10,000 Followers on LinkedIn in One Year with Ciara O’Neil of Brandfulness
How do you stand out in a sea of sameness on LinkedIn? And how do you build a personal brand that feels authentic and drives real results? In this episode, Emily sits down with Ciara O’Neil, founder of Brandfulness and rising voice in the personal branding space, to break down exactly how she grew to 10,000 followers in under a year and what it takes to turn visibility into opportunity. From her background in law and psychology to building a thriving strategy business, Ciara shares the playbook for founders, solopreneurs, and creatives who want to be known, remembered, and respected for what they do.
Highlights
Why LinkedIn isn’t oversaturated - it’s your untapped growth channel
The #1 misconception about personal branding (hint: it’s not just posting)
How psychology and perception shape influence and trust
A client story: how an accountant went from invisible to in-demand
Why sharing your whole life online isn’t required to build connection
The difference between authentic and intentionally authentic branding
Comment sections, cold DMs, and the tactics that hurt your brand
What happens when you rebrand yourself as an authority voice
The power (and limits) of niching down for personal branding
Why your personal brand should transcend social media platforms
Why this conversation matters
If you’re trying to stand out on LinkedIn, land clients, or position yourself as an industry authority, this episode is packed with insights you can use today. Ciara cuts through the noise of “be authentic” fluff and shows exactly how to align your brand, communicate clearly, and grow with intention.
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Transcript:
Emily Jean (00:49)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me. It is a really special project to me. It's very close to my heart.
I just wanted to come on here and say thank you so much. I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at FoundersinJeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (02:27)
Okay, Ciara of Brandfulness welcome to Founders in Jeans. How are you doing today?
Ciara (02:28)
you
I'm really good, thank you, and thank you so much for having me.
Emily Jean (02:40)
Good, yeah, of course. I'm so excited to have you on. I would love for you to introduce yourself in your own words. I just wanna say first that I met you on LinkedIn, so you're my first official LinkedIn guest, and I'm so excited. And you're like a LinkedIn pro. So anyways, I'll let you introduce yourself. I just had to say that.
Ciara (02:59)
Well, thank you so much for the introduction, but I'm Ciara and I'm based in the UK and I'm a personal brand strategist and coach and founder of Brandfulness. So I've been in the industry for around a year now and have absolutely fallen in love with the personal branding space. And more recently I started working on LinkedIn. So I've been there about eight to nine months now and have since then.
I've my brand to around 10,000 followers and become one of the top creators in the personal branding space. So now I teach my clients to do the same really. I work with business owners, founders, solopreneurs to build brands that bring them closer to their goals. So whether that's visibility to showcase thought leadership and ideas, or just bringing in more leads, aligned clients and income for their business. So the work I do really is centered around LinkedIn as being this sort of like base platform, but...
it goes way beyond. how you shop, DMs, sales calls, pitch decks, basically anywhere that your brand is seen by anyone else, I help you shop there. So that's a little bit about what I do, but I'm sure we'll dig into it in more detail as well.
Emily Jean (04:07)
Yeah, I love that. love especially that it's centered around LinkedIn. as you know, and as I've expressed to you, I feel like LinkedIn is just my new best friend.
Ciara (04:14)
easy.
Emily Jean (04:21)
It's like such an untapped platform. don't think people are speaking enough about how impressive it is and like how quickly it can grow on there in the community as well.
Ciara (04:30)
Yeah, definitely.
There's such untapped potential on LinkedIn, I think, at the moment. think a lot of people associate it wrongly with maybe it being ⁓ overly corporate and that they can't be creative enough with their brands on there. But actually, I think when you learn how to use the platform and you use it in a way that works for you, you can be super creative and actually really get across what you're trying to convey with your brand. I think that's one of the best things about it really.
Emily Jean (04:54)
Right. And I've been reading to, of course it's on LinkedIn, so it's probably biased, but I've been reading these posts that are saying LinkedIn is just going to boom in the next few years. What's your opinion on that?
