When I’m talking to Realtors about their personal branding, a question that often arises is whether or not agents should separate their business profiles from their personal ones on social media.

What they’re really asking is the Big Hairy Question…

Just HOW large should I loom in my work without smothering the audience, or feeling uncomfortable myself? 

Where’s the line between displaying genuine things that make me compelling, so others can grasp my essence — while still putting the best face forward?

Makes me recall an old podcast where I heard Steve Jobs outline his four pillars of personal branding:

01 – Create envy

02 – Manufacture Authenticity 

03 – Flaunt Success

04 – Become a Know-It-All

That second pillar, though. Oof. It’s the one I enjoy simmering on, that also seems to trip us up as business owners.

“Manufacture authenticity.”

Here’s where the personal brand bit comes in, and therein lies our nervousness.

Of course, on the foundational level, we all seem to accept the need to talk about ourselves. We understand the world is more receptive to personal branding over corporate, because we simply don’t trust institutions like we used to.

So we have to humanize our companies and deliver some “real story,” because the companies we’ve built and the founders who run them will always overlap.

Personal branding helps make that merge meaningful (and super functional). But within the overlap, there’s an excessive, irritating amount of gray area re: just how “personal” we should be.

IMHO, we’ve reached peak authenticity theater — brands competing online to see who can manufacture realness the most convincingly.

It’s given rise to some untrue narratives about branding, too.

In the real estate space, this feels particularly true. I see many posts from coaches and within agent memberships advising Realtors to view their casual coffee posts, hobby-related shares and “day in the life” carousels as actual marketing strategies.

It’s like everyone needs to hear the anti-answer these days: “No, guys really! Showing your everyday, unfiltered life and coffee orders online IS an actual marketing formula!”

Except not really.

That Instagram pic of your latest coffee order, or of you and the kids in a kayak, alongside a nice caption…that’s interesting. Or funny. Or seasonally relevant. Or pretty to look at.

But posting about your coffee or sharing another “day in the life” series is not a positioning formula.

It’s interesting, humanizing context.

This is where I think the fine lines around personal versus company branding become their very finest, and why we’re all walking the tricky tightrope differently online. 

My personal stance is that you need to be human — but just barely.

What I mean by that is, how can you be personal enough to contextualize things in your business, so far as your business bleeds in + around your personal life?

Because at a certain point, the anti-answers were never answers to begin with. Your coffee-preference IG posts are not positioning strategies; positioning strategies are positioning strategies. “Unpopular opinion” posts are not that unpopular anymore. (Were they ever?)

Not everything has to be revolutionary when it comes to personal branding. Last I checked, the trusty fundamentals that have grown world-class brands for decades still ring true.

What if injecting ourselves into our company brands was less about “day in the life shares” as “strategies,” and more about embracing our unfiltered shares as helpful + interesting context — and nothing more?

Might really help take the pressure off.

For instance, I recently listened to a podcast by the economist, Tyler Cohen. At one point he took a rabbit trail to share his love of wine, and how he loves discovering unknown restaurants in other countries. Oh, that’s interesting.

But it’s not personal branding. It’s Tyler being an authentic human, helping us all put him in context.

As for me, when I send marketing emails and post on social media, I imagine myself out to dinner with a client or prospective client. What would we talk about over a couple of steaks?

Bit of small talk, some disclosure about hobbies or idiosyncrasies, smiles over shared pictures of the kids or the dog. But by the time the appetizers are done and dinner is served, I’ve intentionally moved on to talk about the reason we’re all there:

To share our work as a studio, how we can help, what I know the client actually wants and how our best offers fit.

I’m educating and reminding the client. And because I’ve spent years honing my language, examples and the type of reassurances I use, the whole meeting is an exercise in positioning my service to that client…instead of primarily narrating bits about my personal life in hopes that eventually he/she likes me enough to ask about my service.

That’s the “manufactured authenticity” that Steve Jobs referred to, I think.

A messy but intentional act wherein the real things we share ARE real, but at the end of the day, our authentic company personas are still just that.

Personas.

Granted, some brands embody their personas so well, they seem to transcend the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Or put another way, the persona is so authentically and consistently performed, that the audience views it as an avatar with agency. It’s how we all fall in love with the “real humans” behind certain companies we favor; but even then, I think those real humans are just “barely human.”

We only show what we want to show, even though it’s real.

So where does that leave us?

First, maybe there’s a certain honesty in simply being what you are as a brand, without the constant meta-commentary on your own genuineness.

Post about the coffee and the kids and the kayak, but let it be simply that — humanizing context — alongside the main dish of your real, strategic positioning of saying, “Here’s what I do, here’s how I do it, and here’s why I think it matters.”

Second, leverage social proof to establish trust that builds your authenticity — that’s real, data-driven strategy — more than you share your unfiltered “day in the life” posts that we do also enjoy seeing.

92% of consumers hesitate to buy without reviews. 88% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Your past client testimonials and rich buyer / seller case stories need to be shared everywhere your brand lives.

Overall, when it comes to the personal, human side of your real estate brand, I say sprinkle it on like salt, and go easy.

Every recipe calls for salt. Too much ruins the batch. Your salty humaneness may be a secret ingredient to use sparingly, adding complexity and depth.

As you build your brand, you realize you need it all — salt, sour, heat.

Story, values, positioning.

It’s always been true for marketing + branding. Too often, promising brands struggle under the weight of their own manufactured authenticity, and the narrative becomes too salty.

The problem is balance. So go easy on the salt.

Give your posts and emails a little seasoning, a little ordinary. Add some grit and goofiness and guts, and all the sentimentality that comes with it.

After that?

I think it’s enough to keep quietly doing what you believe in, while being bold about your service — educating + reminding people about how you can matter to them — and trust that the right ingredients you’re blending will balance out from there.

P.S – What’s BLUEPRINT, again? 

We’re a gaggle of designers, writers, and creatives on a mission to change the branding narrative in real estate.

We offer a signature branding service and the industry’s most elegant and high-converting digital products to help modern, stylish Realtors do three things:

➝ Communicate their worth;

➝ Become the obvious choice;

➝ Tell the right stories to stand out + SELL more.

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