Daniela Schrittenlocher - Content Strategy Expert | Why Most Content Creators Fail and How to Build Authentic Authority

If you enter the social media world, no matter what platform, you see a lot of noise out there. Everybody seems to be an expert at everything nowadays because you just lug it into challenging PT at your answer, but that's really not how it works. This is Daniela Strittenlocker, founder, strategist, digital architect. She didn't take the traditional path. She built her brand quietly. Layer by layer, click by click, until it became one of Europe's most respected. My only intent was let's create a platform that is going to help my current clients answer their questions and that really snowballed into what it is now. Once you know who you are, you can represent yourself the right way and that's the only way to be authentic. What started as a personal vision is now a blueprint used by thousands of entrepreneurs and creators across the world. Her work isn't loud but its impact is undeniable because Daniela doesn't just talk about brand power, she builds it. When somebody's like I want to be a creator, where do I start? I want to make money off my content. Don't focus on making money. Focus on answering questions, on helping people. Focus on that. Over focusing on I want to make X amount of money because you will not get there. Daniela, I'm excited to do this. One of my favorite ideas that you've had in regards to social media and content is don't listen to everybody and every hack and every trick out there and I feel like this is really a no nonsense philosophy to everything you do in your life. Can you explain why that idea is so important? Well, if you enter the social media world no matter what platform you see a lot of noise out there from left and right all the angles possible. Everybody seems to be an expert at everything nowadays because you just plug it into challenging PT and here you go. Got your answer but that's really not how it works. Not in the social media world, not in life, not in business, really just listen to your gut feeling sometimes, say what works for you and go from there. I love that you mentioned, I love that you mentioned chat, GPT because I feel like people, especially in social media, I'm seeing so much chat, GPT generated garbage and people are outsourcing their thinking and their writing and basically their whole lives and it's not good and I don't know why people thought this would ever be good but I mean you've built a massive audience, you help other companies understand content and social and sort of emerging strategy. Why is it like human nature to just default to the easiest possible option? Is that what we do as humans? Like what you succeeded by almost being contrarian to that, by doing what's uniquely you and by putting a content that is actually what you believe in. Why do people default to this easy content? Even when we know it's not going to get the likes of you's the shares because I see it everywhere. So obviously people are addicted to it but I don't think it's working. No it's definitely not and I mean well if I say it's definitely not it is working for some people because so many are just out there copying and not being themselves but the problem is it only works for so long right. With everything you do if you try to be someone else you can only do this for so long it's not going to be sustainable. Not to you you're not evolving you're only always chasing the next best hack to get somewhere where someone else already is. That will never get you ahead. You had the luxury of not having chat GPT when you started this journey so it forced you so talk to me about how you made this transition why you even chose to move into content and social where you came from as well and how that informed a little bit of who you are now. Well you know what I think it goes back to expertise, real working expertise and just going off of that and basing everything off of that that's really where I was coming from and I did not look at creating an Instagram channel or social media presence from a standpoint of oh my gosh I want to grow to X amount of followers. My only intent was let's create a platform that is going to help my current clients answer their questions because they kept asking the same questions over and over again and I was like okay let me simplify my process build a platform that anyone can access and just take it from there and that really snowballed into what it is now. Now there was so when did you first transition out of corporate and into sort of doing your own thing and and explain so the first version of doing your own thing was building out an agency it wasn't even it wasn't even social social was kind of like a means to an end is that correct? Correct social was just a tool that I utilized. What was the point where you're like I want to do something different I want to break away this is not fulfilling anymore because even that I'm sure you include this in your story and your content because it's very meaningful but talk to me about that. Yeah so honestly going back to the first lockdown of COVID that's really where it all began I always loved my corporate life I didn't have to experience any layoffs or anything like that. Never thought I would be a business owner or venturing out of the corporate world you know I was just following the ladder just going up and it just all worked out great and fine you know secure income all the things that come along great benefits but it was such a tilting point for me where first lockdown I have a couple of friends that were small business owners or are small business owners and really with their brick and mortar first lockdown not really having a social presence not having an online presence at all or a website and they turned to me asked me okay can you help me because I really don't know what to do at this point and I started helping and it just felt so much more rewarding and just working your you know responsibilities that you have and corporate just having that one-on-one connection and seeing someone succeed not a ginormous business that I was working with and corporate and talking to all the CEOs and CFOs and CIOs of the world rather looking at my friend's eyes and they're being