What are you actually trying to build?

What are you actually trying to build with all this content? We spend an awful lot of time talking about content, we know we need it, but;

• How many posts should we make?

• How often should we post?

• Should it be video?

• Should it be LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube?

• How many views did it get?

And somewhere in all of that, I think we can lose sight of the bigger question, what are you actually trying to build? Because if the answer is simply “more content”, you're probably going to end up producing a lot of stuff that disappears into the churn, and zero results.

As a visual journalist, I've spent a lot of my career listening to people tell stories. I've learned that the interesting part isn't necessarily the thing someone wants to tell you, sometimes it's the thing underneath it.

• The reason they care.

• The problem they've been trying to solve.

• The mistake they made.

• The thing they discovered along the way.

• The moment when their thinking changed.

That's where the connection happens, and the same applies to business content. Your audience doesn't necessarily need another post telling them that you're experienced, professional, innovative or passionate. They need to connect with your knowledge and experience through what you share.

• Tell them what you're seeing in your industry.

• Explain something you've learned.

• Talk about a problem you've solved.

• Tell them about something that didn't work.

• Explain why you changed your mind about something.

• Share what you think is going to happen next.

• Give them something useful.

Do that consistently and something starts to happen, people begin to recognise you. They start to understand how you think, learn that when you talk about your area of expertise, you're worth listening to. And when they have a problem that needs solving, you're no longer a stranger. That's the bit I think is often missed.

Thought leadership isn't really about becoming famous, it's about becoming trusted.

Trust doesn't normally come from one brilliant post, it comes from showing up repeatedly with something worth saying.

Try this

Before planning your next month's content, write down three questions your clients regularly ask you.

Don't turn them into sales posts, answer them properly.

Then ask yourself: “What else does my audience need to understand about this?”

That question might be the beginning of a much more useful content strategy. Because perhaps the real goal isn't to create more content. Perhaps it's to build an audience that wants to hear from you again.

In the next post we'll spend some time thinking about - “Why do some pieces of information get forgotten almost immediately, while a story can stay with you for years?”