We’ve all been there. We’re inspired to get back on the content train so we jump on Instagram and fire out 11 reels, 5 carousels and 83 stories over 7 days and guess what happens?
Yeah pretty much nothing.
I’m seeing so many Threads right now where creatives are complaining and frustrated about their posts not reaching their audience. So here’s some thoughts about how we can create content that gets seen.
The first thing we need to do is actually choose our goal. Ask yourself, WHY are you creating content?
If it’s just for likes and giggles then by all means jump onto whatever silly trend is making its way round on TikTok right now. But more likely, you have a specific business goal.
It probably looks something like this:
- Find more clients
- Sell your services/products
- Grow your influence
- Create positive connections
Once we have our goal in mind, we can now be strategic about how we approach.
Don’t see content as just one piece at a time. Because one piece of content won’t do much on its own. It’s about building an overall strategy that moves you towards your goal.
This helps us not get discouraged with the results from just one post and also have some metrics for understanding what success actually looks like.
Before I keep going, you might want to grab a freebie I created recently that outlines my entire sales process that I share with paying clients. I talk about content about also plenty of other important things in growing your business. Head to digitalrabbi.co/sales to get it now.
Who are you trying to reach?
This is the age old question and conversation that we all seem to struggle with so much. People were telling me to “niche” for ages and I resisted until I heard it explained in this way.
We need to move from being order takers to trusted experts. So let’s say you do graphic design and you’re producing some promo for a client. What so often happens is that the client starts to ask for certain changes and because we’re nice and they’re the client, we just start to do what they tell us to do.
And of course the client isn’t a designer. That’s why they hired you. And so it looks rubbish and the client isn’t happy. And we’re frustrated because we think it looks rubbish too.
That’s the problem with being an order taker. A trusted expert is able to lead the whole process and the client which creates better results and a much better work experience. It actually starts really early in the sales process with how we position ourselves.
We need to position ourselves as an expert.
How can we do that? We need to stop talking about lots of things.
Now I’m someone who has a lot of different skills. I’ve been fortunate to grow a wide range of abilities over the years.
I do copy.
I design.
I make websites.
I teach.
I speak.
I make music.
The list goes on. The problem isn’t that I can do all of those things. The problem is that if I mention all of those things, it’s human nature to assume that I must be blagging a bit.
Whereas when you meet someone else and the only thing they do is create websites, you immediately move towards expert status.
Here are some other ways we can move towards being perceived as an expert, not an order taker.
We can provide a specific service for a specific person.
So now we don’t just do websites. We make websites for crunchy mums (apparently that’s a thing now lol – it’s just mums who are super into organic/natural/homeschooling etc).
Or websites for personal trainers.
If I were in your target audience, then you immediately have so much more credibility than just a generic web designer or a generic creative.
So let’s pull it back to creating content on Instagram.
If we can create content as specific as above, then we’ll begin to attract our ideal audience.
Think about the thousands of reels we watch and swipe because they’re boring.
It’s tough to cut through and the easiest way to do it is to be hyper relevant.
Instagram is now incorporating SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which actually means that specificity is even more powerful.
So press pause on your content game and ask these important questions:
- Who is the one person you are trying to reach? Write it down, get specific and target every piece of content towards them.
- What is the one thing you want to be known for?
- What sort of things should you post to become known for that one thing?
- What are some ways you can demonstrate your authority in those areas?
- How do people who are close to you see you? What qualities would they highlight that others online might not be aware of?
I hope you’ve found this helpful. This is by far the most significant change you can make with your content so don’t skip it.
Don’t forget to download the free sales guide which has my entire sales process I teach to paying clients in a neat little 14-page PDF. Head to digitalrabbi.co/sales to download for free.