Coming up with content ideas – and then bringing them to life – is one of the trickiest and most time consuming parts of marketing for one person business owners.But what’s worse?

When all that time and effort translates into very little engagement.

I remember when I used to rack my brain trying to figure out what to post.

At the start, I tried sharing what I saw others sharing – convinced they must know something I didn’t. 

It wasn’t until I actually studied the type of content that I engaged with myself, that I started attracting above average engagement rates on my content, and grew an audience of 20k+ on Instagram.

Here’s what I realised:

The people with the most engagement and largest audiences don’t focus on sharing the ‘what’.

They aren’t only sharing information.

Or telling people what to do.

There’s no shortage of information available.

Just look at ChatGPT, where you can have the answer to almost anything in a second.

Sharing information isn’t the answer to building an engaged and loyal audience.

People don’t follow others because they want more information.

People follow others because they want to feel understood.

We want to feel less alone.

We want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves.

We want to be part of a group of others on a mission, part of a movement, going somewhere that aligns with our beliefs and our values.

Author Simon Sinek articulates this as:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

And:

“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”

Which leads us to the question: what do you believe? And where are you going?

What most one person businesses and solopreneurs get wrong is that they are invisible in their own content.

There is no sense of their voice, their personality, their opinions or their unique story.

And when this is missing: your content is easily replicable.

What makes your business unique and interesting is you.

Not the things that you sell.

What this doesn’t look like is needing to share your image through photos and videos (but this does help).

What this does require is bringing your own perspective into your content, which you have developed through your own unique experiences.

Here’s two strategies to do this.

The first is to:

1. Share unexpected versus obvious content

Obvious content looks like:

Get up at 5am to succeed

You need to watch what you eat if you want to lose weight

Meditation helps you relax and focus.

It’s not interesting, or original.

And it won’t help your ideal customers get a real sense of who you are, what you’re all about and how your business can truly help them.

So instead of sharing the obvious – get clear on what you disagree with or have a different approach to than the mainstream.

This might look like:

1. Sleeping in is my secret to success
2. Want to lose weight? Watching what you eat isn’t the answer
3. The quickest way to relax and focus? It’s not meditation.

Some of the things I’ve spoken about in the past – that I believe are:

• Instagram Reels won’t make or break your business
• Posting consistent content isn’t a marketing strategy
• A bigger business isn’t better, more impressive or more legitimate than a small business: it’s the same.

And once you have the attention, you can share your own learnings, lessons, challenges and solutions.

The second approach is to:

2. Share the journey you are on.

I’m building my one person business around my life.

Doing the work I love.

While having time for the other things that matter to me: health and fitness, relaxing, family and friends.

I don’t want to have a big team, an office, or a complex business.

For me, it’s about fulfilment, flexibility and financial reward – all on my terms.

That’s not appealing to everyone. 

But it is to the right people for my business.

And instead of sharing information, I share my own experiences from this journey.

Instead of telling people:

You should do this with your marketing

I show:

This is what I do with my marketing.

It’s a subtle but powerful shift.

This is the content that makes me unique.

That draws on my own experiences and learnings.

It creates a stronger connection with my audience.

And builds a community around what I do.

You can do this too.

Start with why you do what you do, talk about where you are going, and share the opinions, experiences, and stories that make you, you.

If you want my step by step strategies to implement this into your business, join my membership The Modern Marketing Collective at emilyosmond.com/collective.