Jordan
I need some water. I need some water before we get into this spicy freaking episode. I sound like a cartoon character. I sound like Mickey Mouse or something. I don't even know what that was. It's getting hot up in here, y'all. We're getting spicy today.
Ashton
I'm just, I'm warm thinking about this episode.
Jordan
Yeah, it's a hot one. Hot topic. It's a spicy episode. Y'all just like grab on to your bootstraps. Get buckled in. Get ready, because we're about to go in on this subject right now. Where is this country jarring coming from? It's coming out, you know, it's gotta come out at some point, you know.
Ashton
You know, fun fact, when I was little, I mean probably until the age of four or five, I had a thick country accent.
Jordan
She did. We could have, I mean, I don't think we should put that in here, but we have childhood footage of like you talking when you were like a little toddler and it's just the cutest Freaking thing you were like so southern you could put like a five second.
Ashton
Yeah, we probably could let's put it in here But honestly if any of our episodes have been designed to call you out and call you higher I
Jordan
It would be this one. It would be this one, girlfriend.
Ashton
Girlfriend. I'm Ashton Smith. And I'm Jordan Long. And we're coming in hot. We're seventh generation entrepreneurs with a passion for fusing creative expression and business fundamentals to help entrepreneurs powerfully expand their companies.
Jordan
Legacy Creator is a show for creatives, big thinkers, and visionaries who are doing business differently. Together, we unpack topics to help you embody your creative identity, develop as a leader, and powerfully grow your business.
Ashton
In a nutshell, we're calling you out and calling you higher. Yeah, this one's going to be a little bit candid and spicy, but you know, that's our style. I feel like we say that at the beginning of every episode, so I'm sorry if we sound like a broken record. But when we were outlining this one, we were like, ooh, that is going to call some people out, but in a loving way.
Jordan
Yeah. Like it's all, we're all about the love and we care about you. Like that's why we're talking about some of these topics, you guys.
Ashton
Yes. And you know, I've heard so many people in our community that are like, I can't stay on surface level. So I'm like, we see you, we get you, you know, we're the same way. Like, let's not talk about the weather.
Jordan
Let's go there. Let's go beyond the weather to stop airing out your journey. Just like that drastic shift.
Ashton
Oh my gosh. But honestly, okay. I want you to think, have you ever been scrolling on social media? I envision Instagram for this. Cause this is where I've seen this happen a lot. And maybe you came across a piece of content that was, you know, a hot take, or it said, you know, we're getting spicy today, a vulnerable share, which these are all phrases that we've used in our marketing, but. After you consume that piece of content, you walked away feeling like you had just been emotionally dumped on. Like you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't ask for all of that. I didn't ask for all of them. I did not say yes. I did not comply with like receiving all of this information. I asked because I have so been there. I don't know if you've been there. Yeah.
Jordan
I feel like I have. I feel like I've seen people's, it's like oversharing and it's like, oh, that's a little much for social media, you know?
Ashton
Yeah and I think that we have to toe the line here absolutely because we're all about storytelling and creative expression 100% in your marketing there's power to those things but there's this really weird thing that can happen in the online space because the online space she ain't monitored like she ain't a controlled environment so again like There's some things happening there.
Jordan
There's some wild things happening on the internet, you guys.
Ashton
But honestly, there's this weird thing that can happen where sharing authentically or fully expressing yourself can become confused with emotionally dumping. And in the name of transparency and authenticity, we begin to just air out our dirty laundry. for all the world to see. Yes. And this leads to a couple of things. I think number one, we get really burnt out online because if you think about constantly exercising that level of vulnerability and storytelling and oversharing, even if you weren't doing that in the online space, if you were just doing that with like a close friend, you can get to this place where you're almost like, you're burnt out from talking and sharing about that thing. And so then when it comes to social media, we're just burnt out in general with social because we're exercising such deep vulnerability all the time. And that's exhausting. That's not really sustainable. And then number two, this pushes our audience away. I think in some instances, storytelling in your business and your marketing, it pulls your audience closer. And we can get that confused with oversharing, which actually pushes your audience away. Because when you dump all of your thoughts, emotions, feelings, without a clear value add or takeaway, I'll add that here, your audience is exhausted. If you're exhausted, you better bet they're exhausted. And they might even be thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't ask for that. Oh, that was a lot. And it can make your content really hard and unenjoyable for them to consume. It's just a lot to digest at once. And what I really want to get at here is at the end of the day, we have to remember that we are running businesses here. When you are marketing, when you're showing up online, when you're telling a story, when you are using your creative expression, if you are using social for your business and support of your business, then that's what it comes back to. So this means that not all of your journal entries need to land on social, not all of your processing needs to be woven into your content. Not every hot take should even be shared with the masses. There are things that we share here on the podcast that we would not dare share in a one photo, or a two photo carousel on Instagram because we can't unpack it enough. We can't peel back the layers enough. Some of our hot takes, like they take some time for us to unpack. And that's why we reserve a lot of that conversation for the podcast. It's all in, you know, a good heart and it's from a good place, but we need more time to unpack that. So not every hot take needs to land directly on your feed. in a one caption situation. Name dropping, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that should not be a thing. Like that should not be a thing at all. If you want to talk about losing respect and trust for your brand, name dropping, not cool. So just wanted to put that here.
