How are you feeling as we approach the end of the year?

It’s been a rollercoaster for me that’s for sure. I have learnt so much, made many mistakes, experienced huge euphoric wins and encountered a few personal challenges.

With all this tumultuous activity, I have sometimes found it hard to show up as the leader I truly am.

Can you relate?

When you are your brand, it’s important to show up authentically, the light and the shade, the good and the bad. We are all human, and we need to be able to connect with each other on that level.

That’s true leadership in my eyes.

But this year I have failed with this on more than one occasion. I have had some challenging personal stuff going on, and when I’m feeling low on energy or lacking inspiration I have done what a lot of people do.

I have fallen in the content marketing trap.

Does this sound familiar?

You are feeling tired, vulnerable and distracted, but you know you have to show up. So instead of being honest and real about it, you go to your default, which is thinking about what your audience NEED to hear.

Most of that time that looks like teaching. Teaching them to do this, how to do that, giving away all your tips and tricks.

Being all business.

You may have thought up a theme for each week, with content broken down, all leading towards a pitch that aligns with your latest programme.

And there isn’t anything wrong with this, in fact it’s super organised!

But if you ONLY do this? You run the risk of falling in the trap. This dries up your flow of content, stops you showing up, and makes it feel like a big uphill slog every time you post something. Engagement dips, and you are left feeling resentful because you are giving away your gold and no one is listening.

Gary V calls this ‘CREATING’ content. Which we should be doing around 50% of the time. But if you ONLY create content and align it with what you can teach people, you are missing out on a very important aspect of entrepreneurial leadership – showing who YOU are.

So what do you do instead?

DOCUMENT

Content isn’t all about teaching your audience something new.

That can become pretty boring and people tune out. It may feel like it’s the best thing to do, particularly if you aren’t ‘feeling it’ but that isn’t what social media is about. As you may know I attended and spoke at Dan Meredith;’s conference last week and he brought up this very topic. People want to be interested in what they click on. They want to have fun, they want to be entertained. That’s when they engage, and it doesn’t have to be anything to do with your business.

Documenting is a way of showing up and sharing what is on your mind, what you have just seen that you found funny, what you have just experienced.

Some examples of documenting –

Taking a picture of where you are and asking others to share where they are
Sharing a quote that resonated with you and asking what others felt
Sharing something that made you laugh
Sharing an article, interview or video that interests you and posing a question
Asking for advice
Asking a question and giving people an either/or option
Giving you opinion on something non biz related
Sharing a struggle
Sharing a win
Sharing an insight from an immediate experience
Showing people ’behind the curtain’ into your world
Sharing someone else’s content

The list goes on.

You see how much more rich your content now is?

It’s going to help people to connect with who you are as a person AND a leader

So in conclusion, if you want to stay out of the content trap, by all means CREATE your content in line with what you can teach people, but remember to also DOCUMENT and show people the person behind the business. I guarantee you will see your engagement, and clients soar.

What do you think? Hit comment and let me know

Much love

Helen x

If you want to find out more about how your content plan for 2018 can help you stand you out as a leader in your field and win you more business, book in for a clarity call.

My prices are going up 31st January 2018 and my 121 packages will be changing. I have a few places left before I am fully booked. Let’s get 2018 off to a big bang.