Beyond the Logo: Why People Buy From People, Not Brands

In the ever-evolving digital world, social media is no longer optional—it’s essential. But in an age where every coach, consultant, and founder has an Instagram account, what actually makes someone stand out?

In a recent episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show, Amanda sat down with social media strategist and founder of Social Delight, Lovely Dutta, to unpack the real reason why some personal brands thrive while others get lost in the scroll. Spoiler: It’s not about flashy graphics or even follower counts. It’s about being seen—as a human first, business second.

Visibility is the New Currency

As Lovely points out right off the bat, “If you’re not visible online, then probably you are not there.” For busy coaches and founders, it’s easy to downplay the role of social media when the priority is running the business itself. But that mindset can quietly sabotage growth. Visibility isn't a vanity metric—it’s how you build trust, community, and ultimately, conversions.

People want to know who they’re doing business with. They want to hear your story, understand your values, and feel a sense of connection. That’s something no logo or brand color can deliver. It’s your face—your message and mission—that magnetize the right clients to you.

More Than Just Content: A Strategic Partnership

Lovely has supported over 50 global founders, grown accounts to 100K+ followers, and racked up 4 million impressions in a single month. But what makes her agency different is its core focus: authenticity.

“It’s not just about posting content,” she says. “It’s about understanding the client, their voice, their vision—and making sure the world sees them.”

Her team doesn’t push out one-size-fits-all templates. Instead, they craft strategies tailored to the founder’s goals and personality. And it works, because what people respond to isn’t just polished posts—it’s aligned, consistent messaging that feels real.

Stop Waiting: When to Hire Social Support

One of the most common questions Amanda hears from her audience is: “When should I hire a social media team?” Lovely’s answer? As soon as you can afford to invest in one.

“You don’t have to be everywhere,” she advises. “Start with one platform. Build there. Let that generate growth you can reinvest. But don’t wait until you’re overwhelmed. Visibility is a lever—start pulling it early.”

This isn’t just about having someone post for you—it’s about being represented online when you’re busy doing the work behind the scenes. That kind of leverage is priceless.

The Biggest Mistake Founders Are Still Making

According to Lovely, one of the biggest mistakes she sees in 2025 is this: founders are still hiding behind their brands.

Too many coaches focus exclusively on promoting their programs or services, without putting themselves front and center. “Your personal brand is your biggest leverage,” she explains. “Any face with a human connection will connect more than just a logo.”

Social media isn't just a platform—it’s your front door. When you consistently share your values, your journey, and your expertise, you give people a reason to trust you before they ever click “buy”.

Why Social Media Alone Won’t Cut It

This might surprise you coming from a social media strategist, but Lovely makes one thing clear: Social media alone won’t grow your business.

Yes, you can build an audience. But if you don’t have a strong offer, a good funnel, and an email list to back it up, those followers won’t turn into paying clients.

“People think 10,000 followers means you’re making good money—but it doesn’t,” she says. “You need to treat social media as part of your larger strategy. It should work with your backend systems to support real growth.”

Her advice? Nail your offer first, then amplify it through personal branding and social media. Not the other way around.

Empower Your Team as Brand Ambassadors

One of the most refreshing insights from the episode was the idea of “team-based branding.”

Lovely encourages founders to invite their team members to build their own personal brands, too—something most companies shy away from. But in today’s market, people want to feel connected to everyone they interact with in a business, not just the face of the company.

“Your team can multiply your message,” she explains. “It’s not risky—it’s smart. People build relationships with people, and the more touchpoints you have, the stronger your brand becomes.”

Amanda couldn’t agree more. She recalled being discouraged from using social media at a past job—something that would be unimaginable today. In 2025, not having a social presence is actually the bigger risk.

Social Media as a Relationship Builder

Amanda beautifully tied the conversation together by emphasizing that social media is not just about visibility—it’s about relationships. When used with intention, it can foster trust, attract aligned opportunities, and build a long-lasting brand.

