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Why I Favour Long Form Content Over Social Media

Why I Favour Long Form Content Over Social Media

by | Sep 25, 2024 | Content creation

“If you aren’t having fun creating content, you’re doing it wrong.”
~ Ann Handley

I think I’m probably in the minority as a business coach who doesn’t push my clients to spend time hustling on social media. Not because I don’t value social media, I certainly do but because I value something else more.

As someone who, as a little girl, wanted to be an award winning novelist when I grew up and who has a, not so small, obsession with books, using my love of words and writing to grow my business has been one of the most fulfilling parts of my business journey.

In fact I started my “business” journey as a personal development blogger and managed to build a solid and loyal audience before I ever sold a thing. Which meant when I finally did start selling my life coaching services, it wasn’t to crickets. It was to a group of people who had been following my journey since 2011 when I decided to ditch convention and change my entire life (for the better).

After transitioning to Business Coaching back in 2017, I needed to start my whole audience from scratch (minus a few people who followed me over from my life coaching business). I knew that content was going to be a key way to do this but the internet felt like a different place. In 2011, my personal development blog had grown quickly and organically, with little effort from me but starting a new blog in 2017 felt more daunting. The internet felt more crowded and noisy but despite that, after a stuttering start, I ploughed on. By 2019 I had a solid content marketing system in place and was publishing and repurposing content on a weekly basis.

Now, my content is one of the primary ways I connect with my audience. Nearly everyone who hires me or attends one of my workshops will tell me that they’ve read my content and it played a part in them wanting to work with me. I now have a bank of over 230 long form articles. It’s worth noting that by “long form” I typically mean 1000 words plus, which means well over 230,000 words written to date. One day I hope to turn some of those words into a book!

This bank of content has proved to be invaluable to me and is why I often encourage my clients to take a similar approach. Now if you are reading this and the thought of regularly writing 1000+ words fills you with dread, then this might not be the approach for you. But if you are a fellow wordsmith and love the idea of using your writing habit to grow your business, read on for 10 reasons I favour long form content over social media.

1. You can go deep and give more value

As someone who likes to go deep into things, going deep in my content suits me well and it has the added bonus of allowing me to give more value in my marketing. If you think about it, the amount of value you can provide in a short social media post is always going to be far less than in a longer, more in depth piece of content. And the more value a reader gets, the more likely they are to consider investing in your services.

2. You can better demonstrate your expertise

The more strategy, advice and insight I can share with my readers about the struggles they face in business, the better able I am to demonstrate my expertise. The impact of this is that it cultivates trust that I have the expertise and knowledge to support my audience to get where they are trying to get to.

3. It’s a great way to share your point of view

A lot of people think that the only place to share their point of view is in the copy on their website, but I’ve built a thriving business with old and outdated web copy on my website but with new, fresh content regularly going up on my blog.

It’s in my content that I really do share my point of view on business growth, I tell people what I really think, even (and especially) if it means going against the mainstream view.

Doing this allows my right-fit clients to buy into my approach and also repels those people who aren’t a fit. Which is great because I am definitely NOT the right business coach for everyone.

4. People take their time over it

Consider for a moment how you digest content. If you are anything like me, when on a platform like Instagram, I would guess that you spend much of your time scrolling. Why? Because that’s how the platform is designed. Social media platforms are not designed for going deep, they’re designed to keep you hooked on scrolling and if you have ever got into a downward scrolling spin, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

When we digest long form content, it’s usually on a blog or in a newsletter or on a platform like Medium or Substack, all of which are designed for deeper engagement with the content. A platform like Medium for example is actually designed to minimise distractions. I know when I open up Medium or read a blog on someone’s website, I’m going to take more time over it than I would if it were a reel or post on Instagram.

5. People find it when they are searching for it

When you write longer pieces of content in the form of a blog or article, there exists the possibility that people will find it while they search online for related information and advice. This means that when someone comes across your content, they are wanting to access content just like it, rather than simply seeing your content in a social media feed, regardless. of it’s relevance.

It goes without saying that if people have an issue that they are searching online for guidance on, that they are more likely to really engage with the content they find and even invest in services associated with that content to alleviate the problem they have.

