Olivia
Online
NP
@PuniaProtocol
I talk about personal branding and marketing
Founder: ELICI AI (launching soon...)
Joined February 2015
714 Following
803 Followers
2.8K Posts
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Who is saying the words matter more than the words being said.
Why are you watering down your point of view?
Why are you not making a bold claim?
Why are you not sharing your raw perspective (when you think about it every single day)?
Are you planning to blend in with the competition?
Or do you want to stand out as the person and brand that defined the category?
You cannot build a category-defining brand if you are terrified of being misunderstood.
@dickiebush so how do you prefer finding and buying new things?
Whoever controls your imagination controls you.
After 9 years in the game, I use 1 simple word to break down any piece of marketing:
DIRT
DIRT stands for:
> Desire = Gap (between what you want and what you have)
> Intrigue = Information gap (between what you want and what you have)
> Relatability = Similarity (similar beliefs, country, religion, values, habits, physical appearance, school, college, etc.)
> Trust = Set expectation. Meet expectation.
Intrigue and Relatability are great for attention and shares.
Desire and Trust are great for follows and conversions.
@MarioNawfal the moment you have been training your whole life for!
Authority = Author the content that shows you have or done the thing I want.
And you can help me get or do the thing I want.
11 ways to make sure you NEVER stand out in your space:
1.) Repeat the SAME advice that everyone else in your market is giving.
Do NOT add your experience or flavor to it.
2.) LOOK like every other founder in your space (visually)
3.) Talk about "general" and "safe to talk about" stuff.
4.) Hide your personality. Hide your craziness to fit in.
Or show the same weirdness everyone else is showing.
5.) Be politically correct.
Do NOT (for the love of God) share what you actually think and feel.
Do NOT take a stand. Or they will remove your presidency.
DO NOT be CONTROVERSIAL. Or your non-existent stocks will go down.
6.) Have the same business values as the next Tom, Dicky, and Harry.
βWe care a lot about our customersβ
7.) Consume the same content everyone else in your space consumes.
8.) Do not bringΒ outΒ any of your CREATIVITY or that ORIGINAL THOUGHT you had in the shower.
Or you will be taken to the pits of horror.
9.) Use the same 10 proven templates for doing and saying everything (that all of your competitors and their dads are using)
10.) Do NOT evolve
Never accept that you have changed your mind on something. You were born perfect. No evolution ever required for this product.
11.) Do NOT share any emotions
People relate to logic the most. No one likes Elon Musk's memes.
People can't quote you if you don't say anything
3 humiliating things you can do to grow your personal brand:
1.) Write a detailed autopsy of your biggest failure
2.) Pin your oldest, cringest photo or piece of work at the top (people will see how far you have come)
3.) Ask your audience to roast you and your product
Myth: Original thinking burns massive amounts of energy.
Reality: Hard cognitive work only consumes 5% more energy than if you were staring at the wall.
Grok Bot vs Hermes Agent: Positioning Wars
1. WHO (target market)
Grok Bot (xAI):
Non-technical operators, founders, agency owners, product developers, busy executives... people who want an out-of-the-box teammate
Hermes Agent (Nous Research):
Technical builders, founders, AI automation experts, developers... people who want architectural sovereignty and privacy
2. RESOURCES THEY GAIN/PROTECT (out of core 10 resources)
Grok Bot:
> Time (hands-off delegation, save 100s of hours)
> Energy (low cognitive friction)
> Freedom (shut the laptop and walk away... your teammate will take care of your work)
> Status (cool person/leader with digital teammates, brownie points on X).
Hermes Agent:
> Money (open-source... eliminates SaaS fees)
> Freedom (model agnosticism, own the machine, change the LLM at will, data sovereignty)
> Safety (data privacy)
> Meaning ("I built my own persistent, self-improving agent stack from scratch... feel like you created something great")
3. DIRECTION (towards the desire/away from the horror)
Grok Bot:
> Away from Technical Setup β Towards instant AI Teammates
Hermes Agent:
> Away from Corporate Surveillance β Towards Sovereignty
4. WHEN (the trigger)
Grok Bot:
When an AI-curious person wants to give 'digital teammates' a try. When an overloaded person wants to delegate but got no patience or skill for terminal setup.
