An effective brand personality is something your audience can relate to and interact with. In order to get this feeling, your brand personality should have a set of human characteristics: make your brand more human.
Everyperson brands promote togetherness with the creation of cliques, social clubs, memberships, etc. Your brand’s main talents are realism, empathy, and lack of pretense, so you will want to be real with your audience. Your brand’s voice is friendly, humble, and authentic and your brand's strongest motivation is belonging.
Before you get deeper into the everyperson archetype, there are some questions I want you to think about and link your answers back to your brand strategy...
What does the word belonging mean to you and your audience?
What adjectives you would use to describe your brand?
What is the purpose behind your brand’s existence?
What are some brands you look up to and aspire to become like?
What drives the everyperson?
As the proud owner of a brand with an everyperson personality, you will want to have something behind your brand to help push it forward and to grow. These are your brand purpose and brand vision.
Remember that brand purpose is internal, it is what drives you and your brand to continue, and brand vision is the long-term goal you want to achieve.
Providing belonging
Belonging is what is most important to all Everyperson personality types. Have you put any importance on that word or the meaning behind it?
Note. Keep in mind that belonging can be understood in many different ways. It can be a physical want to be among others, an inner want to be accepted by society, or an idealistic vision to have everyone connected and working together.
Whatever your definition or reason behind it, look deeper into yourself and your brand and pull that innovation out.
Important! Belonging does not have to mean in a large group or setting! It can be more intimate or in a smaller crowd, finding a way to belong with others regardless of who.
The reason you come up with, this is what you want to talk about with your audience and provide to them.
Belonging
The Everyperson drives
When you were thinking of adjectives to describe your brand, these can be linked or related to your brand values. You already know all about brand values and you have your own and a few brand value statements.
Now, I want you to link the everyperson personality drives and your own brand values.
Connective
Collective
Inclusive
Adaptable
Considerate
Important! These are the drives behind everyperson personalities. If they don’t match your brand values, that is okay! Instead of looking at them as value words, look at them as the result you and your clients will have after working together.
As the creator archetype, your goal would be to belong. Your brand can do this through the gifts of...
Empathy and authenticity
Also, the everyperson archetype is wholesome and genuine, focusing on hard work and honesty, and embracing common-sense values and authenticity. This archetype's core desire is to connect with others.
The everyperson purpose
Every brand is as unique as the person that stands behind it. Even so, we use categories and archetypes, and different classifications to better understand how we fit with others.
Keeping that in mind, I want you to review the purpose behind everyperson brands and compare it with your own brand purpose.
Connect like-minded individuals and give them a space to belong.
You can do this by creating a community. Your strongest strategy is to align your brand with basic values so you can help your audience fit in or feel comfortable. Your strongest strategy to do this is to develop common virtues with your audience and blend in.
The Everyperson examples
When you were working on your brand positioning, you got to look for aspirations for what you want your brand to become. You already have your own goals, but I want you to take a look at these three examples of everyperson brands...
Target
Walmart
Ikea
I want you to ask yourself if any of them could be an aspiration for your own brand and if so, how.
Note. Remember that we are not talking about the product here, but the brand personality that sells it (or the cost of said products and services).
How to reach out as an everyperson
As an everyperson personality type, your brand attracts a wide range of audience. No matter who you are addressing, your goal is to help them grow.
Here are some tips on how to talk to your audience and put your everyperson personality forward, as someone who is friendly and authentic...
Use sincere, helpful, and genuine language.
Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
Ask questions to encourage discussions.
Show your passion and energy to unite others.
Help others, either as a leader or follower.
Empathize with your audience to connect better.
Show awareness, commitment, and be humble.
Become a networking source for your audience.
Share social proof and community initiatives.
Share trust-building elements and prospects..
Connect with
Since the main goal of the everyperson is to belong, this brand personality attracts a wide range of audience, including most of the other archetypes. Below is a list of a few audience archetypes that are attracted to everyperson brands and what caregiver brands can use to appeal to them...
Innocent. Trust, honesty, positivity, safety, connection, inner beauty
Outlaw. Revolution, change, challenge, encouraging, empowering
Hero. Empowerment, inspiration, opportunity, worth, recognition
Jester. Fun, happiness, entertainment, memorable, positivity, laughter
Lover. Attractive, passion, desire, belonging, intimacy
Caregiver. Warmth, thoughtfulness, generosity, safety, security
Start creating content for your audience
As part of your brand strategy, you already know who your people are and where to find them. Now, it's time to talk to them! Here are a few content and conversation prompts you can use to display your everyperson personality...
You’re just like me and I’m just like you.