Jordan
Not cool, man. Not cool. Yeah, treating your business's Instagram account like a personal journal is not a form of marketing. And it's certainly not an effective form of marketing. Like you're you are running a business through social media it is not a form of like dumping all of your stuff onto your audience or Processing all of your emotions and the things that you're going through Or the things that you have been through in front of your audience to see it's not actually a form of marketing there's a way to weave storytelling into your marketing for sure and we're gonna talk about that but It's not your personal journal. Your business's Instagram account is like you're running your business on your social media. So it should not feel like a personal journal.
Ashton
Absolutely. And you can have storytelling woven in to where it doesn't feel like a personal journal and there's truly a clear value and takeaway for your audience. I think we have to remember, even if we are creative and even if we want to express ourselves through our business, which by the way, I think is a beautiful thing that we're able to do, building our own businesses and being creators like in the online space. That's a cool opportunity that we have, but we have to figure out where the line is drawn because at the end of the day, a business exists for the customer.
Jordan
amen if amen if a business exists for the consumer
Ashton
and it's meant to provide solutions to a problem, not be a personal journal or not be a processing ground. And so really our heart behind this episode, we just want to open up a dialogue around expression through your business, your digital presence, and your marketing. Like what is the true essence of expression? Where do we actually draw the line? And how are we leveraging our expression to powerfully serve and move our businesses forward? not to just process and dump for your community. So we love the freedom that our businesses give us. Like the creative freedom is so fun. We have so much fun with our uh, creative campaigns. Yeah.
Jordan
Like marketing campaigns. Like it's so fun. We get to fuse our creative expression into like everything that we're doing.
Ashton
It's a lot of fun. And I, I don't think that we should take that out of our businesses at all. We can literally create any concept we can put on any video shoe. We can bring up any brand identity to life. And there's a lot of freedom in that we can literally say and do almost anything because this is our businesses. our thing, it's our entity, but just because we can, doesn't always mean that we should. Just because we can say anything, do anything, express anything, doesn't always mean that we should. And I think there is a big difference between creative expression and emotionally dumping or trauma dumping. And there's a lot of that in the online space. There's pockets in the online space where these two things are one and the same and it's very warped. I don't agree with it. At its core, creative expression, by definition, is the ability to use our minds and imaginations to create something that represents ourselves, our minds and our imaginations. But a huge element that we have to keep in mind along with this, again, is that we're leveraging our expression within the context of running a business. So it's, it's not just, I'm an artist and I'm putting out music or I'm a painter and I'm putting out paintings and I'm expressing through that medium. Although there are some artists, there are some musicians and painters that they're creating a brand with their art. And so again, it's within the context of business. And this means that we have to be intentional about who we are creating for. Our businesses, they are led by us, but they're not really about us at the end of the day. They're about the consumer. They're about the customer. And so our creative expression has to have a purpose beyond us and certainly beyond our processing. and our emotions. And I think that we can still have freedom and fulfillment, but we have to remember that we're inviting other people to be a part of and benefit from that expression. There's a purpose behind it. So as an example, I always share my story about when I lost $20,000 to a poor investment. But one thing that I always aim to do with that story is come at it from a state of empowerment. I'm not going to go online and debrief why this person that I invested in was horrible and how they stole my money and then just put it there.
