Tackling Your Content as a Neurodivergent Entrepreneur

The algorithm does not bow to your neurodivergence

Good morning, everyone. We are talking about tackling your content, today specifically for our neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Content is one of those things that’s really, really hard when you’re neurodivergent, especially if ADHD is in that mix. Because there are things that have to be done for the algorithm, and I’ve talked about this before: it does not bow to your neurodivergence and your lack of being able to stick to a routine. I’m sorry. There are algorithms, there is science, there is data that has to be satisfied for your content to do well.

Do you need to do social media for your business? No. But it does help, guys. I hate to put an unpopular opinion out there, especially for some of us that are older or maybe just don’t want to do it, but the name of the game in 2024 is social media. Social media will help you get clients. What is social media for? Social media is to provide value and to present yourself as an expert in your field. You are putting this stuff out there showing people: I know this, I can help you if you’re struggling with it.

And we don’t network like we used to. I’m old school. I was doing business and sales long before there was social media, and yes, that makes me feel freaking old to say. But you want to know how we had to do it? We had to create ads and put them in the newspaper constantly, in the penny savers, in the local magazines that went out from the school districts. We had to go to high school football games and be there in our embroidered polo shirts with business cards. We had to go literally door to door, office to office, store to store, to tell people we existed. We had to take people out for coffee and out to dinner. We don’t have time for that, and we don’t live in a world where that’s really possible anymore, especially post-Covid.

You have to touch your ideal client. Back then, it would take me three to five touches to land a client. Now it takes 20 to 30, because those touches are not as valuable as in-person marketing. That’s why, if you’re ever able to go to a conference or some kind of networking event, it feels like you get so much more done. You’re getting face time with people. So how do you get face time consistently? I know this is really hard, and I have had other ADHD business owners and ADHD coaches tell me I’m wrong and I have no idea what I’m talking about. I am a marketer. I own a marketing agency. My clients do really well. If a client actually does the thing, and does the thing well, I can take them from zero and triple their money in six months, and I don’t care what the business is. When you do all of the marketing right, it works. It’s hard to do when you’re a small business and you can’t hire a set of hands, there’s a lot that goes into it. Is social media hard? Yes. But social media is necessary as a small business, unless you can go talk to people face to face.

Claim every handle, but post on one platform

We have this conversation with people quite a bit, because we help people with social media. Okay, do you have to do all the social media? Here’s what I tell people: make an account everywhere and capture your handle, the handle you want to use. If your handle is “the neurodivergent teacher,” go on all of the platforms, make an account, and grab it so no one else can have it. And then pick one place where you feel like you can do well, and do that one. After you figure that one out, then maybe we add a second one. Maybe your business grows and you can hand it off and pay someone else to do it. But get your handles, then pick the one you think you can do the best and the most consistently, or persistently, and do that.

When I first started my account, I just did one short-video platform, because that was where everybody was, or at least that’s what I thought, and it was more fun for me to create content there. So I did, and I grew a following there. And then you have people like, “Oh, well, you’re not on Insta.” There are lots of judgy people. So I found a really great tool called Repurpose.io, and I set it so anything I posted on the first platform was immediately posted to Instagram. That is how I did Instagram for like a year. Not because I was lazy. I just did not have the spoons to manage a second social media account, so I found a tool that would take the content I was already making and push it out. Repurpose.io works like an automation tool: you set up workflows and hook all your social accounts to it, and whichever platform you’re doing best on, you can auto-publish to all the others, or set it to let you manually publish to each one. Pick one platform, do it well, and when you’re doing it well, spread to another.

Go where your ideal client is, then be persistent

Also make sure your ideal client is on that platform. If your ideal client is professional women over the age of 45, don’t bother with Instagram. It’s not your ideal platform anymore. It was at one point; it’s not now. Short-form video and LinkedIn are your platforms. If your person is under 35, short-form video and Instagram are both good. Know where your ideal client is and go there, and go where it’s going to be easiest for you to be consistent. Consistency is key with all of the algorithms. Every platform has its own rules for how you grow.