That’s definitely been the case for my clients — I have had several clients apply for coaching because they’ve come across one of my articles and then gone on to read more of my blog posts or join my list. By contrast, I almost never have people hire me because they found me on social media.

6. You own the content

When you write for your own blog or newsletter, you control the content and the audience is your audience. No external provider can come and close your website down. When you put all of your content on social media, you can lose it overnight. if Meta, for example, decides to close down or freeze your account. I’ve seen it happen and as you can imagine, getting access to someone in an organisation like Meta to help restore your account is just about impossible.

I’ve also known people whose businesses were reliant on a flow of clients that was coming from social media and then the algorithm changed and suddenly their reach plummeted and their sales dried up. I’m not usually one for fear mongering but when you put all of your intellectual property on social media, I really do think you are taking a risk.

7. It suits my personality

As a highly sensitive introvert who doesn’t like spending too much time on social media, long form reading and writing is my preference. I think it’s fair to say that many of my clients are similar. If I prefer to read more high value and informative articles outside of social media, then I’m prepared to bet that many of my ideal clients feel the same.

Plus the idea of making reels and short pithy posts for social media just doesn’t inspire me. Having said that I am hoping to branch into video later this year!

8. I can do it less often

Most of the people I know who are killing it on Instagram (and I do know a few who are) are creating reels 2–3 times a week, that includes planning the reel, recording the reel, possibly editing or redoing the reel to get it right and then publishing the reel — 2 to 3 times a week. That feels exhausting to me.

With longer form content, like for a blog or newsletter, people don’t expect to receive fresh content every day or every few days, they expect to receive it every 1–2 weeks, which means as a content creator, I don’t have to work on content every day. I have Mondays blocked off for my content and I put out a new newsletter (which I later repurpose into articles and social media posts) every few weeks, which feels super manageable considering my busy schedule.

9. It’s easier to make a long piece of content short

The other reason I love long form content is because it’s far easier to take a longer piece of content and chop it down to shorter pieces than it is to start with a short piece made for social and then try to turn it into a longer piece.

All of my long form content ends up on social media, but it’s not created for social media. It starts life as a newsletter and then later gets repurposed into a Medium article, a blog, a text post on LinkedIn, a text post on Facebook and then maybe at some point it might make its way to a carousel post on Instagram. From one long form piece of writing, I can get many more other pieces out of it.

10. When you go deep in your content, you can repurpose it for bigger things

It’s not just easier to go from long form to shorter content, it’s also much easier to go from a longer form piece of content into something even bigger like a workshop. Many of the paid workshops I’ve run or free workshops I’ve done for other people’s audiences started life as a newsletter. Because I really explore ideas in depth in my writing, I often have the basis for a 60–90 minute workshop already done.

As I write, there are even more benefits to long form content popping into my head but this piece, at over 1700 words, is already probably long enough!

If you love writing and want to harness your creativity to grow your business, you might be interested in my brand new 7-week live group program, Content that Connects, starting on September 23rd. For all the details and to sign up, head to: www.carolineleon.com/content-that-connects/

When It’s Time To Recycle In Your Business

When It’s Time To Recycle In Your Business

by | Nov 23, 2022 | Content creation

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”
~ Fred Rogers

I want to talk to you about recycling in your business. What it is, why it’s important and when it might be time to start recycling in yours.

My word of the year has been EASE for the past two years. One of the overarching goals of my business at all times is:

To make more money, doing less work, without sacrificing impact.

This is something that guides the many business decisions I take and recycling is a huge part of this for me.

What do I mean by recycling?

I basically mean reusing things that you have already created in your business to achieve further growth.

I also refer to this as repurposing. Some examples include:

  • Re-sharing content on different platforms or in different formats. For example, turning a long-form blog post like this one into a carousel like this one on Instagram.
  • Taking something you’ve created for one purpose and recycling it to use for something else. For example, I’ve taken classes that I’ve taught to my Conscious Business Mastermind and recycled them into paid for workshops to my larger audience or used them for presentations in a colleague’s membership.
  • Taking a class that you’ve taught and turning it into an interactive free (or paid) challenge or vice versa — taking a challenge you’ve created and turning it into a paid offering.

