™Marketing Magazine Issue 5 | Page 11

Who is in your community? Who is your audience and why they should give a rip about what you have to say. What do they need, want? What keeps them up at night? What problems do they have in business and life? Where do they hang out online and offline? Why are they hanging out where they hang out? What do they talk about? What tones are they talking in? What do they want you to talk about? To connect with them you must also know who you are, what you have to offer them and how you can help them solve problems? Becoming a human brand isn't going to happen overnight. It demands investment in time, resources, people, planning and nurturing of real and authentic relationships. TRANSPARENCY VARIES BY BRAND AND BY PERSON. The answers to these questions above will help determine what you are comfortable sharing. I always tell our clients that we can't determine for them what authenticity means or how transparent they should be. We can guide them to the answers. However, each brand and person has unique dials and thresholds for authenticity and transparency. What you are comfortable with sharing, the next person isn't. How your audience will react to what you share also differs by brand and persona. Therefore, this is why you must know yourself and know your audience. There is no way around it. You can never go wrong by investing in people, period. DON'T COMPLAIN THAT THE WORD AUTHENTICITY IS OVERRATED Although the word authenticity may be over used in the social ecosystem, it is still highly misunderstood. It's a foundation for social business success. I don't care if you are tired of hearing about it. The truth is most brands don't understand what it is or what they should share when online. They are confusing these two words every day. The more we can talk about these topics openly and help one another, the more we will all grow and learn. I encourage you to be a healthy part of the ecosystem, not one that complains and rants about if a word should be used or not. WHAT YOU SAY? Do you struggle with how much of what to share on the social networks? Before now did you truly understand the difference between authenticity and transparency? Has your organization seen success by digging deep into who and what you are? Taking time to develop a plan and get to know your audience? ** reprinted with permission. BONUS MATERIAL TM.MEDIA/TM103 TO ACCESS VIDEO ON AUTHENTICITY VS TRANSPARENCY MEET PAM MOORE Pam Moore aka "Pam Marketing Nut" is the CEO & Co- Founder of Marketing Nutz, an agile, social media and digital marketing training and consulting company that specializes in personal branding, conversion optimization and helping business leaders not just do social or be social, but be socially relevant. She also hosts the popular Social Zoom Factor podcast and is the co-founder of the Social Media Profit Factor training program providing entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 brands information, tools and resources they need to zoom turbo in both life and business. Pam is ranked by Forbes as a Top 5 Social Media Power Influencer, is an avid international keynote speaker and best-selling author. She has 20 years experience helping entrepreneurs to Fortune 10 organizations build winning brands and integrated platforms that sustain business and life. Pam believes we must first inspire our audiences to connect, we then focus on building relationships by helping them achieve their goals. Inspire – Connect – Achieve is her motto in both life and business. After a 15+ year career leading product and marketing teams in large corporate brands like GE, SUN Microsystems (ORACLE), Hitachi Data Systems and a couple well funded start-ups, Pam left corporate seven years ago with an entrepreneurial mission to build a more agile, affordable agency to serve businesses of all sizes. Her first agency was sold within two years. Marketing Nutz was launched in 2012 and has proudly worked with clients such as Loreal, Redken, RE/MAX, IBM, British Council, Lowe's Home Improvement, HP, Laser Spine Institute, Sony Playstation Group, Pursuit, Hostgator, Sprout Social, Pinot’s Palette, Aruba Networks, Marcos Pizza, Holiday Inn, ServiceMaster, and Emerson. pammarketingnut.com CARLEPUBLISHING.COM | 11