Erica Schneider - Why editing your content is as important as creating!

Writing is creating. Editing is recreating. So when you sit down to write, you're brain dumping, you're figuring things out as you go. Maybe you have an outline, maybe you don't, but like, writing is thinking, right? So the best ideas come to you as you're writing. Usually for me anyway, half the time I'm like, oh, I had no idea I was gonna say that before I said it. And I just kind of went.

Hello, hello, beautiful people. Thanks for tuning into the Undefeated Underdogs podcast. I'm your host, Sharath. Today I have a very exciting guest. I usually tell that whenever I invite guests because all of them are pretty exciting and I admire, like, you know, the folks, the work they do, and the impact they create on other folks. And especially this guest, he was highly recommended by one of our previous guests, Amanda. So I'm excited to, like, dive a little deeper into a lot of interesting topics that Gen Z and millennials like me crave for, which is content creation. So before wasting a lot of your time, let's get into the episode. Let me welcome Erica Schneider. Welcome to the show. How are you feeling?

Feeling great. Thanks for having me. I thought you were about to say that I was a Gen Z and I was going to be like, wait a second, I am definitely a millennial.

And for folks who are watching, this is completely not planned. Erica and I, we are just wearing white tees. Like, no, no planning, but we definitely look like, you know, uh, we don't hate it though.

Like, it works. I think it works.

Yeah, it works. It works. And we're definitely looking like siblings from different mothers. So, uh, Erica, let me actually, for folks who are listening, let me give you guys like a brief intro of Erica. For folks who don't know, she's a content creator. She's a mom of twins, which is amazing. Uh, she's, she's building this thing called Power Your Platform, which is more of like a newsletter that educates about branding, positioning, monetizing with her business partner Casey Jones. She also works as a head of content at Grizzle, a growth agency. And man, she creates high quality content. And one thing I really love about you, Erica, is that, which is kind of now that I've kind of researched on you or your profile and your work, as content creators, we probably give 10% or less than that on editing, crafting, rewriting. I think at least to me, I can speak for myself, whatever thought that comes to my mind, I just like, okay, tweet it out or create, right? So I think that's one thing I really want to learn from you, and hopefully audience listeners can also seek that. Okay, before we start, like right off the bat, I have this question. So I saw on your LinkedIn that you were a teacher, English teacher, and you jumped literally from teaching kids to writing content. And how did that happen? Like, what was that transition look like? And reflecting back, how much of your work right now you're doing have like a Like, connect unconnected dots that you look backwards being a teacher?

Oh, it's so very connected. Um, I've jumped around. Like, before I was a teacher, I was a catering director at a fast food chain in Boston, and then I was a technical project manager at a rewards app. So, um, then I left the country to teach, so I didn't like get an education in teaching. Um, but I did go to Thailand and complete a TEFL course, which stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Um, and in that course, because you're teaching English to people that where it's not their first language, they really like hone in on the fact that you cannot use more words than it takes to get your idea across. Like, don't get up in front of a class that doesn't understand your natural language and ramble at them to make a point. It's gonna— they're just not gonna get it. So however you can make the point in as few words as possible, do it. Um, and it's— it is fascinating because I had no idea how much that advice would ring true when it came to content marketing and content writing. But hey, it's not that you have to use less words, which I can get into because I don't— editing is certainly not just a cutting exercise. Mm-hmm. But you have to make sure that every single word that you use is meant to be there. If it doesn't need to be there, don't have it there. And the same goes for ideas. Have you repeated this idea already? Have you said this in a similar way too close to this? So does it add friction? Like, is this going to break flow? Mm-hmm. Um, so, but yeah, I mean, teaching in Thailand was incredibly rewarding and It was never gonna be a full-term, like, life choice though. It was always going to be an experience that was gonna move me somewhere. Um, and to be honest, I just loved relearning the grammatical side of the English language. So when I first got into writing as a professional writer, cuz I've been writing in, in, in school and in as a hobby my whole life. Um, but I actually got into it to edit. Like, I wanted to edit. I didn't wanna be a writer. And I would still say I'm an editor first and a writer second, but the two are so intermingled. They're so intermingled. You can't have a good editor that's not a good writer. So yeah.

Talk to me about it a little bit about both personas. I usually think, and I think most of the people think that they both are the same, right? Like, you kind of like have an— like, throw it out on your paper about what your ideas or the things that you think about, like the thoughts. And later you kind of like cut it out, make it crisp, and then like, you know, you release. I feel— is that— at least people like me, I'm not trained as a— or I didn't go to college or school to like, you know, about writing. That's generally the process, right? You, you're talking about something like different, being a writer versus being an editor. So talk to me about the different personas. Uh,

okay, so this is how I, I describe it that I think makes the most sense. Writing is creating, editing is recreating. So when you sit down to write, you're brain dumping, You're figuring things out as you go. Maybe you have an outline, maybe you don't, but like, writing is thinking, right? So the best ideas come to you as you're writing, usually for me anyway. Half the time I'm like, oh, I had no idea I was gonna say that before I said it. And I, I just kind of went there.

Mm-hmm.

Editing is looking at it from less of a creative lens, at least to start, and more of an analytical lens. Okay, I've had this like creative brain dump.

Mm-hmm.

