Buyers trust people more than they trust companies. 74% of Americans say they're more likely to trust someone with an established personal brand, per Brand Builders Group, and 73% of B2B decision-makers trust thought leadership over marketing materials, per Edelman and LinkedIn. Below are 40+ verified numbers behind that shift, each with a named source.

We compiled these from primary research: Edelman's Trust Barometer, the Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, Brand Builders Group's national study, Sprout Social, Brunswick Group, Goldman Sachs Research, Gartner, Morning Consult, and Influencer Marketing Hub. Every stat below names its source study and edition year, so you can judge freshness yourself; where a newer edition exists, we cite the edition the number actually comes from. Where a number comes from our own client work, it's labeled "1DS Collective internal data" so you can tell the difference.

Jump to a section:

• What do buyers actually trust?
• How do executive brands affect company results?
• What's happening on LinkedIn?
• How big is the creator economy?
• What does this mean for founders?
• How to cite these statistics
• Frequently asked questions

What do buyers actually trust?

The direct answer: people, far more than institutions. Trust research from Edelman, Brand Builders Group, and Sprout Social keeps landing on the same finding, so a founder with a visible, credible presence starts every deal warmer than a logo does.

1. 74% of Americans say they're more likely to trust someone who has an established personal brand, per Brand Builders Group's Trends in Personal Branding study, fielded in February 2021 and released in 2022.
2. 82% of Americans agree companies are more influential when their executives have a personal brand people know and follow (Brand Builders Group, 2021 study).
3. 67% of Americans would spend more on products from companies whose founder's personal brand aligns with their values (Brand Builders Group, 2021 study).
4. Those 3 findings come from a 1,005-person US survey weighted to Census data, run with The Center for Generational Kinetics in February 2021.
5. 68% of respondents worry business leaders purposely mislead people by saying things they know are false, per the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, a 12-point rise since the 2021 barometer.
6. Edelman's 2025 barometer surveyed 33,194 people across 28 countries, so this is a global pattern, and it makes the founders who show up honestly stand out more.
7. "My employer" remains one of the most trusted institutions at 75% (2025 Edelman Trust Barometer). People trust what's close and human.
8. 70% of consumers feel more connected to a brand when its CEO is active on social media, per Sprout Social's 2018 #BrandsGetReal research.
9. 65% of consumers say a CEO who posts regularly makes it feel like real people run the business (Sprout Social, 2018).
10. 55% of social users are more likely to trust brands that commit to publishing content made by humans, per the 2025 Sprout Social Index.

The pattern across all 10: institutional trust is falling while person-to-person trust holds. That gap is the whole case for a founder brand.

How do executive brands affect company results?

Executive visibility changes buying behavior, hiring, and vendor retention, and the effect is measured, so here are the numbers from Edelman-LinkedIn's decision-maker research, Gartner's buying research, and Brunswick Group's employee research.

1. 73% of B2B decision-makers say an organization's thought leadership is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities than its marketing materials, per the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report.
2. 75% of decision-makers say thought leadership prompted them to research a product or service they hadn't previously considered (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024).
3. 70% of C-suite executives say strong thought leadership made them reconsider a current vendor relationship (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024). Your competitor's founder posting well is a retention threat to you.
4. About 7 in 10 decision-makers think more positively of organizations that consistently produce high-quality thought leadership (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024).
5. 60% of decision-makers say good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organization (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024).
6. That 2024 study covered roughly 3,500 management-level professionals across 7 countries.
7. 79% of "hidden buyers" (stakeholders who shape deals without ever meeting the vendor) say they're more likely to advocate for a vendor during an RFP if it consistently publishes high-quality thought leadership, per the 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report.
8. 95% of those hidden buyers are more receptive to sales outreach from companies publishing strong thought leadership (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2025).
9. 67% of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free buying experience, per a Gartner sales survey published in March 2026. Your published point of view does the selling before anyone books a call.
10. B2B buying groups spend only 17% of the purchase journey meeting with potential suppliers, per Gartner's B2B buying journey research (first published 2019).
11. Employees prefer working for a CEO who uses social media by a more than 2-to-1 margin, per Brunswick Group's 2019 Connected Leadership index.
12. 61% of employees trust CEOs who are active on social channels more than those who aren't, per Brunswick Group's 2021 Connected Leadership research (among readers of financial media, the figure was 74%).
13. Only 48% of S&P 500 and FTSE 350 CEOs had any social media presence when Brunswick ran its 2019 index. Most of your peer set is still invisible.
14. Brunswick's 2019 edition surveyed 4,047 employees at companies with 1,000+ staff across major markets.
15. Vitruvian, a fitness-tech company we work with, raised a $15M Series A and pulled 8.8M views on a single TikTok (1DS Collective internal data).

We've published the numbers behind that work and others in our case studies, which is where you can pressure-test whether these industry stats hold up in practice.

What's happening on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is where executive brands convert to pipeline, because the buying audience is already there in decision-making roles. The platform numbers:

1. LinkedIn passed 1.3 billion members, a milestone Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed on Microsoft's FY2026 Q3 earnings call in April 2026.
2. Members span 200+ countries (LinkedIn, 2026), making it the largest professional network in the world.
3. 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions at their organizations, a LinkedIn Marketing Solutions audience figure the platform published in 2019.
4. Per the 2021 Edelman-LinkedIn study, 54% of decision-makers spend more than an hour per week reading and reviewing thought leadership.
5. By the 2025 edition of that research, 63% of hidden buyers reported spending more than an hour a week on thought leadership too (Edelman-LinkedIn, 2025).