Why is it important to recycle?

 As conscious folks, we wouldn’t think twice about recycling our waste for the sake of the planet. Being mindful about resources and recycling where possible is a given for many of my clients, yet when it comes to business and our own precious resources like time and energy, we’re far more laid back.

It takes time to create content and the longer you’ve been in business the more content and resources you will undoubtedly have created. Something I see often is people pouring their heart and soul into creating something wonderful for their audience or customers and then never using that creation again.

Perhaps you’ve written a ton of blog posts, that largely sit there, unread because you barely get any visitors to your website. Perhaps you spent hours and days creating an amazing free challenge for your community but once completed, it is never looked at again.

If you’re anything like me, you might be sat on a goldmine of resources that could be recycled into fresh content, workshops, classes, ebooks and countless other possible products.

Despite this, for some reason, we’d often rather spend twice as long creating something new than taking something that already exists and recycling it to make the most of the time and energy you’ve already invested.

I’m not sure why we do this. Perhaps it’s because we feel we should always be creating something new lest our audience think we’re not working hard enough. Perhaps it’s because we think that we only deserve financial rewards if we’re working really hard. It could also be boredom and our propensity to veer towards new and shiny rather than old and dusty!

Regardless of the reason, I do believe we have a propensity to look ahead and leave behind things from the past, even if they still hold value for us and our audience.

Recycling, however, allows our time and energy to be put to best use. It also allows our audience to go deep with our work rather than hear something once, never to hear of it again. It’s a way to create ease in your business without reducing impact and can often mean a much-needed boost in income.

Time to recycle

If you’re brand new in business then you might not have much to recycle but if you’ve been at this for a few years then you might be surprised by how much you do have that with a little time and effort could be repurposed and used to benefit not only your audience but also your bottom line.

In just four and half years, I created 116 blog posts, ran 4 free challenges and delivered well over 20 workshops and classes. Some of these I’ve repurposed or recycled, many I haven’t. I know that with a little thought and effort, there’s a ton of “new” things I could create with this old content.

I could launch new and improved workshops and generate a welcome boost to my income.

I could collate many of my articles and turn them into a book about conscious business.

I could run many of my smaller classes into longer, more in depth deep dive group programs.

I could turn free content into paid content.

The possibilities are endless. Which is why sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in indecision and overwhelm.

Can you relate?

If you are sat on an archive of content, here’s what I recommend:

Step 1. Create a place (ideally online, ideally a spreadsheet) to pull together in one place a full list of all the content you have created.

Step 2. Review your content. Now you don’t necessarily have to read every single piece of content or rewatch every single video. But review the titles and reacquaint yourself with the body of work you have created.

Step 3. Dive deeper into the pieces that excite you. As you review there will be pieces of content that you had forgotten you even created, that you feel a surge of excitement about or simply a pull to revisit. Go deep with those pieces, read them, if it’s a video of a class, watch it. And as you do think of ways to improve and recycle it for your audience.

Step 4. Can you turn it into a paid product? Could it bring in a boost of income this month or next? If the answer is yes, then go for it. And please let me know how you get on.

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The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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10 Things That Support My Content Creation Habit

10 Things That Support My Content Creation Habit

by | Dec 8, 2021 | Content creation

In this blog, I share the tools and strategies I’ve adopted over the years to facilitate a consistent content creation habit for my business.

I hadn’t fully appreciated, till I started to really think about it, just how many things I have in place to make the delivery of my content marketing strategy as easeful as possible.

Without further ado let’s dive in.

1. I create sacred space

Since my business really took a few years ago, my schedule has become very full. Despite that, I have Monday mornings blocked off in my calendar for content creation. This time is held sacred, I don’t bump it to squeeze in other things, I don’t skip out on it when I don’t feel like it. Monday mornings = content creation and that’s just the way it is. Does that mean I always produce a finished piece? Nope, sometimes despite my best efforts, I don’t get a piece of content created or published but the commitment to trying is there.

