Is your story too small to share?

Are you thinking that the post you want to share is too small and nobody will care?

Maybe it's even giving you a bit of anxiety because you want to post about something, but then you start wondering who's actually going to read it. Is it interesting enough? Does it have enough of a point?

One of the posts I've had a lot of engagement on was about my first Spoonflower swatch sale. My royalty was 45 cents. It wasn't about the amount of money. It was about the transaction. Somebody had bought something that I'd created with my own hands, and I wanted to celebrate that. It was a tiny thing that felt like a very big thing to me.

Your content doesn't have to follow a formula

I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when it comes to what we're supposed to share. I've got to show my process. I've got to teach something. I've got to talk about this because everyone else is talking about it. You really don't.

There will always be another trend doing the rounds. Everyone will suddenly be talking about the 80s or whatever the latest thing is, and before long people are asking ChatGPT to give them a story they can post about it too. Yes, you might get some engagement from it. But are the people engaging with it actually your people?

That's the bit I'd be more interested in.

Your people are following you because you're you

The people who want your work and your products aren't necessarily looking for you to say the same thing as everybody else. They're the people who tell you, "I feel seen." They're the people who love something you've created because it reminds them of something from their own life. They remember the odd little stories you've shared and the things that make you laugh.

Those small things are part of the reason they get to know you.

That's why I don't think you need to dismiss a story because it's only about a library bag, a wallpaper swatch or the wonky drawing you nearly threw away. If you want to tell that story, tell it.

The small story can stay small

This is probably the most important bit. You don't have to take your little story and somehow turn it into a huge business lesson to make it worth posting. My Spoonflower story didn't need to become a lesson about building a successful surface pattern design business. I was excited because someone bought my work and I earned 45 cents. That's the story.

Sometimes we can let the person reading decide what they take from it. Maybe they've had a first sale that felt exactly the same. Maybe they're still waiting for theirs. Maybe they simply enjoy seeing somebody celebrate something small.

You aren't wasting their time by telling them about it.

Give your stories somewhere to live

If you've got a small story that you want to share, I'd actually go one step further than posting it on social media. Turn it into a blog post too. It doesn't need to be 20,000 words. A 500 or 600-word blog post can give that story a permanent home on your own website, rather than leaving it entirely at the mercy of Instagram. It also gives Google something to find. Somebody might search for something months from now and discover you through a story you'd almost decided wasn't worth sharing.

Imagine missing that because you thought your story was too small.

So please post the thing. Tell it clearly and let it stay small. That's OK.

If you're sitting there thinking, "That's all very well, Jo, but I genuinely don't know which bits of my everyday life could become stories," join Stories from the Dotty Side and reply to one of my emails. Ask me for some examples.

I'm very happy to help you catch a few dots.