5 REASONS YOUR CONTENT LACKS AUTHENTICITY
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Having your own blog means you have complete control over what you get to click publish on. You have the freedom to be 100% yourself, 100% of the time! But, sometimes we get so caught up in the “what-ifs” and start second guessing ourselves, that we hold back who we really are. Here are 5 reasons your content lacks authenticity.
1. You’re nervous to be yourself
The internet is awesome because so many people have access to your content. But, that can also be a little terrifying since not all people are uplifting and kind hearted. If you’re nervous to let your personality shine through in your content because you want to appeal to everyone, remember that no matter what, you aren’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. That’s okay. You know why? Those people aren’t your target audience!
2. You’re writing for your 8th grade English teacher
You can blame all your English teachers for this one. We were taught from such a young age that we need proper grammar, have paragraphs formatted a certain way and don’t you dare mix up your commas and semicolons. But in reality, we don’t talk to people in an essay style format!
A trick to finding your voice is to record yourself speaking your next blog post. After you’re done, play it back and write everything down exactly how you said it. You’ll see such a big difference in how your personality is finally being represented in your tips for content on instagram.
3. You don’t have a clear why
I can attest to this one because I struggled with it for so long. When I first started blogging I wrote whatever I thought people wanted to hear. My content was pretty much all over the place and I was trying to keep up with trends. Needless to say, I didn’t see any growth in my email list or engagement on my posts.
I was re-reading some of my old content one day and realized my posts sounded robotic and my personality wasn’t being display in any of my content. Write down a clear why for your business and structure all your content around it.
4. You’re trying to keep up with your competitors
I can’t emphasize how much this is keeping you from being your true self. We spend so much time focusing on what other people in our industry are doing – what social media platforms they’re using, how long their blog posts are, what kind of opt-ins they’re creating – that we forget the real people we should be trying to keep up with – our audience.
Always remember that you aren’t creating content for your competitors, you’re creating it for your audience. When you constantly try to keep up with other people in your industry, you slowly start to become more and more like them. And hey, I bet they are amazing people! But they aren’t you.
5. You don’t have a clear set of core values
Without realizing it, you have a set of values that you live your life by. You may have never taken the time to write them down and outline them, but you have them. One of the best things for my content and my business was to write down my core values and find ways to infuse them into my content creation. Now, when I’m thinking of blog post topics, I ask myself if they aligned with my core values.