Jordan
What does that do? Yeah, seriously, what does that do? I don't think it does anything. It's not serving any purpose other than the purpose that you might just be venting. That's kind of what it is.
Ashton
And you know what else I just thought about? If that's the type of content that you're putting out, you are going to attract a lot of people that spend a lot of time complaining and looking at, you know, the bad side of things. And that's kind of the culture that you're going to create through your content and community. And I want you to think about what it would be like to sell to people like that. to serve people like that. So what type of culture do you want to create? I see a lot of unhealthy cultures through accounts that literally just process everything and everything is just like a dumping ground. So how do we turn this story of something that really sucked that also I didn't share in that moment because I hadn't moved through it. So that's another thing, but how do we take that story and how do we turn it into a learning lesson? How do we share the learning lesson that it was for me? How do we make it empowering for the reader? Like how do we actually bring some value? There are things that I don't ever share, not because I'm not comfortable sharing them, but because I ask myself, what's the point? I'm not going to share this through our business account because what's the point for the people on the other end of the screen?
Jordan
Like what's the strategy behind it? I think like with this story for you in particular, like, like you just said, you weren't, talking about it in real time while it was happening, but it's something that had happened to you. And now you can talk about it and use it in a strategic way, but it is very, it's a very real story. It's a very real experience that you went through, but now it's like, it can be used strategically, you know, and storytelling is huge in marketing. And it's so important. I think everyone should be weaving storytelling into their marketing strategy. It's, it's, incredible at creating relatability and relationships with your customers. Like storytelling is also how we learn things. I think of like being a child, your parents would read you like fairy tales, or they would tell you stories of things that they went through, or they would make up stories, you know, but oftentimes children learn a lot through storytelling because it provides learning lessons for them. And it's also an interesting and fun way to learn too. So storytelling can be used in your marketing. It can also be a very creative way to display yourself as an authority because you have lived experience under your belt. It can also be a way to showcase why your product or service might be the best fit for your ideal client because Maybe like the knowledge you gained from a certain experience is fused into a course you created. Like storytelling is so important in your marketing and you can use it in a very creative way to sell your products. But that should be the primary focus of the storytelling marketing and selling your product or service period.
Ashton
What if you could turn your ideas into actual profit for your business? Right now, you may feel like you're doing all the right things, and yet your efforts aren't creating more money for your business. Today, that changes. Our free 90-day profit planner has helped hundreds of creative entrepreneurs transform their income goals into an actualization strategy since 2019. You can download yours for free today. Just visit myawakening.co slash profit. That's myawakening.co slash profit. Now back to the show.
Jordan
It should be for the sake of marketing and selling, not for the sake of just creatively expressing yourself. You can fuse your creative expression into your marketing campaigns. You can certainly do that. I urge people to do that, but storytelling should not be about creatively expressing yourself or processing something in real time in front of your customers. I mean, again, we're running businesses here. It should be ultimately about marketing and selling. Storytelling is a means to position yourself, your brand, your products as the solution to your customer's needs. That's ultimately what it's about. It's not about processing or dumping things on your account as if it's a journal. That's just not what it's about.
Ashton
Yeah. There is this element of sharing things in their time. Once you've made your way through something, because when you have made it to the other side of an experience often, that is where you're going to have full clarity. So when I was in the midst of losing $20,000, going into more debt, feeling like I was on the last leg of figuring things out in my business, that wasn't the time where I felt clear about that part of my journey. I felt like things sucked. I felt like a victim. to this person that I invested all that money in, I was mad, I was frustrated. But once I got to the other side, I actually saw how big that was for my journey and how much of a learning lesson and a learning curve that was. It was truly a transformational moment for me. where I changed a perspective and a belief inside of me that literally changed the trajectory of our company. And so that's truly something that I feel it's not something that I'm making up either to like create a story. That's a whole other tangent where we feel like we need to turn every experience into some sort of marketing fodder and that's just exhausting. So that's a little But you know, there is power in making it to the other side of something, not so that you can come across as perfect, but so that you can actually come across as someone who has a clear message of value add for your community. I think there is this notion going on in the online space right now where people are actually sharing about experiences as they move through them. And I think that some of this can be good. You know, it's one thing to go on online and say, today was a really hard day. I'm not feeling motivated or creative. That's one thing that's not emotionally dumping. That's not providing specificity to maybe a situation that you're going through that you're in processing that is much deeper than that. So I think you can have these vulnerable ads that do create relatability with your audience, but we don't need to go toe the line of like creating a dumping ground through our content. We don't want to push and pull your audience around on your emotional ride. As you're going through something, you're going to give them whiplash. You're going to exhaust them. They're going to be tired and they're eventually not going to want to consume your content because it's exhausting. Why do we get on social? A lot of times people get on social to scroll, to disconnect, to maybe be entertained. Wow. Did you see that hawk? Yes. That means there's something significant in what I'm saying right now.