And you don’t want to post on social media and do it badly. For the algorithm gods, and they are algorithm gods, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of them, if you aren’t going to do it and do it well, don’t bother at all. And this is a tough one for us: if you’re not going to do it persistently. I say persistently because I think we all have an ugly relationship with the word consistent. We struggle with that. But you can be persistent, and you can try all the time. Whichever platform you’re going to post the most persistently on, commit to it, because frequency is a huge part of the algorithm engine. If you post really great content but you only post once a week, statistically the odds of you getting seen are low. You’re having to post at least once a day, five times a week, at minimum. And if you choose to post three times a day, five times a week, then you have to do that persistently.

One thing that I see ND people do consistently is have a hyperfocus week. This platform is the hyperfocus this week, so they post 50 videos in a week, then vanish. There are better ways. When I first started my account, I looked up how to build it, and the guidance said to post three times a day, and there’s a little calendar of times you can find with a quick search. It works. I posted three times a day, and that was my whole goal, just post three times a day. I didn’t have fancy production. I did that consistently, and my account blew up. And then I ran out of things to say, and I stopped posting for a while, so I’ve been stuck at 11,000 followers for six months. But I grew that first 11,000 in six months, because I was posting all the time.

Batch on hyperfocus days, draft for low energy days

I’m having to find ways to work around “I don’t have anything to say” days and hyperfocus days. So here’s one: on those crazy days where you can create everything, record all the videos, and save them as drafts. Then on your low energy days, you have this collection of drafts, and you can dole them out.

We also just hired somebody completely outside of us, for a one-time meeting, not some huge cost, to give us a short-form video strategy. We needed somebody to look at it from the thousand-foot level instead of being emotionally tied to it. They provided a whole strategy and made us dial in some things we knew but hadn’t put on paper. Do that. If you want to hire me to look at your business and do a whole Facebook strategy for you, it takes me an hour. I’ll audit what you’ve got and tell you how to grow.

Hobby business or real business: the harsh part

I want you to keep something else in mind when it comes to your social media and writing content. Do you want to grow your business? I don’t understand the point of having a business if you’re not looking to grow it. Are you looking to grow your business to find clients? If the answer is yes, then you want to do what we’re saying. If the answer is no, and you don’t really care, then you have a hobby. Anybody who’s not persistent and consistent with content, you are a hobby business, not a real business. Yes, that was really harsh, and I know there are two people in here who are going to come after me for that, so I’m going to say it again. If you are not consistent and persistent with your content, and consistency for the algorithm is very different from what feels right for your energy level, then you’re choosing hobby mode. I’m sorry. That’s the kicker, especially with neurodivergent business owners.

If you don’t want to do it, just be honest and tell us you don’t want to do it. We can look at your accounts from above, we can audit, we can tell you what it takes. For our own social media, we hired someone who could look at it from afar and tell us what we needed to do, and she gave us so many good things to work on. Some of them made us want to pout. “Oh, I don’t want to do that.” But that’s what it takes to grow. At the end of the day, if you don’t want to put that in, and it is a commitment, that’s okay. You just have to be honest about it, because there’s an exchange there. If you don’t build on social media, it’s not going to equate to followers and sales and presence in your space. It comes back to the goal for your business. If you’re using social media to grow, you have to follow what the algorithms want, not what you want. But if you want to learn how to do that within your energy levels, I’ll teach you how.

Good days are bare minimums, best days are for batching

We talked about this yesterday: our good days are just our bare minimums, and our best days are these amazing days. Guess when you should be writing an amazing amount of content? On a best day. Maybe we all have one best day and three better days a month. You have to be purposeful with those higher energy days, to create the things that you can’t do on your lower energy days. That’s what scheduling tools are for. If you are one of those NDs who has one day a month where you can create 50 pieces of content, that’s more content than you need for a month. Awesome. Create them all, and then schedule them out.