Something to mention is that I used to have content creation in my schedule daily and I actually found that then it was easier to miss or skip those sessions. Knowing that the only space in my week is Monday mornings means that I know that if I don’t do it then, it won’t get done.

2. I have a deadline

Monday afternoons through to end of play Thursday are filled with 1:1 and group coaching calls. If I don’t get the piece written before lunchtime on Monday, I know it won’t go out because I literally don’t have the space in my week to finish it. This is what happened last week. I have a half written piece about Visibility sat in my drafts folder because it was too big a task to finish in the time I had available and half-way through writing it, I ran out of steam.

Having this lunchtime deadline on a Monday really helps to motivate me to get my ideas out of my head without overthinking it too much. It also means that if I miss the deadline, I don’t send out content that week.

3. I use accountability

This comes in the form of mindful coworking sessions from the cabin. These are 75 minute sessions that contain movement, meditation and a 52 minute focused working session. They are run by a client of mine, which gives me an extra reason to go and for me they are brilliant. I’m actually typing this very piece in my morning cabin session.

Coworking with others and sharing my intention for what I plan to get done during the session keeps me focused on the task at hand. Left to my own devices, with the whole morning open for content creation, it’s easy to succumb to distraction. To open up social media or my email and get lost in busy work. working alongside 4 or 5 other people, knowing that we’re all trying to complete an important task really helps me stay on task.

4. Never miss twice

Years ago I watched a video, in which someone shared the idea that if we endeavour to never miss a habit two days (or two times) in a row, we’re guaranteed to hit our target at least 50% of the time. I loved this idea so much and it has played a big part in how I approach habits in my life and business ever since. Allow me to explain what this means in practice, when it comes to content creation.

My commitment is to create one piece of long form content a week. However, there are times I don’t manage to do this. Maybe I’m just really not feeling it that day and as hard as I try the words won’t come, sometimes I’m sick or one of my children is, sometimes I’m exhausted (two children under the age of 5 will do that) and I just need to go back to bed for an hour. Whatever the reason, I don’t execute my plan to create content every single week and I am completely okay with that. If I miss a week, for whatever reason, I’m not going to give myself a hard time about it.

What I’m less relaxed about is missing my commitment two weeks in a row. This never miss twice idea makes so much sense to me that it’s how I overcame my resistance to writing this very letter this morning. Because I missed last week, I knew that missing today would break my never miss twice rule and the reason I’m so strict about it is because if we go too many days or times in a row without honouring our commitment we undermine our self-trust and it becomes increasingly more difficult to get back on track. To hear James Clear, author of Atomic Habits talking about this in a super short video click here.

5. My Content Strategy

Another things that provides accountability for my habit of content creation is that my entire content strategy depends on it. My whole approach to content marketing is to create one solid piece of content each week and then repurpose it so that I can publish daily content without having to create daily content.

My whole strategy is create — repurpose — promote.

If I skip the create part too many weeks in a row the whole strategy collapses. It’s taken me years to create a marketing system that is simple, enjoyable and that brings in new clients, so the idea of not showing up for the most important part of that system is often enough to get my butt in the chair.

6. I plan ahead

Planning what I’m going to write about before I sit down to write is make or break for me. If I sit down to my Monday morning cabin session with no idea what I’m going to write about or several ideas for what I could write about, I know for a fact that I won’t get a newsletter out that day. No joke it’s that clear cut.

Not having thought about my content idea ahead of time means I inevitably spend the time allocated to create, thinking instead. My ideal is to have come up with the topic for my piece of content the Friday before so that my subconscious can chew it over in the background over the weekend. Sometimes, however, like with this piece, I came up with the idea less than 30 minutes before I sat down at my desk, but that still gave me enough of a head start to be able to start writing as soon as my content creation session began.

7. I write about what is

Years ago I dreamt about being the kind of content creator who could batch create content and have a month of newsletters or blog posts pre-written and pre-scheduled but since then, I’ve well and truly let that dream go. Why? Because I feel inspired to create when it relates to what is going on for me and/or my clients in the present moment.

