Sharing What You Know: Turning Experience into Content
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Have you noticed that social media doesn’t seem to work the way it used to? Posts that once sparked engagement now disappear into the void, and overly generic content isn’t getting much traction.
Wanting to better understand what does work today, I attended a webinar presented by Chelsea Lockwood, Social Strategist, and Ryan Bast, Senior Product Marketing Manager, both from LinkedIn.
My main takeaway from the session was to share useful insights that reflect your own experiences and thoughts instead of offering generic advice. The more specific you are, the easier it is to form meaningful connections. These insights may come from many places, including:
- mistakes you’ve made and lessons you’ve learned
- how you’ve responded to unexpected events
- approaches you rely on
- patterns you notice in your work
- ideas you’re currently exploring
- why you made certain decisions
- shifts you’ve made over time
As someone who’s been blogging and participating in online communities for years, this resonated with me. The posts I remember most, and the ones people tend to respond to, are usually rooted in real experiences rather than broad advice.
Here’s a great example from a recent post by Virtual Home Organizer Pam Holland:
“As a recovering perfectionist, I can say with confidence that perfectionism doesn’t usually make things better. It makes things later.”
Your posts will be most engaging when they are authentically you, so don’t worry about waiting until you have all the answers. Content grounded in actual experience tends to be more memorable and reveals more of your personality more clearly than generic advice ever could. Sharing what you’re learning can often be more engaging than sounding certain about everything.
I’ve noticed this with my own posts. In the past, I’d have avoided sharing anything remotely personal, focusing instead on business tips or links to blog posts, whether my own or others. Over the last few months, I’ve stepped outside my comfort zone and started sharing my own photos and thoughts. After enjoying others’ posts of that nature and noticing the level of engagement they received, I decided to try it myself, and it really works!
This is equally important when you comment on others’ posts. Try not to sound overly polished or too broad in scope. Instead, share your point of view and explain why it matters.
It’s essential to focus on what your audience wants to hear about. Are you familiar with the acronym WII-FM? It stands for “What’s in it for me?” and is what people are most interested in when deciding whether something is worth their attention.
This requires a good understanding of your target audience as well as what you’re uniquely qualified to talk about.
Want to connect with others who are sharing ideas, building businesses, and creating content?
POPS Circle is a great place to continue the conversation!
Although this was a LinkedIn event, many of the ideas apply just as well to other social platforms, and even to blogging. Whether you’re writing a post, sharing an update, or commenting on someone else’s content, your own experiences and perspective are often what make people pay attention.
If you’re interested in learning more, watch the recording of Turning Your Expertise into Content.
I love that list of idea-starters. Gonna save that for future blog post ideas.
I do weave in personal tidbits here and there. I want to be my authentic self, and I also want to avoid sounding preachy.
They key is always having your reader in mind, and then writing what you want to write about. Not every post will resonate, but consistent posting will develop a type of relationship with your readers that might turn into future business!
You’ve hit the nail on the head – it’s about forming a relationship with your readers. So often we don’t even know someone is out there until we have a conversation and they tell us they’ve been reading our blog for years!
So many great ideas, Janet! And thanks for quoting me. 🙂 I don’t even remember saying that, but… When you take it out of context, it makes me sound very wise.
That’s because you are very wise, Pam!
I do find that unique posts are more impactful than broad ones. They need to inspire me to take action, do something new, etc. All of them help me see possibilities to make me feel better about the future and my life. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Yes! Because if we’re not inspired to do something, it’s just more noise, isn’t it? Thank you for taking the time to comment.
What a generous list of jumping off points for our blog ideas. I also try to avoid making myself the center of the post, but often my experiences (like when my car got stolen) or my perspective on client experiences is exactly the right way to frame a story to personalize it and give the reader and entry point for learning more.
Keeping the reader’s WII-FM in the back of our minds is probably our best guarantee that we’ll be able to provide relevant, resonant content. I think taking your bullet points to heart will lead to more enticing content. Thank you for writing this post, Janet!
I know that you’ve included other personal experiences in your blog, and so have many others, but the theft of your car actually came to mind while I was writing this. I’m glad you found this helpful!