How Can an Expert Creator Build Recognition Beyond Instagram?

Translated by the Blogger Bank editorial team from the Polish original.

Instagram gives expert creators something very valuable: the ability to reach their audience regularly, show their knowledge and build relationships with people who may, over time, become clients. The problem begins when an expert's entire recognisability is locked inside it. You can publish great reels, have an engaged community and sell your services regularly, and at the same time remain practically invisible to people who do not follow you on Instagram or do not use it at all. If someone knows us only from our own channels, they mainly know the version of our brand that we created ourselves. We choose the topics, publish the content, present our experience and show our successes. But when our name appears in an editorial article, a podcast conversation, a conference programme or an expert comment, the situation changes. We stop being the only sender of messages about ourselves, because others start talking about us too.

This is exactly where the role of PR in building an expert brand begins. It is not only about appearing in the media and then boasting about the publication on Instagram. Well-planned PR activities make an expert present in many different places, so their recognisability no longer depends on a single channel.

Your own social media is only the beginning

Social media is a space we control, which is its great advantage but also a certain limitation. We can decide what we publish, how often we speak up and which part of our knowledge we show, but most often we communicate with people who have already found their way into our circle in some way. PR lets you step outside that circle.

When an expert gives an interview to an industry portal, their words can be read by someone who has never seen their profile. When they are invited to a podcast, they can show for several dozen minutes not only their knowledge but also their way of thinking, personality and experience. When they speak at a conference, they stand in front of a group of people who did not come specifically for them, but who may get to know them precisely at that event.

Each of these touchpoints widens the space in which the expert's name exists.

Tip: type your name into Google and look at the results through the eyes of someone who knows nothing about you. If the first page consists mainly of your website and social media profiles, it is worth considering where, beyond your own channels, you can start building an expert presence.

An expert article lets you show more than knowledge

One of the most effective tools for building an expert image is publications, especially when we do not treat them as random texts written on any topic related to our industry. A good expert article should work towards a specific association. If a brand strategist wants to be associated with positioning premium brands, publishing general texts about marketing may increase their visibility, but it will not necessarily build their position in that particular area. Consistently commenting on the issues the expert wants to be identified with will bring much greater value. This is an important difference between being visible and building an expert position. Recognisability without context does not always translate into business. A potential client should not only recognise the name, but also know what they can come to that person with.

Publications offer one more advantage. Unlike social media content, they often remain available for many months or years, so they can work for your reputation long after they are published.

Tip: before you pitch a topic to an editorial office, ask yourself what problem you want to be associated with in a year or two. It is worth choosing publication topics through exactly this filter, instead of writing about everything you know.

An interview builds credibility differently than a post

An article lets you organise knowledge, while an interview shows the person behind the expert brand. A journalist can ask about experience, decisions, mistakes, observations about the market or a stance on changes in the industry, so the audience gets to know not only the interviewee's competences but also their perspective.

This is particularly important for experts whose clients buy not only a service but also access to their way of thinking. A consultant, strategist, trainer, lawyer or adviser may have competences similar to many other people on the market. What starts to set them apart, therefore, often comes not from the scope of knowledge itself, but from the way they interpret problems and arrive at solutions. That is why in an interview it is not worth limiting yourself to safe answers that any person in the industry could just as well give. Expertise becomes interesting when it contains your own perspective.

Tip: when preparing for a conversation with a journalist, do not learn ready-made answers. Instead, prepare a few specific stories, observations, data and examples from your own practice that will help you show how you think about your specialisation.

A podcast gives you something that is hard to achieve with a short format

For a personal brand, the time the audience spends with the expert also matters a great deal. A reel lasting a dozen or so seconds can spark interest, but an hour-long conversation lets you create a much deeper impression. That is why podcasts can be an exceptionally effective PR tool for people who sell knowledge, experience and expert services. The listener gets to know how the expert speaks, their reasoning, their approach to clients and their views on the industry. Before they ever write a message asking about working together, they may feel that they already know this person.

This does not mean, however, that every invitation is worth accepting. A podcast should be a fit not only in terms of topic, but also in terms of audience. A few hundred plays of a conversation by the right people can be worth far more to an expert than a reach of many thousands in a group that will never be interested in their services.

