Personal Branding for Higher Ed Leaders

Personal branding for higher ed leaders can become one of your institution’s most powerful communication strategies when presidents, deans, provosts, and other senior leaders use their own voices to connect authentically with students, alumni, donors, and industry partners.

When higher ed marketers think about their institution’s most important communication channels, we usually think about the website, email, social media, paid advertising, and maybe even the campus visit.

But there’s another channel sitting right in front of us that many colleges and universities haven’t fully tapped into yet: their leaders.

Your president, dean, provost, vice president, or other senior leader already has a perspective. 

They’re meeting students. They’re talking with alumni. They’re sitting down with donors and industry partners. They’re attending conferences, visiting classrooms, hearing faculty research, and making decisions that shape the future of the institution.

The opportunity is to turn more of those everyday leadership moments into meaningful communication.

That’s why I invited Jerra Toms, Founder and Principal Consultant at Blue Iris Consulting, onto The Higher Ed Marketer Podcast. 

Jerra has extensive experience in marketing, communications, social media, and executive communications, including her previous role as Director of Marketing and Communications at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Jerra has seen firsthand what happens when higher ed leaders become active participants in telling their institution’s story.

And here’s the important distinction: personal branding for higher ed leaders isn’t about turning presidents and deans into influencers.

It’s about helping real people communicate authentically with the audiences they already serve.

Why a Leader’s Personal Voice Can Beat the Institutional Voice

One of the most interesting things Jerra noticed during her time at Walton College was how content from Dean Matt Waller’s personal LinkedIn account could outperform content from the college’s institutional account.

Sometimes, the posts were about the same event. They went live around the same time. The audiences were even relatively similar in size.

But Matt’s posts had something the institutional version didn’t: his point of view.

Instead of simply recapping what happened, he could tell people what he noticed, what he learned, or why an interaction mattered to him.

That personal layer made a difference.

Jerra explained:

“I started noticing as we were looking through analytics that some of his posts posted on the exact same day, the exact same subject matter, they were doing better than our main account on LinkedIn. 

At the time we probably had a similar follower count, but the difference that I was noticing was that it was Matt’s personal observations on something. 

Our post may have been just a recap, which is great, but his had an extra element that people really resonated with, commented on a lot more, and found really engaging.”

That’s a lesson higher ed marketing teams should pay attention to.

Institutional accounts have an important role. We need them to communicate official information, celebrate accomplishments, tell stories, and represent the brand.

But people connect differently with people.

A president can say, “Here’s what I heard from students today.”

A dean can say, “This conversation with one of our alumni changed how I’m thinking about our industry.”

A faculty leader can share why a new piece of research matters.

Those are personal observations. They give audiences access to the thinking behind the institution.

And that’s where personal branding for higher ed leaders starts becoming bigger than personal branding.

The leader’s voice becomes another way to experience the institution itself.

Personal Branding for Higher Ed Leaders Can Start With 30 Minutes a Week

I can already hear the objection.

“My president barely has enough time to answer email. How are we supposed to turn them into a content creator?”

Jerra’s answer is refreshingly practical: start small.

You do not need a seven-day content calendar, a professional video crew, or an elaborate thought-leadership strategy on day one.

Jerra recommends starting with roughly 20 to 30 minutes a week and one post.

Before you even worry about posting, make sure the leader’s LinkedIn profile is complete. Update their positions. Add meaningful descriptions of the impact they’ve had. Use a good profile photo. Write a solid About section.

Then look at what they’re already doing.

Jerra told us:

“I said [to Matt], “‘In order for you to grow your personal brand, you need to at least dedicate twenty or thirty minutes a week. Post one to two times a week. Start really small. Try to post one time a week and then work up to two times a week and sit down with yourself and kind of build out a rough content calendar. 

Think about when you’re gonna go to an event coming up that could be really interesting for people that are in your industry. Think about your take on something that’s happening in an industry because you have an opinion on it.’”

I love the simplicity of that.

The goal isn’t more content for content’s sake.

It’s identifying the useful stories already hiding inside the leader’s calendar.

Look for opportunities such as:

• Meeting with an interesting alumnus or donor
• Visiting a classroom or student organization
• Attending an industry conference
• Speaking at an event
• Talking with an employer partner
• Celebrating faculty research
• Visiting another campus
• Recognizing a student accomplishment
• Sharing a thoughtful article with a personal takeaway

Jerra calls a lot of this “low-hanging fruit.”

And she’s right.

If your president is already spending the afternoon with alumni, you don’t need to invent a content strategy. You need a picture, a useful observation, and a reason the interaction mattered.

Suddenly, the calendar isn’t just scheduling leadership activity.

It’s a content roadmap.

Authentic Executive Communications Should Actually Sound Like the Executive

There’s another trap communications teams can fall into.

You finally convince a dean or president to start posting regularly. Your team writes the content. Everything is polished, approved, and perfectly on-brand.

