7: Turn your Social Media Content into a Book

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp. And in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. And I'm very excited to be here today with Emily and we're going to be talking about how to turn your social media into a book. Emily, thanks so much for joining us today. Could you tell us a little bit more about your you in your journey and how you got to where you are today?

Yes. Destiny, first, thank you so much for having me. I have learned so much from you in the past year and it's just an honor and an excitement to be here. So yes, I have always been teaching and so it's been a really fun journey for me. I was an elementary school teacher, a high school teacher and even a preschool teacher before I became a full time author coach. And so I'd always written my whole life, I'd always published my whole life. But yeah, I made the leap and now I'm coaching people one on one and creating courses on how to make a book. And so my heart and soul is just so with your audience because we're all in this together, you know, taking these different ideas and making courses, teaching in new ways. And so yes, in the past few years that I've been in business, what I've really focused on are spiritual ways and just kind of open minded new ways, using energy, using yoga to focus your attention and write the book you're meant to write, really put that work that you've always wanted to do, that you've always felt in your life purpose to do, put it out into the world. And so recently I launched a course, a very simple self study course on how you can use your social media to create a book. Because I noticed so many people the biggest obstacle to writing a book was time. And so people spend so much of their time, especially people doing courses and who have their own personal brand and personal business, they're getting on social media every single day and posting and growing their audience and then they have a harder time getting away to find the time to create that larger course or that larger book. And so I found a system where you can really outline your book and then make sure that the posts and the work you're doing contributes to your larger idea and contributes to that larger journey of a full course or a full book. And it's just been so much fun. There are so many advantages and people are doing the course and I'm also applying it to my coaching. So yeah, I suppose that's the arc of the journey.

Yeah. Well, I love what you're doing and you mentioned so many good points there. One being so many course creators, they want to, you know, write a book. Obviously it helps build their expertise into the market, but it's just a time thing. But they have all this content out there. So I love what you're doing and how you can walk people through the process of taking content that they've already created and, you know, pull that in to launch their book. So I absolutely love that.

Thanks.

So I have some questions for you and you know, just kind of, you know, answer them the way you feel best. But first question is why are Instagram and Facebook particularly good platforms for authors? How can they use them and how can course creators use them to, you know, launch their next book?

So I found, because I'm working with a lot of authors and so we spread out across different platforms. That's a fun thing about being a coach, is that you're not just testing it with your own work, but you know, you have 20 or so other people using the ideas and testing them out. And so I really started to focus in on Instagram and Facebook with my techniques because I'll start with Instagram. So there's a growing audience. You know, right now there are about a billion people on Instagram and more than a billion people on Facebook. And the fun thing is that with that huge volume of users, people are using it as the new television. More people are on social media than there are people watching television at this point, which, and some people really look down upon that in that people are losing time on those platforms. But I think it's really in how you use it. And if you want to grow a business, if you want to express yourself, and if you want to create something meaningful for other people, then you can really use the fact that, you know, just by being alive, you have international viewers everywhere. And so I focused in on Instagram and Facebook because I love the way they've really, they use the platform for self expression. So let's say you're creating a course. You're able to connect immediately with your readers and your audience by using the different, the surveys, the pictures, the captions, all of those different aspects of those two platforms. And so you can break your ideas down into little organic chunks and put them out there as long as you have an outline. And I'm going to do a little aside here, that's fun in that because any social media platform is so focused on chatting, it actually helps you sculpt your Book, especially Instagram and Facebook. And I think you'll notice, you know, there's direct messaging, there's private messaging, and then there are also the posts where people just get into lively conversations. It's really easy to start a lively conversation on those two particular platforms. And so the thing that I think is really fun is that you can actually, if you're a teacher, if you're a coach, if you have a course where you're teaching people something, you start the conversation, and then people are going to ask you questions. People are going to interact with that. And one thing I found I'm doing more and more is that in those platforms, my audience asks me about the writing blocks that they're most concerned with. They asked me about the aspects of the writing craft that they most want to learn. And so what I always have going is a running outline of my course or of my manuscript. And when somebody asks me a question, I will put my heart into answering that question in the most honest way I can. And then guess what I'll do? I will copy that answer, and then I will paste it into my manuscript where it applies. And then what I have is an organic document that really serves my audience in the way I want to serve them, but it also uses their language. Something funny is that when I first started writing books, to help people write books, one thing, one word I used all the time was epiphany. Because I thought people want to have epiphanies. You know, that's when you can just think of an entire chapter and you just write it down. And so I was always using that word. Then I kind of realized nobody uses the word epiphany. Lots of people like the word epiphany, but nobody identifies with it except for me. And so then I started just molding. I still talk about the same content, and. And I still talk about the same stuff, but because I really develop my material using social media, I just naturally navigate towards the same language as the customers and the people I'm serving. And so it makes a really fun journey where my audience is building the entire time, and then the course or book that I've created is just right into their hands because I've created it using the conversations that I have with them.