Ciara (04:59)
Yeah.
I really think it is as well. think there's a lot of people that sort of say maybe LinkedIn is too saturated already, but I think it's the complete opposite. I think it's very untapped for a lot of industries. I know there's a lot of people in the personal branding and marketing space on there, but for other businesses, there is so much room to grow on there and you don't see many people on there. So I think if you could be one of the first people in your industry actively using LinkedIn and using LinkedIn, well, there's so much potential, but
At the same time, there is still plenty of room for the marketing and personal branding space, sort of people out there, but you just need to find a way of differentiating yourself. And that's sort of the work I do with people is just making sure they can carve that space for themselves on LinkedIn. So when they show up, they're showing up to the right people and not just blending in with the crowd on that.
Emily Jean (05:55)
Right, exactly. And I think too, how your work specifically, how it works at this conjunction of, especially I've been hearing a lot of talk about more in the US, but if we go into a recession, how we'll be having like an influx of users on LinkedIn, ⁓ obviously people looking for a job. And then when you consider like personal branding and...
storytelling and that sort of thing is such an asset these days. I really feel like those two just go hand in hand.
Ciara (06:28)
Definitely. I think you need to be able to talk about what you do as well, like for people to see the value in it. It's all right having that CV, isn't it? And I going for an interview and talking about what you do, but I think being able to communicate it clearly and succinctly firstly in your interview, which is a big part of personal branding. But then secondly, having that platform and presence to reinforce everything you've talked about, I think is so powerful. And I think a lot of employers and
even like businesses looking for collaborators, they look for people who are active on LinkedIn, who kind of showcase what they can do versus just sitting behind the scenes.
Emily Jean (07:04)
you have said in the past that I think something along those lines that personal branding is basically just would be like posting on LinkedIn and I know that that is not true but what's your take on that?
Ciara (07:13)
and
So I think this is such a common misconception and I do get why people think that because personal branding has become so tangled up in social media lately and it's sort of getting intertwined with influencing, which I think there are crossovers involved. Obviously it involves growing your presence and growing an audience, but influencing is more about that visibility and engagement, whereas growing a personal brand is actually about sort of like...
strategically creating a brand that's moving you in the right direction. So there's so much more to it than just posting on a social media platform. And a lot of what I do as well surrounds sort of managing perception and reputation. And that doesn't exist just within one post or just on the platform. It actually involves so much work that goes in behind the scenes. So that foundational piece, that sort of positioning piece actually is like actively crafting the way that you're showing up to your audience.
And when you do that well, you start bringing in opportunities, but the right opportunities as well. think when people grow for visibility or just grow on LinkedIn, they sometimes get pulled down this visibility sort of train and end up posting what gets engagement, but it's actually not working for them. It's not actively moving them towards their goals of growing their business or becoming an authority in their industry. And I think without that sort of extra work alongside LinkedIn, you struggle to.
sort of distinguish yourself and also move yourself in the right direction.
Emily Jean (08:50)
Right. I think that's true for a lot of platforms too. Like it's very easy to get caught up in the virality. It's similar to the idea of like people who are, when you're first starting a business and you get caught up in like these little tasks that don't actually move the needle, like you'll focus so much on building a website. And while that's great, it doesn't necessarily have the highest ROI to start off with. You know, you should be focusing on lead generation, for example. So I...
Ciara (09:06)
you
Emily Jean (09:17)
Definitely I fall into that trap even on LinkedIn. Right now I'm like my contents all over the place.
Ciara (09:23)
It's so easy to though as well and I think as soon as you start seeing the engagement and the account growth you're like, well this is working like I need to double down on that and whilst that part of things is really important because you do want to grow your presence, you need to be like weaving in other things that's actually going to convert clients or make people trust you or make people reach out with opportunities and I think sort of the work I do with especially surrounding the psychology side of things is about working out sort of like why do people remember us, what makes someone trust you or feel
compelled to actually reach out and work with you. And think that's the difference between almost being a business influencer and then growing a personal brand to grow your business.
