The original intent of social media platforms was to help people connect without any geographical constraints. As time has progressed the increase in promotional aspects and a decrease in the social aspects has become evident across all platforms..
There are so many people online who are all trying to do the same thing. Whether that’s parenting blogging, coaching a specific group of people or teaching people about sales. How can you stand out? How can you be the one that resonates with someone?
You do it by sharing your personality in all that you do.
‘People buy from people that they know, like, and trust’ Seth Godin
This is exactly what we should be trying to do. Connect with our audience so they remember us, like us and start to trust us. As bloggers we want to appeal to everybody. Often we keep some of our personality under wraps. We’re not confident to step out there and to say, ‘this is me’ like it or not. We’d rather hedge our bets.
We know that being our true selves is going to turn some people away. Some people won’t like us. You know what? It’s absolutely fine that you’re not everyone’s cup of tea. Your blog has two purposes to attract or repel. That’s it. If people don’t like me, that’s fine. They can go and find someone else that they want to learn from.
If you’re hiding and trying to fly under the radar. Never really sharing what you are and who you are, you’ll just going to be average. Your blog has less chance of turning into what you hoped it would. You have to realise that you are special and that you have got things to offer your audience.
In a previous post I shared how important it is to find your brand voice and create a brand persona, so I won’t dig into that too much here. Let’s assume you’re confident in your voice and in the persona you want to project.
Let’s jump into how to show your personality in social media.
Use stories
Stories are so important. Our brains are hard wired to switch on and engage with stories. The story you tell doesn’t have to be a real story or even your story. Stories have been around since the beginning of time. Even Caveman were telling stories.
You can use your stories, you can use your family stories, friend’s stories. You can use stories that you’ve made up to prove a point or you can use user generated stories. If you can weave in a bit of a story into your content, it will make it a much more compelling.
Use data to infuse emotion
“10% of women that they interviewed and consider themselves beautiful”.
How did you feel when you read that? It made my heart hurt. That statistic evoked an emotional response in me, showing how useful data can be, even to something as creative as writing and storytelling.
Be the hostess
Mingle with your followers, asking and answering questions. Get to know them. This will give them an opportunity to start to build a relationship with you. Cocktails optional!
Provide value and inspiration.
Create context, stories and value around your sales pitches. Show your audience how your products, goods, services or content will benefit them.
Build suspense
Building suspense can add interest to your copy and to your brand. Resulting in your content seeming more interesting and personality packed. This is why people love thrillers and why authors such as Stephen King are millionaires. If you can weave suspense into your writing then you will be taking people on a journey with you. In practice you can hint at something before revealing it to add suspense. By doing so you’re opening a psychological loop that people will want to close. This will keep people invested, intrigued and engaged with your brand.
Building suspense is the holy grail of writing, because you’re keeping people waiting with bated breath. In doing so you’re making your content into more of an experience. It is this experience which creates the engagement we all desire.
Show behind the scenes
Another great way of infusing personality into your brand is to show behind the scenes. People are naturally curious and sharing your behind the scenes will bring them into our world by showing them our reality. This will help you build rapport with your audience. Showing them that they’re not alone in the ups and downs of life and business.
Use brand language
You will probably have heard the advice that you should write like you speak. It’s really important to use the words and phrases that you use in real life. This way your social media content will sound like you.
What’s your brand ethos?
What is the ethos of your brand? What do you want it to be? Do you want your brand to be and like someone’s big sister? Do you want it to be a Fairy Godmother. Or a teacher? What is the character of your brand? Maybe your niche is productivity and you’ve always felt like a productivity ninja. This could be your brand character and it would lead to you including ninja references and imagery in your content.
How do you communicate best?
Personality tests can be a great way to unearth aspects of your personality that you could highlight. What role do you play in your social groups? Are you always that the agony aunt? Or the motivator? Digging into this will show you how you should show up in your brand.
How do you want people to feel?
