Personal branding for SaaS founders: How to connect it with your business
Having a personal brand is one of the best things you can do as a SaaS founder to put your brand ahead of competitors.
By harnessing the power of personal brands, companies can establish trust, credibility, and human connection more quickly and easily with their existing and future customers.
When people are familiar with the individuals behind the company, they're more likely to relate to and buy from it.
But how to incorporate your personal brand into your SaaS business marketing strategy?
How to connect your founder brand with your SaaS business
Founder brand is a powerful tool to add to your company's content marketing and social media strategy. When done right, your personal and corporate brand will work in synergy, delivering better and more long-lasting results.
1. Define your target audience
To establish your personal brand effectively, it's essential to understand who your target audience is. Start with identifying your ideal customers' key characteristics, pain points, and motivations. This will enable you to create a personal brand that deeply resonates with your audience.
It's important to be consistent here: pick the same target audience as you have for your corporate brand. For example, Rand Fishkin, CEO of Sparktoro, a marketing tool, speaks to marketers, while Tyler Denk, CEO of beehiiv, a newsletter tool, addresses writers and content creators.
2. Identify key personalities
Apart from your own brand, you can search for those who might become your corporate brand ambassadors. Find influential individuals in your industry whose personal brands align with your company's values and goals—these could be thought leaders, industry experts, and even your own employees.
Before the big launch, Tana, an all-in-one workplace and note-taking app, established relationships with prominent figures in the PKM (personal knowledge management) industry on Twitter. Then, they invited Roam Research, Obsidian, and Notion users to test Tana.
3. Craft a consistent brand voice
Create a cohesive brand voice that aligns with your organization's values and connects with your target audience. This tone should be evident in your overall brand identity's messaging, including your own brand and the personal brands of your company's ambassadors.
The personality of Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot, is reflected in the brand voice of HubSpot—it's friendly, helpful, and non-robotic.
With over 81k followers on Twitter, Brian engages with his audience by replying to comments, retweeting relevant content, and posting polls and quizzes. His personal brand aligns with HubSpot's mission of helping businesses grow better through tools, education, and support.
4. Empower your employees
Within your well-crafted brand strategy, encourage and empower your employees to build their personal brands to improve the positioning of your company.
Provide them with guidelines and resources to help them represent the company alongside showcasing their expertise and unique perspectives. But first—lead by example and start with your founder brand.
Lemlist, a cold outreach tool, encourages its employees to develop their personal brands through social accounts.
The CEO, Guillaume Moubeche, has an audience of 23k followers on LinkedIn. Roxana Irimia, the head of marketing, has 44k followers, and Lucas Perret, the growth manager, has 53k followers.
5. Collaborate and amplify
Foster collaboration between your company and the personal brands that represent it (your own brand included).
Develop marketing tactics like participating in guest blogging, speaking engagements, and joint social media campaigns. This way, you can amplify your brand message to a wider audience by leveraging the reach and influence of personal brands across marketing channels.
For example, Notion reshares its employees' posts to its company page. The company doesn't brag about itself—instead, it uses its employees' posts to highlight what's happening.
6. Provide value and build thought leadership
Personal brands thrive on providing value and thought leadership to their audience.
Share and encourage others to share their expertise, insights, and industry trends through different social media channels and content like blog posts, articles, webinars, and podcasts.
This positions you and others as trusted authorities and enhances your company's reputation and customer loyalty.
Edward White is a growth manager at Beehiiv. He's active on Reddit and LinkedIn, where he freely shares his knowledge of marketing strategies that build trust in his company's brand by showing his expertise.
7. Measure and adjust
Continuously monitor and measure the impact of your personal branding efforts. Track engagement, reach, and conversion metrics to determine the effectiveness of your strategy. Adjust and refine your approach based on the data, analytics tools, and feedback you receive.
Measure the performance of your personal brand versus your business account and see how it differs. One platform could work better than the other, but if you drive at least a bit of traffic to your business page and increase your company's brand awareness, you're a winner.
How SaaS founders leverage personal branding
Successful SaaS founders who have mastered personal branding on social media platforms inspire others looking to make an impact in their industries.
When it comes to choosing a social media platform for your brand, the four main ones stay the same—Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. You can choose one or more channels for your social media presence and stick with it.
Here are four case studies of successful SaaS founders who leverage different social media channels and use their brands to help their companies succeed—with examples of their posts and ideas for your next one.
On Twitter, you can engage in industry discussions, get customer feedback, share valuable insights, and connect with potential customers and partners.
You can harness the platform's real-time nature to stay updated on the latest trends and actively participate in conversations that matter most to your target audience.