Let’s use this piece for example. It started life as a newsletter and the Monday it was due to be sent, I hadn’t come up with an idea for it on the previous Friday. Given my weekends are busy with my family, I didn’t get a chance to think about it until the morning it was due to go out. On my walk I went back and forth on several ideas, capturing some of them by talking into my phone, but none of them felt right (you know how it goes). Then the thought of not sending a newsletter out popped into my head and all of the reasons I’ve outlined above started to come up. I’d missed the week before, so don’t want to miss another week, I had a cabin session planned in so I didn’t want to waste or miss it, if I didn’t write something that day, my assistant wouldn’t have anything to repurpose a month from now etc etc.

And then it hit me, I could simply share with you all the things I have in place to support my content creation habit. Et voila 🙂 Looking at what is present for me right now, is often all the inspiration I need.

8. I draw on real conversations

Similar to my last point, I also draw much of my inspiration from my conversations with other business owners, my clients and mastermind participants, I have many coaching sessions each week and these conversations are rich with ideas and topics for content that I know will help my audience.

Side note: In case you are wondering, this is where I got up to in my 52 minute coworking session — not bad eh? What happens when I put a timer on a task and throw in some shared accountability is nothing short of magic! 🙂

Now if you don’t have a schedule filled with client sessions to draw on, don’t despair. There is nothing to stop you having regular conversations with your ideal clients. These could be complimentary sessions, research calls or just virtual coffee dates, the format doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you are out in the world talking to the very people you’re trying to support. Hearing from your ideal clients directly about what they are struggling with and need support with has been an endless source of inspiration for me.

9. I always have you in mind

If I didn’t have the reader in mind when I sit down to create content, I think I would find it overwhelming. There are so many things I could talk about in the realm of business and so many ways to talk about them that I would struggle to know where to even begin. What works for me is to think, first and foremost, about what would support you the reader, as I craft my piece of content.

It’s for this reason that I focus mainly on content that moves the reader from doubt and resistance to clarity and action.

My hope for nearly every piece of content I create is that they contain practical strategies you can go away and try on for size, that the content is genuinely useful and practical rather than simply inspiring or thought-provoking. Don’t get me wrong, inspiring content has its place but always coming back to the question: What can I share that will support my audience to grow their business? really helps me to create my content with more ease and flow.

10. I have space to think

And last but not least, I walk every day — now for an hour, which gives me 5 hours of thinking time each week. Time to mull over content ideas as well as listen to business podcasts (a brilliant source of inspiration). Having space to think (albeit no so much that I overthink) is essential to me and it’s why I upped my morning walk from 30 minutes to an hour.

Of course I don’t just think about content, I think about my offerings and business model, my business goals and other ways to make my business work for me, so that I can enjoy life as much as possible. Not just that, but I’m finding that as a result of these daily walks I have so much more energy and feel so much more alert than before. And it’s worth noting that sometimes I don’t think about work at all and instead spend the time taking beautiful sunrise photos, leave voice love notes for friends and family or simply listening to music.

So there you have it, ten things I do to support my content creation habit. I truly hope that you find a few things in this list that you can use to support you. If you feel called to, please leave a comment and let me know what practices you might adopt in your own content creation efforts.

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Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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How To Tap Into A Consistent Flow Of Inspiration

How To Tap Into A Consistent Flow Of Inspiration

by | Jul 21, 2021 | Content creation, Creativity, Mindset

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
~ Pablo Picasso

 

Now, if you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that I believe that consistent content creation is a wonderful way to grow your business.

As a Business Coach then, it’s no surprise that I advocate content creation as a strategy for business growth, to most of the people I coach. Without hesitation, the most common response I get is something along the lines of, “oh yeah but I can’t write on demand” or “I can only write when inspiration strikes.”

In this blog post I’m going to demonstrate why waiting for inspiration to strike before you begin a creative endeavour is the result of flawed thinking and what to do instead.

Let’s cut straight to the chase.

Inspiration is most likely to show up if and when we get our butts in our chair and get down to work.

Whether it’s creating a masterpiece or just churning out your latest blog post, taking steps to begin is our best guarantee of the muse showing up to guide us.

