Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video I want to
talk to you about brand authenticity so what is brand authenticity what is it
not and how do you do authenticity?
now I decided to do this video because I was asked a question during the week about
brand authenticity and it was how do you
get the balance between being authentic and appealing to your audience now the
question was in relation to personal branding but the question is relevant
for both personal branding and business branding and it can be broken up into
two but if you think about authenticity if you think about just people in
general we tend to like people that are authentic and if we see that people are
putting on a facade if they're not being themselves then we don't like them so
authenticity is really important whether it's personal branding or business
branding but how do you do that how do you go and execute on brand authenticity
now let's start with personal branding now if you just think about yourself and
think about your own life and you can think about the people that are in your
life so you might think of your best friend who you've been best mates with
since you were five years old and you know you've done everything with them
you've grown up with that person and that person has seen you at your best
and they've seen you at your worst and they've probably seen you do some funky
stuff as well but if you think about the relationship that you have with them
you're pretty comfortable being yourself being 100% percent yourself in your own
skin with that person you are truly authentic with that person and then if
you think about it you know somebody in a professional space maybe a co-worker
or your boss well then you're going to be different with that person now are
you going to be inauthentic by being professional with that person no you're
just going to be the relevant level of authentic based on the environment based
on the situation and based on the people that you're around so think of that when
it comes to personal branding so on one side you've got your best friend and you
can be 100% yourself with them 100% authentic on the other side you've got
your boss and you're gonna be the relevant level of authentic for that
person and what you're gonna do is you're gonna accentuate certain
characteristics that are going to appeal to that person and appeal to that
environment and that's the exact same within personal branding
when you're trying to appeal to your audience understand who your audience is
understand the characteristics that they have and what they're looking for from
you from your brand and then decide on the characteristics that are most suited
to attract that type of person and then you can just accentuate those
characteristics now it's important not to over accentuate and kind of you know
become this persona that you're not you're not trying to be somebody that
you're not you're just trying to deliver the right level of characteristics and
the right level of authenticity to this particular environment so accentuate
those characteristics that are going to appeal more to your audience within that
environment and be the right level of authentic to your audience in that
environment for personal branding but it is important to remember there is no
substitute for authenticity and you know you can see this online you can spot the
phonies and the fakes a mile away because they're too polished everything
is refined and everything is polished and you know those who are authentic
kind of let it all hang out there a little bit they you know they don't try
to be too polished and you know they're they're not afraid to show some flaws
because it's within those flaws that were actually attracted to people we you
know we see that they're not perfect and we see that they're just a human and
that's how we make those human connections and that's what at the end
of the day that's what authenticity is all about so remember there is no
substitute for that authenticity and you know look if you are going out on your
own for the first time and you're building this personal brand and you're
putting yourself out there for the first time it's gonna be hard it's not gonna
be easy you know especially if you're creating
content if you're doing videos whether it's on social media on YouTube and you
know you're putting yourself out there for the first time you're not gonna be
completely comfortable therefore you're not gonna be completely authentic until
you have a bit of experience behind you but the more experience you have behind
you more comfortable you're gonna become and the more comfortable you are that's
when your real personality comes out and that's when you know you can be the
right level of authentic as I said before you're not gonna be 100% new the
way you will be with your best mate but maybe you'll be 70 to 80 percent and
that's enough that's enough to you know to give enough of yourself to your
audience so that they can see that you're a real person
and they can make a connection with you so the second side of that question is
in relation to business branding now the difference between business branding and
personal branding is that with personal branding there's a person there already
there's a personality there already and you're not trying to create something
that's not already there you're just trying to accentuate you're trying to
bring it at the right level of authenticity when it comes to business
branding there is no personality there that has to be developed and what we're
trying to do with business branding is we're trying to make this corporate
entity this business seem like a relatable human persona and that's what
we need to do with building a personality we need to build a
personality for that brand the best way to do that is through brand archetypes
now I'm not going to get into our archetypes in this video I'll do another
video on brand archetypes but archetypes are the framework that I use when
developing personalities for the brands that I build and it allows you to define
who your audience is based on their personality type and then assign a
personality that's gonna be best suited to attracting them now the archetype
framework and the base archetype that you use there's only the starting point
you then need to you know make that into a realistic personality a realistic
persona with attitudes opinions a tone of voice and you know a certain type of
language that it would use and then once you have your personality once you're at
that level then you can start to think about authenticity now authenticity will
relate back to the internal brand so the internal brand is based on those
belief systems and those values that the brand holds dear and this is defined in
the brand strategy itself it's one of the early parts of developing that brand
strategy is developing that internal brand but being real to those values
being authentic to those values and that belief system is really really important
and following through on that following through throughout your messaging throughout
your storytelling throughout every form of communication so that comes through in
your tone of voice in the language that you use when you're posting on social
media how do those social media posts sound is there a bit of personality
behind it a bit of authenticity behind it so again don't try to be too
polished with everything you do let it all hang out there and
you know be a little bit rough around the edges now depending on who your
audience is and depending on the personality that you've defined for your
brand it would be different from one brand to the next but you know make sure
that your personality comes across as human and then tie your authenticity
into what you believe and what you state and what your values are and make sure
that that follows through in everything you do and all of your brand
communication but I'd love to hear from you about your experience with brand
authenticity have you seen a brand out there that you absolutely love that just
feel like a human persona they let it all hang out they're not afraid to be
rough around the edges they're not trying to be too politically correct or
too polished if you've seen a brand out there like that then please let me know
in the comments below I love brands like that I'd love to check them out if you
got any questions in relation to brand authenticity if you're still trying to
figure out the whole human brand persona brand personality development then let
me know in the comments below if you've got any questions at all about
authenticity let me know in the comments below as well if you like this video
please give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe button hit that notification
bell and let you know when I've got a new video out and until then
(be authentic!)