Emily Jean (10:01)
Right. Yeah, I actually do want to go back to your background. So how did you kind of what made you start brandfulness? I know that you have a psychology background. You kind of want to walk me through that transition.
Ciara (10:14)
Yeah, so I actually started out originally in law, so back when did my bachelor's it was in law and business, and that sort of led me into a career that I think looked pretty good on paper and I guess surface level I was happy with, but I actually didn't massively enjoy it and it didn't feel very me. I'm super ambitious and I've always wanted to have my own business and obviously in law I didn't really see how that could be a reality and alongside the fact I didn't massively enjoy it I think.
sort of was a bit of a questioning moment for me and I think the job that I had didn't give me massive amounts of freedom in terms of just like time but also creativity like I'm a creative person and I like to sort of bring that into my work and I think with law it was less I was less able to do that basically so those sort of the things that made me question what I was doing so I actually left my job and started doing a Masters in Psychology
And alongside doing that, I started designing websites for service providers. like coaches, consultants, creatives, so personal brands in general. And when I started doing this, I realized that there was actually no strategy behind anything at all. And it became really hard to sort of clearly communicate what they did, who they helped and why someone should choose them. So the problem wasn't their website, it was actually...
lack of clarity behind things. So I actually started offering personal brand strategy and I basically pulled from everything I was learning about psychology and it compounded from there really and I found that actually that psychology piece is almost what was missing from the personal branding space at the moment where it's all very surface level. That's kind of where brandfulness was born really about being sort of mindful and intentional about your personal brand versus just doing things for the sake of it.
Emily Jean (12:01)
Right. I love that too. It feels very symmetrical given that like there's such that's a such a key of strategy behind that career choice as well. Like not only you clearly you're amazing at it, but beyond that, like you're able to you actually have credentials to back you up. I mean, for like a better word.
Ciara (12:12)
Yes.
Yeah, definitely.
And I think it does help because I can draw from everything I have learned. Like I covered so many topics from sort of mindset and motivation to actually understanding attitudes towards how things work. And I think all of that feeds into what I do, whether it's sometimes it's explicitly and sometimes it's a little bit more behind the scenes. But I think the background does really help in understanding how things work.
Emily Jean (12:41)
Yeah. And so I guess I'm curious then, while you've been working with clients, has there been any kind of one story or one transformation that's really stuck with you where it went from, you know, kind of, I don't know, nobody, for lack of a better term, but, know, to somebody who's like really clear aligned and somebody recognizes them on their feed.
Ciara (13:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, so one that really stands out for me, and I think I use this example quite often, is an accountant I worked for. And she was absolutely amazing at what she did, but she was struggling to sort of position herself in a very saturated space. I don't know whether you sort of see many accountants pop up on social media, but it's quite hard to distinguish yourself when you're offering quite similar services to other people.
And she needed some support on where to start with her personal brand and just bring more of her into her business. So we did quite a lot of identity work and focused on positioning her brand to incorporate depth elements, which basically brought more of her into her brand and started helping her sort of connect with the ideal clients she was actually looking to attract. We learned heavily on brand story, pulling out personal experiences that she wanted to share and lead with. And she came away feeling so much more confident in...
how she was showing up, also pitching herself to clients because I think, I talk about it quite often, but having a really strong elevator pitch when you're sort of pitching to clients on those sales calls, explaining what you do and why you're different is so important. And she started to feel that when she was having those calls, she could very clearly articulate what she did and why they should choose her. So this led her to having so many more ideal clients land in her inbox and also...
she actually landed a brand deal from talking about some of the key personal brand story moments that we pulled out for her. So that was like a big one for me. And I really like obviously happy with the transformation because you could see it sort of unfold week on week out. But what I love about it the most is it's the perfect example of two of the things I strive for the most when I'm working with clients. So firstly, it highlights the power of those foundational elements. Like most of what we did was on brand story and personality and bringing her into her brand.
versus the content itself. And it shows that just making those small tweaks actually can be so beneficial for your business. But it also shows as well how personal branding transcends the social media platform that you show up on. So the fact that she felt so much more confident pitching and speaking to clients, like that was a great takeaway from it because your personal brand does live beyond LinkedIn or Instagram or wherever you're showing up. So I think it highlights those two perfectly.
