In this post, we’ll help you answer: what is authenticity, in addition to detailing how to be more authentic.
On ForCreators, we mention authenticity frequently. That’s because authenticity is crucial if you want to grow or monetize your presence online.
Notice: If you are more into practical insights, check Monday for Creators with Chicago based influencer and plus-size model Amber McCulloch, where she’s talking about Staying true to yourself
What Is Authenticity?
Authenticity is the quality of being genuine. Being authentic means you possess the trait of being real, honest, sincere. A person or brand who is authentic owns up to their flaws and embraces them instead of hiding or denying them.
Why Is Being Authentic Important?
By being authentic you give others the liberty to be so as well. Additionally, being authentic ensures you’re able to advance without impediment because you don’t have to maintain a facade.
Something brands and influencers find out the hard way is that lying is costly.
Lying will ruin your reputation and make your project or social media presence unsustainable.
Because the internet is such an unforgiving place, when you’re exposed as being fake or lying, the consequences will be harsh. Therefore, the responsibility lies on influencers, creators, and digital entrepreneurs to share their stories, products, and services in a way that best serves their audience.
Save yourself the trouble and be authentic from the beginning.
3 STEPS TO BE MORE AUTHENTIC
If there’s something social media users despise, it’s being fake. People are sleuths online. They’ll check, double-check, and investigate your every move. They want to know that they’re following or purchasing from someone who is going to reciprocate their goodwill by being honest.
If your community even suspects you’re lying, it will destroy your reputation and shatter the trust you’ve built. For influencers, brands, digital entrepreneurs, and creators, trust is priceless and essential for establishing a lasting reputation and brand.
Step 1 To Be More Authentic:
Define Your Distinctive Characteristics
Every creator has something that makes them distinctive. You can describe this distinctiveness as a set of traits that distinguish them from others.
The answer to how to be more authentic is to identify these distinctive characteristics and zone in on them.
Your distinguishing characteristics can be your ‘flaws,’ your process, your beliefs, morals, or mission. Ideally, your distinctive characteristics should be something very few large businesses or creators possess, because people want to relate to something. Therefore, if you try to mimic the strategies of larger creators and brands you’ll alienate your community because your community can’t relate to big businesses and creators.
Step 2 To Be More Authentic:
Create A Compelling Story
Most social media users agree that they want brands, influencers, and creators to be more authentic. Although that’s true in a sense, there are conditions to how much authenticity is acceptable. It’s not enough to be honest and transparent. If you want to be successful as an authentic brand, business, or creator, you need to develop a compelling story.
Why do some brands and influencers succeed at being authentic while others don’t? The primary reason is that one has a compelling story that people can easily grasp and latch onto, and the other doesn’t.
Your compelling story needs to include your who, why, and what.
Step 3 To Be More Authentic:
Create Your Brand Voice
Your brand voice is how you’ll make you convey your compelling story and integrate it with your social media presence. Your brand voice should be in everything you post or upload to the internet, as it will become the signature to your online persona, something people will recognize whenever they’re interacting with you.
Because social media helps you build a community, having a brand voice will be something that your community understands and can share with others.
The Golden Rule of Being More Authentic
If you can’t remember any of the previous tips, remember this: being authentic means being honest. You can’t be authentic without being honest. This doesn’t involve sharing every detail of your business or life online. What it means is that you’re choosing to be more transparent and forthcoming about information that other influencers or brands would hide.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DON’T LEARN HOW TO BE MORE AUTHENTIC?
The short answer is: You’ll eventually lose your community’s support.
As someone looking to develop your personal brand or sell products or services online, you’ll face the predicament of how much of the truth is necessary to include on social media. It’s not uncommon for businesses, brands, and influencers to lie and embellish, some even go as far as buying reviews and testimonials to seem legit. However, by doing this they’re building a community on a flimsy foundation. When people uncover these lies and half-truths, regaining their customers’ or followers’ trust is impossible.
By being authentic you’re building a community that will endure. Customers or followers will support you in every phase of your journey; because they trust and because they want to be a part of the next chapter of your compelling story.
What’s your thought on authenticity? Do you accept “filtering” or showing only to “good side” as a legit approach to Instagram? Tell us in the comments.