“Without social media, I never would’ve connected with you,” she told Lovely. “And now we’re here, having this amazing conversation.”

That’s the magic of showing up online: the opportunity to reach and resonate with the exact people who need to hear what you have to say.

Final Thoughts: Lead With Who You Are

If there’s one takeaway from this episode, it’s this: your personal brand is not optional—it’s essential. In a crowded market, what makes you different is you. Your story. Your voice. Your presence.

Stop hiding behind the logo. Show your face. Tell your story. Let people know you—and the right clients will follow.

Chapters List

00:00 Introduction to Social Media Success

02:58 The Importance of Personal Branding

07:01 When to Hire a Social Media Agency

09:34 Beyond Social Media: Building a Sustainable Business

12:27 Embracing Social Media Risks and Opportunities

Full Transcript

Lovely Dutta (00:00)

Any face with a human connection will connect more than just a logo. So instead of only promoting your business through the back of a logo, if you just come out there, show your face, tell your stories, tell how you stand out, that is the biggest thing that you can do to capture the market in today's style.

Amanda Kaufman (00:37)

Well, hello and welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show. My name is Amanda Kaufman and I'm here with Lovely Duta, who is the founder of Social Delight. She is a social media agency owner and she works with coaches and founders that are building magnetic personal brands. And Lovely has had the pleasure of working with over 50 global founders and she's achieved standout results like

building accounts to over 100,000 Instagram followers and 4 million reach within just 30 days. And she grew her own LinkedIn from zero to 22,000 followers and has built her own following to over 5,000. She's been featured on Eat My News and She The People TV and a guest on various podcasts and webinars. And she leads a team of six.

focused on scaling brands through authenticity and strategy. So she is all in on empowering leaders to grow their influence, impact and income online. Lovely. Welcome to the show.

Lovely Dutta (01:45)

Thank you so much. That was such a lovely introduction. Thank you so much. Thank you for such kind words. And yeah, it's been a journey and I'm looking forward to talking to you and sharing a little bit about my journey and experience today.

Amanda Kaufman (02:00)

I love it. I'm just so curious. What drew you to wanting to work with people, you know, with businesses like mine and other businesses to help them with their social media? What was your spark of interest?

Lovely Dutta (02:13)

Well, it honestly happened very naturally. It was COVID, so we were all stuck in, you know, home. So I started learning about, I took some courses and I came across about this online business world and I was very fascinated by it. So that's how the journey started. So I started managing social media accounts of a lot of coaches and eventually I realized that that was a niche that I resonated with a lot too.

That became my niche in a certain way. yeah, lot of coaches came to me from referrals and then just like that the names got spread. So I got to work with a lot of different, different kind of coaches and eventually founders. And I felt that the stories that they had needed to be shared. And they probably didn't have the best way to share their story with the world from social media.

So yeah, that's how the journey began and it's been a long, long journey since then. And I am glad that I'm working in this industry because the coaches and the founders are really bringing a lot of changes. So I'm glad to be a part of it.

Amanda Kaufman (03:22)

That's really exciting. And I mean, it's no small task. You've got a team of six that are helping you. Sounds like you guys do a lot of hard work for your clients. For somebody who's thinking about hiring someone like you to help them with social media, what would be the best way for them to get the most out of partnering with someone like you to get their social media to where they want it to be?

Lovely Dutta (03:46)

Well, absolutely. See, for all the coaches, the business owners, they are running a business first. And in today's time, social media has become such an important part. If you are not visible online, then probably you are not there. So that is the perception has become in today's time.

busy as these coaches and founders are, they don't have the time to put so much effort into social media as well. But they know in some way that they need to be on there. They need to be on there telling their stories, promoting their businesses. So that's where we come. We not just post content for you. We will understand you, understand your business, understand your vision and create a strategy for you, which is tailored only for you and not everyone in the business. So that's how you stand out.