Emily Jean (15:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I am curious when clients are or potential clients are approaching you and they're either building a personal brand or considering building one, what are their biggest reservations usually? Like what is the, where do they hesitate?
Ciara (15:42)
I think one of the ones I hear most often is not wanting to share their whole life online. I think that's a big one and I think a lot of a sticking point for some people, but I think what I try to tell them is actually it's the complete opposite. Like I don't share my entire life online. I don't share all my personal moments. I don't share stories about friends and family. Like I keep it very much. I have a line, but it's about using those.
Emily Jean (16:07)
Mm-hmm.
Ciara (16:09)
personal moments, lifestyle pieces, your interests, your hobbies, things that you're passionate about and using those things to connect with your audience. So you can be very strategic about it and it could be as personal or non-personal as you want it to be, but it's about actually creating those connection pieces. So I think that's definitely the main reservation I have when speaking to people.
Emily Jean (16:31)
Yeah, I do think people for some reason, which is very interesting to me, people think there's a thin line between, I guess, privacy and what they show online or personal branding and like how upfront to be, which is interesting because we're such like humans are so dynamic. Like even if I was vlogging, you know, two hours out of my day every day, it would be such a small portion of my life to me. I'm not going to do that, of course.
Ciara (16:43)
Thank
for me.
Yeah.
Emily Jean (17:02)
But it wouldn't be, it could not possibly be all of it. I do, always find that very interesting.
Ciara (17:08)
Yeah, 100 %
Emily Jean (17:10)
So I think that LinkedIn still feels really stiff to some people. How do you approach making it feel more human?
Ciara (17:15)
Yeah.
I think a lot of it is mindset shift to start with because you're right, a lot of people say when we speak about LinkedIn specifically, it's like a bit too corporate for me or again, like I said before, I can't be very creative with it. So a lot of people that I work with sometimes start off on Instagram and then we sort of try and move their brands over to LinkedIn. And that's one of the reservations I get quite often. But I think we've definitely moved on from the sort of...
I'm so proud to announce days on LinkedIn. Like there's definitely been more creativity involved. And I think what I love most about it is the storytelling, like how transparent people are in there. So people share the ups, the downs, sort of the inside outs of their story. And I think that's really powerful in itself and such a great way to connect with your audience. So I definitely think that's a benefit of it. But I think for me,
translating myself across, think the storytelling was such a big part of it. And you can really get creative with storytelling just because you don't have all of the same visuals. You can still really sort of tell a transformation or tell a story or tell sort of a lesson that you've had yourself and convey your brand message through that. And I think there's something really creative and fun about that once you start understanding how to do it. So I'd say if you're feeling sort of...
Emily Jean (18:34)
Right.
Ciara (18:37)
that LinkedIn isn't the place for you. Like you just haven't found the right strategy with it yet. And it's just about finding something that feels good for you and the way you want to communicate.
Emily Jean (18:46)
Do you
feel, I know obviously your main focus is LinkedIn, but do you feel like there is room to take what people learn about personal branding on LinkedIn and apply it to other platforms?
Ciara (18:58)
100 % and that's why I do so much of this foundational work because that means you can translate it absolutely anywhere you go, anywhere you show up. So I think there are definitely platform specific sort of strategies and hacks I guess do help and compound the work that you've done. If you've done that foundational personal brand work, you know who you are, what you stand for, what your brand beliefs are, you're targeting, what makes you different.
Once you've got all those foundations in place, wherever you show up, you're going to be clear, you're going to be concise, and you're going to be communicating the right message. So I think, whilst LinkedIn is such a great platform to communicate that, if you haven't got anything to communicate, it's going to be hard to show up anywhere. And once you have that foundational piece showing up on any platform, online, offline becomes so much easier.
