The 5 Stages of Creating Engaging Content

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Welcome to episode 31. Today, we are going on a journey. I'm taking you on a journey into the parallels between songwriting and content writing. And honestly, I feel like I'm inviting you into my brain. This is pretty much a constant loop in my head. These parallels between songs and music, and also what we do in online business. If you've been hanging around with me for any number of time, either here on the podcasts on Instagram or email, you know, that music is a huge part of my life. And what I've come to discover is that there are these parallels between songwriting and content writing of the last few years. I've been really fortunate to be in rooms with singer songwriters, mostly from Nashville, but these people who weave these incredibly credible stories into the music and anyone listening, who is like, Hey country music, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:04):

Right? That's fine. You don't have to like country music to enjoy this episode. But one of the things that I absolutely love, not just about country music and Americana, is the stories like if you really peel back country music, there is, there's not a huge amount to the chords, right? They call them cowboy chords, especially old country music. The chords are not complicated. The music itself is not complicated. I mean, it's complicated for me because I'm just learning guitar, but it's not that right. That Willie Nelson said, there's three chords in the truth and that's basically it, right? It's, it's three chords usually. And it's the truth. It's the story that makes a country song, a country song. It's the story that makes the song in Americana, the lyrics, the composition, it's the way that, the way that that person feels when they are singing it, we've all had those experiences.

Speaker 1 (02:04):

When you see someone singing a song and you believe every single word that they are saying, and this is really what it's like to be a content creator, right? When you're creating content, when you're creating content that engages with your audience, this is what's happening. This is a very similar feeling that we are creating because we are telling a story. We are sharing something that our audience resonate with. We sharing something where they see themselves. And by seeing themselves, they are able to connect with your content. And when we build that connection, that is what creates engagement. Now, a few weeks ago, I tried to recall this episode. I sat down and hit it and it just wasn't right. Just wasn't quite right. Since then, I have spent a little time listening to conversations between sunrises. I have watched a number of documentaries and I'm like, okay, yes, this is definitely, this is definitely a process.

Speaker 1 (03:12):

Now of course, during this time, I also Googled how to write a song. I was really intrigued. I thought, surely someone has monetized this well, I was right. And when I Googled how to write a song, thousands of articles, a pair into my assumption that somebody had monetized, it was correct. And it's 10 stages to write a song, 10 stages to writes a song. And I was so intrigued by this idea, tens don't 10 stages to write a song. I was intrigued. I looked through the steps and honestly it felt, really felt really rigid. It was really methodical and possibly it felt like it lacked creativity. Now, look, I am not a song writer. So hell like, let's just put that out there. This is based on my opinion. When I hear artists and somewhere, I just talk about that process of writing a song. It doesn't feel methodical. I'm sure there is a method there eventually, but the initial creativity, the initial inspiration, it comes from somewhere else. The process is different. It's not something you can bottle up or put into a framework. So if you have watched the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix, or you have watched the more recent documentary about the BGS, both of those documentaries, you see how these songs evolve. These incredibly well-known songs, they start with something so small, a melody, a harmony, a lyric, and then you evolve sometimes quickly. Sometimes they take time.

Speaker 1 (05:00):

And this, this to me is what some writing is. And this is part of the process of writing content. It's the part of the process that we can not framework, right? It's part of the process that we can't frame black because it comes from having organic conversations and organic conversations or feelings of creativity and inspiration. Don't they can't be conjured up. They can't be framed blocked, and they don't just appear at 9:00 AM on a Monday because we put it on our to-do list. So, okay. We can sit down and say, there's 10 steps to write a great song, right? There's 10 steps to write any great content, great piece of content and engaging post on Instagram. And I I'm sure if I Google right now, how write an Instagram post, I'm going to see thousands and thousands of ideas. So as I listened to John Mayer, talk about his creative process and a Berkeley school of music video series. I heard him talk about the exact thing that is missing from how to write a song in 10 steps. And it was self-awareness self-awareness is the thing that is missing from these methodical and rigid

