268: Are you sick of creating content or are you sick of everyone telling you what to do?

So… are you really tired of content creation… or just exhausted by everyone telling you how you should be doing it? 

In this episode, I’m unpacking a truth bomb about what’s actually going on when we hit content burnout — and what to do instead.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GET YOUR AUDIO GUIDE AND LEARN CONTENT STRATEGY⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ Are you sick of creating content…or just overwhelmed by the noise? Let’s unpack what’s really going on

✨ Why assumptions kill momentum and how market research brings you back to truth

✨ How to find your “Venn diagram” zone: the place where your audience hangs out and you love to be

✨ Creating from joy vs. pressure and how this shift fuels better results and more fun

✨ What happens when you align with your strengths? I share behind-the-scenes of clients who found flow

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

 This is episode 268, and I'm gonna ask you the question, are you sick of creating content or are you sick of everyone telling you what to do? Welcome to the Content Queen Podcast. I'm your host Mariah, entrepreneur storyteller, digital nomad, creative content bootcamp, founder of Content Queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content, and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you.

Each week, I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business and content creations. I'll also be joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey, along with actual steps to help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling, powerful line marketing and content strategy.

Let's do it. Hello, gang. If you see the videos on  socials, you'll see where I'm filming and it is. Absolutely beautiful. We are on Morton Island for my 31st birthday because if you know me, I do birthdays extra and we don't, we don't celebrate another year in halves. I have always been a massive birthday celebrator, but since I had all my health journey cancer diagnosis, all of those health scares that make you, I guess  rethink how you see life.

Um.  I've, I've gone hard. We'll go home with the birthday. So we are treating it and I'm getting a massage on my birthday. I'm recording this the Friday before and you will receive this on the Tuesday after. So anyway, I'm sure I had an amazing birthday future me, but I wanna talk about  this question.  Are you sick of creating content or are you sick of everyone telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing?

So  I have been.  Doing market research. I'm very big on market research. Been doing a lot of market research actually for clients and things like that, but I did some last year. I actually picture this, right. I.  We were in Tazzie in the car and we were meant to get to our caravan park to set up the tent and everything, and I was sure I would be able to do the recording in the camp kitchen.

So we're driving in Hobart to get to the caravan park and I took a wrong turn, so  I was so annoyed and that meant that I got there five to 10 minutes late and it meant that I had to do the market research call in the car, which was fine. Except it was just hot, so I was sweating. Even though it wasn't a super hot day, it was just, obviously the sun beaming on the car and the car is black, like I was sweating.

Anyway,  this person was sharing how they're so paralyzed to create content because  I. There is just this echo chamber of so much noise on social media, so much information, so much feedback that she felt like there was no point in her posting because no matter what she would do, she would be doing it wrong or someone would be in her ear like she just was paralyzed.

And I know of so many people who are in this position because they feel like they have to be doing this or doing that, or when they feel like they're in a groove,  something derails them. I wonder if you resonate with this  because it happens so often. We are filled with information on social media filled with it.

So I wanna talk about this and I wanna share  some light at the end of the tunnel to help you work out.  What you can post, what you should be posting, because when you work out what is gonna work best for you and your business, then you can just enjoy the process and learn and grow with your marketing.

No one's gonna give you the silver bullet.  No one's gonna tell you exactly what's gonna work for you. They're gonna share what's worked for them,  but it doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. Actually, there's an interesting story here. Mitch was sharing. I've shared this before, but a couple years ago, there was an influencer that grew her social media account to 10,000 followers.

She thought, oh, I can tell people how to do this. So she sold a course. How to get 10,000 followers in a certain amount of time. This marketing happens a lot. It's while signaling,  et cetera. Anyway, she sold this course to a heap of Colombians that thought, oh, well, I'll get rich on social media because I'll build my followers to 10,000 plus.

Which side note. Followers does not equal sales  all the time. And they did what she said and it didn't work. So they came out with her pitchforks and uh, they sued her and  she got sued. So  it happens, right? These people are gonna tell you what has worked for them, but it doesn't mean it's gonna work for you.

