[00:02] that on the one hand if you are too corporate if you are too polished too professional too busy then people will not engage with your content online and that is because people are programmed to relate to to engage with other humans so
[00:17] when someone a person talks to us we naturally talk back to them and the same thing happens online where when you see someone's video and you perceive them as a a real human then it just comes naturally to comment in response to
[00:32] their content because you feel like they're talking to you so you talk back too unpolished then people will not respond to you either because essentially they perceive you as uncool and in this world
[00:46] where we live in where there is so much competition so much noise so many people so much content online our brains are desperately trying to figure out what to pay attention to cuz we've only got so much time in a day we only got so much
[01:01] energy we cannot pay attention to it all or to everyone and whether we like it or not one way that we do that subconsciously is through essentially social proof so this is why the cool get cooler the cool kids in high school
[01:17] people and they were cool and you standing over there in the corner with no friends had a really hard time getting even a few friends so their brains decide that you must not be in an
[01:30] interesting person and the same thing can happen online now the really good news about this is that I find that it is much easier to overcome this online than it was back in high school back in high school I was never the cool kid
[01:42] definitely made me feel like there was no chance in the world I would ever be successful with something like a YouTube channel or Instagram anything that demanded popularity but I was pleasantly surprised that that was not the case and
[01:56] that when I came online I could kind of create my own world and I could could decide to some extent how people would perceive me and there also just was so much more opportunity for people who were interested in me and what I was
[02:09] interested in to find me when you are in high school or some other situation like that even just locally in your own City there's a limited number of people who are going to have very much in common with you but you come online you access
[02:22] the whole world and you will find plenty of people who love you love your personality and are interested in the same things as you and it's a beautiful thing so most of what I'm sharing with you in this video comes from my personal
[02:34] experience with creating content on the internet from first starting my blog back in 2016 to Growing this YouTube channel to experimenting with different growth strategies on Instagram and even with building my podcast however I
[02:48] wanted to balance my personal experience with some research as well and for that I went to HubSpot a leader in the digital marketing industry their tools and education are both top- notot and if you would like to go deeper on this
[03:02] content online then I would highly recommend checking out their free lesson on social media engagement strategy this lesson is pulled straight out of their social media marketing certification program but you can get access to it
[03:16] completely for free in this lesson you'll learn hubspot's direct engagement strategy which is perfect for growing a small brand or for increasing the power of a Big Brand I especially liked their lesson about so Social customer service
[03:31] interesting take on how you can actually use customer service to generate more referrals and grow your brand even more quickly I'm going to put the link to that lesson in the description below so make sure you check it out while it's
[03:45] available for free okay so to get people to engage with your content you need to find the right balance between on the one hand seeming essentially cool enough put together enough that people see you as an interest interesting worthwhile
[04:01] this sort of thing because of course we are all worthwhile we are all worthy of love and attention but with so many options our brains just have to decide what to pay attention to so it's just it's just how things happen so on the
[04:15] one hand we've got to be put together enough that we seem worth paying attention to on the other hand we need to not be too put together too corporate you as a person they see you as more like an entity and they might watch part
[04:30] engage emotionally with it and they don't engage with it in the sense of like putting a comment on it or liking being somewhere in between those two extremes but it's also important to
[04:43] understand that it is not just a single axis it's not just like you could be axis it's not just like you could be extremely businessyoutube
[05:03] we want to be as cool as possible which we'll talk more in a few minutes about how to do that even if you don't feel cool at all but we want to be as cool as possible and then as long as you are quote cool you can be more casual you
[05:15] can be more busy and there's a lot more leeway there so don't worry too much about the Casual versus busy but what is super important is that you find the about this is if you've ever heard of the Kibby body typing it's a little bit
[05:32] like that now the basic idea behind Kibby body typing is that depending on your body type the shape of your body different clothes might look better or worse on you so for example if you've got a really curvy feminine type of
[05:47] figure then you will probably look best in things that are more soft and flowy but if you have a more kind of angular figure then you will probably look better in clothing that has similar sorts of angular lines like suits or
[06:01] ties or things that have straight lines and geometric shapes now I don't know how true that is for sure but here's what I do know when you are creating content online or just being a human with a personality you really want to
[06:14] lean into your own strengths and your natural personality and be a person that acts like that personality this is basically me being overly nerdy about the idea of being yourself but here are
[06:29] a few examples of how you might act like what your personality is like and even what you look like if you do not look healthy then people probably will not want to take health or medical advice from you if you don't look athletic then
[06:44] people probably won't want to take Sports advice from you if you do not look financially successful people probably will not want to take business advice from you does that make sense so you need to really think about whatever
[06:57] topic you want to cover in your content do you look the part and if not is there a different angle you could take on that topic that would make you look the part right setting would have little if nothing to do with how people engage
[07:10] with your content but it can make a world of a difference I don't know how tiny audiences who aren't getting any views on their videos who are talking about life advice or business advice or health advice but they don't look very
[07:26] polished so they aren't being perceived as knowing what they're talking about and so people do not consume their content they do not engage with their content you really need to look like you know what you're talking about and then
[07:40] once you've set everything up with a nice looking shot on your camera and a nice background and a nice looking outfit then you need to come across like a human you need to speak conversationally and just come across in
[07:55] a really natural way unless you've decided to take that extremely corporate business angle because that might be your best option so I think it is really important to first focus on finding your right Persona now beyond that some of
[08:09] the things that will have the biggest impact on whether or not people engage with your content is the opinions or the stances that you take so for example being more controversial tends to invite more engagement now I would not
[08:24] recommend being controversial for controversy sake but I find that most of us are controversial enough if we just say what we really think and I also what we really think because we should be telling the honest truth right and so
[08:40] if you just say what you really think you will find that a lot of people will love you for saying the truth and for saying something that they strongly saying and they will engage with your content and then you will also have a
[08:54] segment of people who will strongly disagree with what you are saying and those people will engage engage with your content too and truly both kinds of Engagement the positive and the negative are powerful and important and good and
[09:08] are powerful and important and good and they also lead to more engagement because you now have people engaging with each other in the comments of your content and that generates even more engagement so if finding your persona
[09:21] and looking polished and cool but not too corporate is sounding difficult to you to do I would start with this second thing and really just focus on telling the truth focus on saying what you really think and standing up
[09:34] for what you truly believe it'll feel really good and it will definitely create much more engagement on your content than if you just say what everyone else is saying or if you just try to copy what seems to be working for
[09:48] this video it seems to me like two things are true one you are creating content online and two you are not getting very much engagement on it so that can lead to a problem you might be wondering what kind of content should I
[10:02] create because I'm not getting any feedback from my audience because I don't have an audience or what kind of products should I create for my business CU I'm not getting any feedback I don't know what people want from me now of
[10:15] course you can just create whatever you want to create and that is fantastic but sometimes you want a little bit of feedback you want to know if you are on the right path if what you're creating is resonating with people if they are
[10:29] finding it interesting and if you are heading towards finding people online who will be consuming your content and maybe becoming customers for your business so if that's the case check out this video right here to learn how to
[10:41] listen to your audience even when you don't have an audience at all