Speaker 2 (06:32):

Because

Speaker 1 (06:33):

Self-Awareness is a practice. It's something that we as individuals need to lean into. And it's a critical pod understanding how to tell a story and create content that engages our audience. And this is specifically around creating content that's feels right? It's it's content that helps our audience feel something because the creative process comes from self-awareness. And that is what we're going to talk about today, as it pertains to creating engaging content, because here's the deal. I'm not a copywriter. I hate writing. Copy. I detest it. Yeah. I'm confident that I can write an engaging Instagram post for me, from my clients. And what I can say is that if you find the writing, isn't really an issue, but knowing what to say or when to say it and trying to say at the right time, then this episode is going to be really powerful. It's going to give you some actionable ideas for your own process.

Speaker 1 (07:39):

Because as I said, this episode is not about how to structure your Instagram post or how to write the best email subject line. There's enough of that content out there. That's not really the point. The point of today is to help you take a little step back and look at why do we get stuck? Why do we have rights as book? Why do we overthink our content? Where are we missing some of the self-awareness in our content creation process and how can this help us to tap into our creativity? How can this help us to be inspired so that we can connect our story or the story of our business, to our audience? How do we help them see themselves in the work that we do? How do we create some kind of feeling or emotion behind our content on a consistent basis so that our audience can see themselves? So the audience can begin to rebuild that trust that has been broken time and time again, and inside the online business community. That is what we're going to be talking about today.

Speaker 2 (09:01):

[Inaudible]

Speaker 1 (09:02):

Okay. So content writing isn't copywriting. I think that's a really, really, really important line to draw in the sand content writing isn't copywriting, but both are storytelling.

Speaker 2 (09:25):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (09:26):

So when we talk about creating content, I'm talking about Instagram, email blogs, even podcasts. This is content creation. Copywriting is different. Copy rate copywriting often uses persuasive language, that's sales pages and email sequences. I am not a copywriter. Writing sales copy is not my thing, but I consider myself to be a really great content writer. And because of my content writing copywriting does feel a little bit easier because I'm able to tell that story. I'm able to passionately talk about what it is that I do and why I do it and how it's helpful to other people.

Speaker 1 (10:17):

Now, I think this is really interesting because I watched a video from Berkeley school of music. It was a clinic in 2008, John Mayer was discussing songwriting. And whether you could get better at it. And his answers were really interesting because what he said was that with every record that he writes, you come up against the same issues. And he also said that this process, it's not a cumulative experience because if it was, and if you were able to take what you did on the first record and re recreate it again and again, and again, you would end up with all these records. That just sound the same. But as he was trying to explain inspiration and creativity, and the way in which you tell your story evolves, we go through different experiences. This is the same thing that happens in our business. This is the same thing that we experienced as business owners.

Speaker 1 (11:13):

We evolve this idea that whatever business we started with will be the same business we end with. I think it's really unrealistic, especially nowadays with this like plethora of evolution digitally online with social media and the way we market, we are constantly evolving. And it makes sense that our process would also continue to evolve. Now he describes the feeling he gets. He knows when he's really close to the inspiration that he needs to write his next record. And he'll prepare with that in mind, right? In his case, he's booking studio time for us. This is going to be us preparing time in our schedule to sit down and create content, write content, create graphics, whatever it might be. So one of the things that I think is so important is that we understand our creative process and we understand what the expectation is, understanding what happens after we press publish.

