Carina Farrell 🌻

Top 24 Marketer 2024 | Creating Thought Leaders through Personal Branding

Hey, I’m Carina! I help people stand out on LinkedIn by turning their thoughts, experiences, and expertise into content that gets seen and starts conversations.

As an Account Manager at the world’s leading personal branding agency, I work with founders, execs, and professionals to grow their audience, build credibility, and open doors to new opportunities.

I’ve spent years figuring out what actually works on LinkedIn, what flops, and how to create content that people want to read. 

Personal branding isn’t about chasing likes or trying to sound perfect. The best personal brands are built on real stories, honest opinions, and a clear message. I help people figure out what they want to say and how to say it in a way that actually resonates.

🌻 I’ve helped clients reach millions of views and turn LinkedIn into their biggest growth channel
🌻 I know what makes content stand out, whether it’s storytelling, strategy, or saying what everyone else is too afraid to say
🌻 I love working with people who have something to say but don’t know how to put it into words

As an employee, I also like to create content showing the other side of work, the moments outside of client calls and meetings that make work more than just a job. I share many employees' thoughts and experiences in today’s workplace, but are often too nervous to voice them.

When I’m not working on LinkedIn content, you’ll probably find me traveling, volunteering with Girlguiding, or learning a new language.

Always open to speaking opportunities and brand partnerships.

My DM's are always open :-)

Personal Brand Manager

Carina Farrell

"Even you, Shakespeare? Unbelievable.

Use AI. Use the em dash. Use "fosters" if you really must.
But please just use them correctly."

Fair play 🤣

Great share from my friend Katharine Gordon! 

---
If you want to learn how to use AI (the right way), I highly recommend checking out our free newsletter, Building Leverage.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eTVc2mvn

Favikon Top 20 Personal Branding Influencer | Senior Brand Manager at Lever Brands

"You make me sound like someone else."
Every ghostwriter has heard this.

And it usually means the same thing.

You wrote something good.
It just didn’t sound like them.

The problem is that many writers don’t really listen.

They don’t start with the person.
They start with what they think will perform.
And write from there.

And without meaning to, they replace the person.

Here’s what actually helps:

🎤 Record everything
 Calls. Voice notes. Off-the-cuff stories.
 That’s where their real tone shows up.

🗂️ Keep a file of how they speak
 Phrases they repeat.
 How they start sentences.
 The words they overuse.

✍️ Don’t rewrite their voice
Your job is to shape it, not swap it out.

Edits happen.

But if they’re rewriting large chunks, it’s a sign you missed their tone or point of view.

Ghostwriters, what would you add?

🌻 Repost and follow Carina Farrell for more content on personal branding!

P.S. If you’re building your personal brand, we share what we're learning each week in our free newsletter. 2,000+ legends are already reading it: https://lnkd.in/eTVc2mvn

I used to feel uncomfortable being the least knowledgeable person in the room.

It made me question myself.

And if I’m honest, scrolling on LinkedIn sometimes still does. It’s easy to feel like everyone else is ahead.

But I’ve learned something important:

Being around people who are smarter than you isn’t a threat. It’s an advantage.

Here’s why:
🌻 They stretch your thinking.
 They ask better questions. They see angles you don’t. That changes how you think.

🌻 You get better results together.
 When you combine their expertise with your strengths, the outcome is stronger than either of you working alone.

🌻 You can focus on what you do best.
 You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know where you add value.

The real shift for me was putting ego aside and staying curious.

Now, instead of feeling behind, I ask: What can I learn here?

What’s your experience with this? 
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Hi, I'm Carina Farrell, and I post weekly about ways to build your brand, whilst also spotlighting the voice of employees. Feel free to follow me if you're building your personal brand.

Last year, I messed up my annual leave.

Like most people, I waited for summer.
Or tried to squeeze time in at the end of the year.

Then everyone wants the same days off. Flights are expensive. Work becomes chaotic. And somehow, the break you were looking forward to starts feeling stressful before it’s even begun.

After Christmas, a lot of us don’t take our next block of annual leave for a while.

The year still feels fresh.
You feel motivated.
You think, “I’ll save it for later.”

But “later” usually means peak prices, limited options, and a calendar that’s already full.

So this year, I did something different.

I booked time off in February.

When the UK was cold, dark, and grey, I left.

