Best of YAP 2024 || Saturday, 28 December

Author

Stanley Henry
December 28, 2024

Welcome to Day 13 of the Best of YAP 2024!

Our team’s taking a little holiday break, but don’t worry—we aren’t going anywhere.

Because over this holiday period, you’ll be treated to one of our fave articles in your inbox each day.

So whether you’re sitting by the fire with a warm cup of cocoa (lookin’ at you, Northern hemi folks), or hitting the beach (for those of us having a summer Christmas), you can catch up on some reading and remind yourself of what a wild year 2024 was.

Catch ya in 2025!

- Charlotte, Editor ♡

I’m going to let you in on a little secret...

Your personal brand is the key to your 2025 business goals.

You want to work with people you know, like, and trust. So do your clients.

How do you become someone potential clients know, like, and trust?

You create content, and lots of it.

And how do you create lots of content?

Well, we can help you with that bit.

This month only, my copy team is running a year-end special on our ghostwriting services.

Every month, we get our ghostwriting clients 550,000 impressions and 15,000 engagements on LinkedIn (that’s organic reach!!).

Let us write your posts for you so you can get that kind of exposure for your business, too.

Sign up before 30 December and get 45% off ghostwriting for the whole year.

- Charlotte ♡ 

Why ‘Value-Driven’ Content Doesn’t Work

Everyone creates content from 1 of 3 perspectives: ‘The Reporter,’ ‘The Expert,’ or ‘The Fool.’ To truly connect with your audience, your content should be based on your personal experiences and growth rather than from a place of expertise.

You aren’t as smart as you think.

There's a saying, 'The more you know, the more you know you don’t know,' often attributed to Albert Einstein and Aristotle.

This sentiment is also known as the Paradox of Knowledge, which is the humbling realisation that there will always be more to discover and understand.

True experts know this inherently. However, they go on to tell the world in their content how smart they are, trying to assert their authority in their field.

But, in actual fact, they know deep down that what they know now is different from what they knew yesterday. And it will be different again tomorrow. Because knowledge isn’t absolute and finite.

So their content ends up in this Valley of Death, sometimes for months or even years.

Until, finally, they realise that sharing their 'expertise' isn’t working for them. And they give up.

But what if I told you there was another way? Two, in fact.

Most of us take the same path in our content journey. We start with what I call The Reporter, before transitioning into The Expert (this is the Valley of Death). And then, hopefully, we finally realise the truth that we actually know nothing, and become The Fool instead.

Let me break these all down for you. As I do, ask yourself which of these phases describe where you are right now. Then, hopefully, your path forward will be clear.

The Reporter

When people first start posting content for their personal brand, they typically show up as The Reporter.

Usually, this looks like sharing stories about things they have learnt from others or things they have done.

Think about when you see people sharing pics from their holidays. In a professional sense, they might share pics from a networking event they went to and what they took away from it.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this sort of content, but the people best at this style share truly valuable insights from their experiences. They are reporting what they have learnt or experienced. Then, their audience can share in the experience or learning with them.

This is also how almost all podcasts start.

Someone will start inviting people onto their podcast and ask them a bunch of questions to either uncover their story or have them share their specialised knowledge with the world. It’s simple, takes little prep, and can quite often make valuable content.

-Stanley, Founder & CEO

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