Speaker 1 (12:24):

So if a piece of content that we put out into the world gets the exact amount of engagement that we thought it would find that's data that we need to look at, but that's information that we've now got. If the same post did not do what we wanted it to do, if it kind of was a flop, it's also data and information that we need to look at. But we also need to remember that there has to be an understanding of the capacity and the expectation of our audience. We've all been there where we've explained something in great detail and our audience just kind of left going. What? I don't understand, I don't get this. I don't know what you're talking about. They don't say that, but that's what's happening. And so, because they don't get it, they don't engage with it. What we need to not do as individuals is assumes that that has anything to do with us as in relation to our self-worth right? Sure. Where the person that wrote their content and yes, there's data there that we need to address, but it's nothing to do with ourself was,

Speaker 2 (13:39):

And

Speaker 1 (13:40):

We need to understand in relation to our creative integrity and in relation to growing an anti bro marketing business, what we are willing to compromise them, we are always going to be willing to compromise on some things. We can't sit here and say hand on heart. We won't compromise on anything. I don't think that's valid, but we shouldn't compromise on the things that we can't live without. We shouldn't compromise on the things that we value on. The things that we know to be true.

Speaker 1 (14:22):

You compromise what you will allow and you defend what you need. So when it comes to our content creation, when it comes to creating this content that tells this story, we have to be willing to tell our story willing, to really unpack what that story is. In relation to our business, we have to be willing to test and see which pieces of content are going work and which don't. We have to be willing to put ourselves out there and it's really vulnerable, but we need to start telling our story unapologetically confidently and with ease. So we're going to look at these five stages of creating, engaging content. But I want to preface this by saying this isn't about how to write the most perfect Instagram caption. This isn't about using Canva or templates or how to game-ify the system in any way, because my intuition tells me that you'll know how to use Canva.

Speaker 1 (15:32):

You'll know how to kind of structure an Instagram posts. Do you know which hashtags to use? And maybe you don't know for certain, but you, you can figure those things out. There are plenty of people out there talking about this. We had one of them on the show last week, right? If you're not sure about hashtags, go back and let's step aside 30 with Anura. She's got you, right. She's great. I want to talk about all the stuff that comes before that, all the stuff that affects us as the business owner, as the content creator, the things that we are neglecting in our businesses, in our daily schedules and our weekly schedules and our monthly schedules that is interrupting our creative process that is causing us to overthink our content creation. It's causing us to sit there, looking at a blank, Google doc, thinking we have writer's block because as I said, I may not be a copywriter, but I am a content writer. And I believe that any of us can write content because you have a story. You have a story that needs to be told on apologetically, and you are the only one who can tell that story.

Speaker 2 (16:46):

Okay?

Speaker 1 (16:47):

And this starts by understanding how we get inspired creatively. And you might be thinking, but Melanie, I don't have time for this. I need to write posts. This is a process. This is not something I didn't wake up and say to myself, I'm going to do all these things. And I'm just gonna, I mean, I'm going to use this to start writing my content. This has been a process. The thing that got me to this point of feeling like I can't create content months in advance, but I also can't spend all this time writing content every single day or only at nine o'clock on a Monday, because that's when I've decided I'm going to do it. The reason I go here was because I enjoy content creation. I enjoy writing, I enjoy talking and telling stories, but I also know that my time and my energy are really important.

Speaker 1 (17:44):

And so over time I have worked with a number of different ideas and I've looked at how, when do I feel most creative? When am I most inspired? How do I get there? And that's what I'm going to talk about in these five stages. This is what has worked for me. And these are, these are both. I'm going to go both broad so you can take the overall idea. And then I'm going to also explain to you what this looks like from my own content creation to give you some examples. So the first stage was energy alignment. Right now, energy alignment can look a number of ways. It can look like psycho alignment. So cyclical alignment around your menstrual cycle, but this could also be lunar cycle. It could be just tracking your own energy. So if you want more information on energy alignment, specifically on how to get started, go back and listen to episode 26, three with Allie.

Speaker 1 (18:45):

She, she is the person that really introduced me to this idea of energy alignment. And ever since then, I have become really self-aware hyper hyper focused on looking at my own energy. And I think the energy alignment to really tap into this process, it comes down to self-awareness and self-inquiry right. A self-awareness of what's going on in your body, not just ignoring everything or just assuming that everything is normal, but it also comes down to a level of self-inquiry and actually being curious about what is going on in your body and your energy, not just going through the motions, not just using productivity as a measure of worthiness, but actually checking in with yourself around your energy, your feelings, your emotions throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, we touched on this back in episode 23. And, and I said, then that I felt like just, you have to stop with one thing.

