This is why focusing on getting more knowledge is actually hurting you! In today’s video,
you’re going to learn how to finally stop hoarding information and actually
start making real progress on social media.
Ready? Let’s do this! Hi my lovely people,
it’s Natalia and welcome back to my channel where I help you create better content and
grow on social media! Now, listen, we've all been there - you read an interesting article,
watch an inspiring video, take an incredible course and you’re left feeling like you've
learned so much. But then, something happens. You don't actually put that knowledge into action,
moving on to the next best thing because there’s always something more that you need to learn,
right? But the hard truth is, you end up hoarding knowledge and ultimately,
wasting your time. I want to show you why focusing on learning more is not always the
right tactic and share three tactics on what you should do instead to make real progress.
Hoarding knowledge I’m sure a lot of you can relate to it… I mean,
that’s been my reality for many many years before I understood why focusing on learning more was
stunting my growth. Before I explain my point of view, I want to emphasize that LEARNING new things
is crucial and expanding your knowledge as much as you can is how you’re going to get ahead in
life and business. There’s so much value in it and I truly believe education never ever ends.
But education for the sake of education is not always the best approach because if you never
actually put that knowledge into practice, what was the point of learning it in the first place?
I think the biggest issue with hoarding knowledge is that it gives us the illusion of productivity.
Let me paint a picture for you. Sarah has just set up her small business and wants to learn how to
make her website and blog rank better with Google. So she buys a course on SEO, sits down to learn,
takes meticulous notes… basically, spends a few hours focusing on that one topic. When she’s done,
she discovers she needs to learn more about image optimization and find her way around Google
Analytics. Naturally, she’s going to want to look for further resources on these topics. She dives
deep into those, spending more time preparing to get her website better. Do you see the pattern
here? Preparing, not actually doing the work. On the surface, it all feels productive. After
all, it’s crucial knowledge that can benefit her business. But without taking the first steps right
after learning the basics, she’s not really working towards those crucial goals within her
business. For Sarah, it actually created a vicious cycle, making her feel like she never knows enough
or like there’s always more to learn before she can actually START working on her website.
This is why there needs to be a balance between learning and applying knowledge. Both are crucial,
especially when you’re a beginner at something, but taking action is the only way to turn these
learnings into tangible results. For each minute you spend learning, you should spend five applying
it in real life. This is how you test those strategies and see if they work for your
specific circumstances. Besides, as you practice, you’ll gain more experience to maneuver different
aspects of your social media and business and ultimately, get more confident. And I think this
is such a vital point. When we hoard knowledge, it's often because we're afraid of taking action
and failing. But the truth is, failure is such a natural part of the learning process. By avoiding
taking action, you're actually holding yourself back from learning and growing.
Now, how do we actually break this cycle and create a balance in our professional lives to
produce tangible results while learning? Well, here are three simple tactics that
helped me gain momentum with content: start with what you know, start with pain points,
and start with what you’re drawn to. Let’s look at the first one.
2. Start with what you know One of the best ways to start
creating content is to begin with what you already know. We all have something valuable to offer,
it’s just a matter of identifying what those things are and, and that’s key here, if there’s
enough demand for them so that you can monetize. Think of all the things you’re really good at
or enjoy doing, things that you seem to constantly talk about both with friends or
with strangers. Maybe you had to overcome some challenges in your personal life or at work,
maybe you have professional experience within a specific field or some skills that you’ve
acquired that have been helpful to others before. We all have a story to tell and that story can
be turned into a creative endeavor provided that it can actually be helpful to people.
