Content

About the episode

Welcome to this week’s episode of Entrepreneurial Outlaws. We have a really hot conversation this week. It is a necessary conversation, it’s relevant, it’s timely, it’s something I have certainly felt in the past six or seven weeks. I know I’m not the only one feeling this way too because I’ve had this conversation with a number of clients, friends, and peers. We’re going to be talking about how we as content creators, as business owners, as empaths, how do we create content for Instagram without adding to the noise?

We have to acknowledge that as human beings, what we do in our business and how we create content and how we just choose to show up is heavily impacted by our energy. So, showing up and creating content isn’t always easy. It’s not always easy to create content that has impact rather than content that’s a placeholder. So today, we’re going to talk about how to create content from a place that feels good and in a way that will feel meaningful to your audience.

Topics discussed in episode #20

Content

Topics Discussed:

  • How to create content without adding to the noise
  • Struggles that empathic business owners face
  • How we unintentionally constantly neglect our audience
  • Why listening is your greatest super power and how to use it more
  • How to forge and not follow by listening to your feelings
  • Why it’s important to step into the role of creator rather than consumer
  • Why we can never go back to running our businesses with hustle and grind mentality

Episode Resources:

Connect with Melanie here:

Transcription:

(00:05):

You're listening to episode 20 and I am so, so excited. We have reached this. What feels like a huge milestone. I feel like I've been doing this forever at the same time. It feels like five minutes ago. So hello. Welcome to this week's episode. We have a really hot conversation this week. It is a necessary conversation. It's relevant, it's timely. It's something I have certainly felt in the past six or seven weeks. And I've had this conversation with a number of clients and friends and peers. So we're going to be talking about how we as content creators as business owners, as empaths, how do we create content for Instagram without adding to the noise? Now I'm not necessarily talking about the saturation of our industries or niches. I, I just think that's an old conversation. We can't change it. Let's all support each other and know that there is enough space for each of us most specifically, how do we avoid adding to all of the noise that is going on around us?

(01:24):

Every time we open our phone, we are inundated with adverts and promises, false promises. I should say we inundated with businesses big and small of all sizes, trying to talk about that skills, that business they're trying to market themselves. And we have to do the same. There's no denying that we as business owners, as content graders need to mock out business, we need to, and I quote, show up in some way and we need to do that through content. We talked about this last week. I asked you the question, why do you create content? And I talked about us storytelling path and how important it is that we create this storytelling path between ourselves and our content and our audience. I don't know about y'all, but for me, January of 2021, it was this really strange month. It was like deja VU. I had real low energy for most of the months.

(02:33):

And I think this was both personal and professional. That was things externally happening that was impacting my ability to create content or my ability to know what to say at the same time. I felt frustrated because I know what to say. But as business owners, we have to remember that we are running something that is so close to our heart is built from our passion, our own skills. We are in this deep relationship with our businesses. That's the only way I can kind of describe it, especially as empath, like we have this deeply committed relationship to our business. Sometimes it's very unhealthy and this relationship means that small and big external factors can impact our ability to launch, sell, create content, record podcasts, record video, just create work flows and actually be productive. There is so much that impacts us both on is kind of minute scale on a big, on a macro scale, right?

(03:43):

There are things that are constantly impacting how we move through our businesses, how we navigate this journey. Some of those things are out of our control. And I think one of those things impacted my personal energy in January was I felt like I was redoing COVID all over again. We had got to this point where we knew we were coming up for this 12 month Mark. We had been dealing with lockdowns and restrictions and a new way of living life or new way of kind of restricting our lives new way of working new way of being. We had been doing this for almost a year, and yet, for some reason in January, I felt like I was relearning everything all over again. And I also know that there was this stock difference between December and January. So interesting because even though on a conscious level, I knew that we weren't going to wake up on new year's day and everything was going to change.

(04:41):

But subconsciously I think a lot of us felt that we're heading into this new year had to be better than the previous one. And then a lot of political events and personal events unfolded that meant that we just were kind of reminded that nothing had changed. We do see an end in sight. This is going to end, but right now, and for the past six or seven weeks, maybe it hasn't felt that way. And I think we have to acknowledge that as human beings, not as business owners, but as human beings, we have to acknowledge that because what we do in our business and how we create content and how we just choose to show up is heavily impacted by our energy and our, both our physical and mental energy, our emotional energy it's impacted by both personal and professional factors. It's not this kind of easy, linear, linear way of walking.