Analytically, does it flow? Does it make sense? Like, does it make sense to have this paragraph here? Or actually structurally, based on the goal of this and the person that I know I'm speaking to, would it make more sense to set a bit of context here and like really put it here? Like, so to get specific, um, usually when, when we're writing, we're poking some sort of a pain point and then kind of being like, hey, like, here's how you solve that. There's a bunch of different ways to flow into a pain point. You can start with it right away, like, you know, everybody sucks at this. Or you can sort of give more context, like, you know, this thing is hard. Um, a lot of people, you know, try and then fail. As a result, everybody kind of sucks when it comes down to it. Or you can just start with like, everybody sucks at this, blah, blah. So the, the way that you introduce ideas is called structure, and the way that you structurally present that is a big part of editing. Um, and I also think a lot of people don't understand that editing is more than copy editing. So there's different types of editing. There's— Right. What I was just talking about is like, it's called developmental or structural editing. And that's when you're looking at a whole puzzle and you're like, are all the pieces in the right place? And then copy editing is actually looking at like maybe a corner of the puzzle and being like, Are these actually like, are they placed incorrectly? Can I push it harder? Like, does this piece really fit or does it kind of actually, does this piece belong here? Um, so it, it's, you, you're looking at the whole piece and then copy editing is where it's like everyone on, on writing Twitter, those, those posts that, and I've done this too, where you're like, change your words from in order to, to, to, and it's, you know, like cut out these words. Like that's like the most basic copy editing and that's kind of all I ever see on social media when it comes to editing advice. But it's much more of an analytic exercise. And then when you're done with that, you can go back into creative mode and make sure that it's really all there and it feels good and flows and all that. But yeah, it's creative and then analytical.

It's more of like if we take movies as an analogy, right? Like the directors, they do this uncut version and editors, they come in and they chop a little bit of scenes and probably do their magic and make it seamless. I think that's what It applies to writing as well, the same ethos, probably. Absolutely. And to your point, I feel, how do writers become editors? And I'm not talking about editors becoming writers because I think that's a separate topic. But since we are more people, like, people want to write more, I want to write more personally. How can we switch hats and like the analytical side, how we can move from one way of creative mind to analytical mind. Is there a process that you found for yourself that you want to share?

So first you have to practice self-editing. And I don't know if you edit or not, but the idea of editing, just to make it super clear, it is not to stop you from ever posting. It's more important to post. Like, you need to post so that you can experiment and get analytics and then, you know, edit. But I also think it's important to try to build an editing habit small steps at a time. So there's checklists that you can follow, but really I think the best thing to do is learn maybe 1 to 2 things that you could edit at a time and just focus on those, or else you'll be super overwhelmed. So for example, you can say this week I'm gonna focus on making sure that I change the verb to be in my posts to something that's more of a power verb. And the reason why I wanna do that is because power verbs are better at like emotional resonance and the verb to be is sort of indirect and indistinct. Mm-hmm. So you could just focus on that. Suddenly after a week, like you're really good at that, you can check that off your list. Then next week, okay, this week I'm gonna focus on cutting redundancy out of my posts. So I'm gonna make sure I'm not repeating the same word too often. I'm gonna make sure if I said an idea, I'm not unnecessarily repeating it later unless it's intentional. And just do one thing at a time. And then eventually, there's no like magic secret sauce to like how long it takes. Eventually you just sort of start to naturally notice these things easier. It takes less time and you feel more confident. That's really all it is.

Yeah. When you put this analytical mind, uh, do you think it will, uh, disturb the creativity? For example, or I wouldn't say spoil, but the essence, is that like essence adding or essence removing? Like how much of that editor plays a role in the raw ideas going out?

So it comes in at different times. You never wanna write and edit at the same time, but your editor can be there when you're strategizing. So Forming a strategy for like the topics you wanna write about or the specific way that you wanna present something. Like if you're gonna outline something and the editor mindset should be there, that part should be both creative and analytical. But when you sit down to actually write, like kick your editor out of the room. They're not allowed. Mm-hmm. You're just creating, like it's supposed to be bad and raw and like, no, it's not supposed to feel like anyone's looking over your shoulder. Like everybody stops at their first draft.

Mm-hmm.

Even good writers suck at their first draft. Um, and it depends on the day. Sometimes I sit down on my first draft and I absolutely kill it. Some days I sit down and I'm like, what did I just write? It's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. But at least I started, you know? Um, then take some time. So a lot of people suggest that you should take at least 12 hours away. I don't care how long you take away. Sometimes I only step away, refill my water bottle, and come back and edit. Like, however long you need to just Leave the room and come back as a different mindset, do that.

And where do people stumble, creators, during this process? For me, the most important piece is, A, start somewhere, and B, push it out, like publish it out, ship it out, right? Because if neither of that happens, you're basically like, you know, you're wasting time. So between A to B, where do you think— where do content creators, they stumble, they fail, or they kind of spend too much time? And how do you advise people like that set?

Yeah, so I think people fail because they don't know where to start with editing. So they kind of look at something and they get panicked. Like, I don't know if this is good or bad. Then they just either don't edit and ship or don't ship in lieu of like feeling like they can't edit. So both of those places are not great, but obviously you would want to choose the one where you just ship and say fuck it. Um, but again, like, I think it comes— this— the anxiety comes from not understanding. So Mm-hmm. if you don't understand what you're meant to look for, it's gonna be the most overwhelming thing in the entire world. So I would say take some time to Look at like really basic editing checklists and techniques, which I've written about before, and I can certainly send you to add to these show notes. Um, but if you're someone who's a perfectionist or you struggle with that, set a timer. Like give yourself, give yourself 5 minutes to just to look it over if that's all that you wanna give yourself. Slowly you can add more to that if you want to, but set a timer. When you're done, you're done and you have to post and that's it.