just so excited that this is working out that was everything I needed. What is the mindset shift what is the mental model or the reframe that you had to make because you've done it multiple times in your life now that's very that's very interesting because I I had to as well um well I think it goes back to reflecting on your own personality and getting to know yourself and really thinking of okay what is my value what can I give to other people and for me personally I just found out it's truly helping others succeed. Was there a way that you transitioned out of corporate and into doing your own thing uh a strategy because that when you have to provide for somebody it's not like uh it's not like you can just like fail like there is no there is no failure option you have you have kids you have family you have more of a different whatever so how do you go through that process how do you convince yourself because I think that that scares a lot of people for making that jump or doing something different. Honestly I feel like for me there was never a point where I was like okay um this is going to be a risk for me. I was committed I was all in as soon as I made the decision that it's worth it now so I left. What are the what are the things that you first talk to them about when they're a solo printer content creator small business maybe it's different maybe it's the same when they're trying to figure out okay I want to succeed on social I have access to all these different ideas strategies tools technologies where do I start it's overwhelming it could be expensive I don't know where to go um but I got to figure it out because you know at this point if we go back in time COVID's happening word of mouth isn't really killing it um so we got to figure out how to succeed online so what's the first sort of conversation you would have with somebody when when you engage them maybe it's evolved since that first business maybe it's been the same. I think it depends on the situation but um generally speaking I like to dig deep um and I like to get to the bottom of who you are and really finding that out because I I personally find once you have that clarity as a business owner as entrepreneur as a content creator whatever it is once you have that clarity of yourself you can um succeed and you don't burn out on socials you don't you know or doesn't even have to be socials but in general once you know who you are you can represent yourself the right way and that's really the only way to be authentic and so many it's sharping to me honestly how many people don't know who they are it's very stressful to put yourself on display on social when you first started putting yourself out there I've watched some of your con it's very good um was there a little bit of imposter syndrome or how did you navigate sort of like the the stress of putting your whole life on display I really don't put everything on display what I focus on is more being let's say the topic brand um as far as my expertise goes and I think there's a big difference between a personal brand that shows up as a person so I do that a lot for example when I coach CEOs um digging deep into finding themselves and being authentic but then having the bigger picture in mind where do I want to get with this um but there's a difference between being a personal brand or a topic brand how do you think through what parts of your life that you want to be quote unquote authentic about and that you want to talk about and you want to bring up what was the exercise that you went through like did you for somebody's listing for example did you go through who the list to the viewer is of your content is there certain buckets of content what's like the sort of the formula that you've used for yourself has been very successful so if you're looking at my channels I love all the points that you're touching based on because if I reflect on my own social media presence I have five active accounts that are five completely different accounts for that reason because it is so confusing if I would try to have all these five different elements of myself into one channel um so just putting it into you know a perspective I have my marketing account then I do have a travel account I have a UGC account so just really splitting it all into individual accounts and that's where it's at because you want to serve that specific audience and you have that goal in mind um that's exactly what it is if I look at my marketing account I want to serve people I want to answer their questions and that has been my content strategy from day one answering people's questions and it's as simple as that and it's the same if you are in fashion if you're a beauty artist if you are you know whatever that may be a travel blogger um answer people's questions what would be the strategy that you found that works best in terms of content that hits again and again and again and again and including all the ideas we've discussed including like I say you put your life into it your authentic your answering questions um the you know check check check you've done all that stuff in terms of actual style of content what other uh just sort of like list out the other best practices for people that are just getting started what type of content they should start to try and make um I think various answers here one is responsive content for sure um so responding reacting um to current topics current questions that people have but aside from that it's I feel like when I started um my Instagram journey or my social media journey outside of corporate um it was all about the how-tos um now we transitioned into the how-i um so really the how-i do XYZ net suite is a success story partner now what does the future hole for business if you ask nine experts are gonna get ten answers full market bear market rates will rise rates will fall honestly I just wish somebody would invent a crystal 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need stop struggling to get your job posting on other job sites indeed sponsor jobs helps you stand out and hire fast and with sponsor jobs your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference according to indeed data sponsor jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsor jobs