(05:39):

And that is unfortunately, what so many businesses want you to believe. So many marketers want you to believe that creating content is easy. You know, you just listen to what people are telling you, and then you just create content and you just, you know, just do it. I get so frustrated when I see those there's offers where it's like 500 bloke topics and I've downloaded those in the past freebies and I've probably paid for some and I get them and I'm like, this doesn't feel like contents in me. And then one of the reasons if you've ever felt that way too, one of the reasons is because there is a substance, there is no substance to that content. And as storytellers, as empathic as creatives, we can't just rock up with kind of a heading like five books that I'm loving right now. Sure. That has its time and its relevance.

(06:29):

But if I know anything about myself, it's the, I want to talk about that one book that changed my life. And I am going to tell you about that book. And I'm going to tell you what you can buy it. And I'm going to tell you my favorite quote, and I'm going to like bend your ear about how amazing this one book is. And this is the difference between making noise and creating content with substance and telling a story. That is the difference. If there's any kind of analogy I could give you, that is it. That is the difference between saying I'm going to write a, put up a post around five books. I, you know, I've read this year and not really get my audience excited about any of them versus writing a few posts about one book and getting my audience so excited that they're now seeing the mediums saying, Oh my gosh, I've loved this book. And I'm so glad you shared it because it's exactly what I needed. This is the difference between creating content and creating content without adding to the noise. It is a deep understanding of what the audience needs. Your content needs to address your audience's needs and not your wants. And if we are creating content, just because we have to fill a quota, then everyone is going to lose

(08:31):

[Inaudible].

(08:31):

So last week we talked about storytelling. If you haven't listened to episode 19, go back and listen to it because I dive into storytelling talking about your storytelling path. I talk about the four steps in that path. And I share with you the importance of the connection that you create between you, your audience, and why they should consider buying from you. I also touched on the fact that one of the things that really impacts us, I think in relation to our emotions and our self-worth is that we kind of neglect our audience, right? I'm just going to be really honest. We neglect our audience. We are constantly being told. We need more. We're constantly being told, we need more followers, more subscribers. We need more bells and whistles, more everything that we need to do more and be more. And that we're not enough and that what we have isn't enough.

(09:29):

Now the problem with that, besides being a entire crock of, the problem with that is that it constantly tells us that we need to be doing well. We need to create more content. We need to come up with better ideas. That's not good enough chargeable, all this kind of stuff. The thing is when we start to shift from this number that we see email subscribers or follow account, wherever that might be, maybe you have a Facebook group or community, and you're not sharing that. And we feel like it's not enough. And we're constantly trying to look for more, but constantly trying to attract more people. And we neglect the people that are already there, right? This is part of the problem because when we are focused on client attraction or attracting people to our group or attracting email subscribers, we ended up selecting the people who've already put their hand up and said, Hey, I have a question or, Hey, yeah.

(10:33):

I'd like to be involved in that. That is literally what people are doing now. Yes. Okay. Not every single one. I get that right. We have people who sign up and then never read anything. We have people who follow us and have no intention of engaging, but who goes, who cares? That is like one person, right? If you have one person that does that, but you have 50 people who are actually actively waiting for you to say something profound show up for those 50 people show up. If it's two people who, who cares, we're constantly chasing numbers are constantly looking for more. Yes, of course. Technically we should have more sales if we have a bigger audience, but it's not always the case. And I've touched on that before today. I want to say to you that your audience is always paying attention. Your audience is always paying attention.

(11:27):

And I have said this so many times over the last year, because it's so true. And let's be honest, both positively and negatively. They are paying attention. And as content creators, and especially as MPS, we definitely feel this sense of duty towards our audience. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing to actually look who you audience as human beings and know that you have a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility to create content that is actually going to help them be a value to them, be of use to them, right? It comes back to that need for your content. Your content needs to address your audiences needs not your wants. So often we are looking at content from what we, the business owner want. Well, I want to grow my audience. I want to make this many sales.

(12:27):

I want to grow my email list. All those things are important to a certain degree. Those things matter. Yes. And maybe some of them matter more than others to each of you. But what we also need to remember is the content needs to address what we audience need, what they are looking for comes back to that listening piece, right? We have this superpower that we can either use or not use. Every single person has this ability to listen to what our audience is telling us. And we either choose to use it, or we don't. And there are going to be times, even when you know this, that you don't use it, I've had those.

