Written by Ryan T Williams, Keynote Speaker
In 2022, Ryan exited the company he co-founded for a multi-million-pound deal. It all started with one tweet back in 2013. Over a fascinating 9-year journey filled with incredible ups and huge downs, his story is both inspirational and unique. Now, as an established entrepreneur, Ryan provides keynote speaking, coaching, and mentoring.
The best way to reach your true target market is by building a connection with them on a personal level. The most impactful way to do that is to turn up authentically online. But what does that really mean?
It has been spoken about so much that it feels like the latest buzzword to draw you into a six-step type scheme. But before the online ‘experts’ got hold of this concept and buzzed it up, it was a lot simpler and easier to do. In fact, I’d bet you’re probably doing it now without even realising it. Being authentic and genuine means staying true to yourself, your brand missions and your values.
Showing up online authentically as yourself creates a deeper connection with your customers. From there, that connection can be used to turn them into fans of your brand. Fans become your spokespeople, your marketing team, your hype guys and that takes your brand to whole new heights of success.
There are loads of guides, tips, hacks videos and posts online about this, it’s no wonder the very concept of authenticity has been mixed up. But after building many pages that have gained millions of followers and won several awards, I came to realise that there’s a way to make it easy to not only develop an authentic brand voice but to stick with it and stay consistently authentic too.
It starts with your core values and skillsets that you’re prepared to share with the world. You’ll need a notepad for this bit. Think carefully about this, what are the core things, that are relevant to your brand, that you could talk about for days on end and never run out of ideas? What parts of you and your brand merge? You’re bound to find many crossovers between you personally and your brand because, without you, the brand simply wouldn’t exist.
What outside of the brand topics are important to you? For example, your company might provide world-class SEO services, but you started freelancing when you became a parent to enable you to be there for your family. Parenting is its own topic and if you look at your brand in relation to that, suddenly you’re connecting with your audience as a self-employed parent who’s building a brand around their kids. Within that, you’ve got entrepreneurship, your core skill set, parenting, mindset, working from home and your higher purpose mission. Suddenly the SEO guy doesn’t seem so techy and unreachable, now you feel like you have things in common with them. Do this task for you and your brand, don’t scratch around for twenty topics to fill your feed with, focus on the parts that matter to you, three to five will do just fine and sometimes it is only one of the topics that matters to your customers.
Next, you need to look at your target audience. The toughest question to ask yourself is why would they buy from you. In answering that question, you need to think about what personality traits you share with them, and what values you have in common. Then think a little deeper, about what connects you. Are they funny? Do they swear? Are you funny? Do you swear? Is your location important? Does your approach to work you do matter to them and you? All these things matter to your audience. It’s how you show up and create that first impression, that forms the foundations for you to build that relationship and convert them into fans of your brand.
Now you should have loads of notes scribbled down. The first part directed you to what topics to talk about both within and around the realms of your brand and your industry. They are the core topics that you get excited about and give you an endless supply of content ideas. The second part is how you deliver those core topics, so you can turn up authentically and build that connection with your customers and leverage that to develop deeper connections that lead to that powerful fandom around your brand.
Together, both these things will help you turn up authentically online. Trust the process, relax and be yourself. In doing that, you will build a powerful presence online that will transform how customers see you and how they interact with your brand.
Read more from Ryan T Williams
Ryan T Williams, Keynote Speaker
Ryan T Williams is the co-founder of KOMI Group, the multimillion-pound digital media agency which has been branded as Lad Bible and Social Chain’s biggest competitor. Ryan is also the creator behind well-loved award-winning social media pages such as Deluded Brandan, It’s Gone Viral, Slow Sports News and many more.
Since exiting KOMI Group in 2022, Ryan has gone from strength to strength with public speaking, training and consultancy work in the entrepreneur, innovation and digital media spaces. Sharing his expertise to help others create future industry-leading organisations.
He’s a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Plus he has also become an author, with his book Blood, Sweat and Tweets set to launch later this year.