plus with indeed sponsor jobs there's no monthly subscription no long-term contracts you only pay for results there's no need to wait any longer speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility just go to indeed dot com slash clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash clary terms and conditions apply if you're hiring indeed is all you need how do you leverage AI and not basically remove the humanity from your content like what's the what's the amount of AI you should include or where should you embed it in your content of your social strategy I include AI for research idea finding optimizing helping me with things I would never copy and paste anything and post it never I still very much audio record my captions and my comments hence the typos and misspelled words and well not misspelled but just different words and there are sometimes that I didn't say but have picked it up but I think that just really gets across the humanization of it just audio text audio voice record your captions that makes a big difference is just as fast but you can still brainstorm with you know whatever AI tool you're using brainstorm use it other than that automating whatever you can I'm a big fan of that absolutely should you automate everything absolutely not are there any other that you've used successfully strategies with AI in your content that have worked very well outside of just brainstorming and research has there been anything else I mean like if we go through like the list of AI tools there's like you know there's 11 labs it is a voice stuff there's I mean I guess canva can do graphics I mean chat GPT does graphics to opus does video clipping these are kind of all like nice little fun tools but they're never good enough to post by the way you can't just post that stuff you still have to like apply a human touch but is there anything else that you found that that helps you yes yes one of my favorites and absolutely underrated and overlooked is acrobat adobe acrobat okay explain I've never used them as an AI tool before okay yes because everybody sings oh wait is that the PDF thing where you can open the PDF or write a PDF exactly yes that one but that also has AI assistant embedded in it nowadays and I use it for example coaching calls you zoom calls you can have the transcripts just analyzed use AI assistant for let's say I have a coaching call there's a bunch of questions asked and we elaborated on that that I like to answer questions with my content so having AI assistant take the transcript and giving me the questions they were that we asked asked and answered throughout that coaching call there you go this is my content idea oh that's amazing that's I didn't know it so explain what the so adobe has AI tools what else do they do so they do so explain how this works so when you record a call because this is great for this is great for content and by the way I love taking your your live calls and turning it into content I think it's actually very smart so you record a call and then what else happens after that then you have this transcript of your call it you can you can does it does it don't be sit on like a zoo is that how it works okay so you have it integrated or linked you have the transcript of your call and then you plug that into AI assistant and say hey here's my transcript of my call can you bullet point the questions that were asked or the answers that I've given and turn this into social media content ideas walk me through when you go into a content creators sort of little world and you're trying to help them optimize everything and figure out how to operate and think keep in mind like legal finance sales marketing HR onboarding like payroll like if they have a small team it's a lot and they and you can honestly sometimes get too much tech and too many tools that it actually screws up your process because you have so much you're trying to keep track of for that early stage creator walk me through sort of setting up their business operations what they should pay attention to acrobat that's that's your answer explain to me how a small SMB content creator solo printer how should they think about using again you mentioned Adobe what should they outsource to AI what should they not when should a lawyer get involved when should they not what should they use Adobe for what does it do differently than say for example writing a contract and chat GPT like walk me through a solo printer setting themselves up legally so that they basically don't get screwed and they get a good deal and they make sure to check all the boxes and check all the contract contingencies and all the different things that they should pay attention to how should they do that what what do you do for yourself and also for different creators I mean no AI tool will ever be an attorney so you can create as much as you want to but you will have to double check with an attorney if you want to be legally safe honestly as a content creator working with brands creating content for them I have not done that um haven't had to do it other than you know when it comes to my business structure anything like that when when it comes to sending out contracts to my clients yes I have those legally checked but when it comes into when it comes to content creation working with brands um I have not I have my rates set I have a contract usually they sent me a contract um and then I use AI to understand the contract because again I'm not an attorney um and sometimes that legal language can be um interesting to understand it's not yeah it's very interesting to understand so was there a never so now when you when you when you leverage AI was there ever a point where um it pointed out something um that you wouldn't have caught was there a was there a particular contract they just walk us through a story of of how you've used it um and not necessarily anything that I wouldn't have caught um I think it's more for me I like to utilize it as um simplifying to understand the contract in terms of okay when when are my deliverables do um what what is the net pay for this um is this really interesting for me am I going to sign this or not um really looking at those those are always my biggest ones um because time is usually never on