Speaker 1 (19:45):

Don't try and do it. All. This has for me has been over a year, a process of over a year. But when I got super burned out at the end of 2020, and I got sick, I knew then, and that, that something had to shift. I knew that something was wrong because my energy never really, it was like always just mediocre or low. It was never, I never had high amounts of energy. And there was a number of reasons for that. But this impacts our ability to be creative. Our energy impacts our ability to sit down and create content or write content, especially when it comes to telling our story and writing for our businesses because it's vulnerable. And if you are experiencing lower energy, often are in a critic is louder at that same time. And you may find that that's not the best time for you to be writing.

Speaker 1 (20:50):

And this is why I'm saying you have to find your own path because that's my, that's my experience, right? My week of my menstrual cycle, my menstrual phase, I should say like this, I just, I literally don't work that week now. I don't, I have that week blocked time in my diary, I'm out of office as it pertains to meetings and things like that, because that week I need to really do the inner work. That is so important for me to be able to have that higher energy later in the month. That's my process that doesn't have to be a real sales process, but taking the time to really tap into our own energy and understanding when in the day and the week and the month we have high and low energy really helps us not necessarily just be more productive. It helps us to tap into our creativity and creativity is what we need to be able to really create content that tells that story.

Speaker 1 (21:54):

The second one stage of creating, engaging content is planning ahead, because yes, we do need some strategy. We do need a little bit of planning, but using the awareness that you built around your energies, understanding your cycle, whether it's menstrual learner or any other cycle, your own individual cycle, understanding when you are most creative, when you feel most aligned with your work, when you feel most in the flow. And then also on the flip side, when you're most susceptible to overthinking your inner critic and experiencing lower creative flow, right. What we can do is use that information that we gather and start to plan ahead. For example, as I said, for me that week in my menstrual phase, I don't plan to launch. I don't start anything new. I don't do, I, I don't have any podcast interviews. If, if anything, I try not to record any podcasts during that time. But then I have a couple of weeks where I'm like guests podcast, episodes, plan ahead, get my content done. I will engage. I will do more reels. I will spend time batching out content. That requires me to be, you know, slightly more Pappy on my own personal peppy scale. Cause I'm not the pettiest of people, but you know, we all have those highs and lows and honoring those boundaries and allowing those things to help us be creative is so important.

Speaker 1 (23:28):

The third thing is creating those boundaries boundaries with ourselves boundaries, with our schedule boundaries, with our clients, family, whomever, it might be when you plan ahead, create the boundaries you need, what do you need or not need to get into a creative process? What do you need to say no to in order to keep your creative boundaries aligned? So for me, that might be looking ahead at my diary, looking at when it is, I have often Nunes where I can block out time to do guest episodes and then taking the action to reach out to a series of guests and say to them, Hey, you know, here's the link to book a cool, and then I know that I have filled say that week with guest episodes, and now I can start to plan out those other areas, but at the same time, by creating that boundary around, okay, this is the week where I'm going to, I'm going to interview guests, or this is the week where I'm going to plan out what I want to talk about on the podcast. Or I'm going to plan out the next season of the podcast, whatever it might be, creating those boundaries and understanding what we as individuals need to say no, or yes, to, in order to keep those boundaries in place and aligned is going to help us tap into that creative person. Yes.

Speaker 1 (24:57):

Right. So if we say, well, this week, every month, this is what I'm going to record the podcast, but then we fill it with other appointments. We're not honoring those boundaries. Now that's an individual decision, right? You have to decide, okay, well, I've, I've decided to fill it with something else. Or I've decided to fill these appointments with something else. Or I've decided to take on a, you know, a series of clients that we cool start something new. So I can't do what I would normally do them. That is a decision that we make as individuals. But if you want to create those boundaries, it's then a case of honoring them. And I'm saying this because for the longest time I had said I was going to take a week or every month where I wasn't going to record any podcasts. I wasn't going to start anything new that I'm not going to launch.

