I Spent Years Trying to Pick a Laine

Here's something nobody tells you when you start building a personal brand: you're probably going to get it wrong the first time. And the second time. And maybe a few more times after that.

That's not a flaw in the process. That's the process.

I launched my personal brand in 2023. It was clean, minimalist, very Scandinavian-inspired — soft neutrals, clean lines, the kind of aesthetic that looks effortlessly polished. And honestly? It looked great. It just didn't look like me.

I had the beginnings of something called "The Right Laine" back then — a play on my last name, a nod to direction and strategy. The concept was there. But the packaging kept shifting. I revised it. Then revised the revision. Then looked at it six months later and revised it again.

"What I didn't realize was that I wasn't failing at branding. I was getting closer to the truth."

The two worlds that refused to stay separate

I'm a digital marketing strategist by profession. I'm also someone who straps on fins on weekends and goes diving whenever I can. For a long time, I kept those two things in completely different boxes — one was work, one was my escape from work.

Then I started posting my mermaid videos on Instagram. The account was supposed to be strictly digital marketing content. But I couldn't not share it. And something unexpected happened: it worked. Not despite the mismatch, but because there was no mismatch at all.

The color palettes were the same — sand, blue, coral. The energy was the same — calm, intentional, unhurried. And the message it quietly sent to anyone watching was something I hadn't been able to say in any caption: I have a life outside of this screen. I come up for air. I go deep and come back with something real.

What your "identity crisis" is actually telling you

If you're building a personal brand and you feel like you're constantly starting over, I want you to hear this: you're not behind. You're refining.

Every version of your brand that didn't quite fit taught you something about what does. The Scandi minimalist era taught me I was chasing an aesthetic, not an identity. The pivots taught me what I wasn't willing to leave out. And the moment I stopped trying to make my two worlds make sense to other people and just let them coexist — that's when the Digital Marketing Mermaid emerged.

Strategic. Results-driven. Effortlessly effective. And occasionally underwater.

"Your brand doesn't have to be logical. It has to be true."

The part they skip in the "build your personal brand" guides

Most branding advice tells you to niche down, pick a lane, stay consistent. And there's truth in that — but it assumes you already know who you are when you start. Most of us don't. Most of us figure it out by doing, posting, pivoting, and paying attention to what feels like a performance versus what feels like coming home.

For me, it took years. A scuba tank. A lot of revised Canva templates. And one Instagram grid that accidentally told the truth.

If you're in the middle of your own branding identity crisis right now — welcome. You're exactly where you need to be. Keep going. The version of your brand that actually fits is already in there. You're just in the process of finding it.

Abby Laine is a digital marketing strategist with 9+ years of experience helping travel, fashion, and personal brands build their presence online. She also dives on weekends. Both are non-negotiable.