The question isn’t whether your employees will build personal brands. Many already are. The real question is whether they’ll feel supported doing it while they work for you.

Any social platform can fuel personal branding, though LinkedIn holds the crown for those developing and amplifying their professional expertise. LinkedIn’s algorithm leans into creators (not brand pages) and rewards those who consistently post and attract engagement. But not all engagement is alike — sometimes, controversial “hot takes” or Reddit’s /LinkedInLunatics-worthy posts go viral while true thought leadership remains buried. It’s a big reason why at KVA, we always recommend clients diversify their content and channels.

For some leadership teams, employee visibility creates a quiet tension. It’s great to have smart, credible people representing your industry until it feels unpredictable. But…what if they say something off-brand? What if their following grows faster than the company’s? What if they leave?

(Real fears. Very common.)

 At the same time, we’re operating in a world where careers, opportunities, and professional relationships are increasingly shaped by digital visibility.

Kelly Vaughn and I first connected years ago on Twitter (now X), when we were both building personal brands in our respective corners of the internet. It’s a fitting origin story. Much of Kelly’s career — from freelance work to leadership roles — has been influenced by the credibility and community she built online.

Now an engineering leader at Zapier, Kelly focuses on the human side of tech leadership through speaking, writing, and thoughtful commentary. She’s experienced what employer support looks like when it works, and what happens when companies overreach.

I asked Kelly what it’s actually like to balance a thriving personal brand with a full-time leadership role and what leaders should understand if they want this relationship to work for everyone involved.

A Q&A with Kelly Vaughn

Maria:
What do you focus on with your personal brand, and how did that come to be?

Kelly:
I’m an engineering leader focused on the human side of working in tech. It was a natural extension of my role as a Sr. Engineering Manager and my educational background as a trained therapist. My content mostly centers around career and visibility, having a leadership mindset, communication, current news and how it impacts engineering leaders, and AI (of course).

Maria:
How has Zapier supported your personal brand development, whether formally or informally?

Kelly:
We have some internal channels to help boost posts we’re sharing on social media. They’ve also given me access to some useful analytics tooling to help me track my social posts. And, they’ll share and comment on my posts from the primary Zapier account where relevant.

Maria:
Have there been moments where you didn’t feel supported (in any role)? What was that like and what helped you navigate it?

Kelly:
It’s important to me that what I post is 1) in my own writing style/language, and 2) not overly promotional for a particular company. I’m happy to share company posts where applicable, but I remember one time when a former CMO asked me to share an entire 14-day company product launch campaign on my personal LinkedIn account. As it would’ve felt very disingenuous to do so, I told them I can share from my account, but only a few of the days once the posts were published on the company account. If you’re maintaining a personal brand, you need to set and enforce boundaries.

Maria:
What are your practical tips for someone who wants to build a personal brand but worries about how their employer might react?

Kelly:
Make sure you understand company policies around what you can and can’t share. For example, most companies do not want you to mix company posts with personal political opinions. You need to choose what’s most important to you to share. Your personal brand should be an extension of yourself, not your company. “I’m an engineering leader” comes first, “I work at Zapier” comes second. The latter can change; the former stays the same.

Your personal brand should be an extension of yourself, not your company. “I’m an engineering leader” comes first, “I work at Zapier” comes second. The latter can change; the former stays the same.

Maria:
How has your personal brand intersected with your career growth at Zapier (or other roles)? Have opportunities ever come through your brand that impacted your work or trajectory?

Kelly:
My entire career is actually thanks to my personal brand. My first-ever Shopify freelance project came from a tweet (I ran a Shopify agency for a decade), I knew the hiring manager of the last role I had, and I was connected with the hiring manager at Zapier through another community for engineering leaders.

Maria:
Has your employer ever leaned into your personal brand in ways that created value for the company?

Kelly:
Yes, surprisingly in hiring. I shared a series of posts on what it’s like to work in engineering at Zapier when we were doing a big recruiting push, and we ended up hiring a few of the candidates who discovered our roles from my posts.

I’ve had past companies try to take more advantage of my personal brand and account reach for their marketing purposes, but learned a lot about maintaining boundaries through those experiences.

Maria:
For managers who want to support employees with personal brands, what should they do more of and stop doing?

Kelly:
Employers should provide guidelines without being prescriptive. Make sure employees know what they can and can’t post, and provide guidance around ideas and feedback if they want to post more on their personal accounts. It can be a mutually beneficial relationship when approached correctly. I believe Zapier does a fantastic job of enabling employees to post on behalf of the company on their personal accounts, providing support and boosts via liking/commenting without overdoing it.

Maria:
What’s one myth people have about personal branding?

Kelly:
“Once you define your personal brand, you can’t change it.” You’re an ever-evolving individual, and your personal brand will shift with that—sometimes dramatically. I changed from “Kelly the freelancer” to “Kelly the Shopify entrepreneur” to “Kelly the engineering leader.” It wasn’t an easy transition and it took some time to find my new angle, but half the fun is testing content and seeing what will land. Building your personal brand should be fun!

Leader Takeaways: Supporting Employee Personal Brands

An employee with a personal brand is not your company’s spokesperson, and definitely not free advertising inventory. Their professional identity will always extend beyond your organization. That’s not disloyalty, that’s just how modern careers work.

The organizations that benefit most from employee visibility tend to do a few things well:

• Provide clear guardrails without scripting every sentence
• Offer amplification and support without turning employees into distribution channels
• Respect boundaries around authenticity
• Recognize that visibility is often a signal of engagement and ambition, not a countdown to resignation.

If your best people feel they need to shrink their voice to stay employed, you don’t have a social media issue, you have a trust issue.

The strongest employer brands don’t try to control personal brands, but build systems that support them. They create clarity, alignment, and confidence, then let their people do what they already do well.

And that’s how you win the employer brand gold.

A huge thank you to Kelly for sharing so candidly about the risks and rewards of balancing a personal brand with a full-time leadership role. You can read more from Kelly in her newsletter, The Modern Leader or follow her on LinkedIn.