When marketing feels like too much work. Part Four: I don't know what to write!

We've all fallen into this trap. The moment you open up a blank page of any kind, all intelligent thoughts - maybe all thoughts together - leave your brain, running for the exit and hiding faster than it takes your phone battery to drop from 20% to 1%. I hear it all the time from people: they know they should be active on social media, but they don't know what to write! I've been guilty of this myself (literally had it during the first draft of this blog) and my own content ebbs and flows with far less consistency than I'd like. Writers block also seems like it shows up extra hard and fast when you know there's an audience waiting (or not) that could immediately critique what you've just spent time crafting. Which makes it feel like there's a lot more pressure to write the 'right' things.

So, what should you post on social media?

The right content, of course, depends on a number of different factors. Three, specifically: the platform you're on, who is speaking, and who the intended audience is.

The platform

This should be the first factor to consider - because making sure we're creating content that is fit for platform is kind of fundamental. I've made the assumption that you've already done the work of choosing the platforms that are right for you, but, if you haven't made those strategic decisions yet, than that's definitely your starting point - and my blog on choosing which social media platforms you should be on can help you work through that.

There are a lot of details we could go into here, but stripping away all the tactics, here's a simple view on what you should post and where. There are, of course, many other social media platforms, but these are the ones my clients are using these days to help them grow, so this is where I like to focus:

LinkedIn - Personal Profile	Share what you know, what you've learned, what you've experienced and what you think.
LinkedIn - Company Page	Show what your organization does, who does it, what you've achieved and why it matters.
Facebook	Content that informs, involves and connects your community, especially stories, updates and events.
Instagram	Show your people, personality, products/services and the world around your organization.
TikTok	Short, engaging, personality-led content that teaches, entertains or answers questions your audience actually has.
YouTube	Content that answers questions, teaches something or explores a topic your audience cares about.

Who is speaking

What you write depends on whether you're posting from a business or personal account. Business accounts tend to focus on the organization and its work, while personal accounts give you more space to share your perspective, experiences and the journey behind it. But then again, it depends on your brand. Some brands are wacky and take on a personality of their own, while some people themselves are the brand for their business. It all depends. Really, there's a lot of recommendations here, but not a lot of rules.

You should, however, write about things that matter to you and/or your work. You should also write based on what you want to achieve. Understanding why you're doing something can help you define how you should go about doing it. So once you know why you're on social media, the logical next step is to work backwards and ask yourself what information you'd need to share in order to achieve that goal.

One way to go about this is to create a full social media strategy - perhaps based on content pillars or another framework that helps you define the key topics or areas of expertise that you're best equipped to share. That's a great approach if you have time, energy and/or help to strategically plan and create content.

Another way to do it is still based on a framework, but it's a bit more loose and flexible. It's ideal if you're a solopreneur or a small team and you need to create content ad hoc or on the fly - whenever you have time. It's still based on things that matter to you, your organization and your purpose for communicating but it uses a series of questions to help you come up with ideas, rather than a complex strategy. Here are some prompts to help you get started:

• What does my audience need to know, understand or be reminded of right now?

• What questions do my customers or community regularly ask me?

• What could I show, share or explain that would be useful, interesting or entertaining?

Obviously, these are very audience/customer focused questions. On LinkedIn, you might be looking for a slightly different perspective: professional, reflective content that starts from your own experience. Here are some prompts that can be useful on LinkedIn:

• What problem did I solve this week or who did I help?

• What did I learn and how can it help others?

• What didn’t go well or was hard? 

The intended audience

Most good marketing is based on giving people something they want, need or expect (although surprise is obviously also an effective tool for capturing attention).

Think about it this way: imagine you're walking down the street and someone starts shouting. It draws your attention, right? But if they're shouting about something you don't care about, you're probably not going to stop and listen. In fact, if they keep doing it, you might start avoiding them altogether. Now imagine someone else is talking about something you're genuinely interested in. They're not shouting, but they've caught your attention because what they're saying is relevant to you. You're much more likely to stop, listen and remember them - and perhaps even look out for them the next time you're passing by.

Social media works the same. You want to create the right content for your audience so they not only pay attention, they remember you and seek you out for more. Not annoying people is therefore important. But, in a world full of content, noise and attention-seeking, how do we do that? By providing value. When you're thinking about the content you've written, you could ask yourself these questions to determine if what you wrote was truly valuable for your intended audience:

• It it useful or entertaining?

• Does it give people something they could immediately act on?

• Will it make them think, feel or see something differently?

This simple framework defines value as being useful, actionable and meaningful. It won't work for everyone or every organization, and it's not the only measures to evaluate your content by, but it's a pretty good starting place.

How much is enough?

I think it's important, when talking about what to share on social media, that we also talk about how much we need to write. Again, to some extent this depends on the platform and the speed in which content flows through it - for example, audiences get through content on Twitter/X a lot faster than on other platforms, so to stand out in feed, you need to share more to keep up. It also depends on what you're trying to achieve. If your goal is to reach new people, grow your following or build credibility, a certain level of content output is necessary. However, don't confuse quantity for quality. Quality - combined with consistency - is far more important than quantity.

Help, I'm still stuck!

Ideas still not coming to you? Sometimes, creativity fails us not because we're not creative or clever, but because we haven't made room for it. Have you heard the saying, 'create before you consume'? Our daily lives are now full of non-stop noise, and even when we're not being targeted by it, we choose to invite it in when we pop headphones in for our walks, listen to podcasts while we cook or have the tv on in the background while we do everything else. That background noise is blocking your creativity. It's filling what was once empty space, a blank canvas where your mind could play around, think weird things and create mental inventions of your own making. So, if you're finding that creativity is escaping you quite often, find ways to be bored. Create blank space in your dat, your life and in your head. Once you've overcome the incessant need to pick up your phone or distract yourself with more input, your mind will eventually start talking to itself, and if you're lucky, it might start saying something good.

One other tip for coming up with ideas, is to do stuff. Back in early Spring, I spent a week in Calgary where I met with clients, went to networking events, attended public activities and spent time outside. I did more than just the normal wake/work/eat/sleep cycle on repeat - and it fuelled me with enthusiasm and inspiration, both in my mood and in my work. It gave me far more to talk about than just working from home with only the sound of my own voice in my head and the click of my fingers on the keyboard for company ever has. So if you're lacking things to say, you might just need to find ways of doing more.

Learning more is another great way to fill your head with more content ideas. I'm not talking about the mindless scrolling consumption of content. I mean actually learning something. Ideally something that is useful, actionable and meaningful to you. There are a lot of great ways to gain new information - books, webinars, documentaries, etc. Choose a medium that works for you and start learning! And don't be afraid to seek out topics that have nothing to do with your work. Sometimes, it's the things that we find most interesting or the farthest away from our day-to-day that give us the biggest insights back into our lives and work.

Now, it's important to note that social media moves fast - and the types of content that were appropriate even just yesterday, might not be relevant today. Which makes this blog kind of risky, because everything I say could actually expire right after I publish it. That said, these are some general principles that have proven somewhat steadfast over time, and while they aren't the only answers to this question - these are some of the things I see resonating the most with others.