Or, if you like creating but hate scheduling, and I am very good at creating the thing and then never using it because I hate putting things into a scheduling tool, hand it to somebody who can do that for you. Barter with somebody. Find somebody who will do the thing you struggle with. In my previous program, we did trade-off days, and maybe we’ll put those back in place. What’s the thing you’re struggling with the most? Hand it to somebody else on the mastermind call, and you do their thing. We all jumbled up, and everybody got their thing done. One woman scheduled everybody’s content, because she loved organizing it. Somebody else created everybody’s Canva graphics. Somebody else helped write content for every person on the call, gave them ideas and an opening line to start from, then helped them edit it. Find your community to help you get these things done. We get way more done when we’re body doubling and sharing brain space together.

Engagement: 15 minutes a day, value not selling

So how do you be persistent and consistent with content in your business? Because that’s what gets you recognized on social media. The other part is engagement. You have to engage with your own content and other people’s content. And don’t spend your engagement on people who do the same thing as you. There used to be these Instagram pods you could pay to get into where everybody was in the same industry, all liking each other’s content. What’s the point? It gets you nothing.

A lot of people get overwhelmed by the engagement piece, and there’s a really good strategy for that. Pick four places, or two if you’re on a low spoons day, where you feel it’s valuable for you to interact, and spend 15 minutes in each place. Comment on things. Like things. Answer questions. Provide value. Do not sell. If you do that consistently through the week, pretty soon people start saying, “Oh, Danielle can answer that question,” or “She’s the one you need to ask about how that works.” You have to spend time interacting so people see you as the voice of an expert, and not someone trying to hard sell them. Getting your message out there starts to grow, and your message will grow beyond you if you are consistent with it.

Rebecca says, “I’m good at scheduling and I’m not good at coming up with my own content.” We all have a version of that. I’ll tell you, if somebody tells me what to post and gives me ideas, I can run. I was the idea person for years and years. I’m not anymore. Somebody tell me what to post, and I can come up with it. Tell me, “Hey Danielle, go record a video about content,” and this is done completely off the top of my head. But if I have to sit here and think of the topic, I’m completely out of luck. Understand where your strengths are. Understand where your energy level is. Be consistent in understanding your own patterns.

Consistency is not a four-letter word

And I use the word consistency because I want you to be desensitized to it. Consistency is not a bad word. It is not a four-letter word. It is a powerful word when used correctly. When we are consistent in feeding ourselves, our bodies heal and we feel better. When we’re consistent in our sleep patterns, our bodies work more optimally. When we’re consistent with drinking our water, our bodies work better. When we’re consistent in writing content for our business, our business works better. I want you to be able to grow your businesses, and I’m here to help you do that, but you have to understand that there is a way it has to be done, and you have to find your community.

Because here’s a stat I finally found after looking for a while. Neurodivergent individuals who start a business: 98 percent of them fail. But it takes them five years to fail, not the one year like a neurotypical founder. Why does it take five years? Because they don’t give up. But they’re not making money in their business, which means we have neurodivergent people filing for bankruptcy, losing their homes, losing a marriage, over trying to start a business, constantly funneling money, time, and energy into it, while trying to do it all on their own. 88 percent of neurodivergent founders tried to start a business completely on their own, without getting any support or help. Which cracks me up, by the way, because we are a very determined bunch, and I love that. But if you just got help, you could be in the percentage that has a successful business. You absolutely can be. When we do things on our own, we set ourselves up for failure. It just may take a while to get there.

You can create amazing content when you get the right help. Because let’s face it, we’re terrible at routines, we’re terrible at consistency, so we have to have help to do those things, and it doesn’t have to cost you a ridiculous amount of money. We have created an affordable space for you to get these things done: monthly planning sessions, somebody to help you with the thing you’re struggling with, the brain space and energy space to get those things done, and obtainable action. Almost all of my ladies who are able to put time and effort into their businesses move ahead. It’s the worst part of being neurodivergent, right? We just want to do the fun shiny thing, but there are some boring things you still have to do to move the needle, and we can help with that. Or even just to identify the thing. Understanding what obtainable action to take is just as important as taking any action.

If you have any questions, please ask below. I’ll teach you how to create a piece of content. I’ll tell you what to do. Happy to help. If you need anything, we are always here to support you. Have an amazing evening, afternoon, morning, whatever it is for you today.