Intentionally blending in is silly.

Doing exactly what everyone else is doing means you will never be able to set yourself apart from the herd, so you will forever be a sheep like the rest. Ba ba and all that bla bla. 

Doing everything you can to ‘fit in’, that is, being bland and vanilla and exactly like your competitors, and not taking a risk when creating content for your business, is, in fact, a risk to your business. 

Logically, the risk is precisely that you just blend in and not stand out among your competitors AT ALL.

At that point, you’re just wasting your time and your money by just phoning it in and being decidedly bland and average.

Blanding in (sorry, I had to) is really rather stupid, and this applies to Linkedin or anywhere else where you’re making the effort to get your message out there.

Take me as an example.

I could have decided I want to be lukewarm, vanilla, corporate and boring on LinkedIn. 

That way, I definitely won’t offend anyone, I won’t turn anyone off, and I’ll appeal to the broadest possible band of potential clients, right?

Wrong.

For a start, that’s not who I am, so if I tried to put that on, it would immediately come off as fake to anyone who knows me or anyone who’s getting to know me. It would feel fake and be fake, and worse, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth to do that, because it isn’t who I am, so no thank you.

But secondly, and more importantly, it would position me as definitely average, just another Vanilla Joe with no original thoughts, no opinions, no rizz, no spine, no skin in the game, just another “thrilled to be”, boring as hell digital marketer. Which I am not, thank you very much.

Listen, if you publish a post that reads like it’s been passed around a board of directors and got approved over 37 emails, no one is going to read it, because it’s going to be dull, bland, tame, and boring.

For example, I post hot takes and memes on Linkedin, because why not, and because memes are memorable.

Guess how well this meme post did in the 3 weeks since I posted it?

Or the post below, which is just a simple, text-only post of a conversation with a CEO that may or may not have happened:

Yeah, I’d say that getting seen by half a million people means it did quite well actually.

Dull = invisible

Being dull and bland is, in fact, bad for business, because you’re basically just meh to your audience. Which isn’t what you want AT ALL, because then your boring message doesn’t resonate, doesn’t work, and you need to spend even more time and advertising budget pushing it, because it was weak to begin with.

Honestly, I’d say it’s actually better if your content pisses someone off, rather than makes them feel exactly nothing. 

At least making someone angry is actually memorable, unlike 99% of posts or adverts – in fact, tell me, do you remember ANYTHING, anything at all from the last 5 social posts or ads you’ve seen today? 

Dull = invisible 

So, take a risk, stand apart from your competitors, and put stuff out there that stops followers from scrolling right past it. 

I create unique, memorable content for brands and solopreneurs.

You want content with heart and soul. With clients ranging from Blue Arrow to Betfair, that’s exactly what my team and I do!

Contact me if that’s what you’re after.