Marketing is my thing. Like this is what I sell to my clients every day. And I’m so impossibly shit at doing it for myself; it’s really pathetic. So, what did I do today? I planned to rectify this situation a bit. Let’s just say that I’m my worst enemy sometimes, and my harshest critic.
I am terrified of social media. There I said it. I’m scared of the very thing that makes my business possible. But it’s not in the way you may think…
How did this whole thing start?
Well, easy really. I was in the shower, where all great thoughts happen, and I was thinking about the things that I wanted to do this year, and the things I haven’t done. Writing regularly was on that list, along with properly marketing myself. I mean, it’s not like I own a whole ad agency or anything…
This got me thinking about why my own marketing isn’t working for me. I’ve taken the same approach as I’d do with my clients, but actually, this isn’t about business, this is actually about personal authority, which means, I have to get in front of the camera a bit. This thought made my soul cringe. Nahhhh, my business is fine (although, my writing side is suffering from a lack of my own interest).
I was avoiding it altogether which is unlike me. Time to grab a shovel and dig deeper. Why am I avoiding branding on social media properly? What am I so afraid of? Was it that I hated social media? Nope. Am I afraid of being on display? A little but I have to do it every day so it’s not enough for a complete shutdown. A little deeper… was I afraid of being judged? It’s a side effect of society, so no, not that either. Is it a lack of self confidence or self esteem? Mate, I walk into a room without a brief and walk out with a deposit. Not self confidence then… And it hit me like a grand piano hurtling down 20 stories. I was afraid of doing the work.
You see, marketing is a lot of work, and I’ve developed a lovely little system for my clients that works for them, because they are business brands, selling products and services. But personal branding is about personal authority. It’s about showcasing yourself as an expert, which not only do I hate doing myself, but I’m not really a believer in the whole expert-in-moving-target sort of fields. Now, I’ve done this for clients before, so it’s nothing foreign. But the workload for me personally felt monstrous.
Determined to not fail at this, I broke it down. I’m predominantly a writer, right? So, the easy thing is to write. Write until my fingers are numb. Writing and publishing brings authority; a point of view, builds a belief system, and all that jazz. So, I’ve gotta write these crazy thoughts down and hope no one realises that there’s no line between crazy and genius for me.
Okay, so we’ve written and published. What next?
When I publish this word vomit, it needs to be promoted. So onto LinkedIn it goes, because that’s where my main base is. But, what about all the non-business related things I want to also talk about? Twitter? But I get no engagement; I swear only dead accounts follow me. Instagram? But it’s so photo based… and then it hit me. Instagram stories is perfect for a behind the scene angle. So I can continue to be all profesh on LinkedIn, and spam the shit out of Instagram like I used to when I was bored with my existence. Not that difficult after all.
So there you have it ladies, gents and non-binary/gender fluid/not Homo sapiens sentient being. A peek into how my brain works, and how I develop some strategies. I took a problem of a heavy workload strategy and made it simpler. I’m already writing more, so that’s not an issue, and it means that the content for Instagram is just lifestyle stuff in front of me. Pressure crisis averted.
Now all I need to figure out is the frequency on LinkedIn… and down the rabbit hole we go!
