One
incredibly common anxiety for the creatives we work with, is a feeling
that their content is in a state of chaos. When we say content, we mean
the words, messages, images and even conversations that they are
“putting out there” about themselves. And when we say chaos, we mean:
“I
have so many ideas, which ones do I talk and write about? I feel like
my copy is all over the place. I know I need to write, but I hate
writing. I love to write, but I need to self-edit. I am embarrassed by
the content on my website because I know it could be better. Ugh, I know
all my facebook, twitter etc. could be more consistent. I want to blog
more but I am trying to strike a balance between personal and business. I
don’t want to blog, but I want people who visits my site to understand
what I do. None of it is connecting the dots. I have content chaos.”
Two Creative Content Quick Fixes:
1. Play “Which of These Things Do Not Belong”
Take
visual screen captures of all the places your content exists online.
That could mean your website home page, about me page, and services
page. That could mean a few sample blog posts, and definitely your blog
profile and side bar info that’s up all the time. Don’t forget your
Twitter page and profile description blurb up at the top there, and your
Facebook one, too. Just do a screen grab of all of them, then take all
the images and put them up on your computer screen at the same time, or
print them out and spread them out on the floor where you can see them
all at once. Now play “which of these things do not belong?” When you
see your content all together it becomes pretty clear which ones aren’t
consistent, and you can ask:
– Is my business or personal name the same in all these places? (You’d be surprised.)
– Is my basic profile description the same in all these places? (Or even close?)
–
Does my content (pictures, tweets, posts) look & feel like it’s
coming from the same point of view? (Is your blog or site all soft and
stylish and your tweets are all wacky and sarcastic?)
Now,
technically, to make this a “quick-fix” as advertised, I’d say just
focus on fixing your profile description. That blurb of copy up top or
on the sidebar, usually next to your picture. Pick the one you’re
currently using that you like the most, and change all the others to
match.
As a matter of fact, I just did this exercise for our Braid
online content. And even though we are on our Facebook and Twitter
pages all the time, we hadn’t realized we had failed to update those
profile descriptions to match our new content on our newly updated
website. Yikes! It’s so easy for content to fall behind and get
inconsistent pretty fast if you don’t take a second to take stock.
2. Pick Just One Word You Will Never Use Again
This
content fix, is more like addressing one bad habit to give you
confidence to do more. It is a mini-version of one of our Braid Method Branding ECourse
exercises, which is to create your own lexicon. You basically take all
the generic words (or words that don’t really fit your true personality
but you use anyway because you think they sound “professional”), and
replace them with words that actually sound like you, are more specific
to what you really do – and have more authentic personality.
So
the quick fix version of this, is to pick just one word that you hate,
you overuse, or never sounds quite right, or you think is a cop out word
to what you really mean – and going in and making the conscious effort
to replace or eliminate it.
Maybe your business is a creative
product. And you say “beautiful” all the time. But really you mean
“airy” or “sentimental.” Maybe you are selling your creative service,
so your own expertise is what’s being described. You might find
yourself using the word “idea” all the time. When really you mean “fuel”
or “dreams.”
Our Braid ECourse Shape Up Your Content: Tame Your Ideas and Tell People How to Buy You
is open for registration and will be in session from January 11-20,
2013. The biggest question we get from people interested in registering
is, “is this for me?”
Our purpose for this ECourse is to take
this one particular aspect of how we help our one-on-one Braid clients
and offer it in a lesson plan of sorts. We want to help other creatives
professionals, bloggers, entrepreneurs and aspiring-to-be’s wrap their
head around all their ideas, focus on the ones that are content-worthy,
weed out the ones that cause distraction and confusion – and make what
they are writing and saying less generic, more authentic, and supportive
of their actual vision for themselves and their creative business.
Why creatives love-hate their content.
Content
creation and sharing is one of the most powerful ways to attract your
dream customers to you and your creative services, products and
point-of-view. When we say content, we mean words, messages, images,
stories, and even conversations that you are sharing – on a blog, a
website, a series of social media platforms, and even face-to-face.
But
along with the wonderful ability for content to bring your ideas and
voice to life, and to connect you with others – it’s also a huge source
of anxiety for creatives. It can be a challenge to figure out when your
content is a “gift” that you’re sharing, and then when that content
needs to get down to brass tacks and tell people how to hire or buy your
product or service.
We want our course to help you tame your
ideas, wrangle your words, make your messages more authentic, make you
more buyable and hireable – and help you love your content (or at least
love it more than you hate it).