So how can we do this? The first one is listen to your audience and talk to 'em. It seems simple, but we're not doing it. I know we're not doing it. Because every time I talk about market research, people cringe. I, I can see it in their eyes. I don't wanna do it, and they'll find any excuse not to do it. I've also been there, oh, I don't need to talk to my audience.

I know them.  But assumption and conversation can be very separate from each other. Right? I'm gonna share two examples. The first one, I'm working with a company, their ICP or their. ICA or target audience, whatever you wanna call them, they're HR leaders,  and I thought, okay, HR leader call LinkedIn, obviously.

Where are they scrolling after hours? Because I'm seeing HR content on TikTok. I'm sure it's on Instagram. Is there a space where HR leaders after hours don't wanna be on LinkedIn? So they're scrolling somewhere else and if they're scrolling somewhere else, maybe they don't want really like HR E content.

Maybe they want something that's a little bit more entertaining, a little bit more lighthearted. So I proposed this to the client, they're like, yeah, makes total sense. And I said, well, why don't I jump on some calls with some of your like clients and let's find out. Now I'm three re three interviews in, and I can tell you my assumption was wrong.

We could have spent time going with my assumption, and it could have not worked. I mean, it might've still, but what I've learned is they do scroll LinkedIn after hours  and they do want to learn things in a different way, but they just want it straight. They want solutions.  And I wouldn't have  known all that information had I not spoken to them.

So what I thought versus what was reality were two different things. Now, there were some things I was right on. It wasn't that I was completely wrong. But I would've gone down that path and it would've wasted our time. So after my fourth interview next week, I'm gonna be able to collate this information and create more of a content strategy that is gonna work for this business.

Right.  Another example, and at the Bobo Shier workshop in New G, a beautiful part of the world, and we are going back and forth. It's very collaborative. And one of the business owners is going to start a truffle farm. Now, I think they listen to my podcast, say hello. I will be speaking to you soon.  But basically they were saying, oh, well some people might not want this type of content.

You know, it's boring. Everyone else does it. And actually someone in the audience who is aligned to their target audience in some way said, actually, I would really like to learn that.  I would really wanna know about that. So just because, oh, everyone's doing it. Doesn't mean we can't do it with our own spin.

It's just about finding that unique edge. So there was two assumptions made  and two conversations that actually didn't quite align with that assumption. So just because you. Review your Google reviews and see what people have said that you've helped them with. Just because you have current clients and they have current problems, it doesn't mean we can't have those conversations as well.

To back up and ask them, like I said, to these HR leaders, this is an assumption that I've made. What do you think? And they're like,  one actually said, I don't resonate with this. I don't like, it doesn't resonate with me.  Amazing.  Because. It doesn't mean every, you have to be right about everything, right?

Like I know I'm definitely not right about everything.  It's about going cool. That's wrong. Great. We are closer to knowing what's right.  The second one is also listen to yourself.  And this is really important because there is gonna be a lot of noise out there. There's gonna be a lot of experts that say, you have to be on TikTok, you have to be on YouTube, you have to be here.

You have to be there.  Do you want to be there?  Now, this is an energy thing, right? So there's a combination between, of course, where is my audience at? But then there's where do I wanna be? And you have to find, I guess that Venn diagram that connects them together  because that's the secret source.  For example, Tara Reed was on the podcast in the start of, I'm gonna say 2022, but I could be wrong.

I'll put the link in the show notes. Could have even been 2023.  And she talked about her lack of social media presence.  She didn't want to be on social media. She did for a beginning of time, and she did build up an audience that then helped her with her podcast, her me mailing list and her blog. But she enjoyed those channels.

She was introverted. Her audience is also introverted, so she knows that her audience probably doesn't wanna be on social media all the time. They wanna find their corners of the internet where they can find their thing.  So she actually went off social media completely and her business did quite fine  because she didn't enjoy it.

Another example, it's not so much also like the channel, it's the creation of content, right? So one of our clients came to us, they, um, have a local fish and chip store on Bribe Island. That's where we're gonna go and, uh, do some filming with them this week. Next week, this week if you're listening. And  they sort of knew that they didn't wanna do it.