(13:15):

I know that I need to listen to my audience. And yet there are times when my ego gets in the way and I create content based on what I want to achieve. And usually it backfires. Usually it backfires because it's not about me. It's not about what I want. It's about what someone else needs. So how do you create this content without adding to the noise? If you are a highly emotional empath, if you are someone who comes from deep feeling and feels constantly overwhelmed by the world around us. So therefore for the last 12 months have become incredibly hyper aware of the need to be a value. I think for so many of us, that feeling has heightened in the last year. No, the weld has felt so heavy. There are so many things impacting businesses and financial stability. And we don't know when things are going to end.

(14:18):

I think that the lack of knowing the lack of certainty is to me, at least it feels like this, the scariest thing. I have no idea. I don't know, but I have to have faith at some point. And at some point soon things will start to move forward. But between now and then how do we continue to create content? This was something I came up against a lot last year, not just because of COVID during George, during George flood's death during the insurrection in January at the Capitol, I was left with this feeling of what do I say? And I know that so many of you probably felt the same. This is what we need to listen and tap into our intuition. Because whatever you are feeling, your audience are feeling to wherever you are feeling, your audience feels, whatever is that you need from content in that moment is likely what your audience needs.

(15:19):

And this should be the way we continue to create content. Not just while COVID is going on. Not just whilst we have lock downs, not just while school is closed, permanently as content creators, and as business owners, if we want to lead the way, if we want to forge and not follow, this is how we do it. We create content by saying to ourselves, well, what does my audience need to feel? Not what does my audience need to feel to buy from me, but what do they need? So when I look at creating content about Instagram in particular and Instagram marketing, I'm not saying, okay, well, what do I need to say to sell? I'm asking myself what really is well, a me off, right? What do I see that really annoys me in the online space, within my industry or within my niche, but also what is it? My audience needs to hear? What do they need to hear right now? Where they need from me? How can I help them today? Well, this week, or this month, how are they feeling? Or how do they want to feel about their content?

(16:34):

Because so often when looking at it from an owner strategy, and this is how we create content without adding to the noise and create an intuitive strategy around our content, by listening, by acknowledging that our audience are human beings with feelings and emotions and understanding what it is they want and need from their content, when they consume content and understanding that can constantly evolve, your work is never done. You will always need to be listening. And at any given time, your audience could change. Again. We found this in 2020 things that were important to us in 2019, when no longer important to many of us in 2020, our needs changed as business owners, as human beings, as women, as wives, as parents, as spouses, as human beings, our needs changed. And that means that our way, the way we consume content, that changes therefore as content creators, we have to adjust the way we create content.

(17:41):

But the only way we can recognize that is by listening to our intuition, our audience, and our data. So when we're creating content, we need to ensure that yes, we're paying attention to our audience. Yes, we're listening to them. But also that we're stepping into this role of content creator instead of content consumer, oftentimes when we are constantly consuming content. And again, this typically happens when we are already feeling low energy and kind of crappy about something. We use social media to numb. That is the reason most of us go to Instagram. We go to check on our own businesses, right? The ego plan. And again, and we go in that to numb to see what other people are doing, what's going on. We don't necessarily go to social media or specifically Instagram and Facebook, places like that. We don't go looking for answers. Sometimes we find them in amongst our scroll, through the feed. We see some content that we love and maybe we watch stories. And we typically watch the stories that were of interest to us, right? That is just the way we work.

(18:54):

But as

(18:55):

Content creators, we need to also look at this from the point of creation and not just consumption also because when we consume more content, we get really distracted from our own vision and purpose. When we consume a lot of content, we find ourselves comparing our businesses, our content, our lives, our success to others. I know that when I'm deeply aligned with what I'm doing in my business, and therefore I'm creating content that I know is of value and of use. And my audience is giving me feedback and I'm listening and I'm creating more content. I don't care what anyone else is doing. I don't care about all the webinars and all the promises of false promises of what I need to do to be successful, because what I'm doing feels of value. There is purpose behind it, and he is success as far as I'm concerned.

