Authenticity Vs Self-Promotion

Let's bust a myth.

Personal content does not need to be overly personal. I share very little of my own personal life on LinkedIn.

Many personal brands share personal aspects of their lives that are unrelated to their work, Rand Fishkin being one.

But many other successful brands share very little of their 'personal' self. April Dunford is one of those.

What every successful personal brand shares, though, without exception, is their journey, insights, and real business experiences.

Specificity is key here because readers want 'real,' and specificity implies real. The hyper-specific nature of advice makes it interesting and relatable.

Here's my own example of that:

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This post is based on working with a SaaS who’s performance numbers were off.

I give specific tips on how to audit a failing marketing engine to figure out the problem components, then how to fix them. Readers can tell whether or not it's anchored to reality.

That means it needs to be authentic. If we're to like the brand you project, we need to believe it.

So, how do you share that in an interesting way?

People want to hear about your journey and the challenges you're facing as you build your SaaS business and achieve your goals.

But they want the good, bad, and ugly. Not just the highlights reel.

That's where we hit this fork in the road between authenticity and self-promotion.

People can tell when you're being self-promotional.

Imagine posting this:

"I just went to a VC meeting today. I absolutely love going to VC meetings. The VCs I meet are so friendly and supportive."

That sentence is clearly not authentic. Anyone who's had any experience with VCs knows that's not true. You're just putting on a face because you've got loads of VC contacts on social.

Compare it with this alternative post:

"90% of VCs are an absolute nightmare. Don't get me wrong, the 10% I work with are amazing, but those other 90% are a complete waste of time and effort. I hate interacting with them."

That's interesting and real, and the point here is that we're talking about our values, beliefs and/or hard decisions.

Self-promotional content, on the other hand, isn't wrapped in any sort of value, entertainment, or interest.

Obviously, you're creating content to promote your SaaS, but you want to reverse that order in your approach.

Rather than promoting what you sell and hoping people experience value, aim to make something that delivers value and then figure out how to make it promotional.

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You're essentially creating something interesting or entertaining and weaving some sort of promotional offer or ask into the value.

But how do you get good at writing this authentic post that resonates?

That's what I'll look at next.

In the final article in this series, I'm going to share my own content journey on LinkedIn.