6 March 2025
“You need to be authentic.”
That’s the message that comes across loud and clear – especially when it comes to social media, and also, we are told, it should be a fundamental aspect of our wider PR and marketing activity.
“People want to see the real you.”
Do they?
Let’s examine what we are saying here.
If you are open and honest, people will like you for it, they’ll relate to you better and they’ll want to engage with you more. That’s the theory.
On a personal level, if people get to know you and you’re a kind and helpful person, this may be true. But, what if you’re not? What if your take on the world is out of kilter with the mainstream? Is it still a good idea to put yourself out there? Unchecked?
If you merrily tell people about the many cock-ups you’ve been responsible for in your career to date, it might well be authentic, it might even be funny, but it might compromise your employment prospects in some people’s eyes.
“Well, you don’t want to work for those kinds of people, anyway,” say the self-professed, workplace culture gurus who frequently pop up on LinkedIn. Really?
Perhaps, when you’ve exhausted all of those companies that celebrate failure and ineptitude (there aren’t many of them), the LinkedIn Samaritans will extend a helping hand.
Nobody has ever impressed anyone by telling them about their incompetences.
For a business, it is even more important to be judicious about the information you put into the public realm.
It might be authentic to tell the world (and your customers) that you’ve have a week of disasters and you’re too busy to answer their calls, because you’re dealing with an avalanche of customer complaints.
But from a PR perspective, we’d caution against it. Of course, companies sometimes run into problems, have difficulties with supplies or lose a couple of key staff to a rival company, but it’s a big risk to test your customers’ loyalties by giving the world a running commentary.
Yes, those customers might admire your honesty, but they might also think you represent a risk to their own business and it might be in their best interest to check out an alternative supplier – just in case.
Or they might just do it anyway; cut out the risk before it becomes a problem.
It’s not wrong to keep quiet about internal problems you might be having, especially if you’re able to sort them out without letting anyone down.
PR is about presenting the best version of yourself or your business.
Of course, you can be authentic. In fact, it’s essential to stick to the brand values that actually define your company. Honesty might be one of those values.
But, be honest with the authentic bits of your business that make you look good. Please.
