Increasing the Impact of your Content - Moving beyond vanity metrics to intention and impact

There's an overwhelming amount of content online. If you want to stand out and leave an impact, your content needs to be different and meaningful.

All content is not created equal – and neither is the impact that you can achieve with high-quality content.

Much has been said about AI-written content and how it alleviates the pain of spending long hours producing content. Hours that could be spent working on your business.

The fact is, that AI cannot access the knowledge in your head as long as you do not input it into your prompt. It can also not connect all the diverse pieces of information that are stored in your brain, nor is it sentient and can add authentic feelings and emotions.

And lastly, AI-written content is based on other people’s content and has a very generic feel to it.

If you use AI in your content creation process, then you must put a heavy emphasis on your review and editing process to lift it to a certain level of originality (but not the level of originality that you can achieve when you are writing without AI).

If you are writing for search engines, then AI is a useful tool that helps you optimising your content for search engines.

But what if you are writing for people and want to have an impact on your audience’s minds, their thinking, and their actions?

My fellow LinkedIn content snob and creator JD Gershbein wrote in the description for one of our audio events:

“The most impactful content is tied to the creator's purpose. When the intention is clear, the message follows, and the impression strengthens. Creating content with conviction will build confidence and increase the likelihood of influencing a positive outcome.”

And that brings us back to the most important factor of impactful content creation: The human mind and the purpose behind content creation.

The human mind doesn’t only crave novelty, it also craves connection, creative expression, and contribution.

The act of content creation needs to be purposeful to be enjoyable and impactful. When you tie your content to your purpose, then you don’t only make it strategic, but also increase its impact.

Mindset matters!

The purposeful mind creates content that moves things

Your purpose guides your goals, mission, and your strategy. It provides you with the context that you need to see content creation as something of value and importance.

When you create content that aids you with meeting your purpose and achieving your goals, then content creation becomes much more than a task. It becomes part of your being and it is deeply anchored in your mindset.

When the content that you create matters to you, you pay more attention, you want to understand the change and transformation it triggers, why certain pieces went well, while others didn’t. You pay attention to meaningful engagement and the lessons that you learn to write better content that serves your audience better.

Content is best written with a growth mindset because that helps you to stay connected with your personal growth and your journey towards mastery.

It also allows you to understand the impact that you want to leave on a deeper level. Do you want to shift something into action? Trigger thoughts? Help others develop knowledge, skills, and insights?

It is essential to look at your impact from different angles – not just reach and followers but more from an angle of shifting and developing people. That’s why it’s important that you tie your content to your purpose.

Purpose creates meaning and quality content transfers knowledge that empowers.

Content technicalities…

Purpose alone does not let you create high-quality content.

True, it fires up your messages and makes you add value but it doesn’t elevate your writing skills.

That is something that you must do the old way through learning and practice.

Learning more about the technical aspects of writing is essential. How you do it, is up to you. But it is useful to know how to write a good headline, hooks, calls to action…

It is useful to know how to structure your content for different effects, how to write with clarity, how to be persuasive, and most of all – how to capture emotions.

Storytelling is one of the most powerful marketing tools that you can use. Learn how to incorporate storytelling into your content, and you will be able to connect with your audience on an emotional level.

You’ll be able to trigger emotions, create belonging through a shared narrative, and even synchronise your brains. In other words – you can draw your audience into your story so that they “live” in your story and experience real emotions that intensify the impact of the message that you want to convey.

Quality matters – a lot!

Deep impact is only achieved with high quality. Sharing knowledge, emotions, research, data, thoughts, and insights that educate, entertain, or empower your audience allows you to increase the impact of your content.

Quality is not only about writing techniques, structure, correct syntax, and spelling – it is also about the quality of the information that you impart. Your research and the knowledge that you are sharing need to be solid and proven. It needs to withstand scrutiny and fact-checking.

Above that, you should be using language that is jargon-free and at a level that your audience is familiar with. Use your audience’s words and phrases but don’t dumb it down. Use vocabulary that they understand and that demonstrates a level of sophistication that they feel comfortable with or that stretches them a little so that they feel a sense of accomplishment.

And lastly – you want to leave your audience changed after consuming your content. They need to learn something, have new insights, have sparks of inspiration, find new ideas, discover new facts, and be emotionally stirred by your content.

Create community

Make your content sharable. When your audience feels that they have just read something inspiring or insightful, something that has an impact on their thinking, abilities, skills, or even their life – then they are much more likely to share your content.

Creating content that is relevant to your audience’s desires, interests, struggles, and aspirations (and those of their peers) then they want to share your content.

Shared content creates a sense of community because people have a common topic to talk about. Even if they have nothing else in common, they have something to talk about!

Make it easy for your audience to engage with your content – so that they either can leave comments or carry your content away in their minds and then want to discuss it with others or even use it as a spark of inspiration for their own content and in their conversations.

Pattern interrupt and controversy are wonderful ways of shaking people up and provoking them to share their opinions and even take sides for or against your content. And that can lead to memorable conversations.

I don’t mean for you to alienate your readership but to provoke them a little and stir things up to add a bit of spice.

Develop your own style and voice

Have you ever told yourself that you’d like to write like any of your favourite classical writers or contemporary content creators?

Well – you don’t! Because you can create your own style and voice that stands out and bears the stamp of your very own personality and brand.

That, however, requires courage and consistency. Think about what you want to be known for, what side you want to take on certain subjects, what topics you want to write about, and what words to use to be recognised.

Get serious on your branding and dive deep into your stories, voice, purpose, vision, values, and all the precepts that make your brand unapologetically yours.

Own your brand and confidently share your voice in as many ways and places as possible. Yes, your voice and style will develop and that’s wonderful, the more you use it the stronger it gets!

Use LinkedIn (or any other platform) to its fullest

You won’t create enough impact only through posting consistently. There are a few actions that you need to take to show up with impact.

Engage with other creators’ posts – make meaningful comments that encourage conversations.
Use all available creator’s tools – audio, lives, carousels, newsletters, polls, video… LinkedIn (and other platforms reward the usage of their creators’ tools).
Understand the algorithm, and while useful, stay true to yourself and let your content speak for you. The algorithm aids your visibility but never creates it.
Build relationships – don’t collect connections – engage with your network and add value so that they support you too
Collaborate with competitors and complementors. No one is an island and collaborating with competitors and complementors lets you tap into their networks
Create a knowledge hub around your area of specialty. That means devising a content strategy so that you stay on brand and on topic at all times and make sure that your content is relevant to the right people.

None of these insights are revolutionary or amazing in any sense. However, the combination and the consistency with which you apply them will lead to you increasing the impact of your content on LinkedIn.

If you need clarity about the messages and stories you can share to increase your impact, then drop me a message and we can discuss how I can help you with it!

Clarity comes from deep insights, and these are not always easy to achieve. Contributing an outside perspective and walking through a framework that distills chaos into clarity, is something I love doing. Drop me a line when you’re ready to act.

Categories: content marketing, Content tips, content writing, social media