As an example, you can have loads of experience with dog training, have a great personal style
and be super passionate about fitness after a big personal transformation as someone who deals with,
say, PCOS. Each of these topics could become the basis of your Instagram account or a
YouTube channel if you see something that people are actively looking for and you’re
someone who can provide solutions for them. All of these would of course be based on
your existing experience with the subject! With the dog training example, you may be
drawn to start a YouTube channel and share things like how to introduce a whistle while training,
what not to ever feed your dog or your best tips on getting a new puppy. From here you
can pivot into selling e-books or courses. Your great personal style could lead you to start an
Instagram account showing your favorite outfit formulas and sharing some of the top styling tips
like how to style a particular piece of clothing, how to match different colors and textures or how
to stay chic and comfortable while working from home. You could monetize by landing brand deals
or offering a styling service. If sharing your fitness journey, you could have a TikTok where
you talk about your specific case as someone who had a specific set of problems when starting
out. With the example of fitness with PCOS, you could share a story about how you got diagnosed,
show some beginner exercises that helped you start or record “what i eat in a day” videos
with meals that have worked for you on your fitness journey. Notice how non of these are
medical advice but simply sharing your experiences that people can relate to and be inspired to take
some action after seeing your content. Here, an example of monetization could be affiliate
marketing with products you believe in, again, brand deals or something like paid challenges.
My tip would be to create a specific enough niche that serves a distinct, non-generic audience.
After all, who do you think is going to attract a more engaged audience - a general fitness account
or a fitness account for women struggling with PCOS. The more specifically they can relate to
what you share, the better your outcomes will be. When you’re a newcomer, you’re actively pursuing
a degree, taking a course, educating yourself in any professional capacity,
don’t let that stop you from documenting your journey and sharing what you learn along the way.
Your experiences are valid because there’s always something you can teach someone else who may be at
an earlier stage of the journey than you are. When you lead with content you’re already an
expert on, you provide value instantly without having to spend hours on research. That being
said, you can absolutely supplement your content with some external sources and
facts you’ve aggregated to add that extra layer of credibility to your work. This
is always a huge benefit because you’re creating trust within your audience.
Besides, if you first focus on sharing your expertise, creating content becomes
easier and more fun. So don’t shy away from drawing from your own experiences
and talking about what you already know. Now, as always, to give you some actionable ideas,
try first making a list of your potential monetizable skills and carry out small market
research to see if people are actively looking for information you can provide. My favorite places
are a simple Google and Pinterest search, looking through related subreddits and checking prompts on
Answerthepublic.com. Once you choose your niche, list of all the related subjects you could talk
about in your content. You can watch this video on content pillars which can help you do this.
And for some general post ideas, you can start with sharing:
- your journey to where you are now - the biggest mistake you made
- 3 myths about your niche - something you once believed but you have
since outgrew as a professional in your field And may I just say, by actively creating all
this content, you’re getting better at it every step of the way. This is the kind of learning
that no book, course or class can do for you. OK, we’ve got the monetizable skills covered,
let’s look at the second tactic which is to 3. Start with your potential
audience's pain points It’s not a secret that the most
successful businesses solve specific problems. And whether you’re a creator, an influencer, or
an actual business owner, approaching your online presence this way is a sure bet to attract your
ideal audience. A great place to start when you’re trying to figure out your messaging is to find out
what needs you can fill for your community. This means identifying the challenges they are
facing and then creating content that addresses those issues and offers solutions or helpful
advice. By starting with your audience's pain points, what you post becomes relevant, useful,
and really valuable to your audience. Not only does it help you build trust and engagement
which are both important currencies in the marketing world, but it can also make
your content more discoverable because you’re offering answers that people are
actively searching for to solve their problems. Again, with the actionable tips, begin by making a
list of all the problems your potential audience may be facing. I love to start with something
that we’ve already talked about which is your own knowledge and experience. Has there been anything
that you’ve really struggled with on your journey? Were there problems that you couldn’t find
solutions for yourself? Really think about this in-depth because that’s usually a great foundation
to get you going. If you’ve kept any tangible track of your journey, you can even look into
your browser history for your previous searches or check your journal to see what comes up. Then, you
can carry out a small research to really figure out what questions your ideal audience has and
what solutions they’re looking for. Just like I’ve already mentioned, Google, Pinterest, Reddit and
AnswerthePublic are fantastic resources to help you there. You’ll be able to find very specific
search phrases that relate to the most common pain points. I also love to check similar people in my
niche, both small and big, to see what questions are being asked in their comments. And honestly,
comments can be such a gold mine of fantastic insights. Plus, it’s a clear indication to you
that there are real people out there struggling with specific issues, which either confirms what
you’ve got on the list already or adds to it. One of my favorite ways to find out what these
pain points are is to actually talk to your potential audience. It can be a
friend you’ve helped in the past, a previous client or if you never had a client before,
try joining online communities like Facebook Groups or attend events related to your niche.