How do you, how do you, um, it's kind of editing is more of like iterating in, in different phases, right? Like you craft, you make it better the next time. Like you said, add power webs and like, you know, something like that sort. Where is the end? Like, where's like, okay, let me put like a, like a hard stop here. Let, let this thing get out.

Stop when it feels good enough. It's never over, but it's done when it feels good enough. And that's why until you get that confidence of like, I think this feels good enough, which takes time, you just have to set a timer and be like, I'm done. Mm-hmm. Because the second you hit post, trust me, you're gonna reread it and think of something else you could have edited every time. Still happens to me every time. That's why optimization exists and why, you know, CMSs have a lovely edit button so you can optimize your blog posts. Unfortunately, on social, what's out there is out there, but fortunately it has a short shelf life, so no one gives a shit.

Yeah, of course. That's the thing. And one of the things in one of your posts, you talk about writing with authority. And do you have like a set of principles that you want to share with us about especially like, how do you start? everybody, when they start, they lack authority, right? Like, until unless you're probably like, you know, if it's a skill that naturally comes to you, and how do you gradually increase that authority and, you know, go to a stage where like you can dominate it?

I mean, that takes time, obviously, but there's certain ways that you can phrase things to sound more authoritative. So for example, you can fake authority by literally just using active voice instead of passive voice and removing wishy-washy statements like, you know, really what you should do is this, like, no, just say do this. Like, you can sort of see in the tiny little words that people choose, Uncertainty or a lack of confidence. But that example, there's always like an it depends, because if you're intentionally being neutral, then you wouldn't wanna do that. But most of the time on social, as opposed to like on a business blog, you wanna be really direct. You wanna be authoritative in your word choice. How to feel authoritative, that takes time. But really what it all comes down to is showing up as yourself. and bringing your opinion to something. So the way that you stand out on social, well, anywhere, but really on social, is to have an opinion and feel passionate about something because that will come through. So say you're a brand new freelance writer and you're trying to write about something, like you can't lean on the fact that you've written X amount of posts, this many words, you've been in the game for this long, but you can say, you know, like, um, I, uh, I looked at this website and like read their blogs, and if I were to write them, like, I'd probably restructure it like this, and here's why. Okay, I don't know who you are, but you've got my attention. Like, you're taking a stance on something, uh, and you're targeting your ideal client, likely. So there's ways that you can get people's attention even if you don't have the quote-unquote experience for it. And then of course, like, Little things like word choice, which again come down to knowing what to look for, time, and confidence, which takes time.

Yeah, of course. And also, I think with the time as well as the quality also changes, and you can see that over time because day one, like you said, most of the drafts are like shitty by default. So accepting that fact that it'll be shitty in the first few days, it'll make our lives easy. And that's a great point too. And you briefly said about writing on social many times in this conversation. How is it different from any other writing? I don't want to touch on writing books, probably like, that's a very long process, lengthy process. Writing on social versus writing probably weekly ones, like for a newsletter. Or documenting their journey, for example. How is that?

Yeah. So like, so you need to have zero-click content wherever you go, wherever you go. And I know Amanda Natividad coined that term, which is, it's just a perfect term. A lot of it depends on your brand and your brand voice. So certain brands are like really authoritative and want to have a very authoritative presence. So it depends. There's a difference between a brand brand and a personal brand, or what I call a personal platform. People have more leeway to be opinionated than brands a lot of the time. So on social, if you're building a personal platform, even if you're representing a company, you can be a little bit more opinionated than maybe the company blog would be. So like at Grizzle, most of the blogs that we write and that I edit are, they're authoritative in nature, but you have to be careful. Like you can't make super declarative statements about the state of things unless you can back it up with a stat, with a fact, like with your own story, customer testimonials, case studies, whatever. But that person that maybe founded the brand can go on social and say, I believe this, I believe this strongly. And then it's more obvious that this is an opinion of a person rather than an opinion of a brand. So that's a little bit different. And then again, with newsletters, it depends. Like if the brand's writing it, it's gonna be different than if a person is writing it. But when it comes to a person writing a blog, showing up on social, email, there really shouldn't be too many variations in how it comes across. It's just a variation in how long it is and how the content is structured, presented.

I love that. I think the continuity is really important, right? Like, it's not like you sound different on a 280-character tweet versus you sound different on a big-ass long-form article. Yeah, you've edited over 3 million plus words. Right. It's quite a feat. In your experience, is there a variety of writings you saw that people write tactically versus philosophically versus like, I mean, I'm just throwing it out right now, but you must— is there a way can you bucket them? And what is the most popular one that gets people's attention?

Which medium are we talking about?

Let's talk, let's talk about social. Even we are talking about like Twitter, LinkedIn type of things, and probably like we can transition into long-form like newsletters and Substack articles.

So, okay. So there's, you have to approach this from a mindset of the fact that like whatever gets the most likes and engagement doesn't necessarily mean that that's gonna be the thing that gets you the most leads and therefore make money. So the quote, the quotes, the posts that get the most likes and the most engagement are how-to posts or how I posts. So they're experiential based and they're teaching something and it's usually really simple. So I call that obvious content and it's something that you know, like the back of your hand, but you 5 years ago would've absolutely loved to hear it in like the simplest format. Mm-hmm. Because it was gonna unlock something for you. Mm-hmm. So, you know, how to do keyword research in like 10 steps or how to write a, like a hook that's guaranteed to go viral, like whatever that is, like that shit performs really, really well on social. But it's very top of funnel, very, you know, capturing probably like an unaware audience. If you wanna actually get your target audience's attention and like get them interested in buying something, that's gonna be more experience-based, opinionated, thought leadership content. So, you know, I did this thing just now with this client and they ended up getting these results. Like this one thing that I, that we did in the, in the beginning of the process, like tweaked everything or something. Right. More storytelling.

