You are your own brand
Top 5 personal branding tips for Substack
Hiya š! Iām Lucy from Hype Yourself. I chat about self-promotion and creative living to help you earn an income from your expertise or passion. If you are new to this page, pop your email below to ensure you receive my posts.
āA beautiful brand is amazing, but a meaningful one is better.ā Hadrien Chatelet, Brand Yourself
Your personal brand is a dynamic process. It is more than just your writing, logo or colour palette. Itās what your readers feel about your work. But mainly, itās what they remember about you.
Done well, your brand, just like publicity, is about conveying a feeling to your audience.
Before the digital era, it was reserved for big global conglomerates with deep pockets. Now, as writers on Substack, we get to run our own micro-businesses on this platform.
If you have a profile here, you already have a personal brand. Letās make sure it is working hard for us, yeah?
There is so much I could say on this, (well actually I have written two books on it) but for today, here are my top 5 favourite quick takeaways for you.
1. Know your values
Write down every adjective you use to define yourself. Good and bad.
Start to bucket the ones together that have a similarity of themes.
Ask friends or family to give you their key adjectives. They might highlight something about you that you are not aware of.
Try to drill them down to 3-5 maximum. This can be hard, but persevering is worth it.
Your values are a bit like your characteristics. When they are defined, it will not only give you clarity, but it will help you attract more readers.
It doesnāt matter how many new writers arrive talking about the same thing as you, and you could try charging less or keeping your Substack free.
The reality is that your paid subscribers choose you because of affinity and loyalty.
When you know your values, it can also act as guardrails as to who you might say yes to for guest writing, brands to partner with or podcasts to appear on.
2. Everything starts with a story
After your homepage, your most clicked-on page will be your About Page. Iām still mastering mine, and the Substack angels have pointed me to the oracles of
of and also this article
Show us a bit of who you are. Bring those values to life.
I get it. The words personal branding feel icky. But itās not about revealing your private life.
I liken this to giving us a bit of ankle.
A little pinch of your story will help your readers connect with you and feel emotions, good and bad and they will want to connect and engage with you.
All my paid subscribers knew me and my story, supporting me on my new journey here. Without knowing that story, I doubt I would have made bestseller Substack status in my first month.
[The short version, in case you are interested: the co-founder of my children and creative director of my agency, with whom Iāve historically always taken shared parental leave, left to work in-house for a dream job. I closed my agency and now put all chips in on Substack with occasional workshops].
3. A fantastic font is better than a mediocre logo
Think about Vogue, Netflix, Dior - what do they all share?
Iconic logos that are made up of a bespoke font.
(Yes, I am an ambassador of Adobe Express before you see me flagging them).
Still, after feeling slightly restricted by fonts you can use on Substack; you will be in for a treat if you want to pick a signature font in Adobe Express because there are over 20,000+ fonts to choose from.
If that sounds too much of a burden, donāt worry; it will also offer your recommendations.
Iāve even used fonts underneath my divider lines to break up my monthly signature newsletter for the last 4-years. It has become a staple part of my brand.
3. Get a killer headshot
If you invest in photography - you will want to start using it. A clear headshot makes you stand out.
I used the remove background tool on Adobe Express to cut out the clutter for my thumbnail and added the yellow from my brand folder to make it pop.
For the header image of this article. I took the following steps:
Started with LinkedIn blog post size of 1200 x 628px
On Media, I uploaded from device my photograph
Removed background and duplicated just the headshot part
For the first photo, I turned to Greyscale, and for the second version, I selected a Duotone and dragged the image with a gap to give it this cool shadow element.
Another unique way for a headshot is to have an illustration like
4.Create a mood board
Create a signature with your look and feel with your imagery.
Remember back in step one when I told you to select your values in step one? This is going to help you as a litmus test.
Is your current imagery embodying those values?
An easy way to pull it together is to create a mood board of the photography, illustrations, and graphics you want to use in articles.
It just makes you look a little more put together and helps you to stand out in the sea of noise and memorability.
Listen, I know you want to focus on the writing.
However, one thing that I took to heart from my Introduction to Substack webinar Cliff Notes with
Your Substack is like owning your own media publication.Your new job also entails developing a picture editor mentality aligned with your values.
A lot of Unsplash photography is overused.
Have a look at the Express stock images. Despite my ambassadorship, I am not being biased when I say that I think the photography is more original and you have more options.
And look, if rough and ready photos are your thing. Thats great. They do well. Iām not saying you need to have professional shoots for every article and look super polished.
However, having a little uniformity can be a good thing. A lot of Substackers Iāve noticed pay for bespoke illustrations, which I think is a great way to give your publication a signature.
5. Be consistent.
Bored with your brand? Please keep it for another two years before you think about changing it.
Why?
You are focused on it day in and day out. To your audience, though, they are seeing it with much fresher eyes. Evolution is fine, but try not to completely hit brand refresh to match every new, trending colour palette announcement from Pantone.
It is more than okay - I encourage you to repeat the graphics, colour, and images so your readers remember you.
Substack writers like you are well placed to take ownership of your brand, tell your story and share your values because you are not constricted by corporate red tape.
If I could leave you with one final note on your brand to take away, itās this: it is not about your logo or what you look like. It is the feeling you give; itās how you make people feel after interacting with your writing.
When you go out into your Substack universe after today, always ask yourself, when it comes to any work you do, people you partner with, photography or illustration you select, the books you recommend, the coauthors you work with ā does this fit my brand?
HELL YES or HELL NO.
You have an opportunity to grow your brand in every single activity that you do externally. Make sure it fits your bigger purpose.
Disclaimer: I will always be transparent in my work. I am a global Adobe Express ambassador and have referenced some of its functions in this article. I would never recommend a service that I do not genuinely use. I am paid to make content showcasing its functionalities, but that does not change the content created in this article.
I'm going to do this tomorrow - thanks Lucy. After seeing your callout for About page examples, I've also done some work on mine (which I'd not prioritised at all and what copied from my website - which now needs an update!) and I'm much happier with it.
Thanks, Lucy! :-D The drilling down on adjectives is such a helpful and enlightening process. When Iāve done that in the past, once probably doing your course :-), Iāve found it useful to have those words as guiding reminders when Iām thinking about whether or not something fits for me or not. My top 3 are COLOURFUL, JOYFUL & SURPRISING. šš§”