Does My Content Need to Be Relatable?

Episode 72: Does My Content Need to Be Relatable?

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Social Media Consultant & emotional intelligence nerd - shares with you...

• the idea that while relatability is important, being bold and unique can be more effective in growing an audience
• why content creators should confidently share their unique experiences and achievements to stand out
• what will attract clients and grow an audience more effectively than striving for relatability

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A GIFT FOR YOU //

• 30 Done-For-You Social Media Content Ideas - your go-to resource for ending your posting struggles and instead creating consistent, authentic content that connects with your audience and attracts clients fast!
• Download it instantly - CLICK HERE 

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WORK WITH HOLLY IN JANUARY, 2025 //

• Ready to launch your social media brand in a big way in 2025 and finally elevate your impact? Hire Holly as your social media strategist and coach! Book a quick call with me here: https://tidycal.com/thehollyhibbard/quick

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Transcript

Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to The Holly Hibbard Show.
I am your host, Holly.
And, again, I'm so grateful for you being here.
Today in this episode, I wanna really unpack this concept of, does your content need to be relatable to be effective?
And when I say have it be relatable to be effective, is it going to be effective in growing your following, attracting clients, growing your audience in general, getting your message out there?
Will your, relatability or lack thereof stop those goals from happening?
Now my background for the last 10 years in coaching, and even longer than that in mentorship, I have talked so many times about the importance of relating to people.
I think it's I've always felt that it is very important to find common ground with others, and I have called that the word relatability or relatable for ages regardless of if I was relationship coaching, leadership coaching, talking about content creation, I have focused on relatability.
And there's that core part of me that uses that word to describe human beings getting together, like I said, and finding things in common.
Well, recently, a former business coach of mine, who I love and adore and would work with any day of the week.
I think she's brilliant.
Her results are amazing.
Her practice is amazing.
Her agency is amazing.
I just adore her.
She's been putting these really great social media ads and content out repeatedly saying forget about relatability.
Really in her words, F relatability.
And she was saying that relatability doesn't sell.
People don't want you to be relatable to them if they're going to hire you.
And at first I heard her messaging and went, That's kind of a jab.
That to me says I shouldn't wanna connect with the person.
And I didn't agree with the messaging at first.
And as time has gone on, I have continued to unpack this a little more, but I wanna go into full detail with all of you because I think she makes a really valid point on the one hand of forget about being relatable.
And on the other hand, how do I blend her perspective, which I get, with my perspective of relationships are so important, relatability is so important.
And not just my perspective and what I've talked about for years, but also how many times are we as coaches, consultants, service providers, getting tips and advice about how to design our brand or create our social media content?
How many times are we going to be told that authenticity is important?
Be authentic.
Be yourself.
Because when you are yourself, people are going to relate to you and that brings the know, like, and trust factor.
I mean, I have heard it 100, if not 1000 of times and perhaps you have too.
So there's a part of me that stands by that and then there's a part of me that's now seeing my my former coach's perspective.
And so here we go.
So as I said, I have always been a supporting style personality.
I have always been about the connection of human beings.
I think that we can have these brilliant moments, light bulb moments when we are in the presence of others.
I think that we can work to evoke the best from one another.
And for that reason, relationship between people, to me, has always been important, whether it be friendships, personal, family, professional, obviously, you with your clients, you with your own coaches and mentors.
Relationships are at the core of who I am.
There's a lot of what I've taught over the years.
And so I when I actually started this podcast, I've changed the name of my show so many times, but one of the names of my show was Relatable Matters.
Because I was standing on the premise of relatable matters, but also I had a spin on it where I was saying relatable matters, meaning the matters I was going to discuss were hopefully relatable to my audience.
So this is something I've really doubled down on when I first got started in, podcasting, but I've been talking about this endlessly for years.
And somewhere along the way, being a nerd word a word nerd word a word nerd, I was finding a distinction, a difference, and a similarity between what it means to be relatable or relating, but also understanding.
Because I came to the conclusion at some point that if I'm expecting to always relate to what another person is going through or what they say, if I'm aiming to always relate to someone or have someone relate to me, I now feel that that is an impossible result.
That that is an expectation that we want people to always feel that our life, my life, is mirrored somehow in theirs.
And the reality of life is we all have different life experiences.
We all have different perspectives.
We've all been through different things.
There is there's really no opportunity where 2 people are going to 100% relate to one another.
Some people will not relate to one another at all because their lives are so entirely different.
So when I think about what my former coach had to say about forget about relatability, that's not gonna work, I can see from one point of view where, yeah, we're not always going to relate to people.
So then I did a show.
I did an episode a long time ago about the difference between relatability and understanding.
Because as a certified coach, somebody who has been a professional asker of questions for over a decade at this point, my job is to be curious.
My job is to ask my clients questions so that they can come to a conclusion where they have clarity on their goal, who they are, what the next step is.
I'm not telling them the answer when I'm coaching.
I am asking them the question so they can come up with it.
And for me, I see understanding as that process.
If I am seeking to relate to everyone, that is an impossibility because we're not always going to relate or if at all.
But we can aim to understand a person's perspective, their method, their life, their challenges, we can aim to understand.
And the way that we find that understanding is by 1, admitting, Hey, I don't relate to you entirely.
We've been through totally different things in our professional personal life.
And 2, we ask questions from a curious place without judgment.
We want to understand to the best of our ability, their reasoning, their logic, their filters of how they interpret things in their life.
So that is how I have in time said, okay, maybe relatability isn't everything that you need to generate the know, like, and trust factor with clients.
