Personal brand strategy and positioning
MVP (Mega Volume Production, 十方众声) builds personal brand strategy for established creators, celebrities, founders and companies. It works out with you four things: what you are known for, who you speak to, what you talk about, and which deals you will not take. It suits a change of direction, a plateau, a new platform or a founder stepping forward. MVP’s own team delivers a written plan you can act on.
What is personal brand strategy?
Personal brand strategy means working out, and writing down, four things: what you are known for, who you mainly speak to, what you will talk about for years, and which deals you will not take. It is broader than a content plan for one account: a content plan decides what one account posts, while personal brand strategy decides who you are across every platform and every deal. Your persona, the image you show the public, is only one part of it; for founders and professionals this work is often called personal brand positioning.
The work is split like this:
- What MVP does: the interviews, the review of where you stand on each platform, and the written plan are done by MVP’s own team.
- What you do: sit for the interviews and say what your real experience, views and worries are. You approve every item in the plan, and nothing you disagree with goes in.
- What you get: a report on where you stand now, a positioning plan with voice guidelines (how you speak, how you look, which topics you leave alone), and a list of the deals you will and will not take.
The bigger the account, the more a change of direction, a wrong deal or a careless remark costs, and a public image that does not match the real person breaks sooner or later. That applies as much to celebrity brand marketing as to a founder’s first public steps. So MVP starts from your real experience, expertise and views, not from fashionable labels. The list of deals then guides talent development, channel operations and brand partnerships.
How MVP is paid: on its own, strategy is priced as a project; in a long-term engagement it is part of the overall work. See the FAQ below.
When do you need a personal brand strategy?
Five moments are worth a fresh look at your strategy: a change of direction, a plateau in reach and income, a move onto a new platform, rebuilding your public image after bad news, and a founder stepping forward in their own name. All four kinds of client below can reach these points, which is usually when a personal brand consultant is called in; handling the bad news itself is covered by reputation and risk. For creators and influencers the bar is 100,000 followers and a steady record of content and brand deals; celebrities, founders, experts and companies are judged on their standing in their field, not on follower count alone, and founders and experts can start from setting up the account. If you are not sure you qualify, get in touch anyway.
Founders & executives
Personal branding built around limited time, from positioning to privacy protection
Creators & influencers
Brand deals, operations and pivots for established creators
Celebrities & artists
Social media and digital presence, alongside your existing agent or manager
Companies & brands
One plan for the official, founder and employee accounts
What does a personal brand strategy include?
MVP’s personal brand strategy has four parts that together form a plan you can act on.
Personal brand audit
MVP goes through your current audience, your content, your past deals and how the public sees you, and finds where your public image and the real you, or your deals and your long-term value, do not match. The result is a written report. Audience data comes first from the platforms’ own dashboards; see which data sources come first.
An honest persona and voice guidelines
A public image you can keep up for years, drawn from your own experience, expertise and views, written up as rules for tone, look and public statements, including the topics you will not touch.
Content direction
A few themes you can keep talking about, and a clear role for each platform, so content on different platforms supports rather than contradicts itself. When you work across Chinese and Western platforms, what you stand for stays fixed while tone, format and references are adapted for each market.
The list of deals you will and will not take
The categories, kinds of partner and kinds of deal that fit and do not fit, with the red lines written down. MVP calls these your commercial limits. The list later guides brand partnerships and risk review.
What questions does personal brand positioning answer?
Four questions: who you are, who you create value for, what you will talk about for years, and which money you turn down.
Who you are: what you are known for
Why should people remember you? The answer has to come from real experience, expertise or work, and fit into one sentence. Something that will still be true in many years is the right place to start.
Who you create value for: your main audience
The people who follow you, the people who pay you and the people you want to influence are often different groups. Positioning chooses which group comes first, and accepts losing some broad reach as a result.
What you will talk about for years: a few fixed themes
A few themes you can keep developing make your content recognizable at a glance and keep it consistent across platforms. The themes have to connect to what you are known for, or chasing trends will pull your image off course.
Which money you turn down: deals you will not take
Which categories, partners and kinds of deal clash with your image? Writing this down early protects your long-term commercial value and keeps risks, such as sharing the blame when an endorsed product goes wrong, out before any contract is signed.
