Read Time: 4 minutes

Is Content Strategy Overrated?

🙃Do you have days when you struggle to create amazing content?

I do, and I’m confident all solopreneurs face this challenge.

Writing well is tough.

You have days when the ideas flow and other days when it’s hard to put together 1 sharp sentence. I have those days!

Take a look at LinkedIn from Monday to Friday, and roughly 50%–60% of the posts discuss content and content strategy.

Clearly, your content and the strategy you build to support it matter.

The Question: Where do you start?

🗂Content

Gurus say your content must possess three parts.

• 🧲 Tantalizing Hook

• 💥 Powerful copy

• 📢Captivating CTA

What’s the smart way to level up your writing?

You can find a wide array of digital lead magnets on “How to Write 50 Great Hooks” and “How to Write a LinkedIn Post.”

👻You can hire a ghostwriter.

The ghostwriters assume full responsibility for writing your posts and making insightful comments.

🖥You can take an online writing class.

These courses give you a chance to flex your skills and get immediate feedback on your posts.

The BIG Question: Should You Be a Writer?

As solopreneurs, we want to learn everything and do it all.

Your decision to write your content is an important fork in the road for your solopreneur career.

If your writing lacks punch, personality, and impact, it might be more cost-efficient and effective to ask for assistance.

Be honest about your writing skills and ask a pro to review your last 10 posts.

It’s often smarter to focus on what you do well than to spend years refining a skill that you may not want to tackle.

🎯Content Strategy

While you can get help leveling up your content, the tougher part of the game is creating, implementing, and sticking with a content strategy.

Simply stated: Is your content…

• Elevating your brand?

• Covering the right topics?

• Speaking to the five phases of customer awareness?

• Demonstrating how your product and service provide a valuable customer transition?

⚠️Disclaimer: 

It’s no secret that one of my LinkedIn pet peeves is the deluge of selfies and posts that share every nuance of one’s vacation, breakfast, fashion choice, and pet adventures.

Now before you hit me up with all the counterarguments that selfies and personal photos are essential to your content strategy and ‘personal brand', let’s be clear.

Life is short.

 You should definitely travel, taste amazing food, and bond with animals. ✈️ 🍰 🐶

🎯However, your unique content strategy is paramount.

I encourage you to collect the data, do research, and prove that your specific blend of posts and selfies is driving sales for your business.

If you’re unsure, run a quick A/B test.

Write 30 days of posts with no photos and 30 days with photos. The difference in the quality of the engagement, comments, and DMs might surprise you.

🔑Takeaway:

Whether you opt to post only text or sprinkle in selfies and food photos, your content strategy is vital to your solo biz brand and success.

I encourage you to collaborate with a pro who can give you an unbiased view of your long-term content strategy.

🔥 Mina Mesbahi is a professional content strategist who caught my attention on LinkedIn six months ago.

Her captivating blend of text, carousels, and on-point messaging is a masterclass on how to develop a long-term content strategy that converts.

For the past three years, Mina has been operating her solo practice, Digital Chapter.

She is adamant that a ‘strategy-first’ approach is the primary ingredient for building a thriving brand and customer pipeline.

🔑Key Takeaways from Mina’s Interview

• 🎯The first step for solopreneurs who want to build an online brand is to develop a comprehensive content strategy across platforms

• 🙏Mindset is the key differentiator between solopreneurs who struggle and those who succeed

• ⚡️Direction, differentiation, and amplification are the pillars of Mina’s proprietary strategy

⏱5 Fast Questions for Mina Mesbahi

Erik: When you launched Digital Chapter, what did you see as a gap in the marketplace that you wanted to fix?

They had an event strategy, a content strategy, a social media strategy, an SEO strategy, and a blogging strategy.

When you have so many strategies, you don't have a strategy.

That's the bottom line. I wanted to solve that problem from a holistic view.

Erik: How does your firm present a process or a solution to meet that goal in a different way?

Mina: When I work with clients, I use a framework that I developed over the years. The first phase is about direction.

The second one is about differentiation, and the last one is about amplification.

You also need a point of view—a brand perspective that's very unique and rooted in the problem you solve but unique to you.

 
Erik: What was the best business advice you received?

Mina: That's a good one because I received a lot of good advice. Forget about what everybody else is saying in terms of success.

It's important to have recurring revenue, but that's still an employee mindset that you're earning a certain amount.

Erik: Can you think back on a time when you failed and it turned out to be a very good adventure to go through?

Mina: Every single week I am failing, and most of the time for the better. In the beginning, I had a Calendly link open to everyone so you could grab a time slot from my calendar.

I didn't have any qualifying questions.

I got on a lot of calls that were not right. I think that can be such a waste of time.

There are a lot of people on the internet who just want free advice. It has nothing to do with your offer.

Erik: If you were to sit in front of a hundred energetic people who are ready to start a business, what advice would you give them today to make sure it gets off on the right track?

Mina: It's more mindset work than anything else. I know, coming from somebody who works in strategy, that's kind of interesting, but it's true.

It's going to take a lot of mindset work, and your business will grow as much as you can personally grow.

Your mental blocks will be your business limitations. 

You can't outgrow yourself and what you have to deal with internally.

That’s a wrap.

🧠🚪Stay curious and keep opening doors!

-Erik