It's all about you: The founder who's the face of their brand is more likely to succeed in 2023

• Many small-business owners rely on social-media marketing for growth and customer acquisition.
• But saturated platforms make being "the face of your brand" as a founder a newly important tactic.
• Here's how three founders booking more than $1 million in annual revenue using that method.

Americans love a successful founder: They embody everything we hold dear about "the American dream" — that with a little grit and perseverance, anyone can build a million-dollar company.

Lisa Collum knew this and applied it to her own business by rooting the brand in her personal story. Collum is the founder and face of Top Score Writing, an 11-year-old company that sells writing curriculum to school districts and teachers.

"In the beginning, I did it unintentionally," she said of her front-facing approach. "But I quickly started to see that people were buying from me because of my story. It started to spin in my head: Everyone needs to know about me" in order to grow.

She began connecting with potential customers by holding in-person curriculum trainings and now uses platforms like TikTok and Instagram to reach a wider audience. She shares everything from her founding story to life updates to personally connect with her 130,000 followers across her personal and business profiles.

"I had been in their shoes. I wasn't just a business person saying, 'I wrote this, buy it,'" she explained. "Teachers started coming up to me and saying, 'I love this because you wrote this for us, knowing what we need.'"

A post shared by Lisa Collum (@lisacollumceo)

Collum is not alone in this approach. In fact, today's crowded digital-first environment makes showing up online as a founder necessary to grow your business, founders and PR experts said.

Online marketing is especially important in today's business environment, where a looming recession, high inflation, and economic uncertainty could make many consumers more hesitant to open their wallets.

With these challenges in mind, building consumer trust and fostering a loyal customer base are more important than ever. Collum uses social media to check these boxes.

"I don't think it's always been the case that people need to be the face of the brand, but it definitely is moving in that direction," Joanne McCall, a small-business publicity coach at her eponymous media business, said. "Within the last one to two years, it's become essential," she added, noting that the record-breaking number of new businesses and the increased usage of social media have driven this trend.

After all, people buy products because they need them, but they choose your brand because of you, Collum said.

A post shared by Lisa Collum (@lisacollumceo)

Insider spoke with three founders who've booked more than $1 million in annual revenue, which Insider verified through documentation, and have become the face of their brand in order to grow. Here's how the approach helps small-business owners build trust, personalize their content, and find loyal customers — all necessary steps to succeed in the years to come.

Build trust by creating consistent and helpful content

Social-media platforms are flooded with many types of content creators. A lot of consumers primarily check Instagram and TikTok to see what their favorite influencers are up to. This means founders have to intentionally create an online presence to turn followers into paying customers.

The crowded online space can make standing out difficult. That's why Collum focuses on talk-through videos that provide helpful tips, resources, and behind-the-scenes content for her followers.

"There's so many social-media pages," Collum said. "The only way to make people come and check yours is if you're providing tips, resources, information, and showing the organic side of it."

Collum's content explaining post-purchase resources or state testing news shows followers how she and her products can help customers. Meanwhile, her behind-the-scenes posts create transparency for the business-client relationship, she said.

Especially in the current economy, "people want to trust and believe in the brands even more," McCall said.

Similarly, Jackson Cunningham, the founder of a cat-product brand called Tuft and Paw, recently began starring in more of his brand's videos after realizing how many sales were coming from social media. Instagram ads used to be his biggest driver of sales, but now the fastest-growing sources are YouTube and TikTok, he said.

But it took him multiple attempts to see results on TikTok. "We were getting tons of views but no purchases," Cunningham said.

Then he noticed a shift once he focused less on going viral and more on providing educational content, like how his litter is better for cat paws or what type of pet furniture is best for different cat personalities. He's developed a formula: engagement + your sales pitch = number of sales.

"If you get an amazing video that goes viral but there's nothing in it that sells the product, you're not going to get any sales or vice versa," he said.

Ultimately, it still requires a lot of experimentation to figure out what works for your audience. "It's about throwing spaghetti at the wall," he said. "For TikTok, it's just raw volume and experimentation and not overthinking it."

Personalize your content to tell your story

Along with trust in the product or service, potential customers also want to connect with you as a founder in the same way teachers feel a kinship with Collum because her business' mission is geared toward them. It's important to make each post unique to you or your business, even if you are following a trend. Showing your face is one way to make it personal to you.

Shirah Benarde is a cofounder of NightCap, a drink-spiking-prevention scrunchie she invented after her friend was roofied at a bar.

"When I'm in the video, I tend to go a lot more viral than just the product itself," she said. "People want to know what it's made out of, why I created it, and the story behind it."

Highlighting these details makes founders more relatable to customers, she added. "They feel like they know you and they're your friend."

She also makes social-media trends her own, like turning the viral TikTok sound "he's a 10, but" into a catchphrase for limited-edition products.

Trust, relatability, and transparency create loyalty

Many entrepreneurs rely on a loyal customer base to succeed. Building trust and connecting with followers is one way to cultivate reliable clients.

By showing her day-to-day life as a founder, giving followers access to exclusive events, and explaining the story of her company, Benarde said it creates transparency that her customers value.

"I genuinely think that people are past the stage of just seeing a business," she said. "People want to hear the stories and the realness."

In today's world, brand loyalty is created through sharing aligned values, McCall said.

"The more the leader can say about their own values, how they're handling things, there's a comfort in that," McCall added. "And I think we're all looking for that."

For the founder looking to grow in 2023, they need to be mindful of the way social media and the economy work hand-in-hand today. Building trust and personalizing your content is necessary for creating a business that consumers are willing to support. In today's business climate, being the face of your brand and speaking your mind as a founder is often the route to success.