Social media tunnels into our soul

Find Your Superpower newsletter 055

Read time: 5 minutes

Topics covered: Social media, personal branding, content creator journey

I am now into Week 4 of my Find Your Superpower LinkedIn bootcamp, and we are entering a deeper and more reflective part of the learning journey: our mindset.

You may imagine that a LinkedIn bootcamp is about getting a better profile photo and completing your LinkedIn profile.

You may also imagine that a LinkedIn coach teaches you how to tell better business stories and figure out your professional brand.

Sure, I guess.

But all that gets done in week 1 to 3.

Once I get that out of the way, I start to focus on the really dark stuff.

The stuff nobody really wants to discuss, but determines if my clients ultimately sink or swim.

If I win the final boss stage, my clients will continue posting on LinkedIn in perpetuity, gain high-value followers, be seen as thought leaders by their industry mates, and achieve the business and career outcomes that LinkedIn is able to provide them in abundance.

But first, I have to slay the final boss: I have to help them address and overcome their insecurities, their fears of judgement, their lack of worthiness, their self-flagellation, their incorrect use of LinkedIn as a public diary, their self-sabotage of their professional brand.

Wheeeeee. That’s a lot, huh?

What a lot to do in six weeks.

To give you a glimpse of what I do in my bootcamps, I feel inspired to share some excerpts from an excellent book I read called Followed by Amanda Bucci.

In Amanda’s book, she discusses the nine stages of personal branding, which I have summarized for you here:

Stage 1: Avoidance

In the avoidance stage, most social media users experience the following:

• They are critical of content creators

• They aren’t sure how to even start creating content

• They identify as a non-content creator to the point of not being able to see past that identity

• They focus on all the negative parts of being a content creator to stay safe and comfortable, not stepping into the ring

In the avoidance stage, staying safe is a priority, and saying no is the default response. We are frozen and stuck in inaction, and we post content sporadically and occasionally, if at all.

PS: Does the avoidance stage describe the 95-97% of lurkers on LinkedIn?

Stages 2-3: Consumption Confusion and Imitation

In stages 2-3, we undergo a change in identity from non-content creator to content creator.

At this stage, our consumption of content increases, and while we are still paralyzed and overwhelmed by what we do not know, we start to figure out what works for us.

A danger in this stage is the fear of “doing it incorrectly,” which may motivate us to start plagiarizing and copying successful creators.

PS: On LinkedIn, we may also purchase templates by successful content creators, or even use ChatGPT to write our posts, so that we don’t have to figure it out and discover our own voice.

Stages 4-6: Awareness to Full-Blown Branded

In stages 4-5, we start experimenting with different types of content and gain a stronger sense of our voice. By now we would have received feedback and comments on our content, and we use that information to improve our writing.

By stage 6, we:

• Share multiple parts of ourselves and don’t live in a sense of hiding online

• Are confident that what we’re posting is what we need to be posting

• Are aware of where we fit within our industry and niche and proudly hold that position

• Grow our audience and business in an upward trajectory

• Experience self-love and worthiness of having all we desire

Bigger challenges also appear at this stage, though.

Content creators need to learn how to enforce their boundaries, release themselves from the pressure of being looked to as a role model, and learn how to manage negative feedback in the form of projections, haters, trolls and critics, which mushroom in number as their visibility increases.

The final goal? Stage 9: Transcendence

In the transcendence stage, content creators work to heal childhood wounds and patterns affecting their social media experience.

They (and they alone) decide on their posting schedule and content based on what feels right for them, and not what others say they “should do.”

Importantly, they can take projections, trolls, haters and critics with a grain of salt and have a level of objectivity and separation from them.

And finally, they can experience shifts in their professional brand and life goals, and acknowledge that these changes aren’t a threat to their success.

PS: Getting to the transcendence stage is #goals for me!

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I hope you enjoyed these excerpts from Amanda's book.

Where are you in your content creator journey?

Wherever you are in your journey, know that everyone is going through something.

And before you embark on your odyssey, I have three super important tips for you to improve the odds of your success on LinkedIn: (1) buy a physical pen-and-paper diary to journal in daily, (2) find a solid mentor IRL whom you can confide in regularly, and (3) engage a professional therapist to support your mental health.

If you don’t tick those three boxes, I can only help you over six weeks.

Once you tick those three boxes, watch your LinkedIn game soar like no other.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Thanks for reading issue 055 of my weekly Find Your Superpower newsletter.

For those of you who are new to my newsletter, Find Your Superpower is subscribed to by 36,000+ people, and discusses the following three goals: (1) Making a career transition, (2) Professional branding on LinkedIn, and (3) Reinventing ourselves for the future of work.