More storytelling. And what about the long form? Do you think, is there a difference between the short form versus long form?

It depends on your goal. So like the how-to content, again, like for long form works really well for SEO awareness plays. But if you want to, like, if you have, if you're trying to capture the attention of the C-suite, for example, and you're like a B2B agency going after enterprises, like the how-to stuff isn't going to really resonate with them. You need to do more thought leadership stuff, um, where you're really taking an opinion on something or you're explaining, like you're really poking a pain point and then explaining your version of like the solution and how that should work and what that should look like. So again, like that might not rank as high, although it certainly can, um, and it might not drive as much traffic to your site, but it might get in the right inbox, which is really what you want.

Yeah, which is like very specific niche. You basically are targeting right on bat. So talk to me or expand the concept of thought leadership, how to become one. And especially in this day and age where attention is so limited and everybody's trying to inspire others, irrespective of, regardless of they have experience or not, or At least thought leadership becoming kind of like a template, in my opinion, that everybody wants to wear the hat, but in reality, very few have lived that experience or being very intentional of being a thought leader. So how do you advise for people who are genuinely like, hey, I don't know where to start, but I want to become at some point, like 5 years, 10 years down the line? I want to like kind of write with authority at the same time, be like a thought leader in this, in startups or, you know, in SaaS or like marketing, whatever.

Yeah, I mean, everybody wants to be a thought leader and so many people hate the term now because it's so overused, sort of like storytelling, which drives me crazy. Everyone wants to be a storyteller, you know. Um, I mean, I would say like spend a lot of time getting really good at something or like getting really opinionated about something. Because really what thought leadership is, is leading thoughts on something. And you can't lead thoughts on something if you're not like really in, in the weeds in it. So, I mean, I can only think of like a few true, in my mind, thought leaders in the spaces that I follow. And it's because they talk about the same thing over and over again, but always seem to have like, the way that they approach it and say something is like, oh shit, like, that's fascinating. Or like, oh, like, they're thinking about it. I mean, Rand Fishkin is like—

Yeah.

You know, like, he's been in this forever. And he's thinking about things like 10 different ways than anyone else is because he's got like this, you know, these years of like this knowledge just in here. So he can like Play with the ideas. Right. It just takes time. Like, you're not gonna be a thought leader right away. Yeah. But I mean, I didn't really intend to be like an editing thought leader when I started, but I'm happy that I think a lot of people see me that way because it's not like I'm saying anything that new or different. I'm just saying it a lot out loud. And I have a very, very strong opinion about like what people say about it and if I agree or disagree. So. Get opinionated is really the first step.

Yeah, I think opinionated, number one. I feel the other thing, consistently talking the same thing and repeat yourself again and again.

Yeah,

because that's something so many people give up. They just open up an opinion or on an idea, put it out, and they think that they expect other people to consume. I feel that know, if you're— if you're— if you have like an exact opinion, I think you should, you should like have like a megaphone and really like broadcast so many times so that it kind of digests for others. So it's a great point too. And let's switch gears a little bit about and talk about Grizzle. So head of content, like What's your day-to-day look like? And if you want to give some advice for people who want to make a career in writing, especially on content, I'm not talking about people who write for Substack. That's probably like their hobby, their passion, but who wants to really make a buck out of their skill and climb the ladder? What advice do you give and how's your day-to-day look like?

Yeah. So I mean, the advice I would give is that the difference between a content writer and a content marketer is thinking like a strategist. Mm-hmm. So you have to start to understand like, why is, why is this client that I'm writing for choosing this topic? Um, is this an SEO play? If it is, how are they planning on standing out? What's their angle? If it's not, what's the point? Is it to, you know, something to do with converting trial to paid users maybe? Is it not an— Mm-hmm. Acquisition attention play? Is it more of like a retention play? You have to think about that because a good content stream, like a good content process will be strategic and hopefully documented. Mm-hmm. So you can't just, nobody that's good at this is just creating content for no reason. So start to think. And if you aren't sure, you can ask. I mean, people generally should feel fine sharing that information. We share that information in our briefs that we give to writers so they have everything. Um, and if they need clarification, they can ask. Um, and then, yeah, just get really good at making sure that what you end up writing hits those goals. So like consistently refer back to the brief when you're writing. Don't just get lost in the creative process and then forget to check your work against the brief. Mm-hmm. And to answer your question, like that's most of what I do at the moment. So there's like strategy involved, but then there's coming in as like the content marketing editor, you know, and I've got my team and we are making sure that the content actually not only aligns with the brief, but aligns with the client preferences, the content guidelines. And then, you know, after a few months, is it doing the job that it was meant to do or do we need to shift strategy a bit? Like, should we stay completely focused on SEO or is it good to diversify and also like do a whole social content strategy or email or whatever it is?