I’ve known this to be true in my own life. It’s how I was able to write 30 blog posts in 30 days back in 2018 – you can trust me when I tell you that I didn’t feel inspired to write my daily blog post on most of those days but I completed the challenge anyhow.

It’s also how I write brand new content pretty much every week even on the days when I’m not sure what the hell I’m going to write about. So many people ask me how I manage to create content so consistently, while at the same time telling me that they simply wouldn’t be able to do it.

My answer is simple. I have scheduled time in my diary every week to sit down and create content and I show up and do it even when I don’t feel like it. Some weeks, I have to drag the words out of me, some days they flow with ease but the one thing that is guaranteed, the more consistently I show up to create content, the more consistently my inspiration flows.

Many of our world’s greatest creators have argued the point that in order to create, rather than wait for inspiration to strike, we must show up and sit down to do the work and the rest will follow.

Steven Pressfield, author of Turning Pro and The War of Art says:

“…she (the artist, the writer) doesn’t wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.”

What I love about this quote is that it implies a level of trust. When I talk about consistent content creation, many people share with me that they are worried they will run out of ideas and things to say. Allow me to take a moment now to tell you now that this is impossible. To fear running out of ideas is to imply that inspiration is a finite resources.

Inspiration is, for sure, a mysterious thing. If we don’t get intimate with our muse, it can be forgivable to think that she might flake out on us, that there might be times when she will leave us hanging. But if you’ve ever leaned deep into your relationship with inspiration (aka your muse), you’ll know that if you play your part (butt in chair) she has indeed always got your back.

Novelist Isabel Allende was famously quoted as saying:

“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

Liz Gilbert also speaks to this idea in her wonderful book, Big Magic when she writes:

“It’s a relationship, it’s a conversation, and all [the muse] wants is to be treated with respect and dignity — and it will return ten thousand times over.”

You don’t need to be a novelist or a famous artist to develop a relationship with your muse. You don’t need to be working on a masterpiece for her to show up, but you do have to be working on something.

In researching inspiration, I came across two definitions:

  1. The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative.
  2. A divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation.

I thought it interesting that one definition talks of process and another of divinity. I like this. I’m somewhat of a process person, I like the idea that I can follow a process that will churn out a healthy dollop of inspiration at the end of it, but an even bigger part of me likes the idea that inspiration comes from a place we cannot see, from something far bigger than us. That way, it’s not on me to come up with the ideas for my creations, I can tap into an infinite source of divine guidance whenever I show willing and, when necessary, a touch of patience.

I’m not saying that there aren’t hard days, when it feels like inspiration has packed her bags and left for good, but I’ve been writing and creating content for too many years now to fall for that one.

So the next time you tell yourself you can’t be creative unless inspiration strikes, just know that she’s watching you and waiting for you to make the first move.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Are You Willing To Think About Marketing Differently

Are You Willing To Think About Marketing Differently

by | Jul 7, 2021 | Content creation, Ethical Marketing

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued.”
~ Brené Brown

Lately I’ve had a phrase that keeps playing in my head and I’m feeling called to share it:

You don’t get paid to do your marketing, you do your marketing to get paid.

I can’t tell you how often I hear from business owners that they don’t have the time, inclination, inspiration or discipline to be consistent in their marketing efforts and it pains me every time I do. I see good people doing important work in the world, not making enough money to be sustainable, because they have a really terrible relationship with marketing. Just the word makes some people retreat.

Is that you? Do you feel like your business life would be all sunshine and rainbows if you could just be successful already without having to do any marketing? If so, then I’m hoping that what you read here today changes how you feel about the M word.

Before we dive in though. Take a moment now to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and ask yourself what marketing means to you? If you have pen and paper, jot down your thoughts before reading on.

I want to share with you some common problems I see when it comes to how conscious business owners feel about marketing, along with my suggested reframes. See if you can relate.

You see marketing as inherently bad and to market your work is to be pushy, icky and salesy. It means shouting about yourself, being an attention-seeker, annoying or bothering people — being salesy.

