[0:00] I think when most people say they don't know what to post on Instagram,
[0:03] they don't mean that they don't have anything to post. What they mean is, I have something to say, I have a lot of ideas, but I don't know how to format them in a way that's compelling to my ideal clients and doesn't suck up all of my time or my creative energy. And the reason that people get so in their head about what to post and what to share and how to do it is because they don't have a clear vision, not just for their content or their marketing, but for their brand as a whole. So what we're going to be doing today is establishing your brand vision for your content marketing, because I never want you to get in your head about what to post. I want you to stop overthinking it, and I want you to be able to confidently create content. Can I say that 10 times fast? Confidently create content on Instagram or any social media platform that does the following things. Number one, establishes your presence and grows your audience. Number two, markets and sells your offers. And number three, builds a brand. So let's get into it today.
[1:11] You're listening to Aesthetically Speaking. On this podcast, we're talking about all things branding, logos, colors, fonts, and the strategy behind it all. It seems like these days it's easier than ever to build an audience, but harder than ever to stand out online. My name is Rebecca, and I'm a brand strategist and designer. Together, we're going to talk about how to bring your brand to life.
[1:36] Now, before we start, I want to give you a quick note and validate what you're feeling because everyone gets in their head about what to post on Instagram or what to create for their podcast or what to share on their blog or in their emails. Everybody gets in their head about it, especially after taking a break or pivoting their business or creating a new offer because it feels overwhelming. You feel like you want to show up and have everything figured out and that keeps you from just doing something. So before we get into any of the vision stuff, I want you to just post something, literally anything. I like to do when this happens to me because it happens to me too. I just do what I call a daily check-in. You've probably seen this if you follow me on my Instagram stories. I take a picture of wherever I am right that very second and I just put basically what I'm doing and I try to make it cute and I try to make it at least somewhat relevant but I'm not overthinking it the idea is that I post something and once you hit post once you hit share it takes this pressure off okay and it allows you to kind of okay.
[2:43] I'm not feeling this pressure about what I need to post right this second. And I can think more high level about what the structure is that I want to use for my content marketing overall. A second note that I want to make is I want you to establish a content creation process. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs resist this because if you're like me, you're like, I shouldn't have to make videos. I shouldn't have to record these things. I shouldn't have to blah, blah, blah. The point is, if you are using content to grow your business, then content creation and content marketing needs to be part of your workflow. It needs to be part of your schedule. So I want you to establish a process. I'm not going to dive into that on this podcast, but three things that I want you to explore. Number one is I want you to have a process for finding inspiration.
[3:36] So reading books listening to other podcasts whatever it is usually that is not scrolling on instagram so try not to do something like that but you want to do these things you want to find inspiration and you want to capture your ideas and you want to have them easily accessible so a lot of people will use notion or their notes app or just a google doc i use an app called voice notes because it allows me to record little voice memos and then it transcribes them and I can tag stuff and organize it that way. It doesn't matter what you do. You can just have a notebook, but I want you to get in the habit of finding inspiration, gathering your ideas and putting them somewhere where you can easily access them when you actually need to create content.
[4:21] So you posted something, you got it off your back, got a little bit more breathing room, you know that you're going to start creating content consistently,
[4:29] you're going to create a process for that. So let's talk about establishing a better brand vision for your content overall. And this is something that I think a lot of people get wrong. When we think about the purpose of content marketing, we stick to these kind of two low level things. Right? Number one is we're like, I've got to grow a following. I've got to build an audience. Don't get me wrong. That is important. Okay. So that's where we're posting a lot of just like personal stuff. Here's who I am. Here's what I'm up to asking questions, like just engaging.
[5:07] Connecting, relatable content. The other thing that we do, which is like one step up from that is marketing and selling. So talking about what you're selling, who it's for, why it's needed, what the transformation is, right? And that is important and that does help you move your business forward. But the problem is if you stick to these two lower level things, if you kind of picture this like a ladder that's going up, the bottom of the ladder is growing your following. The next level is selling and marketing. But the highest level, the thing that's going to give you the most success long-term is building a brand. And I think we forget that our content marketing is helping us build a brand. And that's everything from what we share to how we share it to how often we're sharing that kind of thing.
[5:59] So we're going to walk through these three tiers of the ladder, but we're going to spend the most time on the branding of your content to make sure that it is really working for you long-term. Okay, so let's start with just growing a following and establishing your presence online. Number one thing that I love to do for this goal is to share a day in the life. And I think everybody who's building a personal brand should share a day in the life at least a couple of times a year. And here's why I love to do this.
