Your Authentic Self – Part 3

How to Express Your Authentic Self in Personal Branding

How do you go about expressing who you are in your branding? How do you make sure you come across as authentic? The beauty is, once you’ve discovered your authentic self, expressing it becomes effortless. It’s not something you have to think about or put on, like a mask – it’s literally just being yourself, and your audience will love you for it.

Step 1: Find your niche

Look, if you’re not in the right industry, people can tell. You won’t have the passion and you won’t have the drive. They’ll smell you a mile away. Don’t go into business into a niche that ‘does well’. Go into a niche you’re passionate about. 

If that’s fashion, excellent… fitness, great… monster trucks, even better. It doesn’t matter what you are selling – it matters that you’re doing it genuinely. If you believe in your product, so will everyone else. But you can’t build a personal brand based on something you don’t believe in and aren’t passionate about. 

Step 2: Find your genuine voice

A lot of business owners – especially women! – find themselves creating a faux, public voice for themselves and their fabricated public persona. You know, ‘sensible’, even-tempered, formal language – things we’re told are appropriate and proper. 

However, all that can feel inauthentic and fake. Because it is fake. Shake it off, and find your genuine voice. What do you sound like in real life? Do you use a lot of colloquialisms? Do you find yourself saying “like” a lot? When you get passionate, do you ramble excitedly?

All that is not just fine, it’s precisely the breath of fresh air and the authenticity people want to see. Your personal brand needs to reflect you and who you really are as a person. If you sound like a genuine person, you will be perceived like one. 

Step 3: Get personal

Thankfully for all of us, social media has given us free reign to get personal with strangers. It won’t come naturally to a lot of us – in fact, most of us are raised to be very reserved in public. But learning to share and to be personal with your audience is going to go a long way for your authenticity. 

Go against your education and what is proper and get personal online. Don’t be afraid to connect with people and talk about your real self, real life, real struggles and achievements. If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that being relatable in this way ensures that everyone reads you as genuine and they will not hesitate to trust you. 

Vulnerability can be scary, but it’s also extremely endearing, especially in contrast with overly formal, cold, reserved, professional public-facing types. No one wants to buy from that girl. But the one who’s warm and human and isn’t afraid to share her personal struggles? That’s the one you want to be friends with on social media. That could be you!

Step 4: Get emotional

The world is always trying to disqualify women’s professionalism and argue that they’re not fit for leadership based on emotions… that we’re too emotional to be good business leaders… because of this, which is why so many women try to hide their emotions. 

Well, I’m telling you to do the exact opposite. Personal branding and authenticity rely a lot on these raw, genuine, relatable human emotions. Are you feeling sad? Share with the world. Does something make you angry? Let it out. Are you very passionate about a cause? Let everyone know. That is going to show that you are a real person with real emotions who’s not hiding behind a PR-friendly persona. 

On a slightly more pragmatic, maybe even cynical note, purchases are made based on emotions, a lot of the time. If being honest about your emotions can make others feel the same way, you’ve hit the jackpot.

If you’re ready to discover your authentic self or if you’re still hesitating, my inbox is always open for a chat!