Of course I get this, it makes perfect sense — a lot of marketing online is manipulative and unethical and nearly always focused on getting the sale. It, therefore, makes perfect sense that you would want to avoid it as much as possible, but and it’s a big but — there is another way! You absolutely can do marketing without being these things.

One of my favourite reframes is to think about connecting with people rather than marketing to them.

If you think about connecting or having a conversation with another human beings on the subject of your area of expertise, does it bring up the same feelings? If you think about that connection in the context of the Brené Brown quote at the top of this article, can you image a way to connect with people in your network that has them feel seen, heard and valued? Isn’t that preferable?

Of course traditional marketing is pretty gross and self-serving but it doesn’t have to be.

If how you connect with your people is valuable to them and helps them to overcome difficulties or struggles in their life, why wouldn’t you want to do more of it?

Think about the people you admire in your industry, the newsletters you look forward to reading. For sure they will be few and far between but my guess is that there are some blog posts, newsletters, Instagram feeds that add to your day and how would you feel if the people behind those pieces of content suddenly decided to stop sharing their wisdom on the regular because they don’t want to “bother” you.

Marketing is only a nuisance if it’s spammy, manipulative, fluff. Don’t put out spammy and manipulative fluff and you’re good to go.

You don’t always enjoy marketing and and only feel able to show up when you feel inspired to do so.

I was talking to a client about recommitting to her content schedule and her plan to do weekly FB lives. The problem, she complained, was that she didn’t always feel like going live and so often that meant she didn’t. To her it seemed logical that if she didn’t feel like showing up, she shouldn’t push herself to do so.

So I asked this question: What do you do when you have a client session booked in that you don’t feel like doing? She didn’t miss a beat in telling me that she would of course show up anyway.

Can you relate to that? Does showing up for your clients feel different to showing up for your audience? I get it AND, I think that this is something it would serve you well to shift. This is where the idea that “we don’t get paid to do our marketing but instead do our marketing to get paid” comes from.

In my mind it’s a mistake to separate out the marketing of your business and the delivery of your services. It seems short-sighted to say I will give my all to my clients and show up powerfully for them and then be flakey and unreliable in your marketing. Why? Because if you show up inconsistently to the very people who might be considering investing in your services, then why would they think things would be different once they’ve paid you? How are your prospective clients going to trust you enough to hire you if they see you only showing up when you feel like it?

It’s clear to me that these two are related. If we see marketing as the devil’s work then of course we’re not going to feel like doing it or imposing it on to our people.

So it follows that we have to redefine what marketing means for us.

Allow me to share a little of my behind the scenes to show you what conscious marketing can look and feel like.

Writing my weekly newsletter is my most important marketing activity of the week. Its contents now becoming this blog post. I’ll also repurpose it for my Medium profile, LinkedIn profile as well as Facebook and Instagram. In short, if I didn’t write the newsletter, I wouldn’t have any of my other marketing materials.

Here’s how I created the newsletter behind this very piece. One morning after my husband and little ones left for work, school and nursery, I had breakfast and a shower. I then made a tall cup of hot chai with oat milk (my new favourite beverage with which I’m obsessed!) and headed to my office.

The first thing I do these days is burn my favourite incense (it reminds me of my days of living in Thailand) and play a track of windchime and birdsong sounds on repeat. (One of my lovely clients has actual windchimes in her home and when we have sessions the sound of them feels so calming that I decided to recreate it).

Then I opened up my Mailchimp and started the email. I should mention that I block off the whole of Monday mornings from 9am — 12.30pm to write my newsletter. It takes time to create valuable content and I want to honour that.

Usually I’ve thought about the topic ahead of time. I like to mull it over when I’m in the shower and at other points in my day — I also believe that when I come up with the topic ahead of time, my subconscious mind works on it when I’m not even thinking about it.

Before and as I write, I hold the intention to serve. I truly want my weekly letters to help the reader (you!) so I’m mindful to give as much as I can in support of your business growth.

There is nothing about this marketing activity that feels icky to me. I love writing, so for me the task itself is enjoyable and I love the topic of “conscious business” so I’m super inspired to share about it and my setup feels calming and nourishing, like I’m sitting down to my craft. To make art even.

