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A couple days ago, I got a DM on LinkedIn from a guy who runs a coaching business.
He was an operations executive prior to starting his coaching practice.
The challenge he was facing is very common: “finding his voice” on social media and conveying the value he can bring to clients.
So, he reached out for some advice.
Here are some thoughts I shared with him, in no particular order, which I hope will help many of you.
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1. Don’t overthink your content. People get so hung up on the perfect content strategy, what their “niche” is, what is valuable for their audience, etc. All this does is paralyze you. Just try to be helpful and write about what you’re currently doing / thinking / learning.
2. Your content has one goal. And that’s to make people interested in learning more about you. That is it. You want people to read your content and think, “I like that person and relate to them - I’d love to meet them.” People are human and want to build relationships with people they like.
3. You cannot fake this. Your content still has to be authentically you. You can’t fake “likability.” But you don’t need to. If you just be yourself and share what’s “real” in your life, you will relate to the right people for you.
4. Content facilitates deals (but you close them). There’s an expectation that if you post content on social media long enough, new business will automatically appear in your inbox. I hate to be “that guy,” but this is not reality. Yes, you’ll probably get some inbound deals if you stay at it long enough. But if you need to interact with a human to close a sale, then that’s going to come the “old fashioned” way – you reaching out, getting into conversations and following up. Content gets you on sales calls, but you close the client.
5. Prioritize clarity on your profile. If your top priority is getting new clients from social media (like this gentleman who reached out), then your profile needs to be designed for that. What do you do, who do you help and how exactly? That needs to be immediately clear. Keep it super simple.
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If you take nothing else from this post, take this:
Be human, try to help people with your content, and have fun with writing.
That spirit will come through and make your content more compelling and effective without you overthinking it.
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