Someone is always there in the back of the table.

there's someone who is already representing you. And the biggest thing that we are specialized in is getting your voice. That's what we always tell. Let's say if we are working with a client, it's our responsibility to represent them authentically to the world. So it's not like we are creating content for ourselves, it's for the client. So we always make sure that the client speaks.

the content speaks as much as the client would want to share the insights and knowledge in the industry. So that is the thing that KOTUS and founders can get help from us. Be on social media, even if you don't have the time. We are there to take care of it for you.

Amanda Kaufman (05:18)

love that.

is one thing you wish more people did to be more effective with their social media? What's a common mistake you see?

Lovely Dutta (05:26)

well there are lot of mistakes I see you know people making and especially in today's like in 2024 2025 if we just look back at these two years it's not focusing on your personal brand in a way you are probably still you know posting a little bit about your business about your service but you are not focused on your personal brand and that is the biggest mistake you are doing at this moment because your personal brand is your biggest leverage you know

through your brand, your business will flourish anyway. So, and it is a known knowledge, right? Any face with a human connection will connect more than just a logo. So instead of only promoting your business through like, know, from the back of a logo, if you just come out there, show your face, tell your stories, tell how you stand out, that is the biggest thing that you can do to capture the market in today's style.

And I do, that's why we have started doing this personal branding as well for the founders and coaches. Because we know that there are a lot of things that there is for them to share and only through the brand, like the business, cannot. We need the personal brand as much in the fall front. So I think definitely for all the coaches, all the founders out there, they should start focus on personal brand for themselves.

Amanda Kaufman (06:45)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I totally agree that having like a strong social presence is incredibly important. Showing your face, showing who you are, right, is really important. even if you're an expert that's not a coach, I think that that's...

really important nowadays. When everybody has a business, there's a lot of choices out there. So why are they gonna choose you? And social media can be a really, really powerful device for making sure you're maintaining and sustaining those relationships. So, lovely, when should somebody start working with a social media agency like yourself? I've noticed some people really wait, some people start very early. What's your opinion on that?

Lovely Dutta (07:28)

Yes, absolutely. is confusion. Are we even ready to out social media? And I get that. I get that. There are a lot of factors that come into play. Like when you are starting out, have like a limited resource to get started. So you don't want to take up a lot of outside help and you just want to get started. But what happens is it's like a complimentary thing, right? When your social media is doing well, your business is anyway going to do well.

When you have a good agency taking care of your social media or personal branding, that is translating into a business as well. So as early as possible, like you can afford and you can start investing in your social media, it's better. Because when, like there are a lot of competitors, as you mentioned, they are probably going ahead because you haven't invested in the strategy yet. So as early as possible, of course it can differ from a person to person and their priorities at that moment.

But if you have a good offer already, ready for you, like, you know, to promote, start investing in social media. You don't have to start with a lot of things. Just pick one platform and get started with it. Slowly leverage that platform, build your business, build it, like make it bigger and then move it to, you know, different platforms as well. So it's like you can make smart choices with it. It's not just about the investment. You have to also think about the ROI you are getting from the social media platform, right? So as early as possible, it's better.

Amanda Kaufman (08:52)

Yeah, I love that. love that. What, cause like a lot of people are building social media so that they can be more successful in business. And one of the things I've had to teach for a long time is that you're more than your social media. Like you need to have an email list. You need to have, like you said, an offer that converts. You need to have a way that you connect with people beyond the social presence. And I'm just so.

Lovely Dutta (09:09)

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (09:16)

curious about like what do you see work the best for coaches that are wanting to monetize their social media marketing?

Lovely Dutta (09:22)

I agree with that, that only social media is not a sustainable strategy. I wouldn't recommend that either. See, social media is important, but you also need to have a lot of different things. as you mentioned, an offer in the first place. A lot of people, what they do is they are posting content every day, they're doing great numbers on social media, but they don't even have a solid offer in the first place. That's a no-no, right? Even if you're promoting and doing great numbers, it doesn't mean that it's translating into business.

