Let’s talk about something super important: being YOU! This post explains why authentic content wins against the best information and most valuable tips when it comes to building trust and community.
I am originally a mathematician. Before I turned to content marketing and writing, my content world was about plain facts, definitions, and theorems. In mathematics there is not much room for stories and interpretation – it is a science where things either are or they are not. Stories and personal experiences don’t have much to say in mathematics.
My first attempts at content creation for marketing showed my scientific background: I focused on delivering valuable advice but my content lacked a personal touch. In the long run, I had to accept that this ‘scientific’ kind of content is not “good” enough to build a content empire.
This post is about why you should not cut the personality from your marketing content. I will show you why YOU are an integral part of making your authentic content more effective to build community and inspire trust.
Authenticity sets you apart
Think about it: Every tip you can give, every fact you can state, and every process you explain, are all already out there covered in some content on the internet.
While it’s challenging to create entirely original tips, there’s a way to make your content stand out.
You want people to remember your content and recognize it as yours. You want your content to stand out and stick – to leave a mark in people’s brains.
That is what brand building is about: Make people remember you and your content.
That means you need to give your content something that makes it unique and makes you stand out.
And that is what authentic content can do for you. Authenticity can make your content stand out, it can make people remember your content, and it can help you build trust.
What is authentic content?
Authentic content is genuine, transparent, and relatable. While it is created with the goal of providing value for your audience it is also content that shows personality and originality.
The three pillars of authentic content: Originality, Honesty, and Relatability
Originality:
If your audience gets the feeling “Didn’t I read this last week from someone else” your content won’t do much to build your brand, business, and expert standing. Your content needs some original content that is more than content that passes the plagiarism check. You need a personal view, a personal story or a case study people have not already seen multiple times. Originality makes your content stand out and memorable.
Honesty:
If you want to build trust, you need to inspire a feeling of honesty. People will rather trust someone who does not all but is honest about it than a creator who comes across like a fake bragger. The old saying “fake it till you make it” may hurt you more than you thought if people suspect your stories are not honest.
Relatability:
Authentic content often draws on real-life stories, personal experiences, or genuine customer testimonials, helping audiences connect on a more personal level. All of these don’t just turn your content into something original, they also “prove” that you have experience and do not just copy your content or collect tips via Google or AI to fill your need for content.
Consistency with brand or personality:
When I created heaps of tip-based content, I wondered why others succeeded in building a brand and I did not. And the difference was the personality. I noticed that more personal blogs that show a consistent face to their audience have more success in connecting to their audience and building community.
Authentic content is more than just tips
While your main aim should still be to provide something of interest to your audience, authenticity will add some extra value not only for your audience but also for you or your brand.
Authentic content builds more genuine connections. Deeper connections will help you get more signups and make more sales without the need for selling all the time.
Stories and personal anecdotes can transform a tip-based piece of content into something your audience will not forget. They will also remember better WHO brought them valuable tips if they contain a unique story and are presented in a personal and relatable way.
Stories trigger emotions and emotions are powerful drivers of actions, of connection and of a feeling of belonging. Your audience will start feeling they know you, this will build trust and community.
Tips are generic. Even if your audience will remember the tips they will quickly forget who gave them if there is nothing connected to them that makes them authentic.
How to show authenticity without oversharing
When I tell you that you need to share stories and personality, you may cringe and think “No thank you, I want to keep that private.”
Think of storytelling as seasoning—add enough to flavor your content but not so much that it overpowers the message.
Sharing glimpses of your life and experiences is not like making your complete life public. You have full power over the stories you share and how much detail you provide. You don’t need to share the most personal of your feelings to make a connection with your audience.
While storytelling may sound like something difficult or overly creative, for me it turned out fairly easy to add anecdotes, metaphors, and little bits of my life experience to my content.
I made a list of various options for adding stories to your content – it is rarely about a full-blown story. It mostly involves quick glimpses of your personality, quirks, and daily life.
I have used stories about my dog, my second home, my daily life in Berlin, trips with my parents, experiences I had as a mathematician and scientific lecturer, traveling as a consultant, customer relationships, and more. There are endless options and your stories are what make you unique.
And yes, there may be a risk that some people may not like you if you show your personality. But there is also a chance that many people will love your content and follow you to get to know more about you.
How to build connections through storytelling
I have created high-value, tip-based content for years. But I struggled to build genuine connections. Because most of my content was generic and lacked a personal touch and something that made people remember it and recognize it as mine.
In my former life, I was a mathematician. Mathematics writing is mainly boiled down to pure facts. Definitions and theorems that is what you can read in a mathematical text. But that is awful dry stuff to read. It is not entertaining and outside the mathematical world, it won’t grab much attention or leave a mark.
Maybe if mathematicians tried their hand at storytelling more people would find it intriguing but that is a different story.
Mathematics is about facts.
Marketing is about feelings and emotions.
To build connections with my audience I had to learn how to inspire emotions and community through my content. And the answer is storytelling.
The most measurable effect this change in my content had on my results is in my newsletter opening rates. Since starting to tell little stories and anecdotes from my life in my newsletter, my email open rates for the same old list more than doubled.
Little glimpses into your life and your personality make you more real and more human. People like to connect to people.
And where people will forget simple tips or facts they will remember the story or anecdote. Because the story is unique, it is relatable and stands out in all this flood of tips.
Stop copying—Authentic content makes you unique
There are always people we learn from and admire, it is easy to fall into the trap of copying what works for them. But we lose something that is our biggest asset: Ourselves.
Standing out from the masses does not necessarily involve making a fool out of ourselves with crazy videos on Instagram. It can be as simple as a one-sentence story: “I did this and then this happened.”
Genuine content is about finding our own style of writing, our own way of telling stories – and sharing glimpses of our lives in little stories so that people get to know us enough to believe that they like us and enjoy our stories.
Coming across as honest and genuine builds trust and community. Those two are some of the most valuable emotions when it comes to selling and they are inspired through authentic content.
Your voice, your experiences, your quirks—these are your superpowers!
Authenticity is the magic ingredient
If you are not seeing the results you hoped for with your tip-based content, more authentic content may be the answer.
Honesty, reliability, and originality are powerful ingredients to inspire trust and build a connection with your audience.
In your next post, add a tiny piece of you. It could be a story, an insight, or even a joke only you would tell.
Because no one else can be you – and you want your audience to want to connect to exactly YOU.
