Your personal brand is not just about you—It's about the people who engage with you

We tend to think that a personal brand is primarily about the individual it represents. Yet, in reality, a personal brand exists only through the people who engage with it, shape it, and sustain it.

This idea finds substance in an academic article about corporate brand communities.

Albert Muniz and Thomas O’Guinn, in their seminal article titled simply Brand Community, conclude:

“Brands are undeniably and fundamentally social entities, created as much by consumers as by marketers in a complex and fascinating dance of social construction.”

This perspective challenges traditional views by emphasizing the co-creation dimension of branding—a brand is not built solely by its creator but shaped through interactions with its audience.

For personal brands, this idea may seem counterintuitive, but really it is possible to create communities that gather around you.

My friend Jorge Magan, for instance, is building a community on LinkedIn around his bold and thought-provoking maxims in a Don Quixote-style. His audience is not just following his content—they are engaging in discussions, debating his ideas, and reinforcing the culture of moral integrity he has created. His unique style serves as both a rallying point and a filter that attracts a particular kind of leader, fostering a community that thrives on dialogue and challenge rather than passive consumption.

The opportunity: building communities around personal brands

If brands are social constructs, then the most powerful personal brands are those that transcend the individual and become communities. Your personal brand, when anchored in a compelling value proposition, has the potential to unite like-minded people—not just as passive followers, but as an engaged collective that shares your vision, mission, and ideals. By fostering genuine connections, you create a space where people recognize themselves in your message, contributing to a thriving, interactive brand community.

Three characteristics of personal brand communities

Borrowing from brand community theory, we can identify three key dimensions of a personal brand community:

1. Consciousness of kind

   • People who engage with a personal brand don’t just admire the person—they recognize themselves in the brand’s ethos.

   • Example: Jorge Magan doesn’t just share insights; his audience identifies with his reflections, engaging in meaningful debate and reinforcing a culture of moral integrity and intellectual challenge.

2. Rituals and traditions

   • Successful personal brands cultivate recurring formats, distinct ways of engaging, or signature ideas that become rituals for their audience.

   • Example: Jorge Magan maintains a standard format in his community-building efforts—a recurring visual of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza paired with a captivating sentence that introduces a longer post. His audience gathers around this ritual, engaging in debate and discussion, reinforcing both his message and their own commitment to the values he represents.

3. Moral responsibility

   • Community members feel a duty to uphold and extend the brand’s mission. They help each other, evangelize the brand’s ideas, and defend its principles.

   • Example: I do not have direct evidence, but I can easily imagine that Jorge Magan’s followers are inspired by his publications and would defend his positions as if they were a matter of their own integrity. His bold reflections, shared through a consistent Don Quixote-style format, encourage engagement that goes beyond agreement or disagreement—it becomes a shared intellectual and ethical stance.

Opportunities for personal branding

Rather than seeing personal branding as an exercise in self-promotion, use tactics that reinforce a sense of shared identity, rituals, and responsibility. Among the many possibilities, you may consider the following:

• Create a signature concept: Develop a distinct idea that becomes a rallying point for your audience. Yuval Noah Harari, for instance, structured his personal brand around the concept of long-term thinking about humanity's future, particularly through his book Homo Deus, which proposes how artificial intelligence and biotechnology will reshape civilization. His audience is drawn to his ability to provide a macro-historical perspective on modern challenges, making his ideas a meeting ground for intellectual discourse.

• Foster participation: Instead of a passive audience, invite people to engage—through Q&As, co-creation, or challenges. Tim Ferriss, for example, built a loyal audience by turning self-experimentation into an interactive process. His community members test out productivity hacks, extreme dieting, and business strategies, sharing their results and refining his methodologies together. By positioning himself as both an explorer and a facilitator, he ensures his audience remains highly engaged.

• Build self-sustaining conversations: A true community is one where members engage with each other, not just with the brand. Simon Sinek’s leadership circles are an example of this in action. His concept of Start With Why became a movement rather than just a framework, leading to discussion groups, mentorship programs, and organizations that apply his insights. By giving his followers a purpose beyond himself, he created a self-perpetuating brand community.

The shift in mindset

A strong personal brand isn’t just an individual projecting an image—it’s a collective meaning-making process. If your personal brand embodies a powerful enough idea, people won’t just follow you. They’ll find each other through you.