No peak prices.
No fighting for leave.
No packed beaches.

Just sun, a bit of space, and the chance to properly switch off.

And here’s what I didn’t expect:

Because it was early in the year, it felt more like a reset than a reward.
I came back clearer, calmer, and more focused.
Instead of crawling to the end of Q1, I felt ahead of it.

We often treat annual leave like something to earn after we’re exhausted.

But spreading it out makes a huge difference:

You always have a break to look forward to.
Work doesn’t build up into one overwhelming period.
You avoid the rush and the premium prices.

And you actually return with energy, not guilt.

It’s easy to follow the usual pattern because that’s what everyone else does.

But this year, I’m using my leave with more intention and spreading it across the year.

Small change. Big difference.

Any guesses where I’ve been from the photo? 👀👇

Niall Cleaver

Documenting the journey of crafting a timeless coffee cup brand | CEO & Founder of Cupsly

My story isn’t about a polished entrepreneur. My journey hasn’t been traditional. I left school without an English qualification, uncertain of what the future held. 

That failure shaped me, it forced me to think differently, fall into business, and ultimately embrace creativity, resilience, and the belief that change is possible, even when doubted. Fast forward to today, I’m growing and scaling businesses while sharing the real lessons that come from it.

Founder

Are you struggling to grow an engaging community for your business or personal brand.

Stop right there, I think I have you covered ⬇️

This is me (Niall), I'm a 22-year-old who is fascinated by growing communities in the online space. Actual communities that have meaning and purpose. 

The services we provide at Social Library 

➡️ Personal Branding (LinkedIn)

➡️ Guidance & support consulting


Drop me a message to discuss your social media strategy, review how well your current socials/posts are doing, and research how we can build your community and gain you more followers and leads.

or you can email us @

hello@sociallibrary.co.uk

Execution will humble you in more ways than advice ever could.

And this, by far, has been my best realisation.

It's actually scary how much advice is in the world we live in. And normally, it's not the correct advice. The truth is, advice that will improve your business is hard to come by because everyone is sharing an opinion online.  

But there's one thing that beats any advice:

Saying you'll do something and actually doing it.

In my teens, I told myseIf was going to go all in on business, and that meant learning many things I once never knew. How? Real experience.

Less talking, more doing.

I didn't have a background in marketing, I learned.
I didn't have a background in brand, I learned.
I didn't have a background in R&D, I learned.

And here's what I found out...

When you start facing real situations, real problems, and real outcomes, you quickly see who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.

You learn who to trust.

Advice has its place. But execution is what changes things.

Growing @thistlescientific and sharing the lessons while I do

What if I told you... I don't post every day to grow my brand.

I hear the same advice here all the time:

"Post more"

And it makes you feel like it's the only way to grow your personal brand as a founder or someone working to grow or scale a business.

But I've learned something different. Build your business first because that ultimately gives you the content ideas that actually make your brand.

The struggles
The achievements
The new hires you made

That's the content that's actually engaging.

Stop posting every day with the hope that a piece of content will hit. Just document the situations you've been through, and you'll be surprised how many people find this style of content engaging.

That's what makes it worth the read.

Build first, then document.

I’ve just landed back from a week in the mountains.

And it reminded me how easy it is to forget what really matters.

I know I talk a lot about business because it's something I'm passionate about, but let's be real, it will never be as important as family. 

Scaling a business takes a lot out of you, early mornings, late nights, and missing certain celebrations. It's honestly brutal sometimes. 

Because it never stops!!!

You always have something that needs implementing, changing or improving, but what I've realised is that time away with your family allows you the space to think, enjoy and realign. Never take this for granted.

Honestly, had the best couple of days... now super exctied to get back and execute on the plan we've set out over the past couple of months.

We did it!!! Thistle is rebrand ready...

Over the past few months, we've completed a full rebrand at Thistle Scientific, one that has pushed, tested, and shaped the new direction we're heading in. These will be the months I'll remember forever, but...

I want to talk about what goes into a rebrand:

The late nights thinking decisions through.
The transition phase throughout the organisation.
The alignment through the internal team and external partners.

They all hit you! But in a good way.

Because eventually, you see all the pieces of the puzzle coming together, and you appreciate all the details and hard work that went into every part of it.

But this whole process got me thinking about one thing, "change", and how so many of us are nervous about it. This is a good feeling to have. 