Hermes Agent:
When a person is comfortable and willing to go through terminal setup and wants to deploy robust, sovereign automations without paying the SAAS tax
5. PRICE
Grok Bot:
$120-$300/monthBundled in different plans... Cursor Ultra / SuperGrok Heavy. Plus an uncapped on-demand meter for token usage.
Hermes Agent:
$0 (100% Free, MIT License)Fuel costs (like $5-20/month for VPS hosting, model token usage via Open Router, maybe a separate mac setup, etc.).
6. EFFORT (core resources required to get/use it)
Grok Bot:
> Money: $200+/mo upfront
> Freedom: Sacrificing architectural choice (gotta use SpaceXAI's hosted infrastructure and their rules).
Hermes Agent:
> Time + Energy: High setup effort (CLI setup scripts, deploying VPS/Docker containers, configuring env keys, etc.).
> Emotional State: Can be negative... debug silent agent failures or loops before getting a stable build.
7. RISK (what you might lose)
Grok Bot:
> Money and Freedom: Sudden API price changes, platform rate limits, account termination, etc.
> Safety (Data): Shared VM cloud design means sensitive keys, logins, and enterprise data live on 3rd party servers.
Hermes Agent:
> Time and Emotional State: You can spend days troubleshooting agent coordination failures, loops, or bots "ignoring" each other.
> Energy and Safety: High cognitive load to maintain and ensure the security your own self-hosted agent environment.
8. BELIEVABILITY (Proof, Credentials, Experience)
Grok Bot:
> Proof: Backed by ELON MUSK (name carries the weight)... xAI
> Mechanism/Experiential: Teach-a-Task. You record a video of yourself doing a task manually. Bot learns and shows you visually his replication skills. No APIs needed.
> Feedback Loop: You can close your laptop. Open the iOS companion later. And see the output of your work.
Hermes Agent:
> Proof: Created by Nous Research (140k+ GitHub stars).
> Mechanism/Experiential: Open-source. You see the exact system prompts, logs, terminal outputs, agent improving its own skills (live). You can wire it directly to your Telegram, WhatsApp, or Discord to trigger execution on command.
> Feedback Loop: You can ping your Telegram bot from your phone while you are drinking and fighting the bear and see your local servers, code files, money logs, etc.
WINNER (in terms of who will grab more users):
Grok will naturally grab more users.
Convenience and distribution beat raw infra.
Reduce the effort required to use your thing...
while delivering the desired resources people want... and you naturally win big.
If you want to become viciously good at personal brand and content game:
Consume fitness creators.
And you will naturally get trained in 3 Arts:
1.) Art of Differentiation: Fitness is an old industry. Lots of competition. Not much barrier to entry. So you are forced to stand out. Or you won't make it.
2.) Art of Simplification: Taking a complex topic and making it visual and simple.
3.) Art of Demonstration: Demonstrate you have done things and can do things by doing things.
More human. Less bot-y.
instead of a long script, use bullet points to keep your delivery feeling natural, authentic, and real π
He scaled the internet's biggest personal brands (Gary Vee, Hormozi, and others) to a combined 30 million+ followers.
I just watched his 3 hr. 20-min video on 'How to Scale Your Personal Brand to 10M Followers'.
Here are my 48 takeaways:
1.) Before picking any strategy, answer these 4 questions... What is your desired outcome? What must you be known for to get it? What actions must you take? What do you need to learn to take those actions?
2.) Define 4 brand associations: 2 things you want to be known for. And 2 things you want to be known as being against.
3.) 1 important positioning question: What do you believe about your industry that is fundamentally different from everyone else speaking in that space? This contrarian belief is going to be your north star. It's more important than titles, thumbnails, or hooks. For Gary Vee: this was picking social media over traditional media.
4.) 4 content mediums (video, audio, written, or photo/graphics). Pick the one that feels most natural to you. Do not start with a medium that makes you uncomfortable. It usually ends up killing your consistency.
5.) Roughly 90% of creators online are in stage one (0 to 100K followers). And 90% of those are under 20k followers. Me: Basically, if you have 21K Followers, you are in the top 10% of creators (in terms of followers).
6.) 3 most common reasons people get stuck in stage 1 are: a.) No sustainable process. b.) Building a brand around a niche they don't care about. c.) Trying to monetize too early before earning the trust of your audience.
7.) In this stage, you want to test and learn what your audience wants by putting out a lot of content. But most creators only do the testing half and skip the learning half.
8.) You only learn from testing if you track results. Without tracking and adjusting based on performance, you are just throwing content into a void. No real growth comes from there.
9.) In Stage 1, aim for clarity over width in your niche. Pick a narrow subject matter. Build credibility as the go-to voice in it. And pair that subject with your personal interests to stand out from others covering the same topic.
10.) Repeat your core message over and over again. Michael Jordan wore Nikes every game for years to create that association. You need to consistently pair yourself with your core idea until your audience automatically connects the two.
11.) Choose your lane based on either being already world-class at something or being genuinely committed to becoming world-class at it. Do not posture as an expert when you are not. Being an honest learner... documenting the journey is a legitimate and valuable content position in itself (no need to be the fake expert).
12.) There are 3 levers to stand out in any space: A contrarian belief. A differentiated delivery style. Or a distinctive wrapping paper (format and packaging). Contrarian take... most powerful (you can see the positioning question in point 3)
13.) Do not manufacture a contrarian take just to have one. It must reflect something you genuinely believe after deeply understanding your space.
14.) "Comfort creators" is a rising delivery trend: calm, more relaxed communication styles are resonating with audiences who do not respond well to aggressive or high-energy teaching. Scan your space. And lean into whatever delivery style is authentically yours and underrepresented in that space.
15.) Wrapping paper (your format and packaging) is the 3rd lever. How you present ideas, not just what you say... can differentiate you. Example: Cinematic educational content.
16.) Run what he calls mega depth plays. Example: His free 6-hour course. Or you can create a detailed manifesto. These things signal leadership and position you in a different category. And giving away what others charge for can generate more business than selling it.
17.) Branding is intentional pairing of relevant things (done consistently). The byproduct is brand: your audience is automatically associating you with what you are repeatedly pairing yourself with. Take care of who and what you pair yourself with.
18.) Not all press and views are good. Every collaboration and podcast appearance is a pairing. And this shapes how your audience perceives you. Ruthlessly say no to opportunities that do not align with your desired associations.
19.) Use his "2-column" exercise to clarify positioning: On the left, list everything in your space you disagree with or find cringe-worthy. On the right, write the exact opposite. The right column describes how you want to show up and what you want to pair yourself with.
20.) Before adding any new topic to your content, ask 3 questions: Does it help you become known for your main thing? Does it align with your contrarian belief or delivery style? And will your audience actually find it useful?
21.) Audit your brand quarterly or monthly to make sure you are not accidentally building around a niche you do not want to live in.
22.) A good proxy for whether your positioning is working or not (even before having an offer): Conversions on your free resources signal that your content is valuable enough for people to want to go deeper.
23.) Pick 2-3 signature content formats in stage 1. And stick with them. Sustainable formats are more important when you are building the habit. His suggestion for YouTube: Deep explainer/value, case study breakdowns, vlog/demonstrate expertise in action.
24.) 3 questions to ask before filming any piece of content: Does it answer a question you are already frequently asked? Does it solve a problem your ideal customer has? And are you only doing it because it is trending? If trending but off-topic, skip it or reframe it for your core message.
25.) If you have to hype yourself up to talk about a topic, that is a signal you may be in the wrong niche. Sustainable content creation requires your genuine enthusiasm for the subject matter.
26.) Pair filming days with things you genuinely enjoy... a specific location you enjoy, people you trust, or even preferred snacks and beverages... so you associate content days with positive feelings rather than dread.