Emily Jean (19:44)
Right? If you could change one thing about LinkedIn, then is there anything you would change?
Ciara (19:51)
⁓ I think a big one for me is the comment section on LinkedIn. don't know whether you found this yourself, but there are so much, so many sort of AI comments now coming in to the system. And I think it's really hard because it's very appreciated when someone goes great posts, love this. Like it's, it's nice and thank you, but people don't realize that comment sections are one of the best places to grow your own visibility. You're, can pull your brand and what you.
you know and what you love talking about into someone else's space and actually that helps you become remembered and become known. And I think so many people are using comments just in the complete wrong way, just to show up and get as many comments done as possible to show up on as many people's posts as possible when actually forgetting it's one of the most strategic things you can be doing on there. So I think I definitely changed that. think just the AI influence and people not using the platform maybe as it should be used.
Emily Jean (20:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I totally understand that. It's interesting too, because I feel like some of the messaging from LinkedIn themselves as a brand is that like, they want people to be authentic and really connect with each other and make meaningful connections. And then you have these kind of preordained comments that are generated for you right under the post, you know? And it's like, congrats or whatever it may be. And for me, that seems so not in alignment with
the idea they sell, I guess.
Ciara (21:17)
I agree with that. think if you're wanting people to be authentic and sort of actually write real resonating comments, having the pre-made ones at the bottom definitely goes against that. That's great, I think, back in the old days of LinkedIn, where it was a lot of updates and people just sharing sort of like, ⁓ I've achieved this, or this is what's happened today. I guess they're a bit more resonant for that, but when you're actually sharing storytelling posts and you're asking people for their opinions or their takes on things, just saying great post is not really gonna...
sort of easy to sort of information you need.
Emily Jean (21:47)
I'm not going to cut it.
Is there, other than the AI comments, is there any other LinkedIn tactics that you see that are either overused or you feel like are not effective that should go?
Ciara (22:03)
⁓ I think the cold DMs is one of them and don't get me wrong, I think a really good outreach strategy, it works really well when you do it in the right way. I get so many messages from people sort of being like, this is wrong with your website, I can fix this for you, let's jump on a call. And that's great, that's amazing, but they're not actually working out, A, whether I need help in the first place.
Emily Jean (22:06)
Mmm.
Ciara (22:29)
be, like whether it's something I'm actually interested in or even creating any connection. I think that's sort of like cold, assuming I need help sort of message I think is really, I think it's just bad practice. I think when you have a good DM strategy and you're actually starting a conversation and inviting people to tell you more and see whether they're interested versus telling them this is something that they need, that works so much better. But I think it's just, puts people off straight away and just being very direct.
and telling people what to do. So I think that's something that definitely needs to go.
Emily Jean (23:01)
Right, well I think too, especially on LinkedIn, people can appreciate a pitch as long as it's well formed, well thought out, and it seems genuine. I think people underestimate others' acceptance of that kind of thing on LinkedIn. And of course,
For me, like if somebody chats to me and I feel like we've made a real connection and then they pitch something to me, even if I don't need the service, I'm not gonna like shut them down. I'll at least consider them in the future. And if I hear someone's looking for it, that also pops into my head. But it's never like the one shot wonder that does it for me.
Ciara (23:41)
No, I completely agree and I'm exactly the same and there's absolutely nothing wrong with pitching. I think that's one of maybe the good things about LinkedIn, especially outreaching on LinkedIn is that people are definitely receptive and you can ask people sort of about their problems and what they're struggling with and you can have a conversation about it and then if they're not interested in that's completely fine. But I think it's just this sort of straight up, this is what you need. I can help you with it. Let's jump on a call and then.
being no information about like what it is you can help with like none of the details just the let's talk now.
