Ash Jones has spent the last decade behind the scenes of some of the UK’s most influential entrepreneurial voices. As the founder of Great Influence and a founding member of Steven Bartlett’s Social Chain, he’s helped shape the personal brands of names like Bartlett and Gary Neville. If anyone understands the power of a founder’s online presence, it’s him. But Jones is concerned too many entrepreneurs are getting personal branding fundamentally wrong.

“The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when building a personal brand is chasing vanity over meaningful outcomes that will help their business,” he says. “They focus on being famous to anyone rather than being well known within their industry. They chase followers and likes rather than building an audience of people who will buy from them or open doors for them.”

It’s a trap even seasoned founders fall into. He points to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s observation: “If you get great reach but you’re trying to sell shoes and none of your reach is helping you sell any shoes, then there’s no point.” In other words, visibility without relevance is just noise.

Strategy starts with being real
For those hesitant to lean into personal branding out of fear it will feel contrived, Jones offers a reframing.

“Authenticity is strategy,” he says. “Your personal brand online should be as close of a representation to who you actually are offline. When the online strays too far away from the offline it becomes clear that you’re trying to be something you’re not, and that’s counterproductive for building your reputation – and your reputation is the linchpin of everything in business.”

In a world where AI-generated content is fast becoming the norm, this human touch will only become more valuable. “AI is going to play a huge role in good and bad ways,” he says. “It’s going to enable so many more founders to build a personal brand that wouldn’t have before. It’s also going to reduce many founders to producing generic content that sounds the same as everyone else.”

“I believe what will win in the future is raw, real and human. The personal in personal branding will never be more important.”

The LinkedIn blind spot
Despite the rise of newer social platforms, Jones is adamant that LinkedIn remains the most overlooked tool in an entrepreneur’s arsenal.

“It’s still LinkedIn. 99% of entrepreneurs are still under-utilising the platform,” he says. “There is so much more they could do, but they aren’t consistent enough or putting enough time, thinking or resource – or they get distracted with other platforms and formats.”

So how can a time-poor founder get started? The key, he says, is systemisation. “You really need to systemise it if you don’t have much time. Figure out why you’re building your personal brand, what are the outcomes you’re looking for, who is the audience you want to build – and then figure out the 1–3 things you can speak about and build a simple, repeatable content strategy from there. Once a week or fortnight, put time in your calendar (otherwise you won’t do it) and plan your content for the next week or two. Make it a repeatable process that takes away the hard thinking.”

It’s not just theory. Jones has seen first-hand that even the busiest entrepreneurs make time for their personal brand. “I’ve worked with some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world and they always make time for personal brand because they understand the importance and overall role it plays to support their career and businesses.”

What the top 1% do differently
Jones has worked closely with Steven Bartlett and Gary Neville – two of the UK’s most influential voices in both business and media. According to him, what sets them apart isn’t luck or charisma, but how seriously they treat their online presence.

“I’ve had the honour over the last 10 years of working with two huge names – Steven Bartlett and Gary Neville – and the thing they do differently is how much time, thinking, resources and creative energy they pour into their personal brand. You wouldn’t believe the gap between those at the top and everybody else when it comes to their priorities around personal brand. They treat it as an investment that is a priority because they know the impact that doing so will have on their businesses.”

For Jones, it comes down to one simple truth: personal brand is no longer optional. It’s a strategic asset that compounds over time. And in a world where attention is currency, the entrepreneurs who learn to use it well — thoughtfully, consistently, and authentically – will be the ones who win.