The Most Important Content Decision You’re Not Thinking About

When you sit down to create something for social media, there’s a foundational question that’s worth starting with: how am I actually going to frame what I’m trying to say?

Because more often than not, the way you frame the idea ends up shaping not only how it’s received, but what people are able to take from it in the first place.

There are a few different ways to approach this, and each one creates a very different experience for the person on the other side.

1. The “I” Perspective

The first is what I think of as the “I” perspective, where you use your own personal experience as the catalyst for the post.

You’re not trying to teach, and you’re not trying to overly explain or extract a clean, packaged lesson from what happened — you’re simply starting from a place of this is what I went through, this is what I experienced, and this is what I noticed as a result of it.

You allow the story, or even just the moment, to stand on its own.

And what’s interesting about this approach is that people will naturally take what they need from it without you having to spell it out for them. They’ll read your experience and, almost subconsciously, begin to map it onto their own lives, pulling out whatever feels relevant or useful to them without being told what they’re supposed to learn.

2. The “You” Perspective

The second option is the “you” perspective, which is much more direct and instructional in nature.

This is where you step into the role of the educator, and instead of starting with your own experience, you start with what you perceive to be a problem that someone else is facing, and then you walk them through how to solve it.

You might say, this is what you can do, or here are a few options to consider, or this is what you want to avoid, and then you guide them step-by-step through a process that feels clear, structured, and actionable.

For a long time, this was the dominant style of content, especially when social media was less saturated than it is now, because people were actively looking for information, frameworks, and answers, and this type of content delivered that very efficiently.

3. The Hybrid Option

The third option lives somewhere in between the two.

You begin with your personal experience — you start with the story, the moment, the thing that actually happened — and then, instead of leaving it open-ended, you use that experience as a kind of transition point into something more outward-facing.

You might share what you went through, reflect on what you learned, and then gently turn it back toward the reader by saying, in essence, this is what you can take from this, or this is how you might apply something similar in your own life.

It creates a bridge between connection and clarity, where someone feels seen in the story, but also leaves with something they can hold onto.

So what’s actually working right now?

What I’ve been noticing more and more is that the “I” perspective is becoming increasingly powerful, especially for newer creators.

And I think part of the reason for that is simple: the “you” perspective is everywhere.

• You can go to Google and find answers.

• You can use AI and get a structured breakdown of almost anything.

• You can scroll social media and find endless versions of how to do X, Y, and Z.

That kind of information is no longer scarce.

But what is scarce is someone’s unique lived experience. You can’t get that from a search engine. You can’t replicate it through a prompt. You can only get it from the person who actually lived it.

And there’s something about that level of specificity that makes it inherently valuable, because what’s deeply personal often ends up being the most universal.

Where people get this wrong (pitfalls to avoid)

At the same time, there’s a nuance here that’s important not to miss.

Just because personal content is powerful doesn’t mean that anything you share about your life will automatically be interesting or meaningful to someone else (hard truth, I’m sorry!)

There can be this subtle assumption —sometimes unconscious — that if something happened to you, that alone is enough to make it worth sharing.

But the reality is, people are always reading through the lens of their own experience.

They’re not just consuming your story for the sake of knowing it, they’re looking for themselves in it. They’re looking for a feeling they recognize, a moment that feels familiar, or a thought they’ve had but haven’t quite been able to articulate.

And if they can’t find that, they’ll move on, regardless of how great the story is.

So how do you avoid this?

The answer isn’t to try harder to be helpful, or to force a takeaway into every piece of content you create.

It’s actually much simpler than that.

You focus on being specific.

You allow yourself to go deeper than feels necessary, to include details you might otherwise skip over, and to stay with the moment long enough that it starts to take on shape and texture.

You become generous with your experience — generous with what you noticed, what you felt, what didn’t make sense at the time, and what still might not fully make sense now.

Because when you do that, something interesting happens.

Without trying to “add value,” the content becomes valuable.

Without trying to make it useful, people find a way to use it.

If you’ve been overthinking what to share or feeling like you need to come up with something more strategic or more polished before you post, this might be the sign you need to try a different approach.

Start with your own lived experience.

Not the version that’s already been cleaned up and turned into a lesson, but the version that still feels a little bit unfinished, a little bit specific, and a lot a bit yours.

And trust that if you’re willing to be generous in how you share it, the right people will know exactly what to do with it.