And how much of the data part is helping you become a better writer? And how do you look at data? I don't wanna talk about vanity metrics. That's all like signal to me. Sometimes I don't even know, I don't even like, do like a quick analysis on a post why it went viral. There is like no logic for it, but there are like millions of people consuming it. But on the other side, the quantitative data, how is it helping the quality of any writer's work? How do you think it helps and where do people should look at data?

I mean, if it's resonating with your target audience or not, are they talking about it? Is it being shared? Are they asking you follow-up questions? You know, like, what's happening in the communities that you're trying to impact? Is what you're doing having an impact? Because yeah, a lot of it is vanity metrics, especially on social. Like, so many people are obsessed with going viral. Like, who cares? Who absolutely— who cares? Like, yeah, awareness is really nice and it feels good and it's a nice ego boost, but— It can also have a negative effect. You can get a lot of people interested in you for the wrong reasons, and then you have to like reset and be like, actually, this is what I'm about. So the data's obviously important. And especially with SEO, if it's not ranking, like there's very cert— specific steps that you can take when you're optimizing it. Mm-hmm. But in terms of social, like, How much are people talking about it really everywhere? That's all that matters.

Yeah, I think the signal too, right? I mean, not a vanity metric signal, but people giving shoutouts, the signal of like social proof can be like a signal that people can pick on the data side. Let's talk about your— I think I can call it like a side project for your platform newsletter. Okay. Keely and Casey, talk to me about like, why did you start and how do you even have time? You are a mom of twins. You write on social. You have a pretty hectic job, I would say. Head of content is not a laid-back job. On top of like, you're doing this newsletter. How do you write? How do you keep up? What's— why did you do this in the first place?

So first of all, I have a business partner, Casey Jones, which is the only way that I get this done because she is brilliant and handles like all of the backend stuff so that I don't have to. But I'm doing it because I'm really, really passionate about helping people become better writers in every medium. But my expertise up, up until now is mostly long-form content and then posting on social. And so, uh, I don't know, I kind of fell in love with posting on social. I hated it when I first started. I feel like everyone hates it at first because you've no— like nobody knows who you are and you're just talking to yourself for a while.

Um, Right.

But once it works, then, um, I absolutely love the community that I've been able to build there. So I'm really focused on helping people do the same thing and get that like same good feeling that I have from it. And so that's why I'm going in on that. Like I do what I do at Grizzle and I'm helping writers write better long form. So I wanted to do something for myself with Casey where we can help people just in the other part of what I love about showing up online. And that could evolve, might end up going beyond social 'cause I'm having a lot of fun writing the newsletter, but I'm by no means a newsletter Writing expert yet, but I'm having tons of fun. Um, and the other answer is like, I mean, I've been writing for so many years that it doesn't take me that long to write anymore. Mm-hmm. It doesn't take me very long to write social posts. It doesn't take, it never takes me more than an hour to write the newsletter. Right. Um, so I can just sort of do it and then obviously I need a minute to edit it, but it's, it's not like if I was doing all this as a new writer that, you know, mm-hmm, cuz I, I was, I used to be so much, so much slower.

And you said about making it work, or what is that? Like, you saw the social post, the post you're doing, it's working. How do you advise people? Or like, I'm asking this for myself, how to make it work on social?

Well, okay, this is going to be like very Non-actionable, but like step 1, have a lot of fun. Like I truly have a good time there and I don't treat it like work and I don't treat it like something I have to do. I treat it like something I wanna do. So every day when I log into social, for me it's like, it's a fun, like creative zone. Like what am I gonna say today and how am I gonna say it? I don't schedule my content and I don't write it ahead of time, which is a little bit— crazy. Casey is the opposite. Casey schedules everything. She writes everything ahead of time. Um, I don't do that. I might need to.

Why not? Why not?

Because, because I find it, I find it fun to not know and just like look at the box and, and it makes me more creative, I guess.

Hmm.

Um,

were you, were you in a position where like, Damn, I wish I had— for example, you're having dinner or you're feeding your twins. You know, at least to me, some of the ideas I get are when I do very non-obvious things, which are non-creative, like doing dishes or like folding clothes. I don't know why some random ideas come to mind, especially like writing pieces. And I quickly type up on Notes or whatever it is, the app. At that time, I wish like there is like a personal assistant to me walking with me, like, okay, I have this idea, can you tweet it out? So you can like sometimes be very present, like how you do. I used to do that. Like, I mean, I'm a mix of everything. I sometimes schedule and I sometimes like tweet whatever the things that come to my mind. I do see your point because the freshness of the thought that goes out That excites me. Forget about like who is consuming it. Oh my God, this is like a thought that came to my mind and I'm actually converting into bytes, which is like a word, like on a post, right? It's somewhere right now. So that excites me. And were you ever like, think about, you know what, this thought can be good for the next day. And how do you Just like as a writer, when you get these blasts of ideas, how do you manage in your mind?

Yeah, so I literally just use the Notes app on my iPhone and I write things down. Sometimes I'll even be watching TV. I watch a lot of true crime, and sometimes a detective will say something and I'm like, ooh, and I just write it down. I never write in my notes with the intention of like, I'm gonna go post this right now. Um, I usually let myself think about it for at least 5 to 10 minutes. I don't usually write it right away, although I have done that a few times, and one of them went mega viral. I don't know if you saw my ridiculously mega viral post making fun of bros. Mm-hmm. Um, but I did that once, and that was just hilarious that it went viral. But, um, most of the time I write it down, and then I'll look at it later, and if it's still resonates, then I'll do something with it. The other day I was just scrolling through my notes and I ended up making a post out of something, a quote I wrote down over a year ago. So I never really know when I'm going to come back to it, but I know that I, I know something resonated with me, so I write it down.