How does a personal brand strategy project work?
After signing there are four steps, from interviews to a trial and review; how long they take depends on the size of your audience and the number of platforms. The steps from application to signing are on the approach page.
Interviews
MVP talks at length with you and your core team about your experience, goals and worries, and about the limits your existing contracts set. The conversations are covered by the non-disclosure agreement.
Audit
MVP analyzes your content, audience, past deals and public image on each platform and writes a report that shows where they do not match the positioning and where the risks are.
Positioning plan
MVP proposes the persona and voice guidelines, the themes, and the list of deals you will and will not take, and confirms each item with you; nothing you disagree with goes in.
Trial and review
The plan is tried on one platform or one project first. At an agreed point MVP looks at how the audience and the deals have changed, and only then is the plan adjusted and taken to other platforms.
How do you know a personal brand strategy is working?
MVP looks at three things, and never at short-term follower count alone.
Whether the right people are arriving
Whether your new followers are the audience the positioning aims at, and whether comments and engagement center on what you most want to be known for rather than on one-off trending topics. The check uses what the platforms’ own dashboards show about new followers, such as age, location and interests.
Whether your deals are getting better
Whether the brands and categories that approach you match your image, whether terms and fees for similar deals improve, and whether offers that clash with the positioning decline.
How people describe you
Whether fans, media and partners describe you the way the positioning intends, whether every platform says the same thing, and whether “that’s not who they are” criticism falls. Things to compare: the suggestions a search engine offers for your name, how the media describe you, and how the main AI assistants answer “who is this person?”.
Where do search results and AI answers about a person come from?
From the public material they can read: established media reporting, official pages and encyclopedia entries. So what people see when they search for you, or ask an AI assistant who you are, depends on what public material already exists to be cited. The rules the platforms publish are set out below.
Take Google. The profile box beside the search results, called a knowledge panel, is generated automatically from sources across the web, and the person it describes, or their official representative, can claim it once verified and suggest changes.1 AI-written answers (AI Overviews and AI Mode) show links to supporting web pages; to appear as one of those links, a page must be indexed by Google and eligible to be shown in search results with a snippet, and there are no additional technical requirements.2
Encyclopedias have editing rules of their own. Baidu Baike, the online encyclopedia run by Baidu, requires every fact in an entry about a business person to match a cited reference, and sets the format and placement of those references.3
Notes
- About knowledge panels
- AI features and your website
- 《百度百科：企业人物类词条编辑规则》 (Baidu Baike: editing rules for entries on business people)
Frequently asked questions
How long does a personal brand strategy take?
There is no standard length; it depends on the size of your audience, the number of platforms and when the interviews can be held. MVP gives you a written schedule after the first conversation, so the work can be planned around launches, releases and contract dates.
How is personal brand strategy priced?
On its own, personal brand strategy is priced as a project, based on the scope of the work, the number of platforms and whether a trial period is included; for clients in a long-term engagement, it is part of the overall work. Applying and the diagnosis are free. The figures come with your proposal and are itemized before you sign; how each type of client is charged is set out under how MVP charges.
How does MVP keep a public persona true to the person?
MVP draws your public image only from your real experience, expertise and views, never from labels that don’t fit you. Every item in the plan needs your approval, and nothing you disagree with goes in.
Will repositioning cost me followers?
Some, yes: followers who don’t fit the new direction may leave, and that is the normal cost of a change. MVP keeps what your existing audience already values in you and changes the content in stages. Success is judged by whether the right people follow you and whether your deals get better, not by the total follower count.
Related capabilities
Personal brand strategy is where MVP’s other four capabilities start: once the direction is set, talent development, channel operations, brand partnerships and reputation protection carry it out.
Talent development
Turns a growing account into a long-term career
Channel operations
Runs your accounts, content and fan communities across platforms
Partnerships & opportunities
Finds brand deals that fit you, and negotiates fees and contracts
Reputation & risk
Monitors risk, responds to crises and repairs reputations
At a turning point? Start with strategy.
Tell MVP where you stand and where you want to go, and book a diagnosis to scope the strategy work.