Emily Jean (24:13)
I am curious then along those lines, what's been like the strangest or the funniest DM you've received? Because you have a large platform on there, so I'm very curious.
Ciara (24:23)
Yeah, I think that's just a lot of, like I was saying before, like people was like critiquing critiquing my work and telling me like, like I've seen before, like my website, your website is really bad. I can fix this for you. I'm like, thank you. And I think the worst thing is, like, they don't even look at my background. Like I, I used to design websites. Like I'm not saying I'm the best website designer on the planet, but like I have some idea of what I'm doing and the fact that like coming in cold with this, with this.
Emily Jean (24:34)
Yeah.
Yeah. So
mean.
Ciara (24:52)
I'm okay.
Emily Jean (24:55)
It's
like, didn't guys used to have that dumb dating tactic that was like, insult the girl first and then she'll be into you? It's like, what? Why would that work? That's crazy.
Ciara (25:02)
Yeah, I know exactly,
yeah it's along those lines and it's definitely not working but yeah it's just not something that you're very receptive of and I just think like what am I gonna say to that?
Emily Jean (25:16)
Yeah, 100%. I'm
curious, so, oh, I had a question, I lost it. Okay, here it is. With your psychology background then, so I know you touched on it a little bit, but how does that shape how you guide clients in building their brands from beginning to end?
Ciara (25:26)
you
So I think a lot of it is about perception, identity and connection. And it's all rooted in how people think, feel and sort of make connections. And I think that's where the psychology really comes into that because you're understanding how people move, why people think in a certain way. I think one of my favorite examples is I actually did my master's thesis on attitudes towards artificial intelligence and what actually motivates people to use AI technologies. And whilst that's not
directly linked to personal branding. It's taught me so much about why people sort of engage or reject something, why they trust things, why they don't trust other things. And this is sort of what we deal with in navigating personal brands every single day. So I definitely think that sort of motivational piece behind it is really important. Obviously alongside that consumer psychology, understanding why people make decisions, what makes them connect with something, what makes them pick something over something else. I think that's such a massive part of it.
And then alongside that, a lot of it is around the mindset work and gaining clarity. think when you're super clear on what you want to do, you gain confidence in speaking about your personal brand and your message. And I think that's such a big part of it as well, is that when you're actually confidently delivering that message, where if you're showing up, whether it's in the DM sales pitch, whether you're speaking at an event or a podcast like this, for example, your brand message can face so much better. So I think a lot of it is about sort of.
looking at those limiting beliefs, looking at why people aren't feeling super confident in the way they're showing up. Is it because they haven't got clarity? Is it because of something else entirely? And sort of digging into that a little bit more plays alongside more of the sort of actionable motivational pieces.
Emily Jean (27:19)
All right, what an interesting thesis. I just have to go back to that for a second. It sounds so brilliant. I read something the other day about how when the radio was invented, were, I'm sure you already know this, people were thought that there was, radios were gonna, like, ghosts were gonna come through the radio.
Ciara (27:37)
you
Emily Jean (27:38)
And so
they eventually remodeled it so that it looked like a face with the two speakers and like the little cassette or whatever it was. And I thought that to like humanize it a bit more, I thought that was just brilliant hearing that. Gosh, I'm sure you had like had so much interesting stuff like that come up in your research too.
Ciara (27:45)
Yeah.
I think one of the big concepts I looked at, I'll talk about it briefly, I won't go into too much detail, but it's called self-determination theory and it's about people's motivation to sort of engage with a stimuli. So for example, artificial intelligence or a radio and how they need to feel autonomous, competent and related at the same time. And I think what you're saying about the radio and having that face and feeling connected to someone versus just a voice is such a big thing and feeling related and connected to her.
sort of a wider audience is such a massive part of it. So I can definitely see that in the radio example as well. And I saw it so much with AI because I think it's, they're on a screen. It's a bit of a foreign thing for us and making it more human and making it feel like sort of a normal person is how you make people sort of want to engage with it more. So I definitely think that's such an important thing for both.
