I participated in one of those silly little Facebook exercises a few weeks back. For my status, I posted something along the lines of, “Pick the one word you feel describes me best and post it below as a comment. Then I’ll do the same for you.”

I don’t normally participate in these things, but this one sounded fun. A lot of my Facebook friends posted words I wouldn’t think would top the list of ways to describe me like, “strong” and “inspiring.” I was expecting more “goofy”s and “nuts”s to be honest. These things were wonderful to hear, but one of my friends who I’ve known for years in real life and in the social networking Internet world, PEI real estate agent Carol O’Hanley, left my favorite reply.

The word she chose to describe me was “genuine.”

I can’t even tell you how much that meant to me, especially since Carol knows me in person and we bump into each other all day long in places like Facebook and Twitter. If she perceives me as being genuine, then I’ve accomplished my goal because the last thing I want is someone thinking I’m completely different in person than I am online.

When I started my copywriting business, I already knew exactly the type of clients I wanted to attract because I know what kind of writing I love to do and what kind of people I love writing for. I made the decision to become a freelance copywriter because writing makes me happier than doing anything else and I didn’t want to waste a single day as a writer working on projects that made me stressed out or cranky.

That’s why I market my personality. The content on my website is me. My branding is me. Facebook updates and Twitter one-liners come from me, I share what I’m feeling and what I’m doing even when they don’t make me sound professional 100% of the time. Because ya know what? I’m not professional 100% of the time. I take breaks throughout the day to play with my children and to bake cookies. I conduct myself professionally with my clients, but not to the point of being stuffy.

I guess I found the key to attracting my ideal clients is to be transparent.

My ideal clients will love that my websites are always decorated for the holidays – it’s my absolute favorite part of the Mann Made brand. The people who appreciate my Halloween pumpkin and spider web are the exact type of people I love working with. If someone thinks it’s foolish, that’s the perfect prequalifier for me.

When someone follows me on Twitter, they’ll know right away if they like me or not. They can get a sense from my 140 character tweets of whether or not they like my writing style. When they read through my website and blog posts or browse my portfolio, they’ll like it or they won’t. And I’m just fine with that either way.

If I were to hide the quirky, fun, creative side of my personality by agonizing over every personal Twitter update I made or holding off on the silly humor in my blog posts, I wouldn’t be being me. And being Jaime has worked out pretty well for me so far. I attract awesome clients. I stand out because my website is colorful, fresh and fun. I end up working with people who want to inject their own personality into their marketing because they realize that’s what attracted them to me.

If you wish you had clients with more of a sense of humor why not focus on attracting those types? If you only want to work with people who are serious and focused, work on attracting them.

Afterall, if you’re not being authentic, do you really think you’re doing anyone any favors?

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