You’re More Than One Thing, But Your Brand Can’t Be (Yet)
How to grow your following when you're into more than one thing without diluting your brand.
What do you do if you’re an autistic artist who’s really into dancing and politics?
Or if you have a fascinating backstory, you’re well spoken, but you also want to sell a niche product and start a podcast?
Or you’re someone like me; running a talent management and consulting company, producing podcasts, Palestinian, queer, a composer, passionate about politics, and honestly, the list goes on...
One of the most common things creators ask me as a talent consultant is:
“I want to grow my following.”
What they usually mean is:
“I want to market myself to untapped audiences.”
But where the tension lies is:
How do you market yourself when you do and are so many things at the same time?
The Multi-Hyphenate Trap
Most upcoming digital creators are multi-hyphenates by default.
They’ll post a dancing video one day, a political rant the next, then a painting timelapse, a storytime, and finally a moody poetry reading over lo-fi beats.
But would you watch that?
The brutal truth: on platforms where you’ve got 10 seconds to make someone care, attention is a scarce resource.
And confused people don’t convert. They scroll.
“A confused mind always says no.”
— Donald Miller,Building a StoryBrand
Marketing 101(thanks Seth Godin) says: when you're unknown, keep your message simple.
It needs to be clear, focused, and emotionally resonant.
Research consistently shows that clarity trumps variety at first impression: people gravitate to, follow, and remember brands with a singular, understandable hook.
In fact, a study in the Journal of Marketing Research found that “brands with focused positioning are more likely to gain early-stage audience traction, while multifaceted messaging often leads to diminished recall and engagement.”
Not everything about you is relevant right away.
That doesn't mean it never will be. It just means you need a strategy.
The Real Tension: Identity vs. Attention
There’s always a tension between:
Who we are
What we want to be known for
What people can understand quickly enough to actually stick around
This is the most common “problem” I help creators work through.
🔥 My 3-Step Framework for Creators With Too Many Passions
1. Pick one hook.
Start with the one thing you think your audience will most likelystop scrollingfor. Whether it’s your art, your story, your brain, or your face.
2. Double down.
Make it your north star.
Let it guide your bio, your content pillars, and your tone.
Consistency is what helps people “get” you.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
— Michael Porter
3. Peel back slowly.
Once peoplecare, you get to show them more of you.
That’s when complexity turns into depth, not confusion.
Case Study: Abbie Chatfield
I worked with Abbie for years.
If you know her now, you know she’s not just a reality TV star. She’s:
A feminist opinion-haver
A top-charting podcaster
A political commentator
A mental health and queer advocate
A public partner in a very online relationship
But when most of the public first met her?
She was just"that brutally honest girl from The Bachelor."
What she did masterfully was build dimension slowly.
She let people become invested and then she expanded what they understood about her.
The core never changed. The rest came in layers.
Final Thought
We’re all complex.
But social platforms are not built for nuance; at least, not at first.
They’re built for speed,clarity, and emotion.
So when it comes to marketing yourself as a creator:
Don’t aim to shrink yourself.
Just sequence it.
Lead with what hooks people.
Layer in the rest once you’ve got their attention.
“If you confuse, you lose.”
— Donald Miller
Clarity isn’t selling out. Clarity is step one.