(19:49):

So when we can move away from content consumption to content creation, when we can lean into what our audience needs from our content, we can stop to create content without adding to the noise. It's not always easy. I want to be really clear. And as I said, at the beginning of this, there are so many factors that can impact our ability to create content or our ability to know what to say at any given time, either because something is happening on a micro scale to us personally, right? Possibly something is going on. Or if something macro is happening, something on the external scale, like lock down, COVID

(20:34):

Both things equally important, but what is important to us, one is important to all people. We have to understand the difference. One is impacting our ability to create content. One is impacting everyone's ability to create content or everyone's ability to know what they need. So when we start to look at this and actually start to understand what our audience needs, we can create content that they need. And therefore they will tell you, yes, Oh no, I like this. Or I don't. And I've said this recently that every time your audience responds or doesn't, it's telling you something pies information that we have to acknowledge, put our egos down, leave them at the tool. And we have to understand that this isn't about what we want. This is about what they need, creating content with them. This is how you create content without adding to the noise.

(21:34):

This is how you do it consistently. And sometimes you're going to feel something that you really want to say. And my thoughts, listen to your intuition. If you want to say it, because it's a service and you want to say this thing, because it's actually going to positively impact people, then say it, share it, post it. But if you are creating content, just because then it's not going to have the impact you want. Anyway, if you're creating content to fill a quota, everyone loses be patient. This is a long game. So you don't need to say everything and you don't need to say everything right now. You have time to create content. You can be patient with the creative process because when there's urgency, we'll lose. Cause when you create content with this kind of expectation and it's what you want, and it's not what they need and you're doing it quickly, just because you have to create something, we can feel that.

(22:43):

And as empaths and creatives is a good chance that your audience also function in that way, that they are also able to sense and feel how you are feeling. If your audience and yourself are very similar, most businesses come or creates a sorry, from a version of ourselves, right? Most of us create businesses because we experienced something and we go through it and we learn. And we like. That was hard. I wish somebody had made that simpler for me. I wish I'd known now. I knew then, and then we go, Oh, I could teach people how to kind of bypass all the and just get to the end result. Sometimes you have to go through some of the. Let's just be honest, but either way. For most of us, the people that we are looking to work with, we're looking to create for our customers, our clients, our audience, these are people who are a similar, in a similar situation to us or their previous fashion of ourselves.

(23:54):

And you've usually navigated the things they are currently navigating. You have to look at it from the point of view of what would I have wanted to hear if I was starting my business, or I had just started my business. And then there wasn't a pandemic, a global pandemic that affected the entire world. And it affected people's incomes and jobs and stability and our mental health and emotional health and our physical health. What kind of content would I want to be creating? This is just as important now, as it would be, then this is just an important now as it was a year ago and it will be, and it will continue to be just as important. We cannot go back. We cannot go back to running businesses with this kind of hustle and grind mentality, looking at only how we can bring in more and more and more, more people, more followers, more subscribers, more.

(24:59):

That was what business was for such a long time. And so when you started, it felt really odd because we were starting at zero. Yes. Everyone started at zero, but starting at zero now in 2020, one is different to starting at zero in 2011. And anyone who wants to tell you, that's not the case lying. It's just, no business is different now to when I started five years ago, because every single year we learn more technology changes. There's new software. When I started my business, we didn't even have Facebook live Periscope was the rage. That was the thing. And then when Facebook changed, we all ran to Instagram. Now everyone's on Tik TOK. And that other thing, which I can't remember his name clubhouse, is that what it's called? That thing everyone's on their business constantly evolves. We have to evolve with it. We have to realize that. But we also have to understand as business owners, as content creators, that whilst we're evolving. So as our audience, our audience, no matter who you serve in your business, you'll audiences are savvier than they were five years ago. Your audience says salvia than they were five years ago.

(26:24):

That is evolution in this digital age. So we need to understand the way we create content constantly evolves. And right now that content needs to come from a place of listening. Come from a place of empathy is a tap into that superpower that we have. If you are an empath, if you are in highly emotional empath, you are constantly being told that that's a problem. You're constantly being told. You're too emotional. You're too sensitive. My hand is raised high. Cause I have been told that so many times how many times I've been told when I used to work in corporate and I used to work in a customer facing job. I used to get told frequently, mostly by middle-aged white men. That's I should smile a bit more or they would come up to me and be like, you should smile. Love it might never happen.

