I produce a lot of content for my business. Sometimes it's super exhausting, but for the most part, I really enjoy it.
You may be thinking that's easy for me to say since I happen to want to be a writer someday (like, a published one), so of course, content should be easy for me. But getting to a place where (most of the time) content creation is a happy experience, didn't happen overnight. I had to work at it. I had to find my content happy place.
Writing Laura's Letters, (my fortnightly newsletter) is my content creation happy place. Letters also happens to be the place I get the best feedback on my content. That’s not a flex… it just is what it is.
Those two things aren’t connected in an ego-driven way, either! Letters is fun to write, and it still would be even if no one read it or ever gave me feedback on it.
If I'm honest, I haven't always felt that way about Letters; for a long time taking photos for Instagram was that happy place and Letters was just another thing I had to do. So how did I get to a place where Letters was my happy place? The same way that taking photos was once my happy place.
I do it for me, and I do it with love.
And that's a content no-no. You’ve probably been told content should be about your target audience, and not you, right?
Here's the thing: obviously, my content is for you. But by doing it for me first, and doing it with love, it’s not a chore. It’s something I enjoy doing, and so (hopefully) it’s something you enjoy consuming! As soon as you make something a chore, the happy place disappears. If it’s not fun anymore, it’s just an energy drain.
Finding that happy place, for me, has always been about revisiting what I personally enjoy about the content I consume.
On Instagram, I love beautiful and creative photos with chatty story-like captions.
In my inbox, I like reading unique content that feels like it was written for me, not for a list of people that may or may not be me. I also like newsletters that aren’t all selling or aren’t just a list of things I have to add to my to-do list.
And in that vein, perhaps you may find it easier to think about what content you don’t like to consume.
From figuring out what you do and don’t like about other people’s content, you can kind of reverse engineer what you want your own to be.
I wanted Letters to be unique, and pleasant for my readers to open. In short, I wanted it to be like getting a letter from a friend.
So I write it like it's a letter to my friend.
Read More: What it Actually means to "Add Value" in Content Creation >
And because I want to carry that feeling throughout my digital presence, I often write blog posts and captions as if they’re going to be for Letters, even if they aren’t. I trick my brain into it, basically.
So I guess that’s a brand voice hack - write everything as if it’s for the platform you enjoy the most, even when it isn’t!
And very often, old issues of Laura's Letters become blog posts and captions later on. Spoiler alert: this is one of them. That’s just good content recycling after all! And, it helps me to carry the tone I want to convey throughout my whole presence.
So for me, Letters comes first! And that's why it's my content happy place.
Where’s your content happy place?
Until next time, be kind to yourself and create something remarkable!
Laura x