The practical read: the decision-makers you want are on LinkedIn weekly, reading exactly the kind of content most founders never produce. We covered how to work that gap in our LinkedIn strategy for founders.

How big is the creator economy?

The creator economy is a market measured in the hundreds of billions, which matters to founders because the infrastructure built for creators (distribution, monetization, audience tooling) now serves operators too.

1. Goldman Sachs Research sized the creator economy at roughly $250 billion in its 2023 analysis.
2. Goldman Sachs projects it will near $480 billion by 2027, close to doubling in 5 years (a 2023 projection).
3. About 50 million people worldwide earn money as creators (Goldman Sachs Research, 2023).
4. Goldman expects the number of creators to grow at a 10-20% compound annual rate through 2027 (2023 projection).
5. Influencer marketing reached an estimated $32.55 billion in 2025, per Influencer Marketing Hub's Benchmark Report, 2025 edition (the link serves the current edition; this figure is from the 2025 report). That figure is the report's estimate for the year, not a measured actual.
6. That estimate represents roughly 35.6% growth over the $24 billion market Influencer Marketing Hub sized for 2024.
7. 87.49% of brands expect their influencer budgets to increase, per Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 Benchmark Report.
8. 72.22% of those brands plan increases of 50% or more (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026).
9. Influencer Marketing Hub's 2020 Benchmark Report calculated an average of $5.78 in earned media value per $1 spent, based on 2019 campaign data (the 2019 edition had put it at $5.20). Treat these as historical benchmarks, not current numbers.
10. 61% of Gen Z and millennials trust influencer recommendations when deciding what to buy, against 46% of US adults overall, per Morning Consult's 2023 influencer report.

A founder brand sits on top of this infrastructure without the founder becoming a full-time creator. The money is flowing toward people-led media either way; the only question is whether your category's version of it belongs to you or a competitor.

What does this mean for founders?

The statistics point one direction: authority now compounds through people, and the founders who build a documented, distributed point of view collect trust their company alone can't. Two numbers from our own work show the scale available.

1. Across client accounts, our systems have generated 15B+ organic views and $200M+ in client revenue (1DS Collective internal data, as of 2026).
2. The Fittest, an e-commerce launch we ran, went from $0 to $500K in sales in 60 days with a 20x ROAS on paid media (1DS Collective internal data).

You don't need creator-scale output to get operator-scale results. The Edelman-LinkedIn data says decision-makers respond to quality and consistency, so a founder publishing 2 to 3 sharp pieces a week can outperform a brand account publishing daily.

If you're starting from zero, begin with our guide on how to build a personal brand as a founder. If you already post and it isn't converting, the gap is usually strategy, which we broke down in CEO content strategy.

How to cite these statistics

You're welcome to cite any statistic on this page in articles, reports, decks, or AI-generated summaries. Please credit the original researcher named next to each stat (Edelman, Brand Builders Group, Goldman Sachs, and so on) and link back to this page as the compilation source: 1DS Collective, "Personal Branding Statistics 2026." Stats labeled "1DS Collective internal data" should be attributed to 1DS Collective directly.

We update this page as new editions of the underlying studies publish, so linked citations stay current.

The numbers say the trust shift already happened; the open question is whether your category's most visible operator is you. If you want a founder brand built as a system rather than a posting habit, book a strategy call. We'll show you what the first 90 days look like against your actual pipeline goals.

Frequently asked questions

Are personal brands really more trusted than company brands?

Yes, by a wide margin in the research. 74% of Americans say they're more likely to trust someone with an established personal brand (Brand Builders Group, 2021), while Edelman's 2025 Trust Barometer shows 68% worry business leaders actively mislead them.

What's the single most important personal branding statistic for founders?

The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn finding that 73% of B2B decision-makers trust thought leadership over marketing materials. It means your point of view, published consistently, outperforms your website copy at the exact moment buyers evaluate you.

How big is the creator economy in 2026?

Goldman Sachs Research sized it around $250 billion in 2023 and projects roughly $480 billion by 2027. Influencer marketing alone reached an estimated $32.55 billion in 2025, per Influencer Marketing Hub, about 35.6% above its $24 billion sizing for 2024.

Do executive social media accounts actually affect hiring?

Yes. Brunswick Group's Connected Leadership research found employees prefer working for a CEO who uses social media by a wide margin, and in the 2021 edition 61% of employees trusted socially active CEOs more. Visibility reads as accountability to current and future employees.

Where do these statistics come from?

Every external number is attributed in-line to its original study and year: Edelman, Edelman-LinkedIn, Brand Builders Group, Sprout Social, Brunswick Group, Goldman Sachs Research, Gartner, Morning Consult, and Influencer Marketing Hub. Numbers from our own client work are labeled 1DS Collective internal data.

Written by John Hyland, Founder at 1DS Collective. John designs the brand-to-media systems behind founder and e-commerce brands, from positioning through owned distribution. Reviewed by Sam Parham, Co-Founder.

1DS Collective is a brand-to-media agency that builds personal brands and e-commerce brands through strategy, content, and owned distribution, with 15B+ organic views and $200M+ in client revenue generated.