Emily Jean (28:34)
Yeah.
Right.
I am curious that I have to ask about AI. I'm hoping you have the answer because I definitely don't. Is AI going to get rid of all of our jobs and will it take over the world?
Ciara (29:03)
my gosh, well, I hope not. But I think it depends. I think it's going to become a great tool in the way people work. And I think it might shift the way in which people approach their work. I think some of those more mundane tasks that we do, that can take over quite easily. But I think those creative jobs and being able to sort of think outside the box and come up with new ideas, like you need to be able to...
put the input into AI to get an output out of it that makes sense. So I think, I don't think it will necessarily take over. I'd say maybe it would just shift the way in which people work.
Emily Jean (29:38)
Okay, good, I'm agreed. It is interesting to me, I guess it goes back to that thing about the radio and technology, how there are two camps of people who are like, this is cool, we should embrace it, and there are people who are like, this sucks, it's stupid, I don't want it, whatever it may be. And there really does not seem to be much of a middle ground, which is super interesting.
Ciara (29:59)
Yeah, definitely. think that happens a lot with new technologies is you've got people that are very open to sort of experiencing new things and other people that are very much set in their ways. And I did a little bit of this actually in my thesis as well surrounding sort of like personality types and how some people are more sort of open-minded and extroverted towards new technologies and they're more likely to sort of sit in the camp of yes, let's try it and see how it goes. And then you've got other people who are sort of...
Emily Jean (30:22)
and
Ciara (30:24)
less open-minded, they're more happy with norms and they sort of see things completely differently so I think it depends where you sit on the spectrum.
Emily Jean (30:31)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's got to go back to like evolution, I guess, like, cave people who were like, okay, this this lion's good. And cave people who are like, no, it's bad.
Ciara (30:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
100 %
Emily Jean (30:44)
Okay, so I have a fun question for you. If you have you ever had to, sorry, have you ever had to, have you ever had to, okay, sorry, the wording on that was tripping me up. Have you ever had to rebrand yourself because of how people were perceiving you or your work on LinkedIn or so forth?
Ciara (30:55)
you
Yeah, I have actually. And it was mainly surrounding my authority in the industry. I think when I first started, I was very tentative in the way I explained things. I sometimes sort of shied away from sharing my real thoughts about how I think things should be done. And I felt very swayed often to sort of go with the norms in the industry. And I think that's quite natural when you're starting out because you don't quite know how to play things. So I think a couple of months back, probably
six months ago now, I sort of really sat down and I was like, I need to sort of be working towards becoming more of an authority. Like I have a very unique background in the industry. Like I need to be leading with that more. So I think that little rebrand almost came from becoming more authoritative and more sort of owning my space in the industry and taking that space for myself as well. I think.
That was a bit of a challenge because it's a big mindset shift as well, alongside just changing your content and the way you write and the way you deliver things. But it has made the world of difference and I feel so much more confidence in my brand now because I've changed the way that I deliver it.
Emily Jean (32:15)
Mm-hmm. So in changing that way that you deliver, am, there's been a lot of talk I've been hearing about personal branding and how it applies to niching down. Do you think necessary overrated? What's your thoughts?
Ciara (32:26)
You do.
I think it's a little bit of both actually. I would say at the start when I was sort of very early stages of my business, not having a super clear niche was actually really beneficial because I could explore working with different clients. I could see what I liked and what I didn't like versus choosing something and thinking, oh my gosh, I hate it. Now I'm stuck here because my whole brand's built around it. So at the start definitely it was beneficial not being niche.
Emily Jean (32:42)
There
Ciara (32:58)
But I think I got to the stage where I was like, want this to work. I want this to grow. I had to actually niche it down a lot more because that's when you start being really specific when you're solving one problem for one particular type of person and you have one solution for that problem. Communicating that becomes so much easier and naturally people start to see themselves in your content, in your brand, in the way you deliver things a lot more than if you are super broad. So I'd say at the start, I think it's okay to be
Emily Jean (32:58)
Mm-hmm.