my side um so I have to figure out when to deliver and yeah revisions revisions are also a big one um they like to hide in there uh what would be some of the bigger mistakes that solo uh solopreneurs and content creators and make um when negotiating deals that maybe AI could help them and Adobe could help them catch truly not understanding their deliverables and understanding the contract um especially when it comes to revisions I feel like that is a reoccurring a situation where a grand um clearly has it laid out in the contract that you know they can ask for two three revisions um and then the content creator gets caught up into oh my gosh this is not a two hour work this is like I have to rerecord this again and I have to do this again um so really getting caught up in that and thinking oh um I'm getting a thousand dollars for um an hour of work no that's not how it works so we spoke about content we spoke about how to be authentic with your audience we spoke about even some of like the tools when to use AI when not to use AI uh what would be some other major lessons that you've learned over even building out your own company for somebody that is a full-time creator uh things that went well things that didn't go well things that you know you want to teach somebody who's just starting on the same journey maybe you five years ago um be mindful of the time and energy that you have um because you can absolutely invest your time into the wrong things um and just get stuck in it so yeah really thinking of um the time that you have available where are you going to invest your time because time is your most valuable asset time is always your most valuable asset amen how do you figure out what those most important things are that you have to work on like you have um a way to delegate to figure out what only you can spend your time on versus when you should give it to your team um I think it's a combination of things you um are maybe really good at um and think you enjoy doing um and I think that's a missed one oftentimes where you get caught up into things that you have to do yes we all have to do things that we might not enjoy doing and we still have to do it um but I much rather outsource those um then the ones that I love enjoy doing because that just keeps up the whole motivation of working in this business and you know keeping you happy and not burned out because you don't no matter how many hours you work in a day you can work 60 hours a week not burn out or 100 hours a week not burn out if you love what you're doing what was the point where you knew that this was what you're meant to do like that you were sort of living in your calling I don't know how else to describe it like how do you how do you recommend somebody sort of seek that out when they figure out their north star or their figure they figure out their iki guy you know the the venn diagram of who they are or what they're good at what the market needs uh what they can monetize I think that's what it is I can't remember exactly but there's a couple different frameworks for this how did you figure out because that's a lesson for somebody who's sort of lost on their journey uh what you should spend your time and energy and life on um I mean just seeing what I enjoy doing and reflecting on that I'm big on reflecting um I I just love that um and I think everybody should practice that not enough people practice that really reflecting on what you're good at and being okay with the things you're not good at it's fine to not be good at everything we we can't be good at everything and um then finding a way to outsource that and simplify my life um and my content creation or my processes or whatever that may be um but looking at at that way um that you put your time and energy into the things you love doing um then it's automatically becoming good I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's episode now cornbread ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks but they're perfect for those moments 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success story you're going to love other podcasts in the house bot podcast network one of my personal favorites is i digress hosted by my boy Troy sandwich each shows under 30 minutes i digress helps eliminate complexity complications of confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies to achieve true scalable and sustainable success if you're an entrepreneur building anything you need to listen to i digress this is one of the most useful business podcasts trust me go do yourself a favor and listen to i digress wherever you get your podcasts talk to me about monetization somebody's a creator they're building out their business they understand how to be authentic with their audience they understand the different tools they shouldn't shouldn't use um i want to make money what type of content should you be creating to grow an audience versus how to make money is there a difference are they the same like what when somebody's like i want to be a creator where do i start i want to make money off my content what's the advice that you give me um don't focus on making money a focus on a true value piece um a true focus on answering questions on helping people in what way ever that may be as a fashion um influencer could be on how to put together outfits um but focus on that over focusing on i want to make x amount of money or i want to grow 10,000 followers in the next 30 days because you will not get there what's the biggest misconception about social media in terms of how it makes you money like set expectations for people set expectations for the content creator set expectations for the small business owner the solo printer in terms of what social will do for you and not uh you do not need a big following to start making money um definitely not there are a ton of u gc creators out there that have less than a thousand followers and make a ton of money um because they are u gc creators so the content doesn't live on their page it lives on the brands page um and then the best way to utilize that is use your own page as a portfolio um doesn't necessarily give you a whole bunch of followers but that's absolutely fine you utilize social media with a different purpose uh purpