Last week I was giving a Masterclass on personal branding to a wonderful audience of small business owners, teaching them all how to lay the foundations and start creating a thriving personal brand. At the end I asked if anyone had any questions, there were a few great ones. One question that stood out to me was from a lady who owned a business selling fragranced items at craft fairs. Her question was:
“When I’m at craft fairs and I’m selling my items I have lots to talk about and post, but what can I post about in the middle, between the fairs, when I’m back home and not selling my products?”
I always get a bit nervous when it comes to question time, you never know what questions you’re going to get, but this question sparked something in my brain, and ideas started to flow out of my mouth.
Because we live in the middle parts of life and business, we’re there everyday, doing the seemingly mundane, we forget that to others who aren’t living our lives, the middle is actually quite an interesting space. It’s a space that allows us to share some snippets and behind the scenes moments of what goes into what we do. People are nosey, we love seeing what happens behind closed doors, so show them.
I asked the lady “What do you make? How do you make them? What goes into the products? What ingredients do you use? Are there any ingredients you use because they’re supporting other local businesses or for sustainability reasons? What packaging do you use? Why have you made certain packaging decisions? What common questions do you normally get about your products?” I paused after each question to let her brain fill with ideas.
You see, people might show up on the day and buy what you have to offer, it might look beautiful, or smell lovely, or be something they needed, so some last minute purchasing decisions will be made at the events. But some purchasing decisions you could start the ball rolling through your personal brands well before you even showcase your products/services at an event. If you’re a small business owner especially, you have full control over what you share through your personal brand and behind the scenes, you can share it all if you wanted to.
You could create videos in between events showing you making the products, or sat at your computer brainstorming new service ideas. You could share a post on a couple of key ingredients you use in your products and why you use them and where you source them. There could also be a chance here to shout about and tag another small business in your post, if the ingredients are from another small brand. They could then share your posts to their channels too if that fit in with their social media strategy. You could showcase the handmade element of what you make, people love supporting handmade creators, show the love and care you put into making your products.
To the lady who was selling fragranced items, I gave a unique idea that I’ve not seen done before…
How many times have you watched a perfume advert on the TV, a great Hollywood 30 second production, a really famous actor featured in it, but what does the bloody perfume smell like?! I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying a perfume because I think it’s going to come with a sexy Italian man attached to it (if only!), I’m buying a perfume because I like the smell.
The same will apply to the people watching her content, they will want to buy her fragranced products because of what they smell like. I asked her if she might be able to film short videos next time she was at an event selling her products, of people (who wouldn’t mind being filmed) smelling her products for the first time and sharing their initial thoughts on camera. She would capture real raw footage of people’s genuine emotions and facial expressions when they smell their favourite smells, the videos would show the expressions of memories coming back to them from certain smells, it would capture their joy and eyes opening when they smell something they really loved. She could then use these short videos to share when she wasn’t at events.
Whats your equivalent to this, what ideas could you come up with that would share the middle parts of what you do in a human way?
Spend some time now brainstorming ideas, get those creative juices flowing – Yes, you do have them!
Creating content for the middle need not be boring, or non existent because you have nothing to talk about, you have so much to talk about, you just need the ideas for it.
The great thing about content ideas is that there is inspiration everywhere, and the more you start creating and sharing online, the more ideas for content you have. Also use some of your scrolling time to capture inspiration from others. Never copy, but if you see something you like, save the idea somewhere and when it comes time to create your middle content pull out the ideas file and get creating.
Don’t go invisible in the middle, keep the consistency going and watch your sales/enquiries at events flourish!
If you do ever struggle with content ideas and keeping the consistency going with your personal brands, we’re always here for you at Quirq. If the idea of creating your own content fills you with dread, outsource. Keep your own time free to do what you do best, while we create your personal brand for you, which is what we do best.
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