Jordan
Yes.
Ashton
The hawk just flew in front of our window right now. Oh man, I lost my train of thought. People are going to get really tired if you are constantly dumping things. We're taking them on your emotional ride along with you. And that's not really where they're meant to be. Eventually they're going to disconnect from you and your brand because it's just exhausting. They come to social media to disconnect, to be entertained, to feel lighthearted, to be distracted, not to be weighed down quite often, I would say. So how can you turn a story into an inspiring takeaway? How can you turn a poor experience into an educational moment? Or how can you turn an experience of being burned into a better experience for your community? So there are things that you're going to learn by being burned. I know I have, and I'm going to take that into our client experience and I'm going to do things better. I'm going to make things better. I'm going to be better for it. Our clients are going to be better for it.
Jordan
And I think as well, people go on social media to learn or to be educated on things or to find answers to their problems. And again, that's really what business is at the core. We're providing solutions to problems. We're providing answers to questions. If people are going to your social media account for your business, social media account, they're probably looking for like an answer to a question or they're trying to figure out if like you're a right fit for them, et cetera. And if all they see is like your emotional dumping, they're not going to feel served by that. They're not going to feel supported by any of that. And ultimately at the end of the day, the content and the marketing should be focused on the customer's needs. It shouldn't be focused on your needs, period. hear me yet. Yeah. Like in my personal experience, if I'm going through something, if I'm going through something hard, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to put it on display for the internet. That's just me. I just don't feel like I, I don't feel like that's healthy for me. And that is something you really have to ask yourself. If you're currently going through something like really difficult, do you think it's healthy to be talking about that and sharing about that in real time? Probably not. It's probably not very healthy for you while you're moving through something really difficult. And I think at the core, like I was talking about earlier with storytelling and your marketing, it should be used strategically. Like you're using storytelling in a strategic way. And if you're currently going through something, I don't think it's very healthy for you to try to figure out how to use that strategically in your marketing strategy. You need to move through whatever that is. You need to get to the other side of it, heal from whatever pain you're going through. You don't need to process that in front of your customers or potential customers. They don't need to see that. You need to be sharing content that is serving them and that is helpful to them.
Ashton
Yeah, truly. Like what's the value add for them? you know, if you need a space to process, that's where your close friends and family come in, you know, and then who knows, maybe this experience turns into a really cool angle and story that you weave into your marketing all the time. Like we have those stories that are woven into our marketing all the time, but it shouldn't necessarily be for the purpose of processing, you know, underneath the mask and the facade of creative expression. Creative expression does not equal emotionally dumping or trauma dumping on your audience. You have to remember that you're speaking to people that are actual potential or current customers. And so it's not about looking perfect or the perception. Again, it's thinking about protecting your audience's experience with your brand and like showing up to be a value and service. And if that is storytelling, amazing. If that is value and education, amazing, but it shouldn't be active real-time processing.
Jordan
You have to have a certain level of professionalism on your social media accounts for your business. I mean, I think social media in general, it can just feel so wild, like people will share whatever they want to share on their personal accounts, etc. But if you're running your business through social media, there needs to be a level of professionalism, it needs to be used as if you're running a business, it's not It's not personal. It's not for you to just personally put all your stuff out there.