Do you want them to feel inspired? Do you want them to feel heard? Do you want them to feel motivated? When you know this, you know how you will need to show up to achieve this. If you want people to feel motivated, yet you show up like a wet lettuce, your message probably won’t land as you’d hoped. This builds consistency which turns into engagement through which people fall in love with your brand.
Does your aesthetic have continuity?
Make sure your photos and the images you use have the same vibe as your brand. If you’re all about light and positivity and being a Fairy Godmother for your tribe. You want that feeling everywhere. You don’t want chaotic or mean and moody over on Instagram. Make sure you have your chosen brand aesthetic running through everything that you do.
Talk about your why
This is really important. Your story is the most powerful thing that you have and it’s your biggest USP. Your point of difference. Others can copy our content but people can never copy our stories and our specific why,
I share that I’ve got postnatal depression. I started my blog as I wanted to create a memory book, because I was so scared that I would forget my daughter’s key milestones. I felt as if I forgot any of these dates it would make me a bad mum. So I grabbed my Mac (while my daughter lay sleeping on my chest) and I typed ‘how to start a blog’. Then I did.
Within four months it started to make money and within 15 months, I was bringing in more than my previous full time jobs. I tell my story because that’s my story. I don’t care if anyone finds that inspirational or not. It’s none of my business what other people think of me. It’s my story and it’s what got me here. Other people will have had PND. Other people will have turned their blog into a business quickly, but no-one has my unique story.
So tell your story. People will connect with it. They will be inspired and they will feel as if they can do it too. We don’t have to have everything figured out. We just you just have to be one step ahead of the people that we’re trying to help.
Ask rhetorical questions
Being asked a rhetorical questions activates the same parts of the brain that are used if someone was to answer a question in real life. People start being more active in what they’re reading. Consumers become more involved in the content that they’re reading and then consequently are more engaged in it. One writer suggested you insert two to three rhetorical questions for every 500 words.
Use signature brand colours and fonts
People to connect with your brand through consistency. Subconsciously, if they seem the same colours and fonts being associated with your brand enough times. They will create a link. So use colours and fonts that share your personal aesthetic, but also that you believe would appeal to your ideal audience member.
Using signature colours and fonts makes your whole brand more cohesive.
Formatting content
You want to take people on a journey through your words, ideally you want it to sound as if you’re reading it to them. So if you leave like more white space, and then you put something in bold (for example) you would you would be helping them skim, which is a good thing. Leaving a gap will mean they pause. This helps you create written text which is similar to how you speak. Use sub headers, paragraph breaks etc to create powerful formatting that sets you apart.
Read entertaining/engaging content
We have to make sure that we’re consuming content that feeds our creativity and enables us to produce awesome content ourselves. Think about the quality of the content you’re consuming and don’t let any rubbish stuff in there.
Be passionate
Passion helps you be more expressive and dynamic in your content. This passion shines through and is magnetising for those who also share the same passion. Using video on social media is a great way to get your passion across to your audience. You can make a business out what you love. But I also believe that sometimes you don’t know what you love something straight away. When you try something new and you get positive feedback, you begin to love it. No-one loves something that they’re rubbish at. If you’re good at it the positive feedback loop starts and you begin to enjoy it more and the passion develops.
Elicit emotional responses
Try to make someone feel something. Do you want them to feel inspired, happy? Don’t just put content out there for the sake of it. Create content with a purpose. Remember a call to action that should be in every piece of content you create. Whether it’s download my free checklist, check out this YouTube video or simply to comment.
Cohesive graphics and design
Make sure that everything fits together and that you put your personality into website. When someone goes to your social profiles they need to fit together. That’s really important because you don’t want people to be confused, it will weaken your brand identity.
Show your face
If you never show your face you are limiting the possible connection you can create with people. Growth happens when we are uncomfortable.
I know I’ve given you a lot of information in this post, but I hope you will be able to try one or two things to start with and then save it so you can pop back for more later. Which way of injecting more personality into your social media will you try first?