[6:29] One, it takes the pressure off, right? So you don't have to have this perfect post that perfectly explains who you are and what you do. You can just share 24 hours in your life and it gives people a pretty good picture of who you are and what you're up to and what your vibe is. You can do this in a video. I did this in a carousel post just the other day, and it works really well. And it was helpful for me to frame my work and my family life and see how all of those things are kind of working together. And it was great for my audience to see too. A lot of my ideal clients are similar to me in the fact that they're moms, they're entrepreneurs, they don't have employees, they're kind of running this solo business. And so it's helpful to see what that looks like for other people. And the truth is we're nosy. We want to know what other people are up to, especially people who have successful businesses, successful families, successful anything that we aspire to. Now, some people like to do day in the life content all the time. Unless you're an influencer or aspiring influencer, I don't think a day in the life is the perfect content to really move your business forward because I think it's lacking in specificity. So it's good as a general type, right? This is that bottom rung of the ladder. But when you want to be moving your business forward, you want to be making sales, you want to be making offers, and you want to be building a brand, you need to do something a little bit more strategic.
[7:57] Now, something I see all the time, people posting their to-do list on LinkedIn their Instagram stories or sharing it as a post on threads or whatever. Here's why that works. It is helpful to see what people are doing, right? It gives us a sense for the kind of work that they do, how much work they're doing, right? If somebody says, oh, I have four client calls today, that tells me that they're a successful coach, designer, photographer, whatever it is, and they have clients who trust them and work with them. But it doesn't work because I think it gets boring. I think people tend to include too much information on their to-do lists and it becomes really repetitive. So if you want to share your to-do list, what I would recommend is simplifying a little bit. So you're sharing maybe three to four main tasks that you're accomplishing that are relevant to your business. I also think it works if you have something that's a little bit out of the ordinary. So if you have a big photo shoot coming up and today you're going shopping for that photo shoot, that's a great thing to include on your to-do list. If you have a dog who's been throwing up all night and you need to go to the vet, I think that's something that's okay to include on your to-do list. But don't make it this big laundry list of like, do the laundry, check the mail, send an email, because that's not super interesting and it's not super relevant.
[9:24] So building a following and growing your audience comes from being relatable. And I think it's really fun if you can ask yourself, what are the things that I do that somebody might see and make fun of me for? Maybe that's something like I can only send emails on the hour or the half hour, right? I know people that do that. Like they just, their OCD will not let them send emails at an odd number of times.
[9:54] You can ask yourself, what is something that I just can't help myself from doing in my work? A lot of times for me, that might be like perfecting my Instagram grid aesthetic, right? I know it's not super relevant these days, but I just can't help myself. I like to make it pretty. That's something that I can share. And as a designer, that says something about me. It says something about my attention to detail and how much aesthetics matter to me and gives my ideal clients, a little bit of perspective on who I am. This is also where you can ask questions. I think a lot of people shy away from asking for feedback in their content because they're trying to appear authoritative and credible, and that's important. But I also think that it can be really valuable to ask for feedback from your audience, just getting their perspective. What are you working towards right now? Which of these words resonates with you most? I remember one of my clients and mentors, Melissa Rogers, had this whole series on like, what does the word ambitious mean to you? And are the connotations of that positive or negative? And it was really interesting and helpful for her to understand some of the nuances from her own audience, from her clients. Don't overthink it. The lowest level of content creation that will help you grow a following, that will help you build an audience is just showing up.
[11:20] So whatever you have to do to show up to create content consistently that's what's going to work for you.
[11:26] The next level on this ladder is more of your direct selling and marketing. And when I'm working with a client and they're figuring out kind of their framework or their structure for content, I will say, okay, what is the next thing that you're selling?
[11:42] And what I want you to do is whatever that thing is, I want you to brainstorm a list of 100 ways to talk about it. And even if all you do is you say, I'm gonna mention this offer, this service by name, on Monday and Thursday, right? Like set it in your calendar. I even know people who have a reminder in their phone. Hey, mention X by name. Remind people that this is what you're selling. But give yourself a big list of ideas for ways to talk about it, okay? And depending on what it is, there's going to be some differences. So you can talk about where it came from, where you got the idea. You can say why you think it's needed, what the problem is that it's solving, what the transformation is that this product is offering to you. You meaning your ideal clients, of course. But the idea is that you remind people what you're selling. And most people are not doing enough direct selling in their content marketing. We're sharing lots of ideas. We're sharing lots of pretty pictures. We're sharing lots of interesting perspectives, but we're not actually saying, buy this thing. And it makes a big difference in your sales to actually do that. So brainstorm your list of 100 things. Talk about what you're selling.
[12:56] Make it focused, okay? There's lots of different approaches to launch calendars and strategies and all this kind of thing. I think there's a lot of different things that can work for you and I would experiment with them, but I want to give you permission to not have this super structured, I must talk about this on this day and on this I'm going to talk about the problems and solutions and on this day I'm going to talk about the testimonials, right? Like allow it to be more intuitive than that.
