We’re born content producers. The more prolific among us are literally volcanoes of content.
In this digital age of connection and resonance, it pays to understand ourselves as content producers.
We’ve all got valuable, individualistic treasure to work with.
I’m a proponent of using this kind of material in online spaces, in moderation, whether or not it’s related directly to our professional ventures. Ultimately, this content is who we are as people.
None of us are big corporations run by anonymous workers, and when we act like we are — using a logo as an avatar and generating one impersonal posting after another, for instance — we make it hard for others to get to know us. And when people don’t get to know us, whether we are solopreneurs or employees of medium-sized businesses, we lose the opportunity to build community with them.
Instead, we’re all people with pasts, and hobbies, and quirks, and dreams. Each one of us knows a lot — more than anyone else, I bet! — about certain, very specific things. We have our own authority. That’s the kind of personal view I’m asking you to consider sharing in your digital networks in your professional capacity.
When we share unique content in our online social networks, we become distinct and knowable.
For one thing, it’s much easier to be consistently distinct when you use your own material. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to stand out. You’re already different. No one has your exact combination of aesthetics. No one else has your photo collection. No one else has a dog that sits on the top of the refrigerator and watches you cook dinner.
If you start to see yourself as a personal content wrangler, you’ll realize all the content you have, and multiple ways you can use your content today.
We’ve already talked about using your content to help distinguish your individuality. In an upcoming post I’ll talk more about how you can also lay out both personal and professional content as paving stones on a path to where you want to go as a business. Those same stepping stones can show the way to people interested to join you on that journey. If you use your content online with this kind of intention, it can contribute to the discoverability of you. And you want to be found online.
Now, where is this content hiding in your life? If this is a new idea for you, it really can feel like it’s hidden. What do I mean when I say content?
Consider everything you’ve produced or created or gathered, collected, curated or edited. That’s your cumulative output. It can take just about any form.
Here are some things it might look like:
- blog posts and blog comments
- tweets and Facebook status updates related to your topics, any conversations you’ve had on social media sites (As social marketing strategist Ted Rubin said recently, “Most don’t realize conversation is the ultimate content!”)
- video you’ve shot or appeared in
- photographs you’ve shot or appeared in
- artwork
- audio, podcasts, speeches you’ve written or given
- profiles, talks, interviews, panels you’ve been on
- stories
- journaling, ideas, notes, thoughts, dreams
- sketches, designs, recipes and to-do lists
- articles, books, newsletters
- a portfolio of your work, scrapbooks of your interests
- slideshows
- events/gatherings you organized or were featured in
- song lyrics, poetry, catchphrases you’re known for
Now go find some of this.
Start pulling it all together. Stack it up some place accessible you can go through it at your leisure and begin to use it here online in small increments. You have time. This social networking adventure is stretching out in front of you. We’re just getting started and on a weekly basis here at Curatti I’m going to be talking about what you can do with your content to build global community.I bet you have shelves full of paper, boxes and binders, clippings, photos, slides, sketches and notes. How about memorabilia and scrapbook materials? What about in the hall closet, and all that stuff in the basement? Floppy disks, eek. Hard drives, external drives, CDs, cassette tapes, video tapes. There’s a reason most of us haven’t gotten rid of it. It’s got value. You’re going to start tapping that.
photo by Anastasia Ashman (personal background, schooling, jobs, travels, revelations)
Anastasia Ashman
Latest posts by Anastasia Ashman (see all)
- Use Social Context To Connect - February 7, 2014
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