There’s just one problem.

It doesn’t sound anything like them.

Audiences can feel that.

Personal branding for higher ed leaders only works when there’s actually something personal about it.

Jerra’s approach is to study the executive closely. How do they speak? What phrases do they naturally use? Are they warm? Academic? Direct? Encouraging? Funny? Formal?

Even small details matter.

Jerra described Matt Waller’s voice as supportive, uplifting, positive, and professional. That means loading his posts with emojis or writing in a trendy social voice wouldn’t make sense simply because someone on the communications team thought it might perform well.

The goal isn’t to make the leader sound like the marketing department. The goal is to help the leader sound more consistently like themselves.

Jerra is also using AI to support that process.

She creates individual projects for executive clients, adding past speeches, previous LinkedIn content, research papers, and other examples of their communication. She can then use AI as a collaborator to test drafts against the leader’s established voice.

I think that distinction matters.

We’ve talked about AI many times on this podcast, and this is a great example of using the technology to assist human judgment rather than replace it.

The communications professional still knows the executive. They still determine whether the content feels right. They still refine the message.

AI simply gives them another tool to work faster and maintain consistency.

That’s especially valuable for small higher ed marketing teams that are already doing far more work than their available time would suggest is possible.

Leadership Visibility Can Support Enrollment, Advancement, and Reputation

This is where the conversation gets much bigger than likes and follower counts.

Why should an institution care whether its president or dean is active on LinkedIn?

Because their visibility can create relationships.

Jerra shared one of the best examples near the end of our conversation, and it came from her own career.

She first connected with Matt Waller because she saw the content he was sharing on LinkedIn. Jerra was an alum and MBA student at the time, and she reached out to tell him she’d be happy to guest speak for a class.

He responded.

They went to lunch.

That relationship eventually led to Jerra serving on two boards and, years later, working for him.

Think about that journey.

A LinkedIn post created awareness.

Awareness opened a conversation.

The conversation became a relationship.

And the relationship ultimately created meaningful professional and institutional engagement.

Jerra also shared examples of executive content supporting advancement relationships. Her team would collaborate with advancement colleagues to identify donors and alumni who were already coming to campus, then create quick video conversations or other leadership content around those visits.

That content benefited multiple people.

The leader received useful material for their LinkedIn presence.

The alumnus or donor received recognition.

The advancement team gained content and another relationship-building opportunity.

And the institution gained a story that demonstrated connection between its leadership and community.

That is why I don’t think higher ed institutions should view a leader’s personal brand as something separate from institutional marketing.

Done well, it supports the same goals.

• Enrollment.
• Reputation.
• Advancement.
• Industry partnerships.
• Alumni relationships.
• Internal communication.

The leader’s account isn’t replacing the institutional account. It’s expanding the number of credible voices carrying the institution’s story.

Turn Your Leaders Into Human Connections to Your Brand

The biggest takeaway from my conversation with Jerra is that this does not need to be overwhelming.

You don’t need to start by creating an executive influencer strategy.

Start with the profile.

Then publish one useful post.

Connect with the students, alumni, donors, faculty, and industry partners the leader is already meeting.

Engage with other people’s content instead of only broadcasting your own.

And most importantly, remember who social media is actually for.

Jerra put it beautifully when she explained that social media is about the people following you more than it is about you.

Are you educating them?

Informing them?

Entertaining them?

Giving them some reason to keep paying attention?

That’s a much healthier way to approach personal branding for higher ed leaders.

The goal isn’t “Look at our president.”

The goal is “Here is someone whose perspective might be useful to you.”

And over time, that kind of consistent, authentic visibility can make an institution feel a lot more human.

Listen to the Full Episode

Like all of our recaps of The Higher Ed Marketer podcast, there’s much more in the complete conversation.

Listen to our interview with Jerra Toms to hear more about:

• Starting a LinkedIn strategy with just 20 to 30 minutes a week
• Finding content opportunities inside an executive’s existing calendar
• Capturing an executive’s authentic voice and using AI to support the process
• Why a strong LinkedIn profile should come before the posting strategy
• Getting started when you don’t have a communications team
• How leadership visibility can support enrollment, advancement, and institutional reputation

Want to Build a Stronger Higher Ed Brand?

Your institution already has stories worth telling—and some of your strongest storytellers may be the leaders, faculty, alumni, and students already living out your mission every day.

At Caylor Solutions, we help colleges and universities build mission-fit marketing strategies that clarify their story, strengthen their brand, and connect with the students and communities they’re uniquely equipped to serve.

Whether you need help developing your institutional brand, strengthening your content strategy, or identifying new ways to turn authentic voices across campus into marketing opportunities, Caylor Solutions can help you build a strategy designed around the people you’re trying to reach.

Contact us to learn more.

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Featured image via Blue Iris Consulting
Other images via chatgpt