[13:26] And the last tier that I'm going to talk about is going to help a lot with this, but allow yourself to talk about it a lot. And this is a skill that you need to develop over time. Talking about your offers needs to be as natural and as comfortable for you as talking about what you're doing every day.
[13:46] It doesn't need to be scary or overwhelming or intense. So direct selling is the goal. Now we're getting to the good stuff because we're going to talk about building a brand through your content.
[13:58] First thing, I want you to be able to answer this question quickly, but it might take you a minute if you're doing this for the first time. What do you want people to feel when they interact with you? I know this sounds really obvious, but I'm surprised how many times people are creating content that I'm like, this does not align with what you're really selling. I'm going to give you an example of this, and hopefully you'll be able to translate this to your own business. But let's say that you are a meditation teacher. You sell custom meditations. The feeling that you want people to get, the feeling that they are searching for when they buy a custom meditation, is probably peace, calm, serenity, quiet stillness, and.
[14:46] It's not super high energy. It's not loud. It's not crazy. It's not all over the place, right? It's not bold. It's not snarky. Like you get the picture, but I'm surprised at how many people are selling one thing, right? Cause you're not selling, you're not selling a product. You're selling a feeling, you're selling an experience, but the way that they are creating content is totally contrary to that. I'm not going to buy meditation from somebody whose Instagram is really busy or chaotic or stressful. So ask yourself, what do I want people to feel? And don't overthink it. For me, I want people to feel inspired. I want them to feel aesthetically minded. I want them to feel they want to create beauty. So to do that, my Instagram needs to be beautiful.
[15:39] It needs to be inspiring. It needs to be thoughtful. It doesn't need to be super fun and in your face. It also doesn't need to be like super catchy and marketing-y and profound. Like I can be a little bit slower. I can be a little bit more thoughtful.
[15:57] And that's what you need to do. And one way that you can think about this, and I hope this makes sense, I'm gonna give you a phrase and you're gonna fill it in with whatever you sell. I know this is gonna sound weird, but I'm going to give you some examples and it's going to help. Here's the template. You sell X by X-ing. Okay. I sell brands by branding. So in my Instagram content, I am branding things. I'm making things beautiful. I'm making things interesting. I'm calling out the details, right? It's a different form of branding, but it's the same intention. It's the same tone. if you sell podcasts you sell them by podcasting think about it what does that mean okay that means that you're going to use your voice to share ideas you're going to talk about the power of speech you're going to talk about how cool it is that anyone can publish their voice and share their ideas if you sell meditation you sell meditation by meditating i'm going to try this example one more time because this really did, when I understood this, it genuinely changed the way that I create content because I started trying to sell branding by marketing. I started selling branding by branding. So like when you look on my Instagram page, it's like participating in the branding process.
[17:24] So I have posts about changing your mindset around branding and affirmations that you can do for branding. I have posts that show what happens after you're done branding, right? The transformation that happens, the before and afters. I have posts about words and finding the right words for your brand.
[17:42] But it's all in the energy of branding. If you sell meditation, you're gonna sell that by meditating.
[17:49] You're going to create this calm, immersive experience through your content. So that's gonna look like affirmations for meditation. It's gonna look like meditate with me live every Tuesday. Okay, I don't know what it's going to be specifically for you, but it's going, everything that you create is going to be in the energy of meditating. If you are a podcast manager, you're going to sell podcast management by podcasting. So when people interact with your content, you should speak to them, right? They should hear your voice. You should talk about the advantages of podcasting. You should have lots of different guests or experts or all of these different kinds of things. If you sell sales strategy you're going to do that by being salesy and the more that you can lean into this the more that you can say like i'm a sales coach so i'm going to be salesy i'm a brand strategist so i'm going to be brandy the more you can do that the more successful you will be that was a really long roundabout way of talking about what you want people to feel when they interact with you
[18:59] but i think sometimes we're creating this juxtaposition that doesn't need to be there. And another thing that I will say is sometimes creating content that establishes this feeling or this experience isn't going to sell well. And that's okay.
[19:17] All you ever post is content that makes sales. At some point, you will bleed your audience dry. And I see this happen all the time. People get tired of being sold to without being inspired, empowered, excited. So I want you to grow your following. I want you to market your products. I want you to make sales. But I also want you to build a brand where people love following you because of the feeling that you give them. They want to stay connected to you and they want to buy from you over and over and over again. So establish what you want to be able to feel from you. Now, the next thing that I want you to do is identify the values or the ideas that you are offering through your business.