So I had a lot of aha moments going through that. So, you know, in what I've been doing, I take, you know, blog content or podcast content, right? And then use that and repurpose that on social media, but you're actually kind of doing it the other way. Where you're taking what you've posted on Instagram or Facebook, but most importantly, the conversations that you're having with your ideal customer and using that to make your book or, you know, you can use that, honestly, you could use that anywhere, right? You could even use it for ad copy or absolutely copy that you're doing. But what you came up with is just absolutely brilliant because it helps you speak the language of your ideal client. And that is so good.

Emily, thank you so much. Yeah, and just a little add on there that's fun is that you want to make sure that you have the clarity. Really the only difference is that if you're building something bigger, yes, you use it in copy, but as long as you have a place to put it, because creating that outline first is a really fun thing to do there because then you're collecting it and it makes you be more organized, it makes you put your heart into it because it is multi purpose. And then what you have is kind of a scrappy document with just a bunch of notes. And so then as you sculpt it into a blog, that's taking the idea to the next step and building it out into a longer form. And then finally what you do is you sit down with that draft of blogs and notes and then you put it all together. So yes, absolutely. It's so much fun.

So tell me a little bit more about the outline. And do you. And you've created courses before, so you're familiar with them. Is it similar to create an outline for a book as you would for a course, or is there some nuances there that you need to keep in mind?

Well, and I think this is good because this is really the difference between your blogging and social media and your paid content. So this is a distinction that I go into in detail in the course, but I'm really going to lay it out here. So when somebody is consuming your social media, you don't want them. You don't want to have an outline that starts from start to finish in your Instagram feed or your Facebook page, because then people are going to get confused. They're going to feel like they're walking into your social media in the middle of a conversation and they missed the first part of it. So when we're talking about an outline, when people follow you or when people subscribe to your email list in your blog, they're expecting samples, they're expecting tidbits of information, and you need to give that to them, otherwise they're going to get confused. And if somebody didn't start talking to you when, you know, January of 2015. Well, they've missed out because they missed the beginning of the sequence. Right. And so that's why it's important to pop things in in different moments. So I have a detailed description of outlining. I'll give you the gist of it quickly. First, you want to think of where your person is at the beginning of the course, as all good marketers do that. You have a wonderful description of that in your material in your courses. Where at the beginning of the journey, where is your person at? Your reader, your student at. At the beginning of this journey? I like to think of them as sitting down in the self help aisle of Barnes and Noble, you know, just a little bit distraught, really needing help. You picture where they are at the beginning of the journey, and then you think of where they are at the end of the journey. Where do you want to take them? Where do you want, how do you want them to feel as they read the conclusion of your book? And so you go from there to there, and then you just think up the steps in between. You give yourself the number five, and then you challenge yourself to think up four, five steps or eight steps, and you just clarify. So that's my quick and easy outlining tool. There are a lot of nuances that go into that. You know, you might be taking somebody on the hero's journey or you might be taking them on. What I taught in school was always Freytag's pyramid. So there are different story structures. As you take somebody through a course or a transformative journey, there are different details. But in your basic outline, you want to say, where are they at the beginning, where they at the end? And then you take them through steps. Now, that journey, that outline, are people who choose you as their course leader, as their teacher, as their guru. And they choose you by paying. They're saying, okay, this woman knows what she's talking about, this man knows what he's talking about. I'm going to put my money on this person and I'm going to take their course, start to finish. That's your paid material. And so the difference is social media. They're just there for the hors d'. Oeuvres. They just want to sample it. And it's important that you give them what they're expecting. And so the way that I do social media to a book is that I create the outline ahead of time. Then I sprinkled that outline throughout my content calendar. So different things come up at different times, and that Way nobody is ever missing out on anything. The little ideas you can consume in a moment, the way social media is meant to be consumed. And then if people like the samples, then they say, I want to take her course. I'm going to buy her book. Going to really commit some time and money to taking the journey with her rather than just to continue to go along those samples. So the outline is an important part. But don't allow your blog or social media to unfold as an outline because that's the distinction between your free content and your paid content.

I love that and it makes me want to go create my outline for my book today.

Yes, I know. I love talking.

Oh, goodness. So what are some tips for creating content that you can use for a book? We're talking about social media content. So what are some tips you have for that?

So there are some quick tips I'm gonna, I help people do this for fiction as well as nonfiction. And so of course I'm gonna focus on nonfiction right now. So there are different kinds of posts and even blogs you want to create. You want to create teaching blogs in which you might just give a little, a little, A little lesson. You might just. This might just be some insights or thoughts that have come to you in the moment. And so then just allow yourself to really give the insight or the teaching you want to bring across. Another kind of social media post you might want to do is a how to. So that's those the classic blogs where you give, you know, create your book using social media and five easy steps. I've written that one many times. And so those are the how to or steps. Teaching tends to go a little bit more to the side of inspiration. And then the how to is really the practical. Let's get in an implement. Both of these are important, different types of posts to put up on social media. Nobody wants to read only the practical without the inspiration. And without the practical, the inspiration gets a little heady, it gets a little in the air. Then the third type that I'll talk about here is the personal, the behind the scenes, the stories, the connection. And so I love helping people open up and use their stories in their blogs and in their posts. And one quick way that I go into a lot of detail in the course, make sure in a caption on Facebook or Instagram if you want to share a story in 300 words. I love, because I'm into the writing craft, I love cutting things down. And so one thing I would, the three elements I find make for a really meaningful story. Post is to make sure that each post in the story has a mood or emotion. It has a character, someone they connect to. This could be either you or it can be an example, another character. And then the third thing, if you want to tell a good story in a. In a short amount of words, there has to be a change. So they have to. So the person has to enter one way and exit another way. And so sometimes in a blog will be able to go into a personal story. And I have a lot of examples of this in my blog. We'll go into his personal story, where it might be longer, and we'll share some details. We'll connect with the audience. We'll tell the audience, you know, this is something that happened to me. And I know a lot of you will be able to identify with this. This is something that happens to me. You'll go through the story of what happened. You'll explain why it changed you and what you learned from it. And so what I've had a fun time doing is I'll write blogs like that, you know, once a month or once every few months. But then, because it's a personal story, I kind of feel weird when I'm going onto social media and saying, okay, now come back to my blog and I'll really tell you the vulnerable story. And so I think it's much better to really cut that story down to the essence when you're sharing it on social media. You take out details, take out parts, but really get to the essence and the lesson. And the three things that are important to keep in place when you do that is make sure you have the person, the mood or emotion that you're capturing, and the change that the person goes through. So those are just some little tips on what you can do with social media and how you can use it.

So I love that. So the three type of areas, practical inspiration. And I think for the most part I have that down and I'm talking about my own personal experience. But where I struggle the most, I think is the personal post. Right. But I really like how you outline that and how you said you got to have really those three areas. The mood, the character, person, which would be, you know, for a lot of us, would be ourselves, and then the change and what that happens. So I love how you've laid that out.

And the fun thing about that is I think so many of us have problems with vulnerable stories. And with good reason. I mean, why should I just blab all of my stuff out on the Internet? And I think by like really focusing it right there is that when you look at those three elements, you want to match them to what your audience wants to learn. That's where those are the stories that really connect. You think about what's the emotion my audience has? Maybe they are insecure before they launch a course, or maybe they're just exhausted and overwhelmed because they don't have any time. And so then you key into your own life. When have I felt like that? And then you're not as self conscious because you're really centered in the reason that you're sharing. And. And that's where the connection comes in.

Great information. Let me ask you a question about kind of the caption. So if you. What's the best way to fit a story into the caption of a post? What are some tips and suggestions you have on doing that? Just kind of take this conversation a little bit further.

Yeah.

And.

Well, on my Instagram there are certain places where I do that. There's one particular one. If you go to my Instagram and you see a big red angel, that would be a good example of just a quick story post. And I think the other thing is you don't have to just share vulnerable stories. You can share just fun stories. And so I call that my angel post. And sometimes I direct people's attention back to that. So I can just show a personal example. And so the tip there is you can tell a story in a single sentence. You can tell a story in three paragraphs as long as it has those certain elements where you're connecting with your audience's emotion. And an extra tip there is to. You can start it out with a sentence like, you know, have you ever felt really insecure when you're about to put yourself out there? And then that first line, we see that the emotion that we're going to share in that post is going to be the emotion of insecurity. And by connecting, like really consciously connecting with your audience by asking them if they've ever felt that way, now they know how it's relevant to them and they're keyed right into the post. So then you go into a story. I remember when I was launching for the first time, you know, one of my stories is I was having like, I was getting sick, my eyes got really red. I got a little bit of pink eye just before I did that launch. You knew that when I did my launch for my first course and I. And so, you know, I kind of made a joke about it. I was so nervous that I was Working really hard, and I got sick. And then all of a sudden I realized I was going to have to do my videos with kind of red, swollen eyes. And. And so then you've brought people into a place where you're telling your personal story, but you're saying, you know, I felt this way as well. And then you go through. So I'm the character. I'm having this emotion of insecurity and stress before a launch. I've been there too. And then you go through the change. So I realized that no matter how much resistance I was going through both emotionally and physically, I was just going to give myself the space I needed. And. And where I'd been rushing myself and working myself too hard before, that experience with pink eye and antibiotics and all the good stuff that made me slow down and realize everything I've created. And that no matter what, this course deserves the time and space to do it right, to not rush it and to be able to connect in the way I want. So I made the personal decision to just give myself another week to get everything out there, and then everything flew smoothly. And so then that's the change from being kind of a stressed out person who's really pressing herself to time to just realize that I'm not in control of the universe and to take a little break. And so those are. That's the way you can kind of put out those elements in order, make sure that you're addressing the audience, that those stories are relevant to go into and tell some of the imperfections and the things that have happened in your life and then how you dealt with them so they feel less alone.

So I love all that. Your tips on how to incorporate those stories on social media are really, really great. Would you suggest that we would also incorporate those stories into our book? Yes.

Okay, so this is the fun part. So, for instance, you know, the story I just shared, I kind of shared off the bat. And you could put that, you could tell that story in three paragraphs, you could tell that story fairly quickly. But so when you share it on social media or a podcast as is, because I actually, I don't think I've shared that story but before, except when it was happening because I had to let everybody know why everything was running late. But, you know, I haven't really used that in retrospect ever. So then you can you tell it in a fast, off the cuff way when you're sharing it in social media. And then when you're going into a book, that's where you get to really do. The second draft, you look even deeper into the meaning. You fill in the deep details, and then, you know, I could tell that as an anecdote. I would tell it better. You know, I would give some telling details. I'd put some, you know, objects in there, like a real rough and tough description of my eyes at that point. And then I might connect it to a how to blog. So the moral of that anecdote is we all go through resistance. Don't meet resistance with more resistance. If you're already sick, don't stress yourself out more. Do whatever you can to give yourself that pillow. Give yourself that time. It's going to be okay in the end, even if you think it's not going to be okay. We've all been there, we all have these stories, and we make it through. And so then after I tell the little anecdote in the book, I would connect it to the how to blog, which might be how to work through resistance during stressful times or something like that. And another fun thing I'm going to add on there is that when I shared that story a moment ago, the stakes are fairly low. I'm communicating with other people, but I'm just sharing it. And so that way, when you're writing your book, you're not thinking, oh, my gosh, I have all this material from my life that I'm piling up in this secret manuscript, and nobody's ever seen it. The fun thing about sharing these stories and testing out material in podcasts, etc. Is that you're starting to connect with people while the stakes are still low. I just tested that out in social media or wherever, and then I see the response. And so by connecting with people, by just putting out things one at a time, you're not. You're not building up a manuscript. You're not making yourself nervous. What if nobody likes this? You know, what's connecting and what's not connecting.

