Are you bothering people with your content?

Do you ever feel like you're bothering people when you post content or when you send your email newsletter? Well, let's talk about that feeling because, well, I'll be honest with you, I feel that every time, I still feel it, I should say, even after posting on social media thousands of times over the past 20 years, since I've been using social media media and sending email newsletters for the past 15 years, I still feel this tinge of, is this going to be worth them receiving it? Am I sometimes, am I, you know, making a fool of myself or am I wasting their time? Am I cluttering up their inbox by sending this thing? So I just want you to know that even after thousands of times, I still feel it. However, because I have practiced doing it again and again and again, I am much better at doing it without much drama, emotional drama anymore. And so I don't think it ever goes away, at least for me, for perhaps sensitive people or more courteous people. Fact that you're watching this and you're interested in this question, I'm going to guess that you are more courteous and more. Yeah, you have a, you have a higher level of thoughtfulness, considerateness than most people because I also know that there are a lot of marketers who mind sending, sending you several emails a week. Sometimes when they're launching something, they might even send several emails a day. And when I've talked to those people, they don't, they don't mind. They kind of see it as a numbers game, which is not, not a great thing to treat other humans that way. They see it as. Well. I'm just, you know, going through the system here. I'm following the system and I will see what the response is. And, and they don't, they aren't perhaps as sensitive as you are about, well, what is the feelings and the experience on the side of the recipient. So I really want to honor you for having that sensitivity. And because you have that, it can be more, there can be more resistance from you to sending email newsletters and posting on social media. So first, like I said, I feel it still to this day. And it's not unusual to feel it every single time I post something. But it's also important to understand that if you go ahead and just record or just send, you practice managing that feeling and realizing afterwards that it was okay, that, oh gosh, it's now out there now sometimes you wish you could take it back. I understand. Plenty of times I wish, like, oh, wait, but I forgot to say this or oh my gosh, I shouldn't have said that. But ultimately, I hope my experience of sending. Well, at this point, I've sent hundreds. Wait, hold on. I've been doing this for 15 years and for 15 years I've sent at least a monthly email newsletter and I also have, I've also had a weekly email newsletter for the last 10 years. So do the math on that. I can't do it right now, but it's probably over a thousand, it's probably well over a thousand email newsletters pressing send at this point. And every time you do it, you get, you get a little bit stronger. Okay, you get a little bit stronger. And you also realize at the end that, oh, actually it, it's really okay. And people usually will appreciate what you send. Sometimes they appreciate it less, sometimes they appreciate it more. And this is important to understand that they, there's a reason they signed up for your email newsletter or to follow you on social media. You know why they did that? Because they want to see your stuff. Believe it or not, it's a mind blowing idea, right? They actually want to receive your email newsletter. They're looking forward to it. Otherwise they would have unsubscribed. And sometimes they do, and that's okay too. I've gotten, I've. I have another video about. Don't. Don't be afraid of losing people. Really? Because you will get an unsubscribe. At least one or two unsubscribes with every email newsletter. Just about every email newsletter you send, you will at least get one or two, sometimes more, and that's okay. But more people stay subscribed than unsubscribe, right? Of course. And so they want to continue receiving your email newsletter or your post. It's very important to understand that. Why? Because when people go on social media or they open their email inbox and they're reading newsletters, what are they doing? They are needing an uplift right now. Otherwise they would be focused on their work or they'd be focused on whatever else but the fact that they're reading social media. Just think about that mindset for a moment. What are they doing? Well, okay, let's be honest. They're wanting a distraction. Yeah. Let's call it what it is. They are wanting a distraction right now. And you might as well be their distraction. Was it because they're wanting it, they're looking for it. You might as well be the distraction that comes through with something helpful, something insightful, possibly something touching, something authentically expressed. It Might as well be your thing than some other distraction that they could have, right? Might as well be. Might as well be. They're looking for a distraction. They're looking for a bit of a, an uplift for their energy or they're looking for some healing for their heart. That's honestly what it is. So when you show up with that kind of positive intention fact that you're in my audience, I know that that is your intention. Your intention is to bring some insight, some uplift for them or some healing for them based on whatever story you're telling or some authentic expression coming through. That's your intention. And they might as well receive that positive intention when they're trying to be distracted. Okay. They might as well learn something or heal in some way, right? So one of the things you might be concerned with is, well, how often should I be posting so that I'm not a bother to people? That's a fair question, really is, I think when it comes to an email newsletter, once a month is definitely not too often. I have a once a month email newsletter and I have a once a week email newsletter. Some people subscribe to both, some people only subscribe to the monthly one. And I've been doing the monthly one for gosh, yeah, it's close to 15 years and it's great. People are happy to receive it. My, my, it's only growing over the years rather than shrinking. So there's fewer unsubscribes than there are. There is growth. So please, please, please, I, I, as your marketing advisor, if I were your marketing manager, I would be begging of you, please let us send at least a once, once a month email newsletter. That is not too often. And in fact, if you send fewer than once a month, you might actually lose more people than you gain. Why? Because if you send fewer than once a month, once a quarter, twice a year, people start to forget who you are and why they signed up. But if you send it once a month, it's enough of a frequency where they, they're reminded, oh, that's right. That's why I value this person's expression. Now you could move it up to once a week gradually and see how it goes with your growth rate versus unsubscribe rate. Remember, unsubscribe is normal. Don't, don't fret over the fact that people are unsubscribing. That's normal. Everybody for everybody. It's normal. The question is whether more people are unsubscribing than is growing. And so you kind of have to test out the frequency. Once a month is a good minimum, keep going and then maybe try doing every three weeks. See how it goes. Is your, what you want to look at is, is your open rate getting lower and lower and lower and are your unsubscribes going up and up and up? Then you want to go back to once a month and every three weeks your open rate is as high as your once a month