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There’s a cliched Mark Twain quip that you go bankrupt slowly then suddenly. Looking around at the media landscape today, it feels like a similar process happened over the last decade.
I cannot remember watching any travel documentaries on TV in the last few years. But I do watch the Bald and Bankrupt channel on YouTube whenever he uploads. I probably get 80% of my finance news from specialist outlets and newsletters, versus ‘mainstream’ media. I could go on.
One facet of this change has been the rise of what you could term ‘personal branding’. This expresses itself in a few ways but the broad movement is towards executives being more ‘transparent’ and ‘authentic’.
Relative to a decade ago, this means it is much harder for broker executives to be anonymous. A trend we also see in the prop space is that firms suffer if they do not have a public-facing leadership team.
But this goes beyond the FX/CFD world as well. We now see CEOs of major companies sitting down and chatting for 2+ hours on podcasts like Lex Fridman’s. Alternatively it could mean they are more active on social media posting Tony Robbins style stuff.
If you wanted a sign that this latter method has become super popular then a month ago, IG Group held an event for premium clients in Dubai with the Diary of a CEO (DOCEO) guy.
Now I am going to be real with you readers, I am a hater. I cannot watch Steven Bartlett for more than about 2 seconds before I’m filled with a deep, gut wrenching mix of cringe and rage that makes me want to dunk my PC in bleach to just make it stop.
Sitting through a whole 1.5 hours with him would be like torture and you can be damned sure Kimbers would be moving his MENA premium account to Pepperstone or eToro sharpish if Bartlett was sprung on him ex nihilo.
But that’s just me and not everyone is like DOCEO guy. Part of marketing (and life?) is also accepting that people like different stuff to you and adjusting accordingly. The question is whether it actually has value to it.
TradeInformer tried reaching out to some people who put out DOCEO-style content. Alas readers, we received no responses. However, I thought this recent post from John Kraski, who does post this type of content, was revealing…
On the other hand, that is LinkedIn and there is also a significant caveat in Kraski’s post – you need something people want to buy. If you look at the FX/CFD industry specifically, then a vast amount of business is basically driven by IBs / affiliates, many of whom post this type of stuff and who do indeed have something people want to buy!
So perhaps there is a distinction to be made there between personal branding as it pertains to a potential affiliate, where it might work well, versus for a broker executive, where there might not be that much value.
At the same time, personal brand building activity can take other forms beyond DOCEO-style stuff. For example, a lot of finance people post content that’s more industry specific. Eddie Donmez is one person that arguably ‘pioneered’ this genre.
I am not a fan of Donmez but then he has close to 300k followers in a valuable niche and has managed to parlay that into a full time gig, so I guess that worked out for him? Others that TradeInformer spoke to seemed to be gaining benefits from it too.
“I already enjoyed sharing content, and it’s been mutually beneficial – enhancing both my personal brand and increasing visibility for Leverage Shares,” said Oktay Kravak, Director of Communications & Strategy at ETF issuer Leverage Shares.
“The business of exchange-traded products is tough because it’s seldom clear who the end client is. So the role of marketing and social media is just as important as ‘traditional sales’ to bring awareness to your brand. And I’d say this interconnected approach has been steadily building momentum over time.”
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Kravak also told TradeInformer that his activity has resulted in more interactions with clients, leads, and mentions in large media outlets. It’s hard to argue with the results if that’s the case.
Others that TradeInformer spoke to made similar arguments as well, suggesting this is not just an anecdote.
“[Personal branding] helps in many ways,” said Anya Aratovskaya, a consultant in the FX/CFD industry. “Direct and indirect. As long as you are authentic, consistent, respectful, and deliver value, or entertainment of some sort. From new clients to leads to referrals to job offers to personal development, I can just keep going.”
I would also say that this is true based on personal experience. In its own small way, TradeInformer has grown from a blog on Substack to its own website, with a bunch of additional content beyond the original newsletter. And along the way I got a lot of the sorts of benefits that Anya describes above.
There is also something of a virtuous circle because stuff I do in my day job helps with TradeInformer, and then work I do for TradeInformer helps in my day job. I am also not alone in doing something like this and I see plenty of people who post about other work/projects they’re doing in life, even if it’s not connected to their 9 to 5.
Again, speaking to a few people doing this kind of thing, the sense you get is that there is a benefit to themselves and the company they work for, even if it’s not directly resulting in clients depositing and placing trades.
For example, TradeInformer spoke to Theresia Clara, who works for Exness in their Kuala Lumpur office. She runs a travel blog and often shared Exness’ employee benefits on both her blog and LinkedIn, which have been beneficial to the HR and Talent Acquisition teams.
Another member of the Exness team in KL, Jack Alderton, also told TradeInformer that developing his own content had helped him develop skills that he then used in his job. Alderton runs a YouTube channel which has >3k subs and has a newsletter.
“Personal branding does help drive business in many ways,” Alderton told TradeInformer. “The primary way I can think of is through our partners. They drive the majority of our business, so strong personal brands and referral businesses are critical to the success of Exness as a broker, even if that’s not the employees themselves.
“And then more personally, I script and present some of the social media content Exness posts, so having a familiar face that people see regularly can also drive business or build trust with potential clients. As a content producer, my day job has helped me develop skills for my personal pursuits, and vice versa.”
So there you have it readers, personal branding is indeed useful, even if that’s not the case all of the time. The trouble is that a lot of it is less tangible than someone signing up or making a deposit. But isn’t that true of a lot of marketing?