And that's why I'm asking you like, are you sick of creating content or are you sick of people telling you what to do?  I'm not questioning this. I'm generally asking. I'm not going, oh, well you're not sick of it. You're just sick of people telling you to, no, you might just be not wanna do it. Right? And this is a thing, you've gotta listen to yourself.

And so they decided, yeah, we need to outsource this because this is just not something we wanna do. We don't have time for it. But also they trusted the process. They trusted that if I find an expert I'm gonna trust. Of course you wanna have your say. They give feedback, they share things that they wanna do versus what they don't wanna do, but they also trust the process and  going back and looking at their growth in their business.

They have called it the Mariah Effect 'cause there's been times of year that they're busy, which they're not usually Valentine's Day being one of them. And we did some content around there.  They have seen an uptake in new customers, which was the goal of us being on social media. So they decided,  we're sick of doing this, or we don't want to.

'cause they hadn't done it for a while before we started, so we outsource it. So it's about listening to yourself. I'm not saying you have to outsource your social media,  but if you are not enjoying it, can you be in places where you are enjoying it  and outsource a bit or.  Do you just go down a path where you outsource it all or do you go down a path where you're just not on it like this is up to you?

I'm saying listen to yourself. There are gonna be people that are gonna tell you a million things that are gonna distract you. It really is about understanding  you and what you wanna do,  and this is where  strategy is important  because.  You go, okay, looking at the information of my target audience, doing the market research, understanding them,  pairing that with the channels that I like to be on and that I enjoy, and we have a quiz on that.

Put the link in the show notes and then creating a strategy that's gonna work for you. Then when you hear people telling you what you should and shouldn't do, your strategy becomes your source of truth. That helps you stay on track for when that noise does come up.  You do go, oh, maybe I should go there.

Maybe I should do that. We go, well, hang on.  I've done the work on this. I know you might go, actually, maybe I will try it. And then three months down the track you go, oh, shouldn't have done that. It's a learning experience. Don't be hard on yourself for that. It's part of the process.  And the third one is,  if you're sick of creating content.

Create for enjoyment, not results, and then learn. So we had Maria on the podcast last week and she talked about her own experience, how she just started creating stuff that she really enjoyed creating  and that she found useful.  And it was  doing this to be of service rather than of a financial gain.  So if you've got that financial gain in mind, there will be probably an energetic block for you creating, 'cause you're putting all this pressure on yourself to get results if you start creating based on enjoyment, based on your own thoughts, based on the thoughts of your audience.

So this could be an intrusive thought that you have. This could be something that you've been talking about with your clients to be useful. Not to be like, oh, well I've gotta sell this product, I've gotta launch this, I've gotta do that. So social media is the only place I can do it all through. My content is the only place that I can make money.

'cause for some reason we're under this impression that content marketing, social media is the only way we can promote our business. Forgetting that there's so many other ways to make money in business. And actually to be fair, there's some businesses that don't do content  and don't need it. Like  my mom works for a company that.

They would never need social media. They need networks and they need connections.  It's a different business model. So  yes, of course, in this entrepreneurial space, in this small business ownership space from service to product, social media does play a big role.  But if we look at any influencer that has started a business.

I'm not saying you have to be an influencer or anything, but if we look at the way they've created business, they've done it off the back of building trust for time before they have sold anything.  Now  we are business owners, so we still have to sell something, but if we start going back to that trust and starting to build a bit more trust and be useful and be valuable and connect with our audience, the financial gains come as a byproduct.

I think we just forget that brand awareness, the top of the funnel. If you're not doing any of that top of funnel, you're drying up your leads and you're creating a space that is just promotional and we're tuning out.  So create for enjoyment,  create to be useful, to be valuable.  See how you go see the results.

I know they work because I've told lots of people to do this and I get lots of messages on this saying, oh, I did that and it worked. I go, I know.  I know this stuff works.  And actually, to be fair, the clients that we get the biggest results  are purely  for content that is to be useful or to spark enjoyment in people, uh, rather than being promotional.