Ashton
Absolutely. So like I shared at the beginning, in the name of transparency and authenticity, we can begin to air out our dirty laundry, but showing up authentically doesn't have to mean sharing all of your business. Like it doesn't have to mean putting it all out there for everyone to see. So what is true authenticity actually look like? I mean, this word is thrown around in the online space all the time, and I think for a good reason. But if we go to the definition, authentic is defined as genuine, based on facts, accurate, reliable. So nowhere does it say that we're processing everything with the general public. You're being genuine, you're being accurate, you're being reliable. And often when people are searching for authentic people in the online space, they want to get a sense that you're real. They want to know that you're reliable. And we can accomplish that without putting everything out there, without airing out our dirty laundry, without emotionally dumping. And one thing that I thought about was the Aerie Real campaign. I think most of our audience will be familiar with the Aerie Reel campaign, who is not, but the Aerie Real campaign, I'm reading from an article right now. It's a campaign created by the clothing brand American Eagle Outfitters. Aerie's goal is to promote body positivity and make women feel good. They were able to emphasize this even more through the Aerie Reel campaign. She created a campaign to show off Aerie on everybody, not just on models who do not have realistic body standards. Since 2014, Aerie has reached over a billion dollars in sales since the campaign release. The campaign spans social media, advertising campaigns, influencer marketing, and so on. Aerie is Aerie Real because it is an ongoing and active campaign for the brand. So the reason I wanted to highlight that is because that was a campaign that was very raw and real and resonated with so many women because you're seeing real bodies that are quote unquote imperfect by the standards of our world today. But beyond that, the deeper layer behind this campaign, it wasn't just to share real bodies and complain about the beauty standards of the world. It actually had a clear purpose. It actually came from an air and a tone of empowerment, and it was extremely supportive and empowering for their audience and their customer base. So you have something that is rooted in something that's real, which people relate to. But it also has this extension of empowerment. It's not complaining. It's not just dumping, you know, a thought and a narrative. They're taking it to a different place, to a place of purpose and intentionality, because again, Aerie is a business. And so they know they're speaking to potential customers and you can see without a shadow of a doubt, like how that impacted their bottom line. So, I mean, the way that that affected their sales and the growth of Aerie was insane and continues to be insane. but it all comes back to there was a purpose behind that campaign and behind that raw, real narrative and share.
Jordan
Yeah. Like the purpose was not to, uh, crap on other companies who might be promoting just like a very specific kind of beauty standard. It was, that was not the focus. The focus was highlighting real bodies. It was not like there was a positive spin on it. And I feel like so much of the time in some of, this sort of content where we're like oversharing too much. It's, it can sometimes have like a negative connotation to it. Again, like we were just talking about, if you haven't processed something fully, you're still in the midst of it. You haven't gotten to the other side of it. Like when you were going through that experience that when you lost 20 K in the midst of it, you probably felt very negative. And if you were to talk about it, you probably would, would have talked about like how much this person sucked. And I just feel like this, I feel like crap about it. But you waited until you got to the other side of it, where you were able to look at it from a different perspective and see it as an empowering thing. And now that story is like woven into our marketing to help empower our audience, to help empower our customers. I think when we go into business for ourselves, we can feel so wrapped up in the business that we feel like we are an extension of the business. The business is an extension of us. And in a way, kind of like that kind of is true. Like you are so in the business, but you are not your business. You have to find like, where is the line? And like some people out there might be, you know, influencers or vloggers, or they might be running personal blogs. And maybe they're sharing some like really personal things that like, there is a very like niche part of the internet where that is a thing. Like some people share it all. And that works for them in that context. You know, maybe some of these influencers and whatnot, they can build brands off of that. But if you're in this space, most likely you're a business owner, you're running a business, you're providing some sort of product or service for your customers. Like you might be tied to the business. And I think this is especially applicable with like service-based businesses. If you're a coach or consultant in a way, it's kind of like you're trying to sell yourself, like you're positioning yourself as the expert. But at the end of the day, you are not the business and the business is not you. So there has to be some sort of separation. Okay. Like you can have a personal Instagram account and do your personal thing over there. If that's really what you want to do, but your business page is your business page. It is for a purpose. The marketing campaigns that you run, there needs to be purpose behind it. At the core, you should be authentic to who you are, of course, like have integrity about you, be honest with people, be real with them, but you don't have to put everything out there. You don't have to put all your dirty laundry out there for all the world to see. You need to be strategic with what you are putting out there.