Tip: when analysing a podcast you want to apply to, do not look only at the number of followers. Check who its listeners are, what topics have appeared before and whether its audience includes the people you actually want to reach.

A conference takes the expert from the screen into reality

Speaking at conferences, panels, business events or industry meetings works differently again, because the context of the event and the presence of other specialists are added to the expert's image. The information that someone is a conference speaker becomes a message in itself. By inviting a specific person onto the stage, the organiser in a sense confirms that they consider that person's knowledge valuable for their participants. What is more, a conference does not end when you step off the stage. The expert's name may appear on the event website, in the organiser's materials, in participants' posts, in summary articles or in recordings. A single talk can therefore create many further traces of presence. That is why it is worth thinking about events not only in terms of a performance, but also of building a position over the long term.

Tip: instead of waiting for a conference organiser to find you, prepare two or three talk topics that are current, specific and respond to the problems of that event's audience. It is much easier for an organiser to evaluate a ready idea than a general declaration that “you can talk about your industry”.

It is not about being everywhere

One of the more common mistakes in PR is equating effectiveness with the number of publications, talks or interviews. Yet an expert does not need to be present everywhere. They need to be present where their name meets the right context. If an expert wants to work with owners of medium-sized companies, a few well-chosen publications in business media and a talk at an event for entrepreneurs may matter more to them than dozens of random mentions. If, on the other hand, they are building a position in a very narrow specialisation, a small industry podcast may turn out to be more valuable than a feature in a large outlet aimed at a mass audience.

PR therefore requires selection. You need to know not only where you want to appear, but above all why exactly there.

Individual activities need to be turned into a system

PR starts to bring the greatest value when articles, podcasts, expert comments, interviews and conferences are not random activities, but successive elements of the same story. If an expert talks about artificial intelligence once, comments on team management a month later, then speaks at a conference on sales, and later publishes an article about productivity, they may be very active, but it will be hard for the audience to attribute a specific specialisation to them.

A PR strategy requires thematic consistency, which does not mean constantly repeating the same theses. It is rather about developing a specific area from different perspectives, so that each successive appearance reinforces earlier associations.

Over time, a cumulative effect kicks in. A person who first read the expert's article sees their name in a conference programme a few months later, then comes across a podcast conversation, and when they need a particular service, the name is no longer anonymous. And that is exactly when recognisability starts working for the business.

Instagram can be the centre of communication, but it should not be the brand's whole world

It is not about giving up social media. Quite the opposite: Instagram can strongly reinforce PR activities, because it lets you show behind-the-scenes moments of talks, share interviews, comment on publications and direct your community to places where the expert appears outside their own channels. The difference is that social media stops being the only source of credibility.

A strong expert brand emerges when, after typing a name into a search engine, we see not only the profiles belonging to that person, but also publications, conversations, talks and other places where they were presented as a specialist. A similar effect appears offline, when someone recognises a name from a conference, a podcast or an article, even though they have never followed the author on Instagram. Because an expert's recognisability should not end where the reach of their latest reel ends. Instagram can make someone notice you, but articles, interviews, podcasts, conferences and events make them start encountering your name in different contexts. And when these contexts are built consistently, you stop being just a creator publishing content and start occupying a specific place in your industry.

About the author

Ewelina Salwuk-Marko – PR and media image expert. Owner of the Sal-Mar Creative Agency, which specialises in PR, building experts' image and communication for personal and company brands. Author of a PR course, e-books and workbooks. Editor-in-chief of the Feszyn.com and WartoZnac.pl portals. University lecturer.

PR Manager of GirlBosskie magazine, co-organiser of the Kursory Roku competition. Former Marketing & PR lead of TEDxWarsaw 2025. As an expert she has appeared on Pytanie na Śniadanie, among others, and shares her knowledge in media such as Wprost, Puls Biznesu, Onet, Interia, Rzeczpospolita, Social Media Manager and Wirtualna Polska.

She helps experts, entrepreneurs and personal brands increase recognition, build credibility and earn media coverage, supporting clients with PR strategy, expert communication, media relations, personal branding and crisis communication.

Privately she loves sport, Polish cuisine and 90s music, practises yoga and boxing, enjoys true-story series, is passionate about fashion and natural cosmetics. Wife and mother.

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