For business to happen you need a solid offer, need a good funnel, you need email marketing, you need a lot of different things as well which can complement the social media part. Right? Social media is one part that cannot do it alone. A lot of people do come and say, okay, I just want to grow on social media, which is fine. having 10,000 followers on social media doesn't necessarily mean you are having a good revenue and monthly revenue every single month. So that's the difference.

I think for coaches and founders, for founders their business is already in starting phase or in the middle phase where they have already done something. So in terms of personal branding, what that helps is, it just gives a lot more push to the brand's impression as well. So when you see you are doing moderately good,

It's very important that you start leveraging your personal brand as a founder and not just as a founder, even in your team, team members should start building their personal brand on social media so that eventually all those people...

Amanda Kaufman (10:50)

Ooh, that's so good.

That's gold. Nobody does this.

Lovely Dutta (10:54)

Yes, and it is very important. It's becoming very, very important these days that see when you are all of those people are, you know, paying attention to your company only. a lot of doing this, don't feel comfortable with this concept that they are like, no, we don't want them to, you know, be out there. But this is going to be a game changer when you start embracing it. So that is one thing. ⁓

Amanda Kaufman (11:15)

I love this. That's so good.

Because you know, people are making relationships with not just you as the founder, you know, they're making relationships with all those team members. So it makes a lot of sense that you would want to have a team member based social media strategy as well to increase not just your reach, but also the reputation of the business overall. I remember when I was working in a consulting firm for years, one of the reasons I was so scared to get on social media, I'm obviously over it now, but

Lovely Dutta (11:23)

Yeah.

Yes.

Thanks.

Amanda Kaufman (11:45)

I was so scared for a long time because companies were like, well, we don't want the risk of you being on social media. This is like a decade ago. We don't want the risk of you being on social media. It's too risky for you to get socially engineered and they're protecting their assets and everything. But I think nowadays it's actually risky not to because people wanna know who they're doing business with. They wanna know.

Lovely Dutta (11:45)

Yes.

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (12:08)

Like it's better for you to be a brand ambassador for the company that you work for, in my opinion, than necessarily the offsetting risk. I think you've got to train both. Like you've got to train people to be smart online, but at the same time, be smart online. It's not all just risk avoidance. Some of it is also like, what's the opportunity that we can activate here? That's so good. So lovely. If people were interested in

Lovely Dutta (12:13)

Absolutely.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Amanda Kaufman (12:35)

Following you, seeing what you're up to, seeing some samples of your work, like what would be the best way for them to follow you?

Lovely Dutta (12:41)

Absolutely. So I'm on Lingdhi and I have like 25,000 followers on Lingdhi. You can find me at lovelydutta. And I'm also on Instagram where you can find me at lovelydutta here. And we have like our agency website which is www.socialdrive.net. That's also there. And yeah, you can connect with me in any way, any reach way that you prefer.

And yeah, it's always good to connect with people who also aligns with you and your thought process. so yeah, social media has become a great platform for that kind of relationships to nurture. And just as you mentioned before, the companies won't even let you be on the social media platform. we would like there would be no way we'd connect it from different countries to, know, like people can connect anywhere right now. So that's such a game changer.

Amanda Kaufman (13:31)

That's it.

Yeah, it's a great big world. And I really just want to say thank you so much for reaching out to me on LinkedIn. That's how we met. Connected, went a little bit deeper. We did a little bit of background on lovely. we were like, my gosh, know, like this gal, she's done some incredible things. And without social media, we would never have crossed paths. So wonderful, wonderful.

Lovely Dutta (13:41)

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (13:54)

So listener, don't forget to subscribe if you loved hearing this and be tuned in for more conversations about furthering your business and being more successful. And we're going to wrap up here, but don't forget, if you've got friends that wanna hear what matters and hear about some of the possibilities for having social media no longer.

Lovely Dutta (14:15)

Thanks.