Ciara (33:26)
It's okay to have a broader niche, but I think when you're getting serious about things, niching is really important.
Emily Jean (33:32)
Mm-hmm. I completely agree with that. Well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time, so I have some rapid fire questions for you really quick. Okay. So let's see. Here we go. What's, no, I don't like that one. Nevermind. Okay. What is one personal?
Ciara (33:47)
⁓ you
Emily Jean (33:51)
What is one piece of personal branding advice that you're tired of seeing on social media?
Ciara (33:57)
I think it's the authentic. What does that actually mean? I don't think anyone knows what it means. Everyone talks about it, but no one really knows what that actually entails. I think for me, when I talk about being authentic, I talk about being intentionally authentic. So what I spoke to you about before in terms of bringing those aspects from your life, your interests, your sort of hobbies, bring that into your brand to intentionally connect with other people. But I don't think the authentic is a great piece of.
Emily Jean (33:59)
Mm.
Ciara (34:25)
advice in the personal branding world because actually no one puts a definition to it and people interpret it in different ways and it can be completely misinterpreted a lot of the time.
Emily Jean (34:34)
Okay, I
like that. I totally agree. Like what does authentic even mean? Completely agree with that. Okay, is there content that you would never post even if it was going to go viral?
Ciara (34:39)
Yeah.
on a similar sort of line, I'd say anything too personal. think I don't really like super oversharing and trauma dumping. A lot of people do a lot of posts which are very, very personal and sort of really over, over talk about all the problems that they're having and don't get me wrong. I think having a post like this every now and again is really important to show that you're real and these things happen. And I think it's a good part of a strategy, but when it's happening sort of week in week out.
Emily Jean (34:52)
Mm.
Ciara (35:14)
I think it damages you actually building influence and authority in your industry. So I think that you need to be mindful of that. So I think being too, too personal can sometimes sort of take away versus add.
Emily Jean (35:27)
Right. Okay, I love that. I completely agree with that. Okay, one last question for you. What if you had to recommend a book or resource or anything like that to somebody who might be interested in either personal branding or LinkedIn or even just new budding founders? Do you have anything you would recommend?
Ciara (35:30)
you
I absolutely love Simon Sinek's Start With Why. It underpins a lot of what I do in my own personal brand about having sort of a strong why and foundation and then building around that because some of the best brands out there, big brands that we know of like Apple and Nike, they have this really strong why and that's the reason why a lot of people connect with them and that's something that I always start with when I work with anybody is.
Emily Jean (35:53)
Mm.
Ciara (36:15)
that y out. So I think that's such a great book because it actually so nicely highlights about why having those foundations is so essential and is actually what makes some of those brands the biggest brands in the world because they have that connection piece for you to sort of relate to. So yeah, I'd say that was such a great, a great read of wine and I definitely recommend it to anyone.
Emily Jean (36:32)
Yeah, that's a great shout. love that. Well, Ciara thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Where can people follow you and where can they find you in your work?
Ciara (36:44)
Well, thank you so much for having me. I've honestly had the best time and thank you for all of your thoughtful questions as well. So if anyone wants to find me, probably the best place is LinkedIn. I shop there most often and I have everything from personal branding advice to LinkedIn strategy to sort of more mindset pieces. So that's definitely the best place. And I'm just Ciara O'Neill on LinkedIn. I also have an Instagram account, a business one, which is...
at underscore brandfulness, where I talk about similar topics, but it's more behind the scenes and sort of business related things. And then I also have my website, which is brandfulness.co.uk, where you can see a little bit more about what I do, a little bit more about me and sort of my method and approaches to things as well. And of course my DMs are always welcome if you have any questions or you just want to say hi.
Emily Jean (37:30)
well, thank you so much, Ciara. And yeah, I'm gonna chat to you soon. Thank you for coming on. Have a good rest of your day.
Ciara (37:38)
Thank you so much for having me, it's been such a good time.
