Latest / The Brand Bitch™ Podcast / Ep. 04 | Your Content Isn’t the Problem: Why More Content Won’t Fix an Unclear Brand
Transcript
- Cat Fisfis: If you've been telling yourself that you need to get better at content because your business isn't growing the way you want it to, I want to challenge you today. Because maybe your content isn't actually the problem. Maybe you don't need better hooks. Maybe you don't need another real strategy. Maybe you don't actually need new content pillars. Maybe you don't need to post five days a week instead of three. Maybe people are actually seeing you. They just don't know what to do with what they're seeing. And that is a completely different problem. Because you can create good content and still have a brand that people don't quite understand. You can have beautiful graphics, great reels, smart captions, good engagement, even a decent size audience, and still not be building recognition. So today I want to talk to you about what might actually be happening underneath your content. Because I think we've gotten really good at treating content problems when I think they might actually be brand problems. Welcome back to the Brand Bitch podcast. I'm your host, Catherine Fisfus, brand strategist, creative director, and creator of The Brand Bitch. And I have a deep, deep conversation for you today. Welcome back to the Brand Bitch Podcast. I'm your host, Catherine Fistfis, brand strategist, creative director, as well as creator of the Brand Bitch. And I have been deep in this conversation that we're gonna have today lately. Obviously, content is a part of what I do every single day. For those of you who are listening who are business owners, I'm sure it's part of what you're doing. If it's not, that's another issue. I create content for my own brands. I help clients with content. I look at brands all day long, constantly paying attention to what people are saying, what they're selling, what they're positioning themselves as, and how they're showing up. And there's a pattern that I keep seeing. When business slows down or isn't growing as quickly as we want it to, we immediately start messing with our content. Hey, I mean, I do the same thing. Something isn't hitting. And suddenly we're like, do I need a different hook? Okay, my reel is too long, I need to make it shorter. Maybe I should be posting more. Is Instagram dead? Should I move over to TikTok or the newest thing? Maybe I need more educational content. Should I be doing carousels? Should I start a freaking substack? What is a substack? Seriously, what are we doing? Content becomes the first thing that we blame. And I think it's Because content is usually the easiest thing to blame. Because it's what we can see. Alright, I want to talk about the content hamster wheel. Think about it. What happens when sales slow down? We post more, engagement goes down, we change the content. Our audience isn't growing? Uh-oh, we look for a new strategy. Launch doesn't quite convert the way we hoped. Well, clearly, I didn't market it enough. And yeah, sometimes you do need to change things up with your content. Sometimes you are not showing up enough. And sometimes. The hook is just shit. However, here's the thing that actually matters. Not gonna tell you that content doesn't matter because it does. Absolutely. But we have created this belief that if we could just crack the content code, everything else in our business would magically start working. Guys, that is where I highly disagree. Content is a delivery system. And What does it deliver? Your ideas, your positioning, your beliefs, your offers, your brand. So what if it was actually what's underneath the content that's being delivered? That isn't clear. Creating more content just distributes the confusion faster. I need you to hear that, please. Because you can post every single day. You can get more views, grow your audience, increase your visibility. But if someone lands on your page and consumes five pieces of content, still can't tell you what the hell you do, what you believe, why you're different, why they should listen to you, or really why they should choose you, you don't have a content problem. We need to look at the brand underneath it. Okay, content can't decide who you are for you. This is why I talk about identity so damn much. Because your content should be an expression of an identity that already exists. It should not be the place where you're trying to figure out who you are every morning. And I think that's where so many founders get exhausted by content. They sit down and go, hmm, what should I post today? They do this every single day. Blank page, blank caption, blank notes app. my gosh, what the heck am I gonna talk about? But when you know who you are, when you know what you believe, when you know the conversation you want to own, content gets easier. Then you throw it into a system, whoo! It's a no-brainer. You're no longer inventing your brand every single time you post. You're expressing it. You're reinforcing it. You're giving people another piece of evidence for something you have already decided. And this is one of the biggest shifts that I made in my own business. I stopped asking myself, what content should I make? And started thinking more about what am I trying to become known for? Because those are two very, very different questions. One creates content, the other actually builds a body of work. I don't want a bunch of random posts. I want a body of work. I want you to hear something that I've said and know that it's mine. I want certain ideas to become associated with my name. Identity leads everything. Recognition over visibility. Stop branding for her. Start branding for you. Authority over attention. Repetition over variety. These are not random captions that I wrote one time that you scrolled through. These are ideas that I am intentionally building my brand around. Which means you're gonna hear me say them again and again and again. And then when I'm sick of saying it, you're gonna hear it even more. I'm not trying to entertain you with a brand new philosophy every Tuesday. I'm trying to become recognizable for something. So if your content isn't the problem, what is? There's a few things I would look at before deciding you need a new content strategy. First is your positioning. Can people actually tell what you do? I don't just mean, yeah, she's a business coach. Or she's a graphic designer. Yeah, she's a copywriter. Okay, cool. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of those things I've just mentioned. Why you? What is the lens? What's the perspective? What problem do you see differently? What conversation are you leading that makes somebody think, ooh, that's exactly what I've been trying to say? How did she figure that out? And if it isn't that clear, content has to work 10 times harder. The second thing I look at is your message. Are you repeating anything long enough for people to remember it? Or are you changing the conversation every three days because you're afraid people are bored? This is what I see all the time. And I get it. We consume our own content more than anybody else. We are sick of hearing it ourselves. However, your audience may go through and go, wait, what? She talks about this? They've seen it twice. You've seen it a hundred times. Those are not the same experience. You are allowed to repeat yourself. Actually, if you want to become known for something, you have to repeat yourself. Because recognition requires repetition. And the third thing I'd look at is whether you're borrowing too much. I don't mean you can't use trends. I don't mean you can't learn from people. Obviously you can. But if your content strategy is entirely built around what's performing right now, what hook is everyone using? What's the new trending audio for this reel? At some point you have to ask yourself, where do I fit in in all of this? Because you can follow every best practice on the planet and accidentally optimize all of the individuality out of your brand. Your content might perform, sure. You might go viral. but does it have anything to actually do with you? Would someone know it was yours without seeing your name? It's a different standard. And the fourth thing, this is probably the biggest one, so pay attention. Are you creating for engagement or creating for association? Because we have been trained, it's been ingrained in our brains to ask, will people like this? Will they save it? Will they share it? Will it get comments? Will it go viral? Guys, these are not bad questions, but I want you to add one more. What will this teach people to associate me with? That is branding. my gosh. Every single piece of content is teaching your audience something about you. What you care about, what you believe, what you're good at, who you help, how you think, what you value, what kind of room you're creating, what kind of experience they can expect from you. Your brand is teaching people how to see whether you're intentional about it or not. So what are you teaching them? Time to ask a better question. Here's what I want you to do the next time you're staring at a content calendar thinking, my god, I don't have no idea what to post. Do not go search for 50 content prompts. Do not immediately ask ChatGPT for 30 real ideas. Do not go scroll somebody else's Instagram looking for inspiration. First, ask yourself, what do I want people to know me for? And then sit with that. What do you want someone to immediately associate with your name? What belief do you want woven through your body of work? What problem do you want people to think of you for? What do you want someone to say about your brand when you are not in the room? If someone consumed 10 pieces of your content, what would they understand about you by the end of it? Not just what would they learn, what would they understand about you? Because once you know that, content becomes a hell of a lot easier. You're not waking up every morning trying to invent something. You're reinforcing something. You're building evidence. You're creating associations. And those associations become recognition. This conversation is actually a huge part of why I've been so deep in recognition lately. Because today, if you were listening to this episode when it drops, I am teaching a free live training called Recognizable. Subtitle is Why More Visibility Isn't Growing Your Business. And what actually makes people remember, trust, and buy from your brand. Because I think a lot of founders Are trying to solve a recognition problem with a visibility strategy. They're trying to get more people to see them without stopping to ask what the people who already see them are actually perceiving. And in recognizable, we are gonna go deeper into the four stages that I've been working with: visibility, perception, recognition, and demand. Because there is a difference between being seen and being remembered. There is a difference between being remembered and being chosen. I want you to understand where that breakdown might actually be happening in your own brand. You'll also get my recognition scoreboard when you register so you can actually look at your own business and see where you are in those stages. Which one is there? Not gonna turn this into an entire episode. For a commercial for it, promise. But if the conversation is hitting you and you're thinking, okay, maybe I don't actually need to make more content, maybe I need to understand what all of this content is actually communicating, come to the training. The link is in the show notes. And I want to leave you with this today. The next time you catch yourself sitting in front of Canva thinking you need better content, stop. Maybe you don't need another hook. Maybe you don't need another content pillar. Maybe you don't need to post more. Maybe you need to get clearer about what all of this content is supposed to be making people think, feel, and remember about you. Because your content isn't your brand. Your content is evidence of your brand. The stronger the identity underneath of it becomes, the less pressure every individual piece of content has to perform. You're not trying to win the internet every single day. You're building something people can recognize over time. And that is a completely different way to show up. You don't need to become louder. You need to become clearer. You don't need to become somebody else. You need to become more recognizable as you. I will see you next week. And if this episode hit home, send it to a business owner who is currently convinced she needs to burn her entire content strategy to the ground. No, please. Then send her my way. If you haven't already, follow the Brand Bitch podcast. Leave a rating, a review, come hang out with me over on Instagram. I love to make new friends. Because businesses don't become unforgettable because of better marketing. They become unforgettable because their founders become recognizable. world does not need another entrepreneur trying to fit in. It needs one brave enough to become unforgettable. I will see you next week.