That is so good. So it's definitely a great place for testing your content and what you might want to do with it. I just. I love that. I have one last question for you. You know what I hear all the time is we have no time. I have no time to create my course. I have no time to write a book. You know, we're all, you know, just short on time. So how can busy business owners find the time to develop material for their next book?

And so that. This answer has two parts. The first part is, if you're a business owner, you want to connect with people. I Mean, that's your prayer, that's a priority. No matter what, you're always building your audience. And so a great way, a great way to build your audience is through social media, through podcasts. However, however you're doing it, you're connecting with people. And so the point of this course is that look at how you're connecting with people now. Put a lit, put a few organizational tweaks to that, so you're doing it within the larger outline and then just apply the ways in which you're connecting with people now and into an ordered outline. So that takes, that saves up so much time that really, that really puts two birds with one stone. Kills two birds with one stone. Because the thing that you're probably spending a lot of time on already connecting with people. I mean, I've even done this in direct messages. Somebody's asked me a specific on point question in a direct message, I've given them an answer and then I've just copied that over to my book manuscript. So that's the first thing. That's the first thing. So the practical is, yes, start streamlining your social media and connection methods with your outline for your book and you can get them done together. But the second thing I think is even more important is that so often when people say I don't have time to write a book, what they're kind of saying is, I feel guilty spending time on creativity or I feel maybe it's a little egotistical or self indulgent writing a book when I really should be making spaghetti for my kids, when I really should be doing, I really should be, you know, doing these practical matters for my business. All of these things we don't feel guilty about. So there's an underlying belief system that I really like to help with that the book should be secondary. And so first of all, examine if any of those beliefs might be coming up. Is there some nervousness around putting yourself out there in manuscript form? Do you have a little bit of disbelief around who am I to write this book and see if that also might be dominating your decisions around time? Because that's often one of the first things I go into as a coach is that we can make time for anything, but sometimes those underlying belief systems come in first. And so actually I just had a blog about that because of course before I became an author coach, I was a full time teacher, a mom of a toddler. And so sometimes starting to work on those beliefs of actually I'm just really nervous to sit down alone with my manuscript that's the real reason I don't have time rather than the actual logistics about time. Because all those problems can be worked through. All of those problems can be solved. So those are the first two things. If you're super ready to write your course in book, then, yes, use that social media outlining tip. But if there are underlying beliefs where every time you sit down with a manuscript you feel guilty about all the other things you need to do, then, yeah, just come into my, just talk to me, because I'm really good at kind of massaging those out. So you can see why it's important to develop yourself creatively, develop yourself as an author, develop the way you can serve people in long form as a book. Because people really do need the depth of what you can create through a book. Not just those. You're not just here to do those little everyday tasks that tend to take up our time. You have real depth and you have a real contribution to make. And a book or a course is one of the best ways to make that contribution.

I love that. So the first tip, creating your outline, the structure, but most importantly, saving all your content, Even like the DMs, like you said, because that can save time. I love that. And then really taking a look at your underlying belief systems. And I think that's probably, as you mentioned, the most important thing. Emily, thanks so much for all of your great tips today. This has been a wonderful session. Can you tell people how they can find you?

Yes. So my, my brand, my book writing system is called the Meaning method. So that's www.meaningmethod.com. and then I also have a really fun active writing group which is called the Writer's Block. So that's where I get into a lot of the material around breaking down those belief system fun stuff with social media, practical stuff around publishing and editing and all that stuff. And then finally, if you want to see those examples for Instagram, my handle on Instagram is emilytmaher. And so all of those spellings and everything else will be provided below. Destiny, I adore you. I have learned so much from your material, from your course and everything. Thank you for having me on.

Yes, thanks so much for joining us today and to all of you course creators out there, thanks for listening and subscribe to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I would love it if you would leave a review and bye for now.