How do you manage the— I hate the word competition, but say there is, there are like a set of people when you're on, especially on social, you have that peer pressure. Again, it's— I mean, if you let it be, then it becomes peer pressure. But for example, people write, and sometimes I get into the trap, which is, man, I had like a similar thought, but I didn't tweet it, or like I didn't post it. I just let it go, right? And those moments where you felt like you would be that person, right, like to convey the idea. not getting the likes or that. I'm not talking about that, but it's so cool, like, you know, if someone actually thinks the way you think and you see the same sort of similar post. So how do you keep up with that competition, or, you know, for lack of a better word, keeping up with your peers?

I always see this as an opportunity to leave an amazing comment because I, I know that Even if I agree with someone, I can agree with them, but still stand out with my own opinion on it. I do that all the time. If I see something I absolutely love, I'll comment it. I saw something the other day on LinkedIn. Someone wrote this whole post that I completely agreed with except for one word choice that they made. So I commented and I was like, I absolutely love this. I feel the exact same way, except I would change self-deprecating to self-aware because whatever I said. And it got so many likes just from that. So you always like, you can always say something different that shows you. Um, so that's my way. But also like, I don't care about the comp— like I don't see people as competition. Of course not. I think the more people that are out there helping people like write better on social, the better, because there's so many terrible clickbaity, like horrible posts out there that like we could all use a bit more help. Yeah. And yeah, I actually read something this morning somewhere about, I don't know if you know Brian Dean, he's got like a huge presence. He just sold Backlinko to Semrush. And there was some quote about how like he just never cared about the competition. And like, yes, you have to know who's around. And if you have a business, you have to do your competitive matrix and all that stuff. stuff, but I don't care. Like, I just, I'm, I'm me, I'm showing up as me. Mm-hmm. Um, and that kind of takes, like, takes the competition away because no one else is you.

Right.

So for me, that's the difference between building a personal brand and building what I call a personal platform. Like, when you're building a personal platform, you're centering yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to share like all of these, uh, personal things. Like, I have very strict boundaries on social. Like, people don't get to know certain things about me, but I still kind of try to let my personality shine through every time. And when you're building a personal brand, it just, to me, that word makes me feel like something about it is inauthentic or manufactured. So yeah, you can't have competition. No one else is you.

Yeah, of course. You're you. And I feel, I wish more people rely on that versus, you know, falling into the trap of, hey, how would I compare with, you know, other people's work?

Oh, it's so easy. And we all have imposter syndrome too. All of us.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

So this is my personal opinion. To create great content, you have to consume great content so that you get these ideas, you get inspired from other people, other people's work, and the way they think can actually ignite the way you think sometimes, right? And I kind of straight out steal— I mean, steal or copy Naval Ravikant, for example. The way he writes the one-liners, they're like so crisp, punchy, and powerful, right? I used to like write a lot of similar ideas. Once I read, I must— I mean, I'm sure like people ask you a lot of editorial or writing frameworks. I want to ask the opposite. How does your consuming framework look like? How do you consume content? Is it daily, weekly? Is there a structure for it?

Um, well, it's hard. So like personally, I don't really have a structure because I'm in content all the time. I have no choice but to read a lot of content for my job, especially at Grizzle. Like if I'm editing something, I better be on the SERPs reading every other thing about this. Mm-hmm. Um, or I need to be on Quora reading everything about that. So, um, I'm always involved in content. But personally, yes. I mean, I have people that I follow because I believe that they're always putting out quality content and I wanna see what they're thinking and how they're presenting it. So yes, that definitely seeps into your subconscious. Mm-hmm. And it influences your medium and like how you write and that, that evolves over time for sure. My, my, something that I just always warn people about is, A lot of people give tips, you know, like, oh, hand copy this person, or, you know, try to emulate them. Yes, that can be helpful. But think about playing a guitar. So you learn to play the guitar. Most of the time you're gonna start by learning someone else's songs, right? Like, that's the easiest way to know that if, like, if you're good or not. Of course. But if you decide to actually go on stage and you wanna be serious about it, maybe you'll start as a cover band, but like, you're eventually gonna need to write your own songs if you wanna get any recognition. So it's the same thing. Like, you can really easily tell on social, like, who's a cover band and who's a creator. And there is a difference. So just be careful, cuz even though we all kind of start by playing someone else's songs, like, you need to write your own songs if you wanna get recognized as a musician.

I feel that's a tweet right there. Amazing. You should probably tweet this out after this conversation.

I probably will. Yeah.

Yeah. I like the analogy. You know, it's so true. I feel you should not settle for being a cover band, even though you start as a cover band. You should not settle. You should push yourself to actually create like, you know, something out of it. You get, that's a, that's a great way of putting things. a little bit like off as a mom. How do you like— what's your— what does your day-to-day look like being managing twins versus work versus creating content? How does— how much of the— how much of the inspiration comes from them?

