Building a Brand from Your True Self

Uncover the secret to carving out your unique voice in the digital cacophony and transform your creative journey into a successful brand. We promise you'll gain insights on how to harness technology without letting it overwhelm you, and how to stay grounded amidst the relentless flow of information. If you're navigating the world as a content creator—whether through blogging, LinkedIn, or any other platform—it's vital to respect the creative ecosystem and understand the core principles of supply and demand that drive it. Our discussion emphasizes starting from your authentic self to develop a brand identity, which can eventually evolve into a strategic content approach and sustainable business model.

Explore the metaphorical anchor that secures your creative ship, guiding you through the shifting tides of digital media with confidence. We stress the importance of self-trust and building a network of like-minded creators to support your journey. In an era where having a voice is more critical than ever, digital media offers a powerful platform to make a positive impact. Whether you're an independent creator or part of a larger marketing team, understanding your brand and audience is crucial for reaching your goals. Join us as we navigate the nuances of this dynamic industry, ensuring your creative voice remains strong and purposeful.

Transcript

Roxanne Teti: 0:00

As I said before, I promise I create with you. It's all about finding your authentic voice. In a world filled with noise, we have a lot of voices coming at us, a lot of information notifications on your cell phones. It's hard to focus, but you can utilize information. You can utilize technology to your advantage or you can let it become your detriment. It's up to you. You should also respect content creators for once in your lives. They're public figures as well. If you're monetizing, you're a public figure. You're a content creator. If you're on the internet, you're a content creator. If you're posting on LinkedIn, you're a content creator. If you have a blog, you're still a content creator. Get it together, people. Stop putting other people down in this ecosystem. Okay, it's the same thing I said before. Supply and demand economics. Okay, that's what this is. This whole industry, even the auction for advertising, is all supply and demand. It's what dictates the CPMs all across the different platforms.

Roxanne Teti: 1:00

I get a lot of questions about which platform to create on. Well, guess what? Maybe start with your authentic voice first, like I'm doing, and then we'll back that into a brand identity and then we can back that into a content strategy and then we can back that into a business, if you want that, okay. If you're already a business, you better know what your brand identity is and who your audience or your respective or prospective customer is, because you're're gonna have to target them in those pixels. And if you don't target correctly and all you have in your feed are a bunch of ads, they're misaligned with who your actual audience could be or should be or actually is. Because somebody you've hired, like BCG, to come in and do this work for you, or some big consulting firm, whatever, and they don't know what they're doing and you don't have the insights and the knowledge to do that yourself, we've got a problem. So we're not going to get into insights today, we're not going to get into how algorithms work today.

Roxanne Teti: 1:52

But once you get that your authentic voice, that's your anchor, okay, that's your mooring on your boat for success. Okay, you're sailing and the winds are going the opposite way, but you're listening to everyone else around you, all the noise, and you know what ends up happening to people like that. They make the wrong decisions, okay, and then they quit because their anchor is not anchored, that mooring is not secure. Because if it was, the boat goes like this and you're cool the water. The tides are changing right, the wind's changing, but sometimes you have to have the willingness.

Roxanne Teti: 2:25

So, like I said before, to adapt. So you have to change, you have to move locations or whatever. But if you don't have your anchor as your passion, you don't have anything because you will quit, the swaying will start and people are like you gotta go. But the weather is saying you're fine where you are, it's just a little bit of movement. You move and then you flip over, you completely capsize your entire sailboat because you listen to all the stuff around you. The weather is not even implying that it's dangerous to be there. It's just a little bit of movement in the tides. Or the tides are moving and you don't move because you're scared to adapt, you're scared to change in that moment, or you don't think it's real, you don't trust yourself. So if you don't trust yourself, who are you going to trust? So that's why it's important to have a community of people around you creating similar types of content, like you are. It's important to have that internally and externally. That's how you tap into these folks, like I said, that are silenced, who are scared to speak.

Roxanne Teti: 3:19

Right now, in this world, we need to have a voice, and you can do that through digital media. You can do that by developing a new app out there. You can do that for real. You can make someone's life a little bit happier, easier, more efficient. But back to what I was saying before like, there are companies that have these integrated marketing teams and they're trying to target the wrong audience. They don't know what their brand is yet. So how do you do that if you don't start? Which is why I'm creating with you, and it's not easy. I'm not going to lie to you. It's hard.

Roxanne Teti: 3:51

Algorithms change every day. That's why it's important to have your authentic voice established in your passion, because they will change, like algorithms change. So, yes, there's some growth hacks we'll get into, but, like, this is not all about just growth hacking our way around. This is about, like, having your anchor being consistent. Okay, because once something changes, who are you going to be the algorithm?

Roxanne Teti: 4:12

No, you don't want to chase a trend. When you try to be an algorithm or you try to be a trend, you're not the trend. That's not ideal. Okay, people don't pay attention to that. You can do that later on, for sure, if you have, like, an established audience and you're consistent with publishing, that's fine, whatever, all good.

Roxanne Teti: 4:31

But like don't you want to be the person that people are sitting in a boardroom like products and executives and stuff at big companies and saying, hey, we need to hear that voice on our platform. Where is that voice? Let's make sure the algorithm is including that voice, is including those SEO words, those search words that people type into YouTube because obviously there's an appetite for it, and we're not in there and we're messing up. We're ruining our own engagement internally as a company. So let's program our algorithm to be like this voice, because we need more voices like that, clearly like the audience, the world wants to hear more about those people and that community. So my big bets are always going to be micro. It's always been micro communities. It's always been new technologies. Why wait for the future when you can create today? This is your host, Roxanne Teti. Before there was nothing. There was always the possibility of something.