Speaker 1 (25:48):

I'm not going to do anything where I'm required to really be online. And for like four months in a row, I didn't do it. It was like this nice idea. And then I filled it with appointments. I would be like, Oh sure, we can, we can do it. Yeah, that's fine. We can do an appointment then. And look, there is a fine line between creating boundaries and being a Dick, right. There is this fine line in business between those two places create boundaries, but don't create boundaries just so you can like put yourself on a pedestal and protect yourself entirely from like business, but create boundaries to protect your energies. That when you come back out and just like the social media world, you are able to continue doing those things that you do so well, right. There is a fine line there. So some of the things that we can also do when we have a lower energy is we can actually look at things that inspire us.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

Now, I don't mean what inspires you in relation to your business. And I don't mean how do you get ready? And like create this like energy or vibe to sit down and create content. I'm talking about things that inspire you on a regular and consistent basis that you can be doing regularly to support your creative process. What kinds of things inspire you? What kind of things fill your cup up? How can you add more of those? Not just into the day that you want to create content, but on a regular basis. Because what I have learned is that the more we can tap into the things that actually inspire us and they may have zero to do with your business, but the more we can tap into those things, the more we can look at who we are as an individual outside of our business, it helps us be better business owners.

Speaker 1 (27:43):

It helps us create better content. It helps us build more confidence and reduce the overthinking when it comes to what we do. So what inspires you, not just who or in relation to your business, but what inspires you wholeheartedly as a human and being. So for me, no surprise music, music inspires me. Listening to radio shows, hosted by singer songwriters, hearing the stories behind songs, hearing the stories behind some writing, learning more about music, practicing guitar, learning new songs on the guitar. Those things inspire me by doing these things that really don't have any relation to my business, but by doing them consistently on a weekly basis, almost daily basis, it inspires me because I hear conversations that inspire me. I hear conversations that trigger some kind of thought process that maybe leads me to somewhere where I'm now taking notes for an idea I have for a piece of content that I'm going to create next week, by allowing ourselves to get inspired as an individual.

Speaker 1 (28:59):

It helps us in the long-term as well business owner, right? There is so much focus on the business. There is so much focus on how to do business and what business looks like and what kind of rules we should follow. There is not enough focus on the business owner. There is not enough focus on who you are as an individual, and what makes you the best person to tell your story and do the job that you do and to build the business that you are building. And that's what I'm hoping to inspire you through. Not just this episode, but through this podcast is to tap back into what inspires you as a human being. Why did you start this business? Tap into the things that you really love outside of your business, because your business, whilst it is an extension of who you are, it cannot be your livelihood. It cannot be your income. Your career cannot be your identity and a hobby and all of the things. And it shouldn't be because before you had a business owner, you were a human being and that human beings still needs that energy alignment, that creativity they need to feel inspired.

Speaker 1 (30:20):

So the final stage of this process is letting creativity flow,

Speaker 1 (30:27):

Letting it flow, not getting hung up on all of the rules, right? This is what I was talking about earlier in relation to content creation that we so much of what we see online is structured, rigid, methodical as a framework. Look, I love a framework just as much as the next person. And I understand the benefits. It's really helpful to know our boundaries. It's really helpful to understand, okay, here are the steps I should follow, but I also know that for many of us, that's not always the solution. That's not always the thing we need. Sometimes we need to actually break the rules. We need to take a step back. We need to allow things to just flow.

