[QUICKIE] Are you oversharing in your social media content?

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

:: 00:01

If you're a Beatles fan, perhaps you've been watching the get back documentary on the Disney channel. Even if you're not a Beatles fan, you've probably heard about it because there's 55 hours of footage of the Beatles, rehearsing and writing ahead of that infamous rooftop concert on the 30th of January, 1969. And it's been all over the press. Get back, has got everything.

:: 00:27

A great cycle. Opera has disagreements hidden and not so hidden quarters with sentiments about friends, partners, Yoko Ono is glued to John Lennon throughout, or certainly in the many hours I've watched. So why does this make more compelling viewing than say watching one of the Beatles films, because it takes you behind the things you get to see things you wouldn't otherwise get to see,

:: 00:52

which is what makes it so fascinating. I share this because I have so many conversations with business owners who worry about oversharing, who think that sharing experiences about their personal life on social media is irrelevant and that if they want a business, that's the only thing people will want to hear about. Actually the opposite is true. People like to do business with people.

:: 01:14

So if all you're doing is talking about your products and services all the time, they're quickly going to zone out, sharing personal experiences helps your audience to connect with you because that's where you can find common ground and people can say, oh yes, that happens to me too. Or I feel that too. Oh, I'm glad. It's not just me.

:: 01:34

It's all about personal connection, but how do you decide what's okay to share on social media and what isn't what's oversharing? Well, here's three questions I ask myself. If I'm thinking about sharing a personal experience, number one, is it relatable? And by relatable, I mean, emotionally relatable people often hold back from sharing personal experiences because they think no one will be interested in that new puppy or their walking holiday or whatever it might be unless they've had that exact experience,

:: 02:08

00:02:39

I can accompany myself as other people, hopefully in the future on the piano. And I shared how scary that was and how vulnerable it was. And I was actually ads that I had a place to study music at university and type bottles to help pack when I was 18, because I felt like I wasn't good enough. Lots of people responded to that post.

:: 02:59

Partly I think because music does connect with people emotionally, but also because even if they haven't had that exact experience of learning a musical instrument as an angle of learning the piano or singing and playing the piano, we have all had that experience of not feeling good enough of imposter syndrome of feeling embarrassed by us skills of wishing that we were better. I shared in that post,

:: 03:27

how I would practice really hard and be really pleased with what I'd done. And then I would watch my teacher play it, think, oh, I'll never be like that. Or I would hear someone saying, oh, I'll never be able to sing like that. What's the point. And I finished up by reminding my audience and myself that there is always a point that just showing up and being creative is in itself a good thing.

:: 03:49

And that message really resonated. The second question I asked myself is, is it helpful? So for example, I have shared on social media in the past, my experience of miscarriage of ectopic pregnancy of having a premature baby of being diagnosed with ADHD, all of those are quite personal experiences. And in particular with miscarriage, ectopic, pregnancy, premature birth,

:: 04:15

I've got this lovely picture that I share, which you might have seen if you follow me on social media for awhile of my daughter at just a few days old who weighs just a couple of pounds tucked inside my card again in the DNA tool intensive care. I have a lot of moms in my audience and I have a lot of mums who share my experiences of baby loss,

:: 04:36

premature birth, perhaps even ectopic pregnancy, or they, thankfully that is quite rare. And certainly the type I had was very rare. And even if they haven't had any of those experiences themselves, it is very likely. They have a sister, a friend, a mom, someone in their life who has experienced those things, the very strong emotions that they bring and the big impact that they can have on your life or someone else's life.

:: 05:03

So again, it's about sharing the emotional experience. Even if someone hasn't had that exact experience themselves, we all know what it's like to experience loss. Even if it isn't a baby, the loss of someone, we love someone, we cared about a lot. It's a very relatable experience. And by the way, if you have my courageous content planner,

:: 05:25

you can share these experiences in a timely way. So for example, I've shared the story of my daughter for world prematurity day. I've also shared it for breastfeeding week because, and this is probably a whole other episode entirely, but I feel very strongly that women should not feel pressured to breastfeed because I had my own personal nurse who sat with me in the neonatal intensive care for weeks on end,

:: 05:53

trying to help me and my daughter. And we just couldn't make it work. And it absolutely kills me to see women beating themselves up about it. I bonded beautifully with my daughter, despite her being in neonatal intensive care and not being able to feed her, I did express milk for her. So I feel really passionately about those subjects. And that's where we come to.

:: 06:15

Is it helpful if the experience that you're sharing can reassure someone, if it can help them feel less alone, then that can be really powerful. And of course it also helps you to connect with your audience. And the third question I ask myself is, is it comfortable? One of the best pieces of advice I've heard about this is share from the scar,

:: 06:37

not from the wound. So for example, if you're currently going through a divorce, it may be useful for you to share that experience later on at the moment while you're going through it, it may well be to roll. It may not be it's a personal decision, but it may be too raw. And it may be helpful to share that experience later down the line when it's more of a scar rather than a wound.

:: 07:03

And certainly I'd say that's the case with my daughter and her premature birth and her miscarriage. I don't think I would have felt very comfortable sharing any of that while I was going through it particularly, but my daughter is 16 now. And some of my losses are a long time ago. So emotionally I feel that I can share them comfortably because I'm sharing from the scar and not from the wound.

:: 07:27

And I want to leave you with one final thoughts on this. You get to choose when people talk about sharing personal experiences in their social media. I think they often mistakenly think that that means they have to share everything, but you have complete control here. There are certain topics, certain things I have experienced, I would never ever share on my social media,

:: 07:52

partly because I don't feel comfortable. And also partly because I feel I would hurt other people in doing so. And that doesn't feel good to me. So remember, you're in control. You get to choose, but being open and brave and courageous enough to share your personal experiences can be a great way to make that connection with your audience. To help you build a community on social media,

:: 08:16

rather than building an audience of people who are just listening to you, bagging on about your products or services, they don't want that. It's a really powerful thing and you are completely in control. So I hope you found that useful as ever. I do love hearing from you. If you liked this episode, then do connect with me on social media. I'm at Janet Murray UK.

:: 08:37

And if you have a few minutes today and you appreciate this podcast, please do leave me a review on apple podcasts. Every review helps get this content in front of people. You can use it to help with their business and their sales.