Knowing yourself, passionate entrepreneurship, personal branding, word of mouth have all been key to every successful business in history. As Andre Gide once said, “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

Social networking has changed the game by giving entrepreneurs a reason to get rid of the worn-out, burnt-out, expensive advertising and media platforms of the past, so as to be able to open up markets (customers) that would have never have been accessible only a few years ago.

The thing is that just having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on, doesn’t guarantee you will get more customers, because your competition already knows about that too.

So how are you going to differentiate yourself from all the other “me too” competitors in your niche? The prevailing wisdom is to have good content. That’s a good idea, especially if you are in a niche where people are relatively ignorant—“how to grow grass,” “how to make pickles,” or “how to buy wine.”

Yet if your business is in an area like leadership development, coaching entrepreneurs, advertising and marketing, there are just too many would be experts out there with good content for content alone to be the differentiator.

You can differentiate yourself more by building a personal brand, being a bit provocative, and telling what you think, versus just quoting others or linking to articles. You can also differentiate yourself by the way you talk. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Keep it real, very real.”

Instead of trying to look smart or look good, just speak from the gut. Show some real feeling. Share some vulnerability. Talk to people vs. talking at people. If you do this, you will be able to get inside people’s heads and hearts and connect with them.

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