Speaker 1 (31:17):

Because again, when you're tapping into conversations, when you're tapping into real time conversations in your business, that isn't something you necessarily compliant full batch. So you need to let your creativity flow naturally and organically. And this also comes down to when we're actually doing the content creation, right? This also relates to content creation as a process. Because again, there are already so many strategies and tactics and frameworks across the online business community, teaching us how to create content. They all work, but they don't all work for every single one of us. And we have to find our own path. So if you're a visual person, maybe you find that playing with Canva or whatever you use to create your Instagram graphics. Maybe that is the most inspiring part of the process for you. Maybe you start by creating your graphics and you kind of, you have fun with that and you create maybe fatty graphics in it in a day. And then you look at them over time and you pull which ones still speak to you. Maybe you make edits to some of them. Maybe they have a thing that inspire your captions,

Speaker 2 (32:39):

But

Speaker 1 (32:40):

The someone who hates designed work and hates Canva and just doesn't enjoy that process. Maybe you are someone who wants to write. You want to sit down and you just want to write, you would write and you write and you write for hours. And those are the things that matter to you. That's your creative flow. That's where you find the most creativity. And you know, you just pick a few graphics and maybe you have a cycle of graphics and you keep your graphics really simple because it's not something that you enjoy. That's also okay. Right. It's fine. If you love talking and acting, and maybe you love the idea of creating reels or being on video, or maybe you just like saying, and having conversations with yourself like I do, maybe podcasting is your thing. Do you write letting your creativity flow is about choosing the medium that you love for creativity fast? Honestly, I get the audiences are incredibly important. You all are incredibly important to me, but I had wanted to start a podcast for so long. And when I started this podcast, I didn't really tell anybody that I was doing it not for a long time. I only, I think I only talked about it on Instagram, about a month before we released the trailer.

Speaker 1 (34:15):

And I knew that this was something I needed to do. I knew that this was my medium talking, is my thing. Trust me, anyone who's spoken to me, you'll know. I love to tool.

Speaker 2 (34:25):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (34:28):

I couldn't write, but I'm not a copywriter. Right. And writing is still something that I am practicing and I'm trying to enjoy because it's so long. I told myself that I was crappy at it. So do you choose your medium for creativity and then repurpose it, right? You don't have to sit down and say, okay, well I love writing. So I'm going to do that. But then I have to do this and I have to do that. No, don't get hung up on the rules. Choose the medium. That really helps you feel inspired and helps you create. And then just repurpose it from that

Speaker 1 (35:11):

Because you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time. You do not have to overthink this. And I'm telling myself that just as much as I'm telling you, we do not have to overthink this. If there wasn't so much external expectation put on us, then we wouldn't overthink it. Right. There is so much external expectation put on what it means to be a business owner, what it means to be successful, what it means to be an entrepreneur and what it means to create engaging content. These are the moments when I'm like eyes down blind is up focus on our own. Because those conversations that you are having, we need to pay attention. We need to listen to those people in our audience, and we need to pay attention to them just as much as they're paying attention to us. So the five stages that I've just gone through, I'm going to just quickly recap them.

Speaker 1 (36:20):

The fast one is energy alignment, right? At the very basic version of this. It's just tapping into knowing when we are high energy and low energy. As I said, go back and listen to episode 23 for more references on that, because that's what we, I spoke to Ali and I interviewed her. And that is exactly what she doesn't have business. She helps business owners tap into the energy alignment. The second thing is planning ahead using the information we gather from the energy alignment. Then planning ahead. When is the most creative part? When are we most creative? When is the most creative phase of our cycle, the third thing, creating boundaries, and then sticking with them. What kind of boundaries do you need to be able to do this? This work, the fourth one is gang inspired, right? What inspires you outside of your business, outside of being a business or not? What inspires you? How can you add more of that into your day and your week to allow you to feel like a human being, to feel like the past and you are. And the fifth one is to let creativity flow, don't get hung up on the rules. Don't overthink it. Do what works for you. Choose the medium that you know is going to help you write and the medium, that's not going to cause you to overthink and get frustrated. And then whatever that is repurpose it.