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
Let’s root for each other and watch us grow.
Explain how you connect with others.
Tip. You may be tempted to use motivational and inspirational quotes all the time, but try to limit yourself. Unless they are directly related to your brand, they can be easily misinterpreted and cause confusion within your audience. When you do use them, question your audience and get them to engage in conversations. Make sure that you take charge and lead the conversation in the correct direction if that's not where it's going, otherwise, let it flow.
You can display your everyperson archetype through two main strategies...
Align with basic values
Create a welcoming community
The Everyperson voice
Your brand voice is a unique element of your brand’s communication with your audience. It remains consistent throughout all the content that you create.
You will be working on finding your brand voice after this module, however, your brand voice has input from both you and your brand personality. In addition, a brand voice is often characterized by both what it is and what it isn’t.
Here are some examples of everyperson voices...
Friendly, but not affectionate
Humble, but not timid
Authentic, but not authoritative
Reliable, but not predictable
The Everyperson character
You now know a lot more about your brand personality. You have a character, a brand that is a separate entity that will interact and befriend your audience. This character has its own goals, values, and ambitions, as you’ve discovered when working on your brand positioning and core.
But, if we want to make them more human, we want to add a bit extra to it.
At the moment, your brand’s personality is too perfect and structured. Your brand can become more human by being open with its fears, weaknesses, and characteristics.
Knowing these will help you battle against them and since there is no person out that doesn’t have these, you will make your brand more approachable to your audience.
The Everyperson weaknesses
The things you should be most worried about are for your brand to be lost in the crowd and becoming one of many. You don’t want your brand to be left out, but you can’t lose your sense of self in an effort to blend in. Be careful from being seen as elitist or the fear of not being welcomed.
The five things you should avoid in your brand are...
Exclusion
Standing out from the crowd (see tip below)
Isolation
Hostility
Disassociation
Now consider your audience.
Tip. We all know you want to stand out and draw people to you, but don't place your brand higher than your audience.
You’ve written their problems and emotions in your ideal client bio, so take a look at all the negative emotions in there and see if they connect with any of these fears. If so, then these are things you can help them with, as they are dangerous for you and your brand too.
Niching the everyperson down
Twelve personalities may seem very limiting, especially when you start thinking that there are almost 8 billion people on earth, half of them are on social media, and all of them fall into these twelve categories.
However, you can narrow your personality down to make it more unique to you. Every archetype has three levels and five sub-archetypes.
Note. Keep in mind that both of these are not static! They change over time as you and your brand evolve.
Everyperson levels
The three different levels for each archetype are based on the development within that personality. That means the lower level is less mature while the higher level is more developed.
This is linked to your brand’s vision, figuring out what point you are at now and how your brand personality can grow with your brand, the closer you get to your vision.
Level one. Seeking any sort of affiliation, typically spurred by feelings of loneliness.
Level two. Learns how to connect, form, and nurture relationships to fit in.
Level three. Affords each person, regardless of differences, with dignity.
Everyperson sub-archetypes
There are five related sub-archetypes within the everyperson archetype, which emerge based on particular attributes that are visible within that archetype. That means each has different attributes. This is linked to your brand values and helps you split yourself from the collective within your archetype.
Everyperson
What you see is what you get. Without pretense, the everyperson is sincere, helpful, and genuine. They want to belong and get along with others, so they treat everyone with dignity and respect. Unfortunately, in the effort to not ruffle feathers, the everyperson brand may succumb to a herd mentality and lose its own identity.
Citizen
The citizen holds a deep responsibility to the community, believing there to be great value in the collective whole. Citizens value integrity and work for fairness and equality for all. Unfortunately, citizens should be careful not to be overly zealous in their sense of righteousness and be careful not to start a revolution for the sake of a small few in their circle.
Advocate
The advocate is compelled to work for the greater good on behalf of others. With passion and energy, advocates are able to motivate and inspire others to action while uniting people behind a cause. Advocates should be careful, however, to not let personal gain overtake the greater good, nor to step too far ahead of the collective in order to reach their goals.
Servant
The servant is committed to helping others, whether in a follower or leader role. Servants use empathy, awareness, and commitment. They are humble and do not ask for any reward. This can, however, become a weakness, leading to overworking, burnout, or a desire for recognition. Similarly, it can lead to no recognition at all and a lack of business.
Networker
The networker creates communities and connections for the benefit of the whole. Networkers are outgoing and considered the life of the party. They are social butterflies, friendly, and relatable. Unfortunately, networkers may be tempted to manipulate connections for personal gain or, on the opposite side, make connections that leave them on the outside.