Content auditing is one of my favorite things to do inside my programs. Maybe it’s the teacher in me or just because I love helping people.

Purpose of the Post

Moving beyond the fluffy content (happy Monday posts, insert whatever holiday, or how you become a VA post) is hard. When you search around, there isn’t clear information that isn’t gated about how to create content.

Every post should have a purpose, a buying stage, and a buyer type in mind. You aren’t covering the five stages of the buying process in one post. You can break them. (in fact, most of my clients have a post per stage and buyer type.)

Instead of working on the three pillars that most people teach (inspire, entertain, educate)

Rotate through the four buyer types and five stages of buying.

PS – there is a free google sheet inside of sales society to help you organize your thoughts.

Wording

the words you pick matter, but it’s hard to find a conversational and educational tone (without sounding like you are writing the best paper ever).

Remove filler

while there are filler words, it’s best to remove them, period. The thing I see with content beyond being fluffy is using filler words. (guilty as charged with this as well)

Filler words are:

• like
• um
• really
• that
• those

You get the point. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut of not knowing how to explain yourself.

Jargon

The way you talk to your ideal client is not the way you would speak to a paying customer, and most of the time, the problem is the jargon you are using.

Jargon is “special words or expressions used by a particular profession or group and is difficult for others to understand.”

Does that mean you must remove all your jargon from your marketing (content, blog posts, threads, emails)?

No – in fact, you can use this as a unique value proportion (what sets you apart from people doing the same thing). Take the time to explain the jargon to educate the consumer.

You can do this in long-form posts that live on a blog, in emails, or even on your social media content.

Brand tone

Don’t get stuck in the narrative of sounding like everyone else. Your brand tone should be similar to how you talk. If you are anything like me, you probably have an academic voice you learned.

Read through your content before posting it; take the time to read it out loud and see if you would say that.

You will slowly learn what your brand tone sounds like, what you want it to model, and how people relate to it.

Hook to Call to Action

You have three seconds to grab someone’s attention in the online space. Shorter than the time you took to read this, you have to hold someone.

Hooks are not just at the front of your caption but also included in your posts and even through your posts.

A good hook is going to hold them through the call to action and encourage them to take the action that you want them to take.

So, how do you start writing good hooks?

• Save it for last. The problem I see is that you don’t know the content or the call to action, meaning how do you hook them? It’s standard advice to write the hook first, but in reality, do it last.
• Engage curiosity and pleasure. There is a reason why you click into clickbait – you are curious by nature. When you think about a hook, it doesn’t have to be clickbait. Just think about what could pull them in.

Test it repeatedly – what are the opportunities to grab their attention and get them to take action? What is the end goal for them?

What’s in it for them?

People are selfish. Creating content means you are playing into how selfish they are. If you are taking their attention, they subconsciously ask, “What is in it for me? Why should I spend my time reading this?”

If they can’t find a GOOD reason, they will tune it out. As we talked about above, think about curiosity and pleasure. If you are constantly creating content for them that helps them, that is entertaining – that is where you will see the difference in engagement (even when Instagram throws us low engagement)

Visual Imagery

Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest have visual elements to it. While I’m using Instagram as an example here, something to consider is that we DO judge based on that three-second contact point.

Do you have to have the best graphics in the whole world? No

You don’t have to have a puzzle feed or the most aesthetic content ever. The point is that you are bringing people in by catching their attention.

Some of the mistakes I’m constantly seeing:

• Same Color on the same color to the point that there is not enough contrast that it doesn’t grab their attention or follow the visual ADA guidelines
• You are putting too little text or too much. At the same time, some of my posts tend to be text-heavy. You have ten slides on Instagram; use them all.
• Not using a focal point to draw their attention; attention matters when using visual marketing.

If you aren’t naturally good at graphics, you can use the templates from Cavna (the photo above is a template) and tweak them.

Body of Work

Start thinking about your Instagram as a body of work. Not every post will pop off, but that’s the point. You can use your content to lead them through a sales process and showcase your results and personal opinions.

When you remove the expectation to jam everything into one post, that same post has to go viral. You are giving yourself more space to go deeper.

The power of your bingeable Instagram is in going deep, not just wide.

Getting a second set of Eyes

Inside Sales Society, I offer free audits on Fridays once a month. This is your chance to get your content through the same review process I use in Scale to $5k, Mission Income, and Overflow.

If you haven’t joined yet, get in there