You never know how much insight you can get by connecting to other people like this. Of course,
it should all be done respectfully and with genuine curiosity about the person rather than
just using them for research unexpectedly. Hopefully what you’ll end up with is a big map
of different challenges, problems and difficulties you can touch on
within your content to deliver solutions that your ideal audience already needs.
And this is a great example of learning through practice, where you combine getting the work done
and discovering new things along the way. Alright, let’s move on to the
third tactic which is to 4. Start with what you’re drawn to.
When you create content about topics that you are genuinely interested in and passionate about,
it makes the process of producing content so much more rewarding and fun. Building an audience
through social media is a marathon and requires a lot of attention. It’s something you’ll be working
on consistently for a long time, which means you need to want to truly commit to it. If you choose
something that you’re not that into, it can cause a lot of friction for you in the long run because
chances are, you’ll burn out and lose momentum. From my own experience, it’s so much easier to
stay motivated and committed to your content creation efforts when you’re doing something
that you truly care about. Starting with something you’re really drawn to can also make your content
so much more authentic and engaging for your audience because you will be bringing your
own unique perspective and voice to the table. This of course is the key to building a brand that
people care about. After all, you, your energy, your experiences, and your messaging are what’s
going to attract your perfectly matched tribe. In the emerging world of AI that we’re literally
plunged into in 2023 already, building that strong and relatable brand is going to make
you stand out in a very crowded space. Whether it’s that trust, those relationships you build
with your audience, the unique perspectives that you’re sharing, this is what conveys
the authenticity that no AI can replicate. Here, I only have one actionable step. Ask
yourself what are some things that make you forget the world. I’m sure you’ve experienced
it many times before when you sit down, you start reading or watching or doing something related to
that one thing, only to look up a moment later and find out it’s actually been hours. Is there
something that’s so easy and fun to you that made you enter those flow states before? Think
about it and try to find out what that is. All that being said, remember what I’ve said
in the previous two points. You need to make sure that your passions here actually align
with the interests and needs of your potential audience. While it's important to create content
that is authentic and meaningful to you, it's also important to share posts that
are highly relevant and highly valuable to your audience. This is where you need
to find a balance between what you're drawn to and what your audience wants, to bring
it together with something that’s both filled with purpose and has the potential to succeed.
If you’re multi-passionate like me, you might feel limited by choosing just one subject or just one
niche. After all, we’re human beings, we’re complex and very often we cannot be defined
by that one specific topic, especially when you’re just starting out. Although sticking
to one general subject matter helps you find this distinctive audience and therefore grow quicker,
experimenting is still going to be your best friend in the early stages.
This is how you learn and figure out that balance that I’ve just mentioned. When I first started
here on YouTube, I knew I wanted to educate about content marketing but it’s such a broad
subject that I couldn’t just decide on one limited section of it. So I’ve shared what I knew about,
what I was most drawn to and what I knew would be helpful to my then-potential audience. I shared
YouTube tips on how to optimize your channel and videos, I talked about building a marketing
strategy, I published detailed tech tutorials on Canva, Asana and other very useful tools for
content creators, and shared my favorite Instagram tips that in my experience worked best. That’s
definitely not what I would call niching down but it helped me discover what subjects perform best
for me and my audience. Again, this is learning through practice. Ultimately, by combining these
three tactics, I was able to grow fairly quickly and I’m sure it’s going to help you do that too.
Now I’d love to know what you are working towards in 2023… Tell me down in the
comments what makes you excited about this year and if you’re making any resolutions!
Watch this video next because it’s going to help you figure out your audience in more
detail and create a strong plan to help you succeed and finally start that thing.
And of course, Happy New Year, it’s the first video I’m sharing in 2023
and I want to thank you for being here and wish you loads of joy and courage
to pursue your deepest dreams! Can’t wait to see you… next time!