand; YOUR LIFE.

There were businesses on social media, of course. But the platform wasn’t built around the idea that everyone needed to become a creator, build an audience and turn their personality into an income stream.

You could post something without asking yourself: “What’s the goal of this post?”

You could just post anything. And then business people figured out that there was money to be made and boom, the social media strategists were born.

Then there was the money-grab era

Instagram introduced advertising in 2013, and over the next few years, the platform became much more useful for businesses.

Suddenly, social media wasn’t just somewhere you could find your friends. It was somewhere you could find customers. When people got wind of this, they started selling courses, coaching, services, ebooks and all sorts of masterclasses.

These sellers became very popular and they started flashing their wealth in our faces. That was “proof” that their courses were worth buying.

So, the strategists made “looking rich” a strategy. To make sales at that time, you had to look rich or pretend to be.

And, of course, we started telling everyone how successful we were. All of a sudden,

• Everyone had figured it out.
• Everyone was making money.
• Everyone had the secret.
• Everyone had a formula.

And after a while, we realized a lot of people were pretending to be rich to sell us and people got tired of being sold to.

So we changed the strategy.

The Algorithm became our god

And eventually, people stopped asking: “What do I want to share?” and started asking: “What will get people to stop scrolling?”

This is where I think we started losing something. We lost the soul of it all.

Because when your business depends on attention, you start thinking about everything in terms of attention. You learn what gets clicks. You learn what gets comments. You learn what gets shared. You learn what makes people curious.

By this point, you couldn’t just post anything, everything had to be strategic. However, people were tired of being sold to, so we shifted to wanting people to be individuals again. We needed personality, a story behind the logo.

And eventually, you learned that being a little more personal got better engagement, so people became a little bit more vulnerable.

Cringe became the new authentic

At some point, being good at what you do wasn’t enough. You were also supposed to be interesting. You were supposed to have a story. You were supposed to have a personality. You were supposed to build a personal brand.

And honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

I am a marketer. I understand why people want to know the person behind the business. At the end of the day, people buy from people and your personality can absolutely make your business more memorable.

But then we took it too far. We started turning our entire lives into marketing material. Gosh, I remember doing this. (Cringe)

• Your morning routine became content.
• Your relationship became content.
• Your childhood and children became content.
• Your failures became content.
• Your struggles became content.

Everything became content.

And then came the next season.

The Rise of Fake Authenticity

People were tired of seeing perfect lives, so the advice changed. Now it was; “Don’t just show the wins, show the failures too.” “Be vulnerable.” “Tell people about your struggles.” “Show the real you.”

And I actually understand why this worked; it felt human.

If everyone was showing their six-figure business, someone talking about losing a client felt different.

Someone admitting they were struggling felt different. Someone saying, “I don’t have it all figured out either,” felt different.

So those posts got attention and we, the marketers noticed. And once marketers notice something works, we turn it into a strategy (guilty),

And then, people started selling authenticity courses and teaching you how to connect and build a community. These strategists taught you how to tell vulnerable stories, how to turn your failures into content and how to make people feel connected to you.

This is where I think we really messed things up.

Because there is a difference between being vulnerable and creating vulnerable content because you know vulnerability gets engagement.

There is a difference between telling a story because you genuinely want to tell it and telling the story because you know it will make people trust you enough to buy.

And now I think a lot of solopreneurs are stuck in the middle of this. They don’t know how to market themselves without performing.

They feel like every post needs a purpose, every story needs a lesson, every opinion needs a hook, every failure needs to become a teaching moment and every personal experience needs to somehow lead back to the business.

And honestly? That sounds exhausting.

So How Do We Stop Being So Embarrassing?

I don’t think the answer is to stop using personal branding. I don’t think you need to become a faceless business either. And I definitely don’t think you need to stop selling.

You have a business, you’re supposed to market it. But I think we need to stop confusing personality with performance.

You don’t need to manufacture a personality for your business, you need to let your actual personality show up in your marketing. The more you copy other creators, the less you develop your voice.

Your personality is in the way you explain things. The things you notice. The things you disagree with. The stories you tell. The examples you use. The standards you have. Your sense of humour. The way you see your industry. The way you solve problems.

That’s personal branding.

You don’t have to tell me about your worst day to prove you’re authentic. You don’t have to tell me about your childhood. You don’t have to tell me about your relationship. You don’t have to share something deeply personal just because someone told you that vulnerability builds trust.

You can simply have a point of view.

You can say: “I don’t think you need to post every day.” “I think your website is confusing.” “I think you’re trying to sell too many things.” “I think you are spending too much time creating content and not enough time talking to potential customers.” “I think you don’t need another rebrand.”

That’s personality too.

And honestly, I would rather hear what you actually think than another perfectly structured “5 lessons I learned from failing” post.

Your Content Does Need a Job. But You Don’t Need to Perform One.

Here’s where I want to be careful.

I am not saying your content shouldn’t have a goal. It should. I mean, you are running a business after all. Here’s how I’d break it down without complicating things;

• Some content should help people discover you.
• Some should show them that you know what you’re talking about.
• Some should help them understand your offer.
• Some should build trust.
• Some should get them to take the next step.

That’s marketing.

But your content having a job doesn’t mean you have to turn yourself into a character. 

• You don’t need to become the funny entrepreneur.
• Or the brutally honest entrepreneur.
• Or the vulnerable entrepreneur.
• Or the six-figure entrepreneur.
• Or the “I wake up at 4am and built my business from nothing” entrepreneur.

You can just be you.

And if you’re a solopreneur, I think that’s actually one of your biggest advantages. You already have something that a big company spends millions trying to create; a human being behind the business.

Use that.

Don’t manufacture another one.

We Don’t Need More “Authentic” Content

I think we’ve reached a funny point where everyone is trying to be authentic in exactly the same way. The strategists tell you to:

• Share your failures.
• Share your behind-the-scenes.
• Share your struggles.
• Share your lessons.
• Be vulnerable.
• Be relatable.
• Tell your story.

And somehow, everyone ends up sounding the same. That’s not authenticity, that’s a content formula.

So if you’re a solopreneur struggling with personal branding, maybe the answer isn’t to find a better way to perform online, maybe you need to stop performing altogether.

Go outside. Talk to people. Do your work. Have opinions. Read things. Try things. Make mistakes. Pay attention to what your customers are actually struggling with.

Then come back and talk about what you saw.

You might find that you have plenty to say without turning your entire life into content. Because you don’t need a more interesting life to build a personal brand. You need something to say.

And maybe we didn’t actually kill personality, maybe we just buried it under strategy.

It’s time to let it breathe again.