YOU’VE GOT TO BE LOUD 🔊

What do you mean? Like extrovert loud? Like “out there” loud? Like screaming loud?

No, no and no.

You’ll understand what I mean by my title in a bit... Yes honey you’re going to have to keep reading👀.

Yesterday I came across @yallapapi blogposts here on Steemit. He’s quite “out there” in his writing and could come across quite offensive in what he says. But I decided to keep reading anyway because I wanted to see what he was on about! It’s hardly ever that someone really hooks me in through their writing but damn I read his blogposts until the very end. And strangely got quite inspired by the message he is trying to portray through what he types out. But first it took me reading his whole blogpost to understand what he was trying to bring across.

And why was I willing to read his stuff? Leading me to read even more of his posts and search him on the gram...

Because he was LOUD.

He wasn’t playing it safe, he wasn’t painting a pretty picture that sounds sweet to the ear 👂, he wasn’t beating around the bush or playing games with his words.. He was just LOUD. It made me want to hear him out. It left me anticipating what I was going to read in his blogpost next. And I know i’m not the only one who feels this way because on that specific blogpost he got 823 upvotes, $614.55 and 315 comments. And that’s about on average what he receives on his other blogposts aswell. He’s doing well for himself but he first had to be LOUD in order to be HEARD.

Posting your everyday mediocre posts will not get you anywhere, no matter how consistent you are. If you’re not loud you won’t be heard in the masses.

QUESTIONS YOU’VE GOT TO ASK YOURSELF

— What makes my blog unique/stand out from all the others out there?
— What message do I want to bring across that others are not?
— What’s my niché?

& last but not least, the most important question you’ve got to ask yourself is...

— How LOUD am I willing to be?

If you haven’t caught on yet, what I mean by “LOUD” is you need to be out there, you need to stick out from the crowd.

How do I do this? Simple!

Give people the raw, real, blunt truth behind what you’re trying to say. Don’t play it “safe”, just say what you want to say! Obviously there’s a way in which we should bring our messages across and that’s with love but nobody said you had to sugar coat it. 🍰

By being LOUD you’re also exposing parts of yourself which may feel very uncomfortable at first. By keeping it real with people, you have to get personal with people. That’s not always easy, it’s out of our comfort zones as people to do this. Especially on social media. Social media is the place where we pretend to have these awesome, luxurious lives while in actual fact we have some real life issues with some real life solutions that we could be offering people via blogposts or motivational videos or in whatever way you choose to be the influencer you want to be on social media - but often don’t because we don’t want to be too “loud”. We’re scared and self conscious so we hide behind our safe everyday mediocre blogposts that never get much attention. But at least we feel comfortable there and in our comfort we start creating fantasies that these “safe” posts will get us to the top one day if only we’re consistent. But it won’t, it never will make it to “Trending” if we’re being soft. We won’t get heard in our comfort zones.

HARSH REALITY, ain’t it?

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who thought this way 💭. I was there too. Just yesterday actually until I read @yallapapi’s blogpost on “how not to be such a loser”. See! Even the title screams at you! That’s how loud we’ve got to be! That by reading your title people will know, “...ahh! That’s probably one of @heavenlydoms’s posts!”

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE LOUD?

— Uncomfortability.

If you’ve never felt slightly or very uncomfortable before when you’re about to post something, you’re probably playing it too much on the safe side.

— Hate/Controversy.

When you’re being genuine/real, people are going to get offended by your strong views/beliefs. You get some really sensitive people out there and sadly they’re all over social media prowling at your every word. People are funny beings and often get offended by just the word “Poop” 💩... So when you receive sensitivity, you’re probably doing something right, it means you probably brought conviction through your message. Remember that people don’t like feeling convicted of something they need to change within themselves. In Dutch we say “Hij is op zijn teentjes getrapt” meaning you probably stepped on somebody’s toe. But hey, they might just end up thanking you for it in the future!

— Engagement.

Once you get on the controversy train 🚂 you’re going to get a lot more engagement from your followers and their followers. People like being challenged, encouraged and shocked. Shocked by your approach to a topic or shocked by your view on something that most people have the opposite view of.

So when you’re receiving a bit more engagement than usual, it might mean you’re being a bit “louder” than usual.

But above anything else and everything I just mentioned. People like a good read or a good laugh. That’s when you get them hooked and that’s when they climb into your train. How are you going to get people to climb into your train? How loud is your train going to sound?

What helped me greatly is dropping the ‘professionalism’ in my speech. What I mean by that is don’t be too formal. You’re not writing a letter to the press! One of the reasons I enjoyed reading @yallapapi’s posts so much is because I felt like he was talking right to me. I could imagine him telling me what he was writing about even though I have never seen him nor heard his voice before. By his writing style I could completely tell what type of person he is. And that’s pretty cool! I felt immediately more engaged and not bored at all. I was quite entertained even though his speech is sometimes a bit too “shocking” for my liking 😂. However, I was totally pulled in to what he was saying. I would say that was actually one of my MAIN reasons why I enjoyed reading his posts so much and climbed into his train.

Keep in mind though that everybody is loud in their own way. I will NEVER be loud the way @yallapapi is loud, but I will be loud in my own way and in my own style. You might not be loud the way I am loud, but you’ll be loud in a different way. That’s what makes us all so unique and that’s what makes our purposes in life different. Every purpose requires a different approach and style. 💁🏻‍♀️

Make sure to not try copy somebody else’s approach or style of saying and doing things. Find your own! That’s what will make people want to get into your train. You’re going to lose a lot of ‘followers’ if you try copy someone else, because your vibe won’t be authentic.

People are different and so your train may not be the one they choose because they might prefer somebody’s else’s way of being loud over yours. But others will rather climb into your train because they can relate and prefer your way of being loud more.

People want authenticity. That’s missing in the world today because we always try be a copy of somebody else. Once you run with your authenticity 🏃🏻‍♀️, you’re going to go places man. I promise you!

I just want to end off by saying...

BE LOUD so you can finally be HEARD!!