I think with our clients as service providers, as coaches, as consultants, the greatest thing I feel that we can do is seek understanding and ask them questions as opposed to seeing on the surface, Oh, we seem a lot alike.
We relate.
Therefore we must do X, Y, Z in a similar fashion.
Not necessarily.
We're all surprised by, incidents in our life where we think someone is very similar to us and then they're not.
So if you can, as a coach, consultant, service provider, train yourself to ask great questions so that you understand without assuming what they what they do, how they think, how they operate, what makes them tick, what challenges them, that's gonna bode so well for your business.
So that's been my own personal journey with, so far with relatability and does it really matter?
And I'm like, okay.
Well, maybe understanding is more important than relating.
And I've kind of sat in that position for a while.
So, again, when I started seeing all the content that my former coach was putting out and she's saying forget relatability altogether.
1, I was a little surprised that it still stung me.
I was like, wow.
Take things personal much.
But 2, it's such a great point based on what she says in her content behind that, to me, shocking title of forget about relatability.
Because like I said, isn't it in every thing that we read as entrepreneurs, be authentic, be yourself, people will relate and then people will buy from you.
Well, her point to this is people will hire you as a coach, as a consultant, as a service provider.
Yes.
If they perceive that you solved a problem that they have, but also do they perceive that you know something or have mastered a skill that they have not yet mastered?
So to her point, she's saying whatever industry that you're in, like if you are a coach, for example, your clients want to see that you have accomplished something or you are doing something that they want to do, but they haven't been able to just yet.
Or they do they get a similar result, but their system or their process isn't entirely what they wish it to be.
She's saying that the bolder your message is, the more you will stand out.
And at first you may seem unrelatable because you might talk about the results that you get your clients or your patients or just the people your team that you're leading.
You might talk about those results and, yeah, you are farther ahead in the game of your industry than other individuals are.
And simply based on you being farther ahead, knowing your stuff, you know, walking the talk that you put out there, that is going to be off putting for some people.
That is going to lose you some potential clients.
But what she's saying is my my former coach, she's saying do not dim yourself down to match or to try to relate to where those people are at.
She said people who really want to work with you, what they're going to be drawn to is that boldness, is that thing, that system, that result that you are doing or that you have created in your life, that's what they're going to be drawn to.
And it is your boldness that people will pay for.
It's the thing that makes you unique that they're going to sign up for.
Just because they know you, like you, trust you, quote relate to you doesn't necessarily guarantee that they want to work with you.
They might see you on the same plane as them, the same level as them.
Them.
And what she's saying is your content, your message, your service, get out there and tell people what makes you unique, what makes you stand out, what result you created that you know others probably haven't or if if not lately, because that is what people will pay to learn.
That is what people will pay to accomplish in their life, in your industry and from your service.
They wanna know that they're getting something special that the masses may not have access to yet.
So my entire point here in unpacking this for you is I wanted to lay out for you what relatability is and perhaps isn't depending on which point of view, but I also wanted you to know today that do I want you would I love for all content creators to show up as themselves?
Yes.
I think that's incredibly important that you are authentically you talking the way that you do, acting the way that you do, in whatever as opposed to like emulating somebody else.
I think it's super important to be yourself, you know, AKA be authentic.
Right?
But I also take away from, my former coach's message that it's time to be bold with your messaging.
It's time to find and talk about, post about, make videos about, put in your resume about, put in your website about what makes you stand out.
And I'm not just talking about you have an extra certification, you have so many continuing education credits, you've been doing this for x amount of years.
It's more than bullet points on your resume.
What people wanna see is what's a result that you get?
What is a mannerism, a procedure that you have already enacted that makes your results just that much more special than what they could get from the average Joe.
So this is gonna ask of you when you're writing that content, when you're making that video, when you're writing an email to your email list, when you're talking to your patients or your clients in an office setting, this is going to require of you to brag a little bit about yourself and then share with them how this edge of knowledge that you have, the skill set that makes you unique, share with them what's in it for them because you know that thing.
It's been really powerful for me to reflect lately on just how much, in terms of professional life, I have done over the years.
And to me, it always feels like a mixed bag because I have teaching experience and I have experience with teenagers and then I have relationship coaching and workshop training and personal professional development.
And then all the jobs I've had in between everything from, you know, x-ray technician in a hospital to waiting tables to tutoring to there's so many little mishmash things over the span of my life so far.
And I've learned something from each of that.
And I brought gifts from each one of those things to my practice today, to my business today, to my content creation today.
Because how can you not?
How can you not bring your life experiences to what you do?
So the invitation here is share that.
Share what makes you unique, not just your resume bullet points, but your life experiences that are going to have you stand out, that people are going to say, Wow, I don't relate to that at all, but I love it.
I wish I was that bold, that that well spoke that well spoken, that confident about my messaging.
There's something you've got that certain something that people want.
I'm sure you know deep down what it is if you haven't already thought of this yourself.
Okay?
So I hope this episode was supportive to you in some way.
The next time you sit down and especially for those of you that are freaking out that no one is gonna, you know, know, like, trust, from your content or they might not pick you or what do I talk about?
Talk about what makes you unique.
Have the bold message, have a humble brag.
And remember, tell them because you've got, you know, those accolades or, that little bit of experience that's a little unconventional in your industry, tell them what is in it for them when they choose to work with you.
That is where you don't need to be relatable.
Okay?
Just get out there, start, write something, and remember to click publish, to click post because done is better than perfect.
So, again, thank you so much for tuning in to the episode, and, I love you as always.
I mean it.
And until next time, I will talk to you next time.