Looking to grow your presence on social media? Start by getting more honest about what really lights you up inside.

Here’s what I mean. I do dental marketing for a living. So when I decided to grow my social media audience to help promote my business, my first instinct was to put up a lot of content about how dental practices can generate more new patients.

I was proud of this content. “This is gonna help so many people!” I told myself. Err, not quite. Turns out that even dentists get bored after watching too many videos about dental marketing. Especially when the person making those videos wants to sell them something.

Still, I needed to put my company in front of more people. So I started experimenting with chasing the crowd. I’d post on trending topics, hoping to catch the zeitgeist. But soon, I felt burned out. Yeah, I got a few views but the price was giving my energy to things I didn’t actually care about. Then I started making videos about coffee.

I LOVE coffee. Each morning, I find joy in the ritual of brewing a perfect cup. Whenever I travel, I can’t wait to explore local coffee shops and find the one that really blows me away. And once I began sharing all this with my audience, my likes and views started to shoot upwards. Now, why should you care about my coffee posts? Because if you’re looking to grow your own audience for yourself and your personal brand, the lesson here is really simple: Stop selling and start sharing about what matters to you.  It doesn’t have to be coffee, of course.  Behind-the-scenes looks at your practice, meditations on work-life balance, blooper reels of your pets— most anything is fair game.  Share about the stuff that makes you get out of bed in the morning.

Share about that one thing that you can’t stop telling all your friends about.  And if you’re willing, share about your struggles, too. You’ll help others see that the seemingly polished doctor in front of them is actually a vulnerable human being—just like they are. 

Do this and your content will jump off the screen because you’ll be speaking from the heart. You’ll begin to build a genuine bond  with your audience. It won’t happen overnight. Any social media strategy is a long play. But over time, you’ll develop a sense of how to hit the balance between personal passion and audience appeal. And opportunities will start to appear.

For me, coffee posts have helped me meet folks who I’ve gone on to collaborate with professionally or interview on my podcasts. You might find yourself connecting with potential new hires (or job opportunities), growth partners, or even new offices to buy! If you’re willing to put yourself out there, good things happen.