Josh Miller (45.1k followers), CEO of The Browser Company (101.3k followers), is active at least 4 times weekly on Twitter (he interacts with his audience every day).
He responds to comments he's tagged in and monitors company tags to show personal appreciation from his personal account.
Here are some ideas for your posts:
- Share the emotions you experience working on your startup
- Showcase updates and progress of your company
- Involve your audience to help you make business decisions, ask for their feedback
- Reshare news from your company
- Showcase your clients’ testimonials
- Share company news, add a picture of your employees
- Make personal announcements (for example, your speaking gigs)
- Compliment other founders
Twitter is the ideal platform for quickly sharing news, interacting with people, and providing concise updates on your company's activities.
LinkedIn is a powerful platform for establishing thought leadership and professional connections.
Through thought-provoking articles, engaging posts, and meaningful interactions, you can position yourself as the industry expert and create a network of like-minded professionals who can support and promote your SaaS ventures.
Tyler Denk (16.8k followers), a co-founder and CEO of beehiiv (10.8k followers). He posts 2 times per week and reshares the most important information from his company's page. He stands out by having short but straight-to-the-point posts.
Here are some ideas for your posts:
- Share your business updates
- Announce launches or any big updates from your company
- Repost big announcements from your company
- Share your personal stories
- tell your customers' stories
Beehiiv uses a bee emoji "🐝" that Tyler has added to his profile name. It's a great example of creating brand awareness by elevating your company's branding.
LinkedIn is the must-have business platform for all SaaS. Even if you're not creating social media content on LinkedIn, you can use it to network with other professionals and find potential new customers and partners.
Instagram is known for its visual appeal.
It allows you to use different features—pictures, reels, stories, lives, etc. You can showcase your company culture, behind-the-scenes moments, and success stories.
By sharing captivating visuals and relatable content, you can humanize your brand and create a loyal community of followers who are genuinely interested in your SaaS offering.
Michelle Marcelline (3.1k followers), the founder of TypeDream (1.9k followers), uses Instagram to gain extra exposure, boost brand awareness for her company, and showcase her life as a startup founder.
She has a pinned tweet about how she started the company and poses together with her team for the nomination in Forbes 30 under 30.
Here are some ideas for your posts:
- Share your company's updates
- Share how you became a founder
- Share tips to other entrepreneurs
- Share how your daily life looks like
- Present your tool from the founder's perspective
Even if you're not active on Instagram, having an account on this platform allows people to tag you if you appear on events or podcasts.
Nathan Barry (3.6k followers), the founder and CEO of ConvertKit (22.7k followers). His main channels for personal branding are LinkedIn and Twitter, but he also shows how important it is to have an active account on Instagram.
He uses Instagram more for his personal life, but on Instagram, if you receive an invitation to a podcast and you're tagged in a post, it will appear in your feed.
Nathan chatted with Ali Abdaal, a famous YouTuber, and Ali received a massive response to the picture he posted (that appeared on Nathan's feed)
Instagram has a story functionality, which Nathan actively uses to show what he's doing. Instagram is a great platform to share visual information on stories that last for 24 hours, save them as highlights on your profile, and create trending reels about your company.
TikTok
TikTok allows you to tap into the younger demographic and showcase your creativity. By creating short, engaging videos highlighting the unique aspects of your SaaS products or services, you can generate buzz, increase brand awareness, and attract new users.
John Hu (102.1k followers), the founder of Stan (37.1k followers), started building his personal brand before the launch of his company. In started by creating videos on how to start your startup.
In some months, he shares only 4 videos and in some—23 videos. He has built his startup while showcasing the process on TikTok (check this video).
Here are some ideas for your posts:
- Vlog about your daily life running your company
- Share your personal tips for better life
- Share business tips and what you've learned while building your business
- Make business announcements
- Use a trend like #stitch to finish the story with your perspective
- Answer your audience's questions
- Share your struggles
- Share behind the scenes
This is a success story of how a startup founder leveraged his brand on TikTok and built his company. John Hu's gained popularity helped to build his company's account.
TikTok is a demanding platform for original video content, but it can potentially reach the Gen Z audience. Different trends allow you to experiment with the style and create useful content for your target audience.
Conclusion
Integrating your personal brand into your B2B SaaS marketing strategy is not about overshadowing your company's brand.
It's about leveraging the power of individuals to humanize your brand, establish credibility, develop a unique selling proposition, and connect with your target audience on a deeper level.
When done effectively, personal branding can be a powerful tool to differentiate your own B2B marketing brand in a crowded market.