Creative Content Creation: How To Take Your Social Media Vibe From Drab To Fab
Any business owner who is using social media to build a business knows the importance of creating great content for their audience. Content creation is the back bone of your business. Its what builds your personal brand, builds trust, attracts clients and sells products. The more creative and unique the content, the more you and your business will stand out.
Yes, news flash, you will need to up your creative game so its time to let go of the B.S. story you’ve been selling yourself that you "do not have a creative bone in your body". I believe everyone has a creative spirit buried inside of them.
Need proof? As a child you did creative free-spirit things like craft your own games, create make believe friends and went on imaginary adventures. Your adult self has just buried your inner playful child who was not afraid to let her mind explore and color outside the lines. It’s time to let her out if you want to be a sought after resource and leverage attraction marketing!
SHARING v. SELLING
There are two very different ways to share content across social media. One is effective and one is not. One will attract results, the other makes your business look like a bad 2 a.m pick up line. One is profitable, the other is not. One makes you stand out, the other makes you the CEO of the Business of Boring.
If there is one concept that you as a business owner should fully, whole-heartedly burn into your brain is that your business is NOT about you. It’s about giving value to other people. It’s about solving problems for a targeted audience. Making money, selling products, landing your next dream client, earning a company paid for cruise of a lifetime is a direct by-product of the value that you give.
Let me explain it like this:
Let's say you have an HGTV junkie worthy obsession for shows like Fixer Upper, Love It or List It, and Flip Or Flop. Why would you watch these shows? Why would you find them valuable? To experience the whole restoration process, right? The gratification of the last 10 minutes when you see the big reveal. The creative vision all come together to see the end result. A home that has been completely transformed while you picked up some free interior design and DIY tips in the process.
Now, where are you when the commercials come on? Potty break, grabbing a quick snack, throwing some laundry on, checking your emails....basically your mind is any where but focused on the five to six 30 second advertisements because you need to hear another teeth whitening toothpaste commercial like you need a hole in your head but when the show comes back on you are completely re-engaged and enthralled.
Sound about right?
The show is SHARING value and why you want to watch it, the commercials are SELLING and why you could give two cents.
Now think about YOUR business. Are you giving value that keeps your audience not wanting to miss a minute of your content or are they scrolling past your pitchy sales-y toned posts to take a potty break?!
HOW TO CREATE CREATIVE CONTENT
To stand out and keep your network plugged into YOUR show stopping online presence, you will need to create content that is authentic, unique, creative and solves their problems. Gone are the days of copying and pasting what 1,000 other people are doing. It’s time to play the marketing game differently and take your content from drab to fab!
Be Original. Individuality is the way to win over customers and clients. There is only one Oprah, J.K. Rowling, Martha Stewart and Madonna. All of these women have strong personal brands built on their unique style, gifts and talents. You don't see these women copying each other's posts. Would Madonna copy and paste a post from Martha Stewart word for word and through it up on her Instagram account?
That is totally absurd right {I mean can you IMAGINE?? lol} but every day I see online marketers using the same style verbiage to get webinar sign-ups, icky fear of missing out tactics, same stock photography and direct sellers copying posts word-for-word. When everyone looks similar, it drowns out their authenticity.
The content that you create should be 100% unique to you and your personal brand unless you are sharing someone else's content and giving them credit because it resonated with you and you felt your network would find it valuable. Marketing yourself like every one else = you looking like every one else.
Take your own photos as much as possible, use your own words, take people on a journey with you centered around what you find valuable in your every day life. Standing out requires some out of the box thinking and creativity, digging deep to find your unique buzz words, messaging and a little more research to find photos that everyone else is not using but the pay off is huge to stay out of swimming in the Sea of Sameness.
Know Your Target Market. Your story and experiences are meant to serve a very specific audience. For example, if you are with a health and wellness company, saying that you help anyone looking to lose weight is NOT effective. Know what specific problems your audience has and SHOW them why you are the person to solve it with information that is valuable.
Creative Example >> If you are a busy mom who needs quick healthy meal ideas and you want to help other busy moms cook fast healthy meals, share recipes and meal prepping tips to help busy moms.
Create How-To Posts. One of the biggest mistakes I see on social media is people sharing pictures of their dinner meals, morning smoothies, latest make-up look which is great but there is no how-to included with the post. Would you want to watch the last 10 minutes of your favorite DIY show without knowing how the project was created? Or a cooking show where the chef took all the ingredients out of the fridge and then said “Voila! Here’s the finished dish!” without showing you the steps that went into preparing it? That would be a total buzz kill.
Creative Example >> If you are wanting to help busy moms cook fast healthy meals include a picture. You can take photos of your own meal creations. Ensure the picture is bright and not pixelated, fuzzy or poor quality. The more value you include the more it will be liked, commented on and shared which drives traffic back to you.
Consumer psychology is funny. People love to buy but they don't want to be sold to or told what to do and why call to actions don't work well. Don't tell people what they need. Show them how it can solve their problems. Show them why YOU are the person to do it.
Share Your Story. Your story has a huge impact on your network. Facts tell, stories sell. People want to connect with YOU. Your story is your greatest asset because it can not be duplicated. Allowing yourself to be real, raw and vulnerable makes you relatable. Its like giving people a back stage pass to your life.
Show Off Your Unique Style. You have a style all of your own. Start using it. Maybe its your sarcastic humor, maybe its colorful tattoos, maybe its spunky hair, maybe you are a great writer, maybe you love graphic design. Just like your story, no one can pull off your style and personality traits the way you can. I mean, they can try but there is only one you!
Create Personally Branded Graphics. Choose imagery that is unique to you and your style and create graphics with inspirational + motivational quotes. You can do this in Canva and apps like PicMonkey. Be consistent with your style and the imagery that you use.
Want to see an example of how powerful this can be? Here is one of my quote graphics on my business page. The likes, comments and shares you see here is organic traffic, no money spent on ads.
Posts that are driven by value are being ranked higher in social media newsfeeds thanks to clever algorithms. The more you try to sell and the more you copy and paste, the more your account is going to be penalized for it.
The next time you craft a post for social media be objective and ask yourself some brutally honest questions:
• Is this content that I would find valuable as a customer?
• Would it help me solve a problem?
• Is it original?
• Authentic?
• Is it creative?
Bottom line: your content is either fun, creative and entertaining which inspires people to engage with you or they just keep scrolling when your spammy content comes across their newsfeed.
Use the tips in this post to start making some changes today that will take your online content from drab to fab!