(27:24):

And whilst I was fuming on the inside, I would have to bite my tongue, smile, sweetly, and just kind of, yeah, I don't have to do that now because I get to choose who I interact with. But the point being, we don't have to smile. It is happening, has been happening for a while. It's not us, right? It's not us. It's them. That's kind of how I look at it. You know, in that sense, this comes back to why we create content and how we create content. You know, we're paying attention as empaths, as people who are constantly like in our heads and thinking about the way we exist in the world, we are paying attention to the world around us. We are aware that is going, is going on. It's not our fault, the others aren't, but our audience probably are also aware.

(28:23):

So we have to think about that in the process. So if you are struggling with what to say, your audience are probably struggling with, how do I consume less content? How do I consume the right content? What do I want to look for? How do I make more intentional buying decisions? These are things that we saw happen last year. We saw this people consumed content really differently. People, most thoughtful with their interactions. And what I mean by that is people thought more about who they followed. They didn't just follow anyone. And when they made purchases, I think a lot of us were looking at it from the point of view. This is business align with my values.

(29:09):

And so it's, if we're thinking that our audience are thinking that this is where you need to go into your storytelling path, which I talked about last week in episode 19, because your values are a huge part of that storytelling. If you don't tell people what they need to know, they're going to make assumptions, businesses, human businesses, political. We need to stand up and tell people what we believe in on a consistent basis. Don't be afraid to do it. Don't try and protect, stand up and say it because otherwise no one knows. And this is how you create content in your business on a regular basis. I'm not going to say consistently because I'm kind of out of my, of love with that word. That's how you create content on a regular basis without adding noise, without creating more noise without you do it. This is how you do it with value and of service and of use to your audience rather than just being another post in that feed. Get to know them, have some conversations, build that connection and that community and that trust, right? This is not about know like and trust anymore. No one gives a if you're likable, right? No one gives a. It doesn't matter. That likability factor is just done. The know like, and trust is like budding. It's 2020.

(30:39):

It's now about knowing, relating and trusting, knowing, relating, and trusting. We need to relate to businesses. We need to relate to business owners. We need to relate to that values. People are paying attention to people, do the homework. So when we create content, we need to be aware of that impact that we have. Yes, we do have responsibility to our audience and to those around us, we have responsibility to ourselves to make sure that we are not creating content to fill a quartz up, but we have creating content that actually encourages our audience to have conversations, to know they're not alone to feel something because we all want to feel something that isn't fair right now, because that's what we're dealing with on a daily basis, still a year on.

(31:38):

So I would love for you to come over to Instagram, follow us at entrepreneurial underscore Outlaws. The link to follow us on Instagram is in the show notes, but I would love for you to come over and continue this conversation on the feed in my, send me a DM. However you want to connect. I would love to continue this conversation because we're not done. This conversation is not done, right? We'll be picking it up in a couple of weeks. Next week, we have to incredible human beings on the show. It's going to be a week of crossovers and collaborations and Hey, carpus we, I am teaming up with two of my favorites online friends. We've never met in real life, which is just crazy to me, but I am teaming up with the incredible people behind middle finger to perfection. They have a podcost middle finger to perfection.

(32:46):

Gentlemen, Ashley, Jenna, Jenna Teague, and Ashley, who will be joining me to have a conversation around perfection and being a rebel. It's going to be a little perfection meets rebel conversation. We're going to dive into what it means to how do you connect the two things? Because I feel like being an outlaw or rebel and being a perfectionist they're like at two ends of the spectrum. So how do we bring those two things together? And we're going to talk about that because quite honestly, I'm both, I am a perfectionist. I use it too. I use it as a strength. I don't see it as a negative because I'm able to manage it. So we're going to have that conversation and they have so much to say, and I have so much to say, so I cannot wait for you to hear that conversation next week in episode 21, the time being, make sure you head over to the show notes, grab the outlaw manifesto.

(33:43):

And if you want to dive in to some more content creation, strategies, jeans, some more support there, make sure you grab the Instagram alchemy roadmap. It's a free PDF. And you can grab the link in the show notes. This PDF goes through the content creation process I use with both my own content with clients helps you to look at that storytelling path also takes you through how I write my Instagram captions. And I actually show you step-by-step how I do this. So make sure if you need some more support, go grab that from the show notes comments, say hello on Instagram. Let's continue this conversation over there and I will see you next week. See you later, Outlaws.