Speaker 1 (37:50):

I want to end this episode with a little anecdote because I think it's really, really, it's incredibly relevant. It's about seeing us on where it is and it's important because this is how I, when I heard it, I was like, yup. Just another example of the similarities between music and content and writing. It's all creative, right? It's all creative, it's all storytelling and it's all creativity. So I was reading a magazine article just recently about Travis trip. If you don't know who Travis is, I'm not going to explain, just go and Google. And he, he's still a well-known country artists, but he he really became well known in the nineties during like the era of nineties country. And at the time he says that he kept getting described as an outlaw in country music. And he hated it. He was like, I hated being called an outlaw because at the time people were making assumptions about him.

Speaker 1 (38:59):

So people were making assumptions that he was difficult to work with. He was like, you know, he's just, he's an OSCE. Like people were making these assumptions about him because of the way he was behaving, because he was challenging the status quo of music. At that time, he will, he wanted to go with the, the song. The label were like, no, this shouldn't be the first release of this record. He was like, no, it really should. And he challenged a lot of those decisions, which we all know, even from our own businesses is really hard to challenge what others are telling you to challenge the status quo of online business, to challenge the strategies that we are told should work. But when you have that passion for something, you know, in this case, it was for a song on the record that he was like, no, this is the song I want to release fast.

Speaker 1 (39:47):

Sometimes we have to decide, right? That comes back to what are we willing to compromise on? So he got this label for himself in Nashville that he was an outlaw and he didn't like it. And he tells a story about the first time he met Waylon Jennings and Wayland said to him, I'm hearing what people are saying about you. I've heard what people are saying and people calling you and outlaw. And he said, I went through the same thing. It's a bit people still buying your records. And Trevor's like, yeah. He says that I'll still show up for your shows. You still sell out arenas, right? Yeah. He was like, that's all that matters. Wayland said to him, that's all that matters because the labels, they get to hear your music for free.

Speaker 1 (40:38):

But your audience, your fans, that paying to buy the record to come to your shows, create your music for them. No feel label. And I, right this article over and over again, I was like, this, this is, this is exactly. Wait, how are we? As business owners can approach our content, right? We spend so much time. We'll have spent maybe so much time and energy and money and time thought around how to create content that can game-ify the system. How do we break the internet? How do we go viral? How do we get more reach and more engagement? How do we do these things? And unfortunately, because someone along the way has gone to ho this is someone's pain point. They've monetized that, right? They've monetized the fact that we want to be successful. And they monetize that by trying to teach you hacks and ways to, you know, ways to go viral ways to hack the system. How do you get thousand bulls in a week and all this.

Speaker 1 (41:55):

But the reality is that trying to hack the algorithm or trying to figure out the platform itself. Like that's not who we creating content for, right? We're not creating content for Instagram. We're not creating content to please Mark Zuckerberg. And at the end of the day, like those people, aren't the ones who are going to be putting that are the ones that are going to buy from you. They're not the ones that are going to walk with you. They're not the ones that are going to trust you. And if we can, instead of creating content for the platform, but in create content for our audience, right? Using some of the things that I've talked about today, tapping into that story, telling your story unapologetically through, in this crazy content creation and whatever medium it is when we can do that. That is when we are going to rebuild so much of the trust that has been broken in the online business community. And we have to understand that platforms and tech and software has some control over what happens, but what we can control as individuals is how much have we, how much power we allow social media to have, and we can control what we write, what we say, what we create and how much energy we expend. Getting that

Speaker 1 (43:33):

By tapping into what inspires us by tapping into our own creativity. We can create content that feels good. When we create it feels easier and helps our audience feel heard, helps them feel something, which is what we all want.

Speaker 2 (43:58):

Sorry.

Speaker 1 (44:00):

That is episode 30, one of entrepreneurial Outlaws. I'm going to link to some of the things I've referenced. I'm going to listen. I'm going to link to all of the things I've referenced over in the show notes. So if you are interested in any of the documentaries I mentioned, or the videos, I will have everything linked over in the show notes, so you can go there and grab those.