Sometimes I also share something about what I have on offer and other times I don’t. I always separate out the content of the email from the selling of my services so as not to muddy the water. I want what I share in my content to be of value to you even if you don’t buy what I’m selling.

Can you feel the difference between this and how you might have approached marketing in the past? 

The point I’m trying to make here is that it’s possible to do marketing in a conscious and compassionate way and for it to feel good. I truly believe it’s possible to fall in love with marketing if you’re willing to see it in a whole new light.

So now over to you, what could you change about your relationship to marketing that would have it feel good to you and to your people? What could you change in how you approach your marketing activities to make it feel more soulful? If you feel called to share with me, feel free to leave a comment below.

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How To Reach Even More People Without Burning Yourself Out

How To Reach Even More People Without Burning Yourself Out

by | Jul 2, 2021 | Audience Growth, Content creation

In this article I share the best way to reach a wider audience and how to do so without burning yourself out.

Yes you might have guessed that I am talking about content again but bear with me.

If you’re anything like the many business owners I’ve coached, you fall into one of the following three categories:

1. You have a complete block when it comes to creating content and struggle to do it at all or you do create it, but only when the mood takes you and so not consistently at all.

2. You do create content somewhat consistently, but you know you don’t do a very good job of sharing it and have a feeling that not enough people are seeing it (which, in turn, feels discouraging).

3. You are very consistent in your content creation and have a whole strategy around having it be seen by as many people as possible.

I’ll let you into a secret, I rarely coach anyone who falls under number 3, but if you think about the established businesses you follow and buy from online, you can bet that they do.

Which is why, I personally, have #3 as a clear goal that I work on week after week. It’s also why I’m like a dog with a bone, with my clients, when it comes to content. Consistent content creation is one of the key factors in the success of my business.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again:

Your content is your absolute best way to let your audience know about you, your point of view and your expertise. 

But I get it, just thinking about consistent content creation can feel exhausting. I’m here to tell you that it needn’t be this way. Repurposing your content can increase your reach at the same time as lessening your workload. Say what??

Let me explain. What do I even mean by repurposing your content? Well for me repurposing means taking something you have already created, a blog post, a PDF worksheet, a social media post, a newsletter and turning it into another piece of content.

Let me give you some examples of how I do this in my business.

I turn old newsletters into Medium articles, which then become blog posts, which then become LinkedIn articles which then become Facebook posts. You can see here how I turned this newsletter into this Medium article, this blog post and this LinkedIn article. Obviously I needed to make a few tweaks and this case I changed the title a few times, but essentially, it’s pretty much the same content, shared over the course of several months.

I also turn workbooks or other resources into blog posts. For example, you can see how I turned this workbook from a free challenge I ran last year into this blog post.

3. I also occasionally re-use blog posts as social media posts. No extra work required, literally just copying and pasting segments of a longer piece into shorter bite-size posts.

4. I even repurpose video content. For example, I used the notes I prepared for this Facebook Live to create this blog post.

Now I know what you might be thinking, the biggest objective I get from my clients when I share this approach is that they worry about coming across as repetitive to their audience. Please trust me when I tell you that this is in fact quite difficult to do and I’ll tell you why.

The percentage of people who are currently seeing your content, reading your blog posts, newsletters or social media posts is incredibly low.

The stats tell us that on average just over 20% of people on your mailing list are reading your emails and the percentage of people who are seeing your business facebook posts is around 6.4%. So you see, the majority of your audience aren’t in fact seeing your content at all. Which is why, sharing your content more widely and repurposing regularly is an absolute must if you want to truly reach and engage with your audience. You could share the same content in a newsletter, then as a social media post and then as a blog post and I guarantee that a large chunk of people in your audience still won’t see it!

So you see repurposing and doing it regularly is the surest way to reach more of your people without burning yourself out.

Want to learn a content strategy that adds value instead of adding to the noise?

Introducing the my Kinder Content Marketing Training. Learn a more compassionate and easeful approach to content marketing. Over 4.5 hours of video footage plus a comprehensive resource guide on my 3-part strategy to get more eyes on your content for only 60€. Click here or the image below for more details and to buy.