And  actually the ones that have the least amount of stress of making money from social media have the biggest results.  Where they know that their business model has multiple different elements to it  and, and social media or content is just one pocket of that.  It's an important one, but it's just part of it.

So if we go back  and I look at clients that have played to their strengths and kept within what was gonna work for their business,  they've never really.  Gone on that tangent of feeling overwhelmed with all the things that they need to do, and they've actually never gotten sick of it. So they've built a level of consistency that has seen massive impacts.

One client, we started working together in 2020.  She outsourced the content. She focused on her Instagram stories and networking,  and she created a very profitable coaching business and. Subsequent to that has created different businesses that has seen growth in multiple income streams or impact even not just income, like the impact that she's been able to have.

And that was because, and I'm not, I'm not even saying it's 'cause she outsourced it, it's because she knew where she had to be and where she didn't have to be.  She made those decisions. So she's never gotten sick of creating content. 'cause when you get sick of creating it, you go off the channel or you stop doing it, and then that exponential growth declines.

'cause that's just what happens when you stop doing something. When you stop going to the gym,  you lose your progress.  It's just how it happens. Of course, we can have breaks, but they're intentional. They're not just ghosted. Never to be seen again. Another client, we found their jam on TikTok. They never thought they would find their jam on TikTok.

So we started to see the results and then with the results becomes a momentum to be on that channel. Because if you're not getting the results, 'cause you're creating content that someone else is telling you what to create and you're not enjoying it, you are not listening to your audience, so they don't even know what you're doing,  then it's hard to build that momentum.

But when you build that momentum, you're gonna get more results. And then if you do have content that doesn't quite  do what it's meant to do, cool. 'cause you've got other stuff that has, and we've found just such an awesome  space for them to just be them. And it's so fun because it doesn't have to be, oh, the trendy content, the trending audio is the this, the that.

It's whip out a camera, talk about your expertise and people are listening.  They're doing it in a way that's authentic to them,  and then they're having conversations with their audience and working out what is next,

right?

They  have built this off the back of also  having a strategy, trusting the strategy, drowning out the noise, and focusing on where they want to be.  So I ask you are, are you sick of creating content and you need to do something about it, or are you letting other people decide what's gonna work for your business?

It's called intuition for a reason,  but we gotta pair that with  talking with our audience, learning, listening.  The amazing Leticia Andre, who is a client of mine and is a mentor, wrote a book on this.  The balance of strategy and intuition, or business and intuition.  Give it a read or put it in the show notes.

It'll change your life,  but that's it. So listen to your audience, talk to them,  listen to yourself,  and start creating content for enjoyment to be useful  rather than to feel you've gotta sell something all the time.  But at the end of the day, the underlying. Brick or concrete slab of your house  is a strategy, and if you don't have one, we have an audio guide going through how to create your own.

We've got bootcamp, which I'm gonna run a live round in May, so April is gonna be a strategy month and I'm just gonna do solo episodes and we're gonna dive into strategy. I'm going to increase the price for the live round because I'm putting a lot more of my IP into it. I'm completely refilming it. I'm adding AI into it, like using ai.

I'm putting a lot of work into redoing it. I did 2.0 in 2023. I'm doing 3.0, but. We're just gonna call it content Bootcamp in 2025 with a lot more detail, a lot more debt. So it does need to reflect my knowledge. Uh, so if you do have been on the fence join, I would join now before the price increase. It's not a massive one, but um, it's still very affordable.

Um, so come and join us.  Be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and your story, if you think about these, these two different energy types of strategic and sort of that more fun, playful enjoyment, I.  It will develop your business. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. You can do this by adding it to your Instagram stories and tagging us at Content Queen Mariah, or just tell 'em about it. If you do rate and review on whatever platform, it does help me get more amazing guests on the show.

Build up the content, give you more value. That is like, you know, my ip. So I would love it if you could acknowledge that in a review. Follow me on Instagram or TikTok and let me know if there are any topics you want me to talk about in the future. I'd love to cover them. So ask away all the questions. You know, this is how we create content that is useful.

But I will talk to you very soon. Bye. 

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment