As interest rates ease and buyer demand returns, real estate agents face a critical moment to reestablish visibility and trust before clients are ready to transact. Winning listings in a rebounding market requires agents to show up with purpose, be consistent, and be where clients are looking for information about buying. Chris Mumford, VP and CMO of Marketplaces at CoStar Group explains why modern digital marketing is centered on building long-term brand presence across the entire buyer journey.
One of the earliest turning points in personal branding, one that made career-minded professionals understand that they're responsible for their careers and the visibility that shapes them, was the launch of LinkedIn in 2003. Since then, career visibility has followed a simple rule: polish your resume, keep your LinkedIn profile current and compelling, and show up to meetings awake. But that rule no longer holds, thanks to AI.
High-value professionals act differently on LinkedIn, and that begins with your headline. This is because your headline is the first thing employers and serious clients will see when they search your name, so you want to ensure it signals authority, not begging for an opportunity. Instead of saying, "Seeking an opportunity in XYZ" or "Looking for my next role," as I see so many job seekers and professionals in the middle of a career transition do, try removing your green banner
Heading into 2026, the public relations and marketing industries are grappling with lots of change. From artificial intelligence to changing corporate budgets and shifting economic tides, it's a different world today than even one year ago. But remember: We can only control what we can control. This is the season of New Year's resolutions, and I encourage all of us PR and marketing professionals to focus on how we can each improve in the year ahead.
Every year during late November and early December, our Instagram stories are plagued with Spotify Wrapped posts of people you haven't heard from since middle school or individuals who randomly log back in online to declare to the world that they are the top 0.01% of an artist no one has ever heard of. Spotify Wrapped used to be a social holiday, an annual ritual of showing off who has the more niche top five or who amongst your friend group is the true Swiftie.
LinkedIn just made a decision that's about to destroy most creators' reach. The platform decided faceless education is dead. That means generic business advice gets buried. Safe content gets ignored. Yet most people keep posting like nothing changed. When I visited LinkedIn's New York headquarters in September they told me something that should have been obvious. People don't come to LinkedIn for Wikipedia. They come for connections with real humans who happen to know useful things. The algorithm now reflects this reality.
I moved to the US from India in 2021 to attend Amherst College, where I triple-majored in computer science, mathematics, and statistics. During my freshman year, I developed a support system for statistical programming that became part of an introductory statistics course. Opportunities to talk about my work on and off campus started coming up, which led to different perspectives, insights, and connections. I thought about how I could scale this up to a broader audience.
When it comes to a winning PR strategy, you have to bring your A game and be ready to deliver what reporters and producers are really looking for. Not sure how to play by their rules or where to start? No stress-we have you covered. The voice of authority There is no way around it; the bigger your name or the more recognized you are as an expert in your industry, the more appealing you will be to producers and bookers.
PR professionals spend their careers helping other people become credible. We manage stories, build reputations and shape how others are perceived. But when it comes to doing the same for ourselves, we call it self-indulgent or unnecessary. That's a costly habit. Clients aren't choosing agencies or skill sets alone anymore. They're choosing people. And the ones who are visible, trusted and respected get more opportunities, higher fees and more control over their careers.
LinkedIn has long been recognized as the premier platform for professional networking, traditionally characterized by formal posts, polished resumes, and serious discussions around career growth. However, a growing trend is shifting this landscape and its algorithm: the rise of humor on LinkedIn. Users are increasingly embracing humor as a valuable tool to foster connections, showcase authenticity, and navigate evolving professional networking trends. Online users are progressively incorporating Linkedin humor posts into their content, marking a departure from strictly formal tones.
Lately, job hunting feels like shouting into a void. You send out dozens if not hundreds of resumes, tweak your LinkedIn headline for the third time this week, and maybe even buy a new blazer because someone on Reddit swore it helped their interview game. And yet-nothing. Being competitive in today's job markets requires more than you being good at what you do. According to 2024 research from LifeShack:
The event was held in a private room behind a second-floor restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown San Francisco, just blocks away from the offices of many new AI startups. Lessin said in his introduction that technology doesn't just adopt itself - one often has to "push it into the world." And when you have a new and disruptive product that not everyone will welcome, charisma is the secret ingredient that opens doors.
While these remain essential to effective property marketing, the agent's personal brand has become just as influential a factor in their success as the listings they represent. Strategic public relations efforts can be a powerful tool in an agent's arsenal, helping them expand their reach, showcase their expertise, gain credibility, enhance their reputation and attract new clients and business opportunities.
But my real education didn't come from my job title; it came from being in the right rooms. My early years as a TV news publicist were not flashy. I wasn't on-air talent, and I wasn't crafting the headlines. But I was in the room with some of the best journalists and producers in the industry. Just by proximity, I observed excellence.
Most coaches show up to discovery calls ready to sell. They prepare their pitch, practice overcoming objections, and hope their charisma carries them through. But the best coaches don't sell on discovery calls at all. They pre-sell through content. Their prospects arrive already 80% convinced, credit card in hand, asking when they can start. Create this reality by transforming your LinkedIn presence from a digital resume into a sales engine.
If you covered up your name and profile picture on LinkedIn, would your dream client still know that post was written by you? The LinkedIn feed is overrun with AI-generated posts, regurgitated quotes, and surface-level advice that sounds like everyone else. Your ideal clients scroll past dozens of posts every day, glazed eyes searching for something real, something that actually helps them solve their problems.
After he graduated in 2018, though, he faced a problem that's become commonplace for job seekers today: No one in the design industry seemed to be hiring. So he started working as a barista at a local bookstore with a coffee shop. While organizing the shop's books into categories by color palette and typography, he became fascinated with book cover design.
This Time I Mean It Down to Be Memed The Tariffs Weren't as Bad as People Expected, and Also I Wasn't Involved Laura Loomer Won't Get Access Not in the Epstein Files, I Don't Think Protecting Democracy from the Inside, Kinda We Had Some Wins-We Didn't Go to War with Uruguay! I Grew Up Poor Don't Worry, My Supporters Aren't Nearly as Passionate as His
If you've been on TikTok lately, you've probably seen RushTok. Every summer sorority recruitment clips of fully coordinated outfits, chants, and behind the scenes drama take over our feeds. Beyond the sparkly dresses and get ready with me videos, RushTok highlights something way bigger: The power of personal branding.
Victoria Beckham the documentary is as immaculately groomed, polished and controlled as Victoria Beckham the person. It is a puff piece for her, for husband David, her beauty line and, above all, her fashion business. It charts her evolution from stagestruck child and teenager (You got a callback for Starlight Express! mum Jackie recalls proudly), to Spice Girl, to most famous of the England football team's WAGs, to increasingly successful fashion designer and businesswoman.
I knew at that moment this guru could not "authentically" understand, or refused to understand, what I knew in my heart: Your personal image is real power. It's not fluff, and it's not theatrics. It's a form of truth-the very first people see and feel about you, long before ever glancing at the bio or hearing the pitch. My evolving image, as I've spent a long time defining for myself, it's not a façade. It's what I embody at my most authentic, aligned and best. It's my essence, converted into purpose.
