You hear that advice a lot in marketing these days don't you ?

“Just be yourself”. Or “be authentic”. 

And certainly, pretending to be someone else in your marketing is a path to both madness and poor results.

But I think “be yourself” is too simplistic. Here are some other things you need to add to it.

Firstly, just being yourself won't get you far if you're not pretty awesome to start off with.

Not that you need to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But if inside you're a bit of a jerk with a chip on their shoulder who constantly complains, then being authentic and letting the world see you're a jerk isn't going to help you.

The answer isn't to pretend to be someone else. It's to work on yourself so you're a better person first. Then be yourself.

(Or I guess, find some customers who enjoy being around a jerk. I suppose they might exist. But the first route is the best for the world).

Secondly, you need to have value to bring to the world.

We're in an age where celebrity itself seems to be be a goal for many people, rather than celebrity being the result of achieving something. Nonetheless, the longer lasting route to success is to have tremendous value to add to the world – and to be yourself while adding that value.

Thirdly, be interesting.

The truth is, there are many different versions of you. The quiet you alone reading. The you that you are when you're with your friends. The you that you are when you're a mother or father, or a husband or wife.

We're a social species and we're slightly different with everyone. There's no “one true you” that you should be when you “be yourself”. 

When you're marketing and you're doing presentations, writing articles or emails like this, you want to shine a light on the most interesting aspects of you that your audience can empathise with, cheer for, side with, laugh at or feel for.

We've all done some interesting things that we can turn into stories we can share with our audience. I've used stories about being a bit of a geek as a kid. About my love of close-up magic, about how I used to play poker tournaments a lot, about my successes and (mainly) failures learning to market and sell. Personal stories about my family and background.

But there's plenty about all of us that isn't that interesting to our audience either. No need to share everything about you or every thought that pops into your head. Think about what would be relevant, interesting or fun for your audience and emphasise that version of you when you're “being yourself”.

I'm sure there are many other factors you could think of that make “being yourself” work, but for me those are the big three I try to focus on.