It means you're pushing yourself.

Take it all in!!!

The most important skill of an entrepreneur is to do the basics first.

I used to fight this idea because it sounded too simple.

Sticking to a routine 
Doing the things you promised.
Being open-minded to the problems. 
Interacting directly with your customers.
Executing the plan you set out with your team.

It really is simple!!! 

At the start of this year, I told some of my closest friends what I was going to do. Less talking and more just focusing on what creates the moment. 

And I can already feel it. It hasn’t been anything out of this world, it's just been staying focused on what matters most in the buisness. And normally, these are the tasks you repeat.

You've got to understand that most people will dislike doing the basics over and over again, becasue it can become boring and not fun. But these are the tasks that create the difference that changes your life and business. 

It may be boring, but it works.

3 years ago, navigating a merger, improving systems, and building a stronger foundation.

Since then, Thistle Scientific has grown year on year, hired across multiple countries, and deliberately focused on scale. Why?

Equipping scientists around the world requires collaboration, obsession, and teamwork. It’s understanding what will help each researcher improve the work they’re doing.

But there’s an even bigger reason…

Scaling allows us to support even more researchers, and the better support they get, the more impact their work can have on the rest of the population.

Any researchers here... would love to chat with you.

One of the best decisions I've made as a 25-year-old growing a biotech business was to... spend time with people who have already done it.

Not people who're trying to sell you something.
Not people who shut down your ideas every five minutes.

But the people who have lived and breathed the problems you are facing.

The real operators. And what I've noticed is that they don't try to sell you online they are heavily focused on real outcomes. They have this credibility where they've been there and done it. You can just feel it!!!

So, if you're going to surround yourself with successful people:

Do your due diligence
Ask the important questions
Don't waste your time and especially theirs.

That's where real change is created.

Evean, now I've got so much to learn and it's so important to remember that the moment you think you've understood it all will be the moment you stop making progress.

We had a chance to showcase our new design in Thailand.

I pulled it... You only get one first impression.

We had an opportunity to move fast on some new design work. It would've lined up perfectly for our ASIA distributor meeting in Thailand next month, so I pushed for it. 

I thought it would be:

Great to share the new innovation.
Great to share the new Thistle identity.
Great to share our new direction with them.

But I was chasing speed over execution.

The lesson wasn't "slow down". I still believe in moving fast.
The lesson was "speed" without clarity is just expensive.

Coming straight out of a rebrand, it’s easy to chase momentum. But when you do that, you can lose the bigger picture and that costs you.

Growth never happens when you move without clarity. You only get one chance at a first impression, so we are making sure ours is worth it.

"TEST THE LIMIT"  that's what our rebrand was built on.

When we started to plan our rebrand, we didn't view ourselves as successful. We saw ourselves as a challenger brand. A brand that wanted to do things differently from others in our industry.

This was our starting point.

From the first conversations I had with our team, they were all open-minded to it and wanted to be aligned on the bigger picture, but there was something I noticed more special. 

They all wanted to be a part of it.  Contributing, debating, and just being fully curious. Through my years of learning business, I've noticed that one of the best traits in any business is the team being curious. They like to get stuck in. And here's what I've seen:

They adapt quickly to problems and solutions.
They build better products and services.
They spot opportunities others ignore.
They make better decisions.

Being curious is lethal (in a good way)

There's something special about being around an open-minded team. A team that wants to play an even bigger part in this journey. It's pretty cool.

Very proud to announce the next chapter of Thistle Scientific.

Thistle has expanded a lot over the years as a team, company and scientific partner.

Today, we’re updating our entire visual system to convey a clearer, bolder expression of who we are and the purpose we stand behind. Now the time feels right to step into our next chapter and announce the rebrand of Thistle Scientific.

One that will demonstrate the connection and deeper understanding we have for researchers and global organisations who are changing the world for good.  

Just like research, brands must evolve too. We must listen, adapt and strengthen. That's what we're here to do. Committed to the direction we're heading, and that's to equip scientists to be relentless in changing the world for good. 

One hypothesis at a time. 

Welcome to Thistle 2.0

Because science is never done. So, neither are we.

taplio

The Battle

Carina Farrell

Niall Cleaver

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taplio

The Battle

Carina Farrell

Niall Cleaver

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Carina Farrell's LinkedIn Performance

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