27.) After every filming session, run a postmortem. List what went well and what sucked. Then improve the process. Treat the production experience the same way you treat content performance. Track it and iterate until it's dialed in for you.
28.) Waterfall Distribution Method: Create 1 long-form pillar piece of content for your primary platform. Mine moments from it and repackage those moments natively for your secondary platform. Don't try to be everywhere at once. 2 platforms are enough in stage 1.
29.) When repackaging content across platforms, adapt it to fit the context and norms of each platform. Direct copy-pasting is not effective. A way to think about this... you show up differently in different environments (when speaking to your parents, partner, peers, etc.). Your content should do the same based on which platform it's going.
30.) Track inputs (number of posts per month), watch time, views, quality of inbound messages, and follower count as a demand signal. Use a multiplier system for outliers: Establish a 90-day average. And grade all future content as a multiple of that baseline rather than raw numbers.
31.) In stage 1, avoid making big direct monetization asks for at least the first six to twelve months. If you must sell, do it one-to-one in private (via ads, DMs, etc.).
32.) Do not accept influencer or brand deals early unless the product is something you genuinely use and believe in. Promoting a product that disappoints your audience pairs you with that disappointment. And erodes the trust you are trying to build.
33.) Stage 2 (100K to 1 million followers) is only 8-9% of all creators. The core change: Moving from solo operation to building repeatable systems. And beginning to rely on other people.
34.) In stage 2, evolve your niche strategy by adding 3-5 adjacent topics within your lane. Half the goal is finding what resonates with your audience. The other half is finding formats that energize and excite so you keep creating.
35.) Content ratio in stage 2: 75% deep expertise content, 20% niche-wide content (wide within your lane, not wide for the world), and 5% personal content that humanizes you. In the AI era, your humanity is an advantage.
36.) Niche-wide content increases discoverability inside your lane. General discoverability appeals to everyone but no one specific. And it usually ends up attracting the audiences who will never buy from you (more noise, less signal).
37.) Vlogs are underrated as depth plays. But they demonstrate your expertise in action. And people want to see more of that.
38.) Hire around bottlenecks. Identify where projects stall in your process. And make sure whoever you bring on has their primary skill in that area (along with other useful skills).
39.) In his opinion, your most important first hire for a media team is a content director. Not an editor or videographer.
40.) In stage 2, apply his "Eye of Sauron" method: Focus ruthlessly on 1 platform at a time until it has a dialed-in and repeatable system. Then shift focus to the next. Other platforms go into maintenance mode (still posting, but not innovating) until the eye returns.
41.) Graduate secondary platforms to primary status only when they consistently outperform your 90-day benchmark. And are also driving high-quality business leads. And you can put primary to secondary also if they are not performing.
42.) 70-20-10 framework: 70% proven content. 20% iterations on that proven content. 10% experiments and big swings. Create psychological safety around the experiments that flop. Or your team will start playing safe.
43.) Shorten the feedback loop between creating and learning. Batching more than a month of content at a time means you cannot apply learnings for months. Not worth it.
44.) In stage 2, add metrics for idea-to-live time, edit-to-ship time, and deadline hit rate. Compressing production timelines allows you to increase volume. But if you cannot hit deadlines at current volume, you are not ready to increase volume.
45.) Monetize trust, not just attention. The best offer structure is free content that solves a problem and simultaneously reveals a deeper problem that your paid offer solves. Your audience should see buying as the natural next step.
46.) Stage 3 (1 to 10 million followers) requires expanding to 6 primary platforms with dedicated platform owners who are also the creators for those platforms. Someone who lives inside a single platform will understand its nuances at a level a generalist never will.
47.) At stage 4 (10 million plus), begin building the personal brands of other people in your organization so the business is no longer dependent on you. Example: The Ramsey network model: Multiple personalities are connecting with the audience.
48.) Don't be the only dancing bear in your company. Bring in some more bears :)
Share it with someone who is currently building their brand.
59k followers...
3 likes...
Paid followers don't build the brand.
And legit followers who see this lose trust in you.
Beware... your fast strategy isn't destroying the thing you desired.
@rahqstar Go for it
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