Um, I mean, I would say they actually— they've like squashed my creative inspiration a little bit because there's such a handful and I'm exhausted. Um, but no, so My kids live in 3 wake windows at the moment and they have 2 naps. So from 6 to 9:00 AM, I'm with them. I'm not on my phone or I try not to be. Mm-hmm. And then they sleep until 11 and then I get to work. And then my wife is actually the primary caregiver at the moment. Mm-hmm. But because there's 2 of them, we have like, we live near my family luckily, and we have a nanny that comes twice a week. So Everyone else comes and helps for those second 2 wake windows, except at 5 o'clock I put everything down and I go and I like get them bathed and do bedtime and all that stuff. So I'm with them in the very beginning of the day, at the very end of the day, and then like obviously throughout the day if I want to stop and see them, because I'm— everything I do is asynchronous. I'm not like on a schedule. Um, but I am not the primary caregiver. There's absolutely no way that I could do this if I was the primary caregiver.

So, and that's where we have to shout out, you have to give shout out to our partners, you know, for being there and for everybody, like, you know, who helps us to do, to give us the opportunity to do what we do on a day-to-day basis. So,

yeah,

shout out to like moms, all the parents, like everybody, like caretakers, caregivers, like all of the nannies, like even so my 2-year-old goes to daycare and I intentionally go out of my way to appreciate them because if he's with us, that's it. I can't have this call because he'll be like roaming around my chair, like, you know, back and forth. So I think I— and at the same time, I also feel bad because, you know, he's not with me for the majority of the day. And that actually gave me an idea. I don't know, probably I think you can use it too. I do this, no phones after 5 PM. Period. Like till the end of, like, you know, they go to like bed. That's like the best because, you know, no distraction, like straight giving attention to them, what they need.

But yeah, I try to do the same thing.

Yeah, I love that, you know, you're managing everything. Yeah. So one of the things I wanted to also ask about is the editing habits. Or the writing habits, right? How much— or talk to them about like your writing habits, uh, or the flow. You like, do you write in the morning, in the middle of the day? When, when do you get into the flow?

All the time or, or never. I, I'm definitely not one of those, um, wake up at 5, wake up at 4 AM, you know, write till 7, and like I've had this like blissful flow. That doesn't happen. I, again, like when writing is your job, you kind of don't have a choice. So you have to manufacture flow the best you can. A lot of the time, that just comes with like, you know, the task blocking, I think, or time blocking, whatever it's called, where you— whatever this one's called, I can't remember all the different names. But you start with your really shallow tasks, and you like check emails or like respond to— comments and then sort of like warm your brain up. And then when you move into the deep work, um, you close all distractions and you're like just focused on that. Um, sometimes I have like a writing warmup I do where I'm just literally typing anything that comes to mind to just warm up my fingers and like get the flow from my brain to my fingers moving. Um, but it can be really difficult. Like there's some days where it just doesn't happen and you're just like, I'm not thinking straight today. Mm-hmm. And you, you just literally can't do it. So you do your best, um, and you realize maybe I'll just get something horrible outta my head and I'll, I'll have to spend an extra hour or 2 editing this later.

Right.

Or you just walk away and you do something else until you feel like you can sit down and focus.

Hmm. I love that.

But I, yeah, I don't, I'm not someone who's like, oh, I work better in the morning or I work better at night. Also, I have no choice anymore. Like I, I have to just work in like the hours that I'm given when I'm not with my kids, so I better make it work.

Right. Nice. One of the things that you also— like, I saw one of your tweets yesterday about you're kind of moving away from building a personal brand and you want to talk more about personal platform. Talk to me about it. Like, why that pivot? And what are you observing these days that made you talk more about building a platform versus brand?

Yeah. So I just feel like there's a shift happening. I mean, especially everybody knows the stats, you know, especially in B2B, people wanna buy from people, not brands. Like people wanna buy from brands that feel like they have aligned values. Customer service matters more than ever. Like personalizing matters more than ever. So that's a shift in general, but there's just been a shift on social, at least in the past 2 years that I've been there, where It seems like people are over, you know, the faceless bro accounts that just all say the same thing. Mm-hmm. Or there's— that's one side of it. Or the feeling that you have to kind of like manufacture this brand of yourself to be online. It feels very cringey, like kind of fake, kind of weird. Like, okay, so I know that I run my own business, but like, I'm not a brand, I'm a person. Like, yes, there's people that are my competition in business, but like, we're also all just kind of people. Like, it just, it feels weird. So when you shift it to personal platform, you're kind of taking the power away from the platforms. Like, you're the platform, you're building your own stage. Like, you're, you're, you're choosing to be in control of your presence online. As opposed to creating like this brand story around yourself. Like you can just be you, your personality can be in the post naturally. It kind of helps to melt away that imposter syndrome as well. Like, how am I supposed to be online? Like, who do I like wanna come across as? Like, no, you're you. It's more about like, how do I, like, what do I wanna talk about and how do I wanna structure that? Less like, how do I wanna be online? Mm-hmm. It kind of takes that pressure off.

Yeah, I like that. I think it relies more on the authenticity piece more than anything, right? Like, talk to your mind and speak from your mind and be very genuine the way you communicate. I like that. And yeah, so I do this thing, fun thing called Rapid Fire 5. I just like ask 5 random questions. Like, you know, just some something fun. So let's do that. Like, what are the things comes to your mind? Like, you know, take it out. Uh, any— do you want to— if you want to give like a shout out to a creator that, that like, okay, he, he or she writes like amazing content, who would that be?

I mean, off the top of my head, it's Caitlin Borgoyn. I don't know how to pronounce her last name. Borgoyn. She runs, um, Why We Buy. And she's actually what someone would consider potentially a competitor of mine, but I don't see her like that because she's fucking brilliant and I absolutely love her content.

Yeah, she's, she's joining the podcast somewhere in September, so I'm working with her to find a date. Yeah, she's amazing.

She's great. Yeah.

And if you were to give 3 tips for people to, uh, get people's attention, what would they be, especially on social?

Okay. Um, be specific, don't be general. So, um, for example, if you have edited 3 million words, say it. Don't say I've edited many words. Mm-hmm. Um, you need to, uh, build emotional resonance. And in order to do that, like, people stop when they feel like, uh, something in their emotions. Oh, like, that's interesting. Or like, shit, someone said it. Or I didn't realize I was messing that up. So you wanna use power words and like really speak to those pain points. And also you need to build curiosity. So you need to get people to click see more. So however you can do that on whatever, whichever platform, on LinkedIn, it's like the first 3 lines on Twitter, it changes, you know, they're changing their algorithm all the time. But Totally. You wanna get, you need to make people think, I better, I better click into this or else I'll miss something. You need to build that curiosity. What's in here? So don't give it all away in the top. Like the hook is meant to hook them and then you need to get them to click see more.

I love that. Do you have like a favorite tweet or a LinkedIn post or a Twitter thread that it's like all-time favorite of yours that you wanna like, okay, this is how people should write on social?

Oh, it depends. Oh, it's so, that's so hard. It depends. It depends because things are changing too. So like, my favorite, my favorite thread that comes to mind right away is probably Casey's, my business partner, her thread about being attacked by a dog. Wow. And how she survived it. It's really intense. It's really personal. It has absolutely nothing to do with her business or getting clients or anything. But when people think of her, they think of this tweet, and it's helped her like connect with people in all these amazing ways. So yeah, if you go to Casey, it's a better Jones is her hook, her handle, and it's like her top tweet. It's insane. I don't know if it's pinned, but I think it's probably gotten more likes than anything else that she's written.

Yeah, we'll really leave that. We'll include that in the show notes. Yeah. So you write a lot, of course, you know, no-brainer. You write, of course, in analogies too, and you've kind of dropped many in this episode too. What's your favorite way to convert an idea to an analogy, and what's your favorite analogy, just like, you know, in general?

I mean, it's hard to explain because it's, it just kind of, it happens in the creative process. Um, and they happen.

Let me ask you this. How did you, how did you, uh, converted an idea before? Like, what was your favorite analogy that you so far produced? That's a better way to ask the question.

I mean, I'm gonna have to choose a joke I made instead of an analogy because I think it's funny and it helps me have fun online. So I haven't made a joke in a while, but I used to make jokes all the time. So this was kind of like a dad joke and it went, why are marketers terrible at walking dogs?

Okay. Why?

So you say why?

Yeah.

Because they struggle to hold onto leads.

I didn't expect that one. I was expecting something about a dog and something like probably clients or something like that, but not the leads and leads. I love that. Okay, last question. You said you read a lot to your kids. Any recommendations of a good storybook for parents like me?

So they don't understand anything yet. But there is this book that we're reading. It's really short. We're on like the short books that are like hard so they can like eat the pages and it doesn't ruin the book. Like those are the books that we're on right now. What is the title? It's something about like the story of like something whodunit. Okay. And it is like a tiny mole. Not a— what is it called? A mole? A mole rat, maybe? A mole rat? And it woke up and it had this gigantic pile of poop on its head.

Oh my.

And he spends the day going around to all the different animals on the farm being like, who pooped on my head? And like, in, in, in so doing, all of the animals are like, that's not me. Like, my poop looks like this. And so—

Oh my God.

Uh, it ends with him finding out who it was and then like getting retaliation. It's hilarious. Um, I didn't know that that was what that book was about when I started reading it to them, cuz people just gifted us like a whole bunch of books. Um,

yeah.

But by the end I was like, this is the funniest book I have ever read. Um, and I'm gonna read it to them every day.

Yeah, we, I'll definitely look into it. It, it seems like a fun, fun way to end it.

I'll find it. I'll find it for you. Yeah, for sure.

I think so. We read to Rohan too, my 2-year-old, and we read this book called Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site. And he loves trucks, the cars and everything. Now he's at a stage where he's actually reciting the whole book to us. We just flip the pages. He's like reading while just looking at the photos. I mean, the pictures.

That's awesome.

So yeah, for folks like, you know, who wants to do, that's another recommendation. But Erica, this has been like a blast. Like I learned a ton about editing. And one thing I'm taking away from this conversation is better pay attention to editing equally or even more than what you write. I feel the refining part is really important. I do refine, but I feel like not in a structural way, like you said, you know. how to use, how to change the words, how to change the shorter it, lengthen based on this emotion that we want to express. So thanks again. Appreciate all the tips and anything that you want to say before we wrap up.

Just, I mean, have fun on social. Like, fuck the competition. Have a good time. Be yourself. You are your strongest differentiator. And yeah, like, prioritize self-editing. Take it slow. It's not, it's not the end of the world. You're not going to get it right right away, but like, trust me, it's going to pay off in the future. So

awesome. Yeah, that's it. Have fun, guys. I think, you know, that's the best thing you can control, and that, that's the best thing you can do, right? You can control the results or the outcomes. Uh, again, thank you, Erica, and thanks for everybody for tuning in. This is, uh, you know, we're having amazing guests like Erica for the rest of rest of the year, actually. As a matter of fact, I have booked— I mean, not booked, but at least have 15+ guests in the pipeline. So I'm very stoked to have this amazing conversation and bring it to you. So that's it for now, but stay tuned for more episodes. Cheers, folks.

Bye.