Last summer I signed my two year old daughter up for a 6 week soccer camp through our city. As you can probably imagine, my expectations were very veeeery low. I was prepared for her to either sit there and play with the grass or just cry and beg to go home.

When we arrived, we saw the coach pull up in his tiny smart car with about 40 soccer balls, a couple of pop up nets, and a whole stack of cones crammed in there with him. As the session started he got down on his hands and knees and started calling each child one by one, looking them in the eyes and making a genuine connection with them "I see you have a big sister shirt on, I bet you're a great big sister!"

Once every child was marked off his list, he began his story about animals. There were penguins who helped us learn how to dribble, eagles who taught us how to stop, and bears who taught us how to turn and run away, all the while keeping our attention on him by referencing local favorite places like the zoo.

While my daughter acted a bit shy during the class, later in the week she heard a song that talked about "soaring like an eagle" and she screamed with excitement because "that's from soccer!!"

It was so evident that this coach had lived and breathed soccer his whole life...but he also loved and understood kids. He could have checked the kids in by talking to the parents. He could have used words like dribble (which he didn't) and go along talking in technical terms and all of us parents probably wouldn't have even known the difference.

But what a difference his presentation made! 

So how does this relate to writing content for your audience as a parent and family coach or educator? It's about knowing your audience. You'll probably describe something differently if you're presenting to colleagues or writing for a professional journal. Of course that's probably not the right time to bring up the latest pop culture news.

But consider your audience. What are their demographics? What things can they relate to? How can you explain something in a way that will make them feel the emotional connection my daughter had with the soaring eagle to remember your teaching/coaching in the wild?

If you struggle to know how to sound relatable when you write, try this. The next time you have a concept you want to write about take out your phone and voice record yourself while you pretend to explain it to a friend (who doesn't already know all about it) in a couple of sentences. Then actually write it out the way you said it.

The more you practice this, the more your unique voice will shine and the more your audience will feel connected to you as a person...because really, they probably didn't hop onto facebook to read a textbook...

Have you found yourself looking for tips for your social media page only to end up feeling a balloon from last year's birthday party? How often have you seen the phrase "consistency is key!"

That's all great in theory, but how do you actually make that happen? Especially if you don't have the budget to hire someone to manage your social media for you.

Here are our tips:

1. Pick one day each month to work on your social media. Block time in your calendar, treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee or tea or bubbly water...or plain water if you're boring... and go in with the intention of creating all of your posts in one go.

2. Choose a theme for the month. Could be niche specific like Tantrums, Back To School, Parenting with a Partner or it could be time specific like New Beginnings for January, Love for February, etc. This will help you focus your writing and generate ideas if you start with an overarching plan.

3. Use a tool like Canva that will allow you to make the images, write the text, schedule your posts, and post to your social media accounts all in one place. (not sponsored, but Canva has a pretty sweet free version)

4. We already mentioned this one, but schedule your posts. It would be a bummer to spend all that time creating your content and then forget to post...

If you want to get real fancy, you can start looking into your analytics and see what the best time to post for your audience is...but we wouldn't be too worried about that. Just get your voice out there!

5. Don't forget to interact with your audience. If you can remember, get into the habit of interacting with other people's content after you've posted. You can search some of the hashtags you've used, see what your followers are up to, or take the time to visit the profiles of people who like and comment on your content.

Does this STILL sound like a lot of work? What if we could cut out steps 1-3 for you??? Our templates are ready for you to just add your colors, fonts, and voice and then go ahead and schedule them...You could drive the extra distance to the nice coffee shop with all that extra time!

Want to learn more about how our Done-For-You social media could  get your posting consistently?