[20:06] And I know that this is kind of abstract and this is hard to do on your own, which is why I help my clients with this, honestly, because it's hard to figure it out. But if you're selling business coaching, for example, you're not just selling time with you or your strategies. The value that you're selling is I can help you develop the skills you need to have control over your sales, to have certainty in your business so that your business feels peaceful instead of stressful. Those values those ideas i want you to write those out i want them documented in some way i do this for my clients because it's so powerful to have these written and documented and i want you to use those as your content pillars.
[20:54] So instead of having, I'm going to talk about marketing strategies on Monday and I'm going to share a mood board on Tuesday and on Wednesday will be client testimonials. That's all well and good, but I want you to create content that is based around these values. I feel like the way that I approach content creation and content marketing is kind of unique because I am not so focused on, is this content helping me grow my following? Is this content helping me market my business? But I'm really looking at my content as, is this helping me grow my brand?
[21:31] And brand building, like we've said, is a long game where it's not something that you are ever going to be done with. It's something that is an ongoing, continual part of growing your business. And B, it's not something that happens really quickly. It has to happen over time. And I really think that one of the reasons my business is working so well is because I have been really consistent in my brand promises and also in my brand delivery. And without those two things, it's hard for you to really build a brand where people trust you, they believe you, they want to pay you. So when I'm talking about building a brand, I'm kind of talking about the combination of authority and relatability. So I like to ask the question, like, what do you want people to feel when they interact with you? And the reason that I do that is because there's lots of ways that you could create the same content, quote unquote, and have it feel completely different depending on the format, the structure, the tone, the aesthetics, all of that. The other thing that I think is really important in building a brand is that sometimes building a brand looks like intentionally not selling.
[22:48] And I mentioned this earlier, but like if you're always, always, always, always selling, I think you are going to burn out. Well, I don't think, I know, you are going to burn out your audience. People get tired of it and they don't connect with who you are anymore. They only see you as the means to an end. And my brand is honestly so much more than just delivering brands to my clients. My brand is really about inspiring you to create a more beautiful life and business overall, which is a huge goal, a huge vision. And that's part of what my content is doing. And that's why I share things that aren't salesy, that don't have anything to do with a specific product,
[23:33] but reinforce the value of my business. So once you've established and documented your values and the ideas that you are selling beyond just the product, I want you to create a signature series that communicates all of that.
[23:49] So a great example of this is the series that I do. I used to do every Sunday, I haven't been super consistent lately, called Discovered Beauty. And like I said, my goal is to increase our desire for expectation of understanding and value of beauty, both in our businesses and in our real lives. And so Discovered Beauty is just one of the ways that I share the things that I have found beautiful over the past few weeks. I'm very intentional not to sell in that series. It is only to show what's on my mind, to establish my authority, to give some insight into how I see the world. And I cannot tell you how many people have reached out to me and said, oh, I love that series that you do. I love seeing the things that you like. I love seeing the things that you're inspired by and understanding why.
[24:42] And you can do that same thing. So I had to do with my one-on-one clients is create what I call content anchors. And these are based on your brand values, but each anchor is a visual cue to you that you can share. So for my client, Popcorn Tree Books, her brand is all about bringing your faith into your everyday reading. And so I told her, okay, Wholesome Reading Vibes is one of your content anchors. And what that means is when she's at the library and she sees her two kids lying down, pouring over a book. Oh, that's just such a wholesome reading vibe. Snap, she takes a picture, she shares it. That means that when her kids are making their own bookstore so they can sell books, snap, she's going to take a picture. That's wholesome reading vibes. And it's this cue to you to start seeing the evidence of your brand in the things that you're doing.
[25:40] If you're in coaching or consulting or professional services, I would encourage you to find an anchor that's related to a specific client deliverable so you can share that every time you work on that deliverable. I like to give these things names like wholesome reading vibes. One of my clients has an anchor called Morning Routine Magic because she helps her clients establish a morning routine that is really nourishing to them as individuals. So every time she does that with a client, every time she does that for herself, snap, she takes a picture and she shares that.
[26:15] I hope this framework was helpful for you in understanding that your content can be so much more than just a right now sales machine, but actually a way that you can build your brand over a long, long time. And I hope it gives you some ideas for getting out of your head so you never feel stuck on what to post on Instagram ever again. I have a content creation spreadsheet that has worked really well for me over the last 18 months in creating content that aligns with my brand values, creates content anchors, and is easy for me to repurpose content so that I'm getting the most out of it. And it helps you see what your Instagram content will look like in your feed. So this spreadsheet is available for sale on my website and the link will be in the description or the show notes below. Talk to you guys soon.
[27:03] We hope you enjoyed listening to Aesthetically Speaking. If you want to support the podcast, please leave us a nice review or connect with us on Instagram at Rebecca Peterson Studio.
[27:12] Music.
