Should You Post Personal or Subject-Matter Expertise Content?

Content is about building trust.

More specifically, there are 3 *types* of trust you need to build before a prospect can buy from you:

1. Authority - people see you as an expert (someone who knows what they’re talking about).

You build this by sharing educational subject-matter expertise (SME) content.

2. Credibility - they see that you can deliver the results you promise.

You build this by sharing customer success stories, case studies, testimonials.

3. Rapport - they like you (at least to the level that they can see themselves working with you).

You build this by showing who you are as a person. By talking about the books you’re reading, the movies you liked, your recent vacation, hobbies, the college you went to, etc.

What’s the right balance between these types of content?

Some people choose to share only SME content, others to only share personal content. Both can work.

But it’s always a good idea to have a healthy mix of each.

The other day, I had a sales call with a prospect who booked a demo after seeing my LinkedIn video of me singing (badly) - that’s pure rapport.

But he would not have booked the call with me if he also would’ve been able to see that we have case studies and that we’ve built out a clear process (SME), no matter how big of a fan he would’ve been of my singing.

So for our clients, we usually go with 2/3 SME content and 1/3 rapport content. For credibility, post as many case studies and success stories as you have.

But everyone needs to play around with the proportions and decide on what they are personally most comfortable with. But don’t fully skip either type.