build a personal brand like the top 1% of creators

putting yourself out there pays, here's how

This year we aren’t playing around making silly little TikToks.
We are building empires.

2025 was the year of the “Intellectual Influencer”, a term coined by Joel Marlinarson, and I was used as one of the examples. It’s creators who share a live experience on a topic with the goal of adding value while entertaining - or rather ‘edutainment’.

If you missed the boat with beauty influencing in the early 2010s, the vlogging era of Zoella, or the early 2020s when TikTok was wildly underutilised, now is the perfect time to get on the train of building a profitable personal brand online.

People make excuses that it’s too late or that it’s oversaturated. Respectfully, they’re wrong. There is space for anyone and everyone. That’s exactly why massive influencers are complaining that their engagement is down. We’re seeing the fall of the traditional influencer who exists purely to push products - the playing field is being levelled.

I never saw myself as attractive enough to just post lip-syncing videos and go viral instantly. So coming at a time where ideas are the new liquid gold, this is my time.

Making £43k in a month

I was once told that I create content with a marketer’s brain. It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. Maybe they were trying to flatter me, but after all the positive feedback I’ve had this year, it gave me the confidence to say yes, I’ve built a profitable personal brand.

I share my income transparently, and in December 2025 I made £43k from content creation. I do this full-time now, but when I started in June 2024 I was still working a 9–5 in the fashion industry in a junior role. It’s safe to say I’ve come a long way in a short space of time, and it was all down to consistency and strategy.

There was a running theme in the comments of that video:

“How do I get started?”
“What am I doing wrong? I’ve been making content for years.”
“What is affiliate marketing, UGC, etc?”

So let’s do a deep dive into how I got here.