You Didn’t Spend 12 Years Becoming an Expert to Perform on Social Media
Unless you went to Juilliard, you didn’t go to school for four, eight or twelve years to perform on a video.
Need to read that again?
Because somewhere along the way, social media marketing got a little lost. Professionals who spent years becoming exceptionally good at what they do started being told that the way to reach potential clients was to become entertainers.
Now we have plastic surgeons dancing in operating rooms, attorneys lip-syncing while their staff serves as backup dancers, doctors chasing trending audio and business owners spending hours trying to recreate whatever happened to go viral last week.
But here’s the question we should probably be asking: Is anyone actually searching for a dancing plastic surgeon?
When someone is considering a facelift, they’re probably much more interested in whether the surgeon understands facial anatomy, has extensive experience, produces natural-looking results and can explain what they should realistically expect from the procedure.
Someone facing a legal problem isn’t scrolling through Instagram hoping to find an attorney with impeccable timing on a trending reel. They want someone intelligent, experienced and capable of solving the problem sitting in front of them.
The same is true for accountants, financial professionals, chiropractors, contractors, pilots, physicians and just about every other professional service.
People are looking for someone they can trust.
And trust is very difficult to choreograph.
Social Media Was Never Supposed to Replace Your Expertise
There’s nothing inherently wrong with having fun on social media. Businesses should have personality. People like seeing the humans behind a company, and sometimes a funny post is exactly what belongs in the feed.
The problem starts when businesses believe they have to perform in order to be seen.
They don’t.
In fact, some of the best content is probably sitting inside your business right now.
It’s in the questions your clients ask every day. It’s in the conversation you have during a consultation. It’s in the explanation you’ve given hundreds of times because people consistently misunderstand something about your industry.
It’s in the things you know because you’ve spent 10, 20 or 30 years doing this work.
That’s the content people need from you.
A surgeon can explain why one procedure may be appropriate for one patient and completely wrong for another.
An attorney can explain what someone should do before they ever need an attorney.
An accountant can talk about the mistake small business owners repeatedly make with their finances.
A contractor can walk through a project and explain why something was built a certain way.
A flight instructor can answer the question nearly every future pilot asks before taking that first flight.
None of those people need choreography.
They need a camera and something worth saying.
Authentic Content Still Needs a Strategy
Authentic doesn’t mean turning on your phone and talking aimlessly for seven minutes.
There still needs to be a strategy behind the content. The subject should matter to the audience. The opening should give someone a reason to keep watching. The video should be edited well enough that the message doesn’t get lost, and there should be a reason the content exists in the first place.
But good marketing should make the professional more recognizable, not turn them into somebody else.
If you’re naturally funny, be funny.
If you’re serious, be serious.
If you’re the person who can explain an incredibly complicated subject so anyone can understand it, do that.
If you have 30 years of experience and strong opinions about your industry, there is probably an audience that would genuinely like to hear them.
The goal isn’t to make every business owner look like an influencer.
The goal is to let potential clients see enough of the real person behind the business that they begin to understand who they would be hiring.
Your Real Life Is More Interesting Than You Think
One of the strangest things about social media marketing is how often businesses overlook the interesting things they already do while trying to invent something interesting to post.
Go behind the scenes.
Show the project.
Explain the decision.
Answer the question.
Introduce the person who has worked there for 15 years.
Talk about why you chose one approach instead of another.
Explain something people consistently get wrong.
Show what experience actually looks like.
Tell the story of how the business started.
Talk about a problem you solved.
Those stories may not generate a million views. They may do something considerably more valuable: reach the person who actually needs what you do.
That distinction matters.
A million people watching a video has very little business value if none of them will ever become a client. A few hundred of the right people watching an experienced professional explain exactly the problem they’re trying to solve can be an entirely different story.
Virality and effective marketing are not the same thing.
You Have Permission to Stop Performing
If you’ve been watching other businesses online and thinking you need to start dancing, lip-syncing or spending half your week figuring out trending audio just to remain relevant, consider yourself officially excused.
Put those hours back into telling the real story of your business.
Show your credentials.
Share your experience.
Answer real questions.
Solve real-life problems.
Let people see how you think, how you work and why you’ve earned the right to call yourself an expert in the first place.
Social media doesn’t have to turn professionals into performers.
Used well, it can do exactly the opposite.
It can give people a chance to see the intelligence, experience, personality and humanity behind a business before they ever pick up the phone.
So stop 🛑 trying so hard to look like social media.
Start looking like yourself.
That’s probably who your future clients were searching for all along.