I used to think that I wasn’t a good writer. Now I feel that I am, and I realised it was because of a skill I unknowingly mastered when I was younger in an effort to get more friends.
You see, before, I used to “read” fortunes from playing cards and for a number of my friends, they would be super wow-ed when I would be able to accurately predict what was going on in their love lives. What they didn’t know was that prior to me ‘reading’ for them, I would eavesdrop on their conversations to other people. Hahaha. Wait! For the record, I’m not an eavesdropper. It’s just that they would share stories to other people and I would just happen to be in the room. Ok? Haha.
Anyway, when I would “read”, I would just feed back what I heard them say. I’m basically repeating what they said. But of course, with my inputs, it’s still somewhat valuable and that’s how I became great at planning and writing content.
I eavesdrop on conversations my audience is already having and then I create content around the questions and concerns they already have. Imagine this: I am a service provider for starting entrepreneurs to incorporate their businesses in the SEC. Go to a Facebook group of a specific type of person, which in this case are entrepreneurs. Imagine going to a Facebook group of starting entrepreneurs and check out what discussions have been going on around the topic you want to talk about. For example, let’s say ‘Should I choose sole prop, partnership, or corporation?’
If I see lots of people asking and debating about this, imagine how well-received my content would be if i put out a video or a blog post or just a Facebook post entitled: The Comprehensive guide to selecting the proper legal business entity for your startup business.
I feel like a lot of people find it difficult to continuously come up with content ideas because they keep trying to find out what’s going to be relevant without really checking what questions are people asking now. So if you’ve ever wondered what to write about, whether it’s for content or for copy to get leads and sales, get out of your own head and look at what people are talking about now, and use that as a jump-off point.
Have an awesome day!
Lai Chee Seng
29th May 2020 at 2:22 pm
Yes indeed! Some of the best market research tools at our disposal are our own eyes and ears. That’s how I started out in my career as well. I wanted to make sure I could write to engage audiences, so I observed people everywhere I went and tried reverse engineer their motivations for their behaviour.
Self-development and personal communication courses will help to sharpen this skill further because it gives you an even more solid foundation to understand human beings!