I had an excellent podcast interview with Kim Albee from Genoo yesterday (it will be up in a week or so) where we talked in detail about content marketing and authenticity.
The first step in being authentic in your content marketing and social media? Understanding who YOU are. What’s your brand story? What do you stand for?
So much focus in content marketing is understanding the buyer persona – or understanding exactly who your customers are, what their pain points are, their informational needs, etc. (Some companies go so far as to name their personas and create pictures of them.)
Buyer personas? Extremely important…no doubt.
Your brand persona? Critical.
We’ve all heard the phrase “before you can love other people, you have to first love yourself.”
Same goes for content marketing.
Before you truly understand your customers (buyer persona), you have to understand yourself (brand persona).
Just think of the difference between Southwest and Continental airlines. Two reputable companies. Two very different companies. If Continental came out with a video series about their flight attendants doing tricks on passengers, it would seem severely out of place. Southwest, not so much.
What is your brand story?
What are the areas of expertise you want to stand for?
What are the tenets that your company stands by, no matter what?
If you were a person, what type of person would you be? Black, white, male, female, fun, serious, etc.
If your brand could change the world, where would you start?
