Is anyone else tired of "personal branding" being a requirement for founders?

I don't want to rant here (but I probably will a bit)... 😅

I've been doing product marketing and growth for a while now, and I feel like every single piece of advice right now is telling founders they need to become full-time influencers. "Post on LinkedIn every day," "start a YouTube channel," "build in public."

I get the logic people buy from people. But it's exhausting. It feels like we've shifted from "build a great product and tell people about it" to "build a great product and then spend 4 hours a day performing authenticity on social media." And the worst part is, most of it just looks like the same recycled motivational platitudes.

So, how do you actually build trust and drive growth without forcing the founder to become a content creator?

The only thing that seems to work for me lately is extreme transparency in the actual product like sending a plain-text email from the founder's real address, or writing a brutally honest changelog. It doesn't scale to millions, but it actually feels human.

I know this depends on the product and the audience, but how are you approaching trust-building right now without falling into the "influencer" trap?