Let’s talk about getting personal in your business and showcasing what’s real.

 

When you look out at the world of online marketing, it can be easy to feel utterly overwhelmed by the competition.

 

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The internet is full of big companies, and even not so big ones, that seem to have bottomless marketing budgets, with beautiful graphics, beautiful models, spot-on copy, and placement that seems to cover every conceivable platform.

 

There’s one thing that the big companies are missing though, and that’s your story.

 

How many times have you chosen to buy something from a small local business because they’re small and local?

 

How many times have you bought from a friend or an acquaintance simply because you know them?

 

This happens all the time, and when you’re doing content marketing, this is the major advantage you have over bigger companies.

 

No matter how big the marketing budget, you can’t ever perfectly simulate the feel of a small local business. And despite the fact that all of this is happening over the internet, you will feel local to the people in your community if you are present and you let people get to know the real you, complete with flaws and all.

 

So embrace the real you, and share it with everyone. If you don’t limit yourself to the technical side of your business, you’ll find that you have a wealth of social media and blog content at your fingertips.

 

Talk about the daily process of running your business. Share your daily wins and your daily struggles.

 

A lot of us are resistant to the idea of sharing our vulnerabilities because we either think it will make us seem like we’re not running our business (or our lives) correctly, or that we’ll sound like we’re complaining just to get attention.

 

This simply isn’t the case.

 

Social media has become a place where people try to share their best self and only their best self, but that’s not the only thing that people want to see.

 

People want to see humans, with full, rich human lives. Full, rich human lives are not perfect.

 

Your customers, clients, and all the other people who follow you on social media know that deep down and they crave permission to not be perfect themselves.

 

When you show people your imperfection, it gives them permission to be imperfect as well, and suddenly, you’ve made a massive connection with someone because you’re a small business owner who has all of the problems that a small business owner has.

 

If you do it right, if you let people into your life in a way that makes you concrete to them like the little bookstore downtown that they love to go to, if you open up and let people know that you’re a real person and you celebrate your successes with them and let them commiserate over your failures, you will have turned what you thought was your biggest weakness compared to big businesses into a major strength.