Ashton
And so true. You don't have to put all of your emotions online in order to get attention or in order to propel your growth. And this is a huge thing that I see happening a lot in the online space because raw shares, quote unquote, real content that typically is going to like rile people up. it's going to call out the impasse because they're going to want to rally alongside you. And I love that. Like we love, we love that. We love community. This content can just get a lot of attention because it is like very in your face. You're talking about something that's, you know, probably really vulnerable or it's really punchy, but do you want a lot of attention or do you want to be a reliable and respected brand? Sometimes like those two things aren't really going to go hand in hand and reliable, respected brands have a purpose behind their marketing. Like we just talked about with Aerie. It goes beyond just having fun. It goes beyond expressing themselves. It goes beyond emotional processing. I would say that most well-known brands, you're not going to think about the time that they emotionally process through their social media campaigns and content. You're probably never going to come up with an example for that. Basically, at the core, they have a purpose behind what they're doing in order to be of value because they know who they're speaking to. They know why they're here. They know that it's for their customers. It's for their audience.
Jordan
Yeah, I wanted to run through a couple examples of some big name companies, big campaigns that were really popular just to really dive into this. I was doing some research and I came across the Snickers campaign, You're Not You When You're Hungry, which like, I remember when this first came out, dude. Oh my god. I think the first commercial that aired with this catchphrase, you're not you and you're hungry, had Betty White in it. And she was like, on a football field being like tackled by like football players because the whole idea it's like the first part of the commercials are always very absurd and like, you're not doing things you would typically do on a normal basis because you're not you and you're hungry. And then like, it transitions once you get Snickers bar, you eat it, and then you're like satisfied and you're you again, you know, and that, oh my gosh, like that ad was so funny. But the purpose of the ad itself, I think was to entertain. First off, it's very funny, it grabs your attention. because of just how obscure and crazy like the beginning of the ad was. And it featured Betty White and she was being tackled on a football field. I mean, it was just hilarious. But I think the deeper purpose behind that ad and the campaign is that Snickers is literally positioning itself to be the solution to you being hangry. Like you're all agitated and angry because you're hungry and you're like so frustrated. Like I just need food. And then, oh, you get a Snickers bar and you're satisfied. You satiated your hunger, like halleloo. But it's not just funny for like comedic sake. It's all purposeful. And it's actually genius because I guarantee you that there are so many people who have been hangry and they had thought of Snickers. They thought about this campaign. That one catchphrase is so, uh, it's like a very common human experience of like acting like you're not acting like yourself when you're hungry. Like that is so common for so many people. I guarantee you there have been people who were hangry and then they thought about Snickers and they kind of laughed or chuckled about it. And I guarantee you some of those people even went to the store to get a Snickers bar to satisfy their cravings because they thought of Snickers. Like they associate that feeling of being hangry with Snickers. I mean, it's kind of genius when you think about it. And On top of it, they were very strategic with when they first aired that ad. They first aired that, the one with Betty White, during the Super Bowl in 2010, which like prime time to run an ad in general, but also prime time to run that kind of ad. Everyone's hungry and eating food. I mean, it was very strategic on their part. And then another example I wanted to touch on was Coca-Cola's Share a Coke campaign. Y'all, who remembers this campaign? Because I do. Do you remember this? I do. Dude. Everyone had like these bottles with like personalized names on them and it was, it would say like share a Coke with their name, like share a Coke with Ashton, share a Coke with Jordan. And this, uh, this campaign rolled out in summer of 2011. So summertime, first off strategic move on their part to roll something out like this during the summer. optimal time. People were going nuts over this. It's like such a simple thing, but people would like share their photos on social media, like with their Coke, with their name on it, or they would buy one for their friends or their family. Like it was very community driven. And that was strategic. That was very strategic on Coca-Cola's part. They actually worked with Ogilvy, an advertising agency to capitalize on the popular behaviors of their target demographic, which would be millennials and social sharing. They wanted to target millennials and they knew that that age range, a lot of their favorite activity, especially during summertime is they want to get together with friends and they're sharing drinks and they're sharing food. So Coke was like, We need to get all these people, all these millennials to buy our coats and share them with one another at their social gatherings. Like we need to be the drink that they're drinking. It very much promoted like connection and community. Think of any big name company or big campaign marketing campaign that you can think of. I guarantee you there was like so much intention and thought and purpose behind all of them. Nike's just do a campaign. so much purpose behind that. Apple's Think Different campaign, Snickers, Coca-Cola, Aerie Real, they all had a purpose. They all had a mission. They all were very strategic. It's not personal when it comes to marketing. It shouldn't be personal. It's ultimately about the customers. It's about providing them with an experience or providing a solution to their problem or providing an answer to their question. It's about the customer. It's not about you and what you want to do. It's about what they need. It shouldn't be personal to the point of crossing that line. And I think with social media, I think when people do this, they don't feel that differentiation between them and their business. They don't know where the line is and you have to know where that line is. It shouldn't be personal. You can fuse your personality into your marketing. Like you can fuse your creative expression into your marketing campaigns, of course, but you shouldn't get too personal within your marketing. There's a difference. I mean, I literally looked up the definition of marketing cause I just wanted to throw this in here. Marketing is defined as the activity or business of promoting and selling products or services. Super simple, super straightforward. That's what marketing is to its core. It's not for you to get too personal with it, throw all your personal stuff into your marketing. It's all about being strategic to promote and sell products and services.