and the unsubscription rate is as low. Then maybe try once every two weeks. Once every two weeks. And I think honestly once every two weeks. If they, unless they signed up for a weekly newsletter, I think once every two weeks is a fine maximum rhythm for a. They're signing up for something and they didn't ask for a weekly. Maybe you can give that option. If you sign up for my email newsletter, you'll notice you, you're given an option monthly or weekly. And that's very clear. So anyway, people are looking for your stuff. Do not be bothered. Do not think you're bothering them by sending your email newsletter. Okay? Okay. So the other thing about, the other thing about not bothering them is that when you, when you are not. Okay, so for, look at, look at the people. Okay, so one more thing about frequency before I go on. Look at the people that you want to be reaching. Look at your ideal readers. Go to their social media. You have some of your fans who maybe regularly like your post or comment on your stuff, right? Okay. Go and look at their social media and notice whose stuff they are sharing. They're sharing it from this influencer, they're sharing it from this other page. And then go to those influencers and pages and notice what is the frequency of their posting. And you might be surprised. Usually other influencers and content creators are probably posting more than you, especially you being someone who is concerned about bothering people, people are probably posting more often than you are. Okay? And so if you look at your ideal readers, social media, notice what they're sharing, go to those pages, the sources of the stuff they're sharing, notice the frequency, how often, and then you can adjust because that's a very grounded way of seeing, okay, my ideal readers, their favorite content creators are posting daily or they're posting, you know, three times a week or whatever. Then you realize, okay, got it. Or, and then go to their, go to those people's email newsletters and see how often do they send it. Then you can have a very grounded, confident answer for how often you should be sending, posting things and sending email Newsletters because it's clear that your ideal readers like that kind of rhythm. Okay? So the last thing I want to mention, you know, before I complete is remember when you are creating content that you are. Well, not remember I'm going to share with you, with you again. My top two reasons for creating content is one, it's an important act of self exploration. Sometimes I call it creativity fitness. It's an important act, sometimes I call it of public journaling without publicly expressing and exploring the different sides of yourself that you find impactful, that you, that you find important that might be impactful for somebody else, but exploring the different thoughts that you have that you find useful thoughts, meaningful thoughts. Okay, good stories, connected, authentic stories, whatever. Like, that's one of the big reasons that I show up to create is the importance of self exploration and public journaling and creativity fitness. Because if I don't do this, I notice that my creativity withers over time and my understanding, even of myself, kind of withers over time. But as I keep showing up and exploring, I understand myself better and better and better. I understand what I'm really thinking and I understand better how I show up authentically over time. And the reason why we do it publicly is because of the other major reasons that the other major reason I create, which is service to others. So public journaling, self exploration, and then service to others, like my exploring of myself and my ideas. I trust, I have faith that it will be of service to somebody else out there. Otherwise I could be exploring myself privately. That's fine. And also public exploration is, service to others is also an accountability mechanism. I use to say, well, I could do it on my own, but then am I really going to do it on my own knowing that, okay, it's of service to others, I'm going to do this publicly because it's of service to others. And there's a side benefit of possibly growing my business, but it's really, I do it because this, this video might not grow my business at all, but this video is more likely to have some healing or beneficial effect on, on somebody else. So that's why I show up. I show up because it makes me feel really good that it might have a benefit to somebody else while I get the opportunity to continue exploring myself, my expression and my authenticity. And I do it publicly in service to others, but also as an accountability mechanism for me to show up so that I know that, see, I actually did show up. And, and the more you show up and serve others and explore yourself in this way, the more you also discover your calling the more you discover that intersection between your genuine expression and your genuine service of others. There's that slice in the middle, your genuine expression and then your genuine service to others. There's that slice in the middle that's actually both and that is our calling. It's like when you can express yourself authentically and it also helps others. My goodness, what a beautiful thing. And that's the only way you can do it is to publicly do this so that you can notice afterwards and analyze it maybe several weeks later, look at the data and go, oh, did that, did that piece of content really serve others? You can see the data. Did it get, did it get more likes than usual? Or was it simply. Was it merely. Which is also important, like I said, was it merely an act of self exploration and creativity fitness, which is just as important to show up for? So I'm helping you hopefully reframe the question. Like you're thinking so much, you're being so self conscious and thinking, oh, am I bothering someone else by doing this? But rather take on a much more powerful and I think true framing that. What's more purposeful framing that. What's really more important here is that you actually give yourself the opportunity for creativity, fitness and self exploration. And on the other hand, you give yourself the opportunity to let your content be a ministry to somebody else. You don't know who that's going to be and you don't know how long it's going to take for that person to find it, but they will. Like I said, I've been creating content for so many years and I trust me, I get comments and emails regularly from someone who's commenting on a piece of my content from years ago, a video from years ago, or they email me saying, george, your idea I learned from you years ago about this is still making an impact on me today. Thank you. You don't know how long it's going to take, but you do know that it's very likely going to be of a beneficial influence on somebody out there at some point. So you show up for that person, you show up for that ministry moment, you show up for that better that that moment of uplifting another human being. Show up for that. And for yourself's exploration, I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for joining me for this journey and as always, I welcome any comment below about how this helped, if this helped, or if you have any other thoughts for your fellow viewer who is feeling sensitive and resistant to showing up publicly because they might be bothering the world they might be adding to the noise of social media. What. What would you have to say about that? Feel free to comment below as well. Maybe it's to yourself you can say you can think about that. So anyway, welcome your comments below or not. I wish you a wonderful day and I wish you purposeful courage and sense of service to yourself and to others as you post and publish. Be well.