Here’s a little truth bomb for you guys – You can totally be visible and still be hiding. I see this all the time (and I did it myself for a while too).
So here’s the thing. You can be visible – showing up on social media every day. Sharing photos of your face (which I know it isn’t easy for everyone), sharing value, doing what you can to entertain and inspire… but you can still be hiding.
I call this visible but vanilla. It’s a facade that plays it safe and all the time you THINK you’re showing up and you can’t figure out why you can’t connect.
Content is not about consistently showing up to lecture your audience. Just like it’s not sharing your diary.
Content is about relationship building and subtly letting them know how you can help. And to do that you’ve got to let them in so they feel like they know you. Because you can’t build a relationship with a cardboard cutout.
Yet there’s so much of this content out there. And the thing is, it doesn’t take a huge amount to tweak those posts those emails to tip it over the edge to being the kind of content that has your own unique flavour. But it will probably take a bit more conscious effort. A bit of internal work to get to a place where you can feel comfortable and that’s what I want to talk about next – how to really identify where you’re hiding (and why).
Ok so you see the things we hide behind are many
- We hide behind our Expertise And this is something that I did from the start of my business. I showed up; I shared huge value but I didn’t share much of my story or my life because it felt icky. I didn’t even like talking about the fact that I had kids, and if I happened to slip that in there I’d never mentioned their names. I had all these kind of preconceptions of what was acceptable and what felt like selling my soul. And I’d have people come in and take my trainings and love those, but there was no real brand loyalty. No feeling of connection with me. So they’d just as easily forget me and find someone else to teach them those things if I went quiet for a few days. And then I realised that talking about all that personal and behind the scenes stuff, wasn’t being unprofessional… it just made me human. Made me real. And it was far more effort hiding things and trying to show up in a certain way, than showing up as me. Who does have kids and a husband, and a crystal collection.
- We hide behind perfectionism. Being a slave to whether you’ve got a professional photo; never having a wobbly moment; never sharing any kind of vulnerability; speaking formally and letting your true voice be hidden. It’s a huge block to being creative and creativity is such an important part of being fearless with your content. It’s a fear of getting it wrong too. But here’s the truth: people scroll over polished. They’re turned off by corporate. Which means that online at least, it makes sense to let your hair down a little bit. And this is a big trend at the moment. Possibly sparked by Covid. The successful facebook ads right now are often the ones with natural selfies. And videos recorded from the couch at home. Where facebook and instagram leads, that’s where the rest of content follows. Like Carrie Green of the FEA – promoting a new product cradling her 5 week old baby, hair pulled up in a messy bun.
This stuff is working. So how can you start doing it, and make it work for you.
Well try this:
- Do live stuff, off the cuff stuff, scrap the formal sets and do it from the couch at home or walking to work. Change the scene. That in itself will wake people up
- Don’t be afraid to take risks – safe content is boring content. So by risk I’m thinking being more transparent and vulnerable than you would usually feel comfortable. So talk about the hard stuff. The bits that went wrong. What you learned from that. Hearing and seeing that you’re not perfect will not damage your reputation. In fact, if you can show you’ve learnt from it or grown from it or overcome it someway it does quite the opposite. It makes you feel real, approachable, honest and human – and who doesn’t want to do business with or work for someone like that?
- We hide behind other people. Their quotes, and ideas. If you want to be a thought leader you need to have your own thoughts.Sure share a powerful quote, but tell us in the caption why it matters to you. But even better do the work to find your own original ideas and views and perspectives on things. This isn’t something that’s an effort. This comes out of having a creative practice. Of being tapped into your values and ideas and touching base with them every day.
Remember: No-one is building a relationship with someone who constantly shows up as the professional, or the sales person.
So every week it’s my intention to give you an invitation to try something new with your content or your visibility or inside your business. So this week, if you are visible but vanilla, it’s time to stop playing safe and start sharing from your heart voice.
Here are some questions to get you started:
What’s happened to you today, this week, this month and how do you feel about it?
What’s the lesson you’ve learned lately?
Have you had a change of perspective?
What actual stories about your actual life can you start to tell to let them see who you really are?
And if you’re doing ok, but think you could do better, I invite you to pull that curtain back even further.
Being riskier with your content or disruptive. Look for where you’re hiding. Where you’re not yet quite speaking your truth.
For me, i’ve been on this journey of unhiding myself for a time. It’s a constant peeling of the onion and blurring of the lines and for me it was opening up and owning my spiritual side and beliefs. It’s such a huge part of who I am and how I’d like to teach, and that was me getting naked. Sharing a piece of me. And you know what? It feels good. It doesn’t feel like you’re selling your soul.
It feels like you’re owning who you are and giving the finger to those people who would rather you stay hidden.
So that’s all for today, if you took some value away from this, don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast and I’d love it if you’d leave me a review as well. And of course come on over and share your biggest aha in the facebook group. I’d love to connect with you there.
Big Love, Cate
Ps. Did you grab your FREE Crush Your Content Kit yet? It helps you get clear on what you need to say, when and how so you can magnetise your paying clients to your brand! Grab your FREE CRUSH YOUR CONTENT KIT here.