Speaker 1 (44:26):

And then next week we are joined by Christina Montalvo. I'm really excited for you to sit down and listen to this episode. Honestly, we, you will hear in next week's episode, we're like, we're going to have to do a part two because we could have just talked forever. Christina and I have actually known each other for many years and the online business space. And we recently started having more conversations on Instagram because we have their recent love points of year on online business and the smoke and mirrors. So she's joining me for conversation next week. We're going to tap into really, we're going to look at online business and the fitness industry, because funny of you who don't know, I came from the fitness industry, which is why we've known each other for so long. We both had the same business coach way back in the beginning.

Speaker 1 (45:21):

And she has some really, really powerful and open things to talk about. We talk, we talk very, very openly about our experiences and health and fitness as business owners is the smoke and mirrors in both industries and the similarities between the two. So here's the thing. If you were a business owner, really great episode, really important. If you're a business owner who has ever been on a diet ever tried to lose weight, also incredibly important. If you're a business owner who is in the health and fitness industry, you want to make sure you're subscribed to the show and check out the episode, because if you are still teaching people how to lose weight this is a really important conversation and these are conversations that we're going to continue to be having here on the show because the more and more I'm noticing and it's not like I was oblivious to it, but I just, you know, like anything, the more you become aware, right?

Speaker 1 (46:23):

The more awareness you have of something then will you see it? You can't unsee it. And fatphobia in online business is it's an incredibly, it's it, it can be so subtle, right? Even someone who I consider myself to be a fat person, I have had that phobia as a fat person who was training people to lose weight. I had fat phobia and it's taken me a really long time to unbox that myself and identify it. And again, like most things, when you start to look at it, you can't unsee it. And more and more, I'm seeing how this is appearing in online business, not just in the really obvious ways of, you know, influence a marketing or the ways in which, you know, like no bad days. And whilst having this like perfect possible the ways in which, for example, body positivity in the online community has been stolen by people who it doesn't belong to those things aside, there are subtle ways in which we all use language, right?

Speaker 1 (47:30):

And I'm going to be honest, I'm going to draw my line in the sand here as if you were a straight person, straight sized person, I should say, not a straight person, sorry, straight sized person, right then. And by straight sized person, what we typically mean by that is like, you can go into a shop and you can pick up an item of clothing and your size, and it is going to fit you. As a Stripe sized person, these are things that you have to be aware of because often times the experience is so different and the experience in online business can be, it can be really interesting because a lot of people will feel really uncomfortable, right? If I describe myself as fat, there are people who get really uncomfortable. Well, there are people who want to defend me to me. I'm not saying it as a derogatory term.

Speaker 1 (48:35):

And we have to start to have these conversations openly and publicly. So I have plans for guests who are going to be coming on the show. We're going to talk about these things. We're going to talk about the way Instagram in particular has been oppressing and suppressing accounts of people who are plus size of sex workers or people from the LGBTQ community. Like this is real stuff that happens. Accounts get suppressed. It's also happening on tick-tock. It happens across platforms and we have to build awareness. And the only way to actually have these conversations is by bringing them to you and having these conversations openly. And honestly, even if they make us uncomfortable and I'm packing up. So yeah, next week, Christine. No, no. I got to have a really big conversation about the smoke and mirrors of online business and how it is very similar to the health and fitness industry.

Speaker 1 (49:30):

And we're going to continue to have this conversation on the show. And if you have any questions or if you have any people that you would love to any ideas or any, any other influences or business owners that you want to share with me, please let me know. You can head over, follow me on Instagram DME over there, it's entrepreneurial underscore Outlaws. And yeah, I'm always open to having these conversations and I'm open to hearing your thoughts, like challenge me. Let's let's do this. Like, that's the only way we grow, right? So I am so excited for episode 32 next week to sit down with Christina and have this conversation with your, and I hope you will join me. So in the meantime, I hope you have an incredible week. As I said, come over and check out all the content that we share around this episode, over on Instagram, entrepreneurial underscore Outlaws. And you will find as always a full transcription of the episode over on my website which is Melanie nights, food slash podcast. All right, until next time Outlaws.