Ashton
So true. And I hope that you're really getting the heart behind this episode. I think obviously our mission is to call you out and call you higher. But I think that when we can really figure out how to effectively market online, we make our job easier. When we stop feeling like everything has to be this big story, this vulnerable share, this hot take all the time, and it's just so forced, you're going to feel so much relief. You're going to exit so much burnout when it comes to the way that you're showing up online. And I think also the most important thing here is that your community is going to feel so much more supported when there is a purpose behind your presence. When there's a purpose behind your marketing, they're going to have so much more respect for your brand. They're going to be able to receive so much more value. You're going to create so much more impact that way. And so that's really the heart behind this episode. You know, where may we be crossing the line right now? And I think even for Jordan and I, this is something we always practice when we're putting out a piece of content, even when it's something funny, we're like, okay, but what's the angle to like make this make sense or to like tie this in or to be a value? You know, uh, if this is something that's vulnerable or it's a story, what value is our audience going to walk away with? We're always asking those questions because we truly want to be here to be of service. That is what a business is. And so if you're listening to this and, you're more of a personal brand or a vlogger or an influencer, I think that you might have more room for some of the storytelling. But if you are monetizing what you're doing, there is still an element of importance to everything that we've talked about today. So as we wrap up, we just wanted to leave you with some food for thought.
Jordan
Number one thing, think of ways to get strategic with your storytelling. Remember that you are running a business. If you're listening to this, you're more than likely a business owner who's running a business using social media. Think of ways to get strategic with your stories that you're telling. You don't need to tell stories for the sake, for the sole sake of expressing yourself. of sharing with the world or sharing with your community or just being vulnerable. That's not the purpose behind the storytelling. The storytelling should be strategic. It should be there in your marketing strategy as a means to promote and sell your products and services. Like that's at the core of what marketing really is.
Ashton
The other thing too, is to just practice processing in private. And if you're someone that maybe you tow the line a little bit more and you do some processing and some emotional shares through your content, depending on your brand and what you do and what niche you're in, just kind of practice flexing this muscle process in private first, and then see if there's a lesson or some value that you can bring to the table from an experience. I think that there is a place for processing and that truly should be off screen with people that you trust. I mean, we process together all the time because we're sisters. We process with our family, with our loved ones, with our close friends. That is not for everyone to see. And I think everyone has to create their own boundaries and lines with that. We also naturally just are more private people, I would say. Um, and so it's really sacred when we invite people into what we're experiencing because we feel like that's our experience and it's not for everyone, but your business that should not in any capacity in any way be a dumping ground for your emotions, for your trauma. It should really exist to serve a purpose anytime you're showing up. And I think that's a third thing to just consider is When you are showing up for your brand, when you're showing up in your marketing, when you're showing up for your business, ask yourself the question, what's the purpose behind this? When you're creating content specifically, practice asking that question. What's the purpose? What's the audience going to take away from this that is going to be helpful for them? Yeah.
Jordan
Like how is it going to benefit your customer, your potential customer, your ideal client?
Ashton
I think that's been one of the most powerful things that we've done when it comes to our marketing and our content planning. We just continually ask that question. And when we're podcasting, like we've scrapped certain thoughts and ideas because we can't figure out how to truly bring a lot of value through that topic yet. So really practice that. And again, we hope that this episode was a kick in the butt. We hope it was inspiring. If this inspired you, if this was like some serious tea and fire for you, if you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. Please share on social. You can tag us at Legacy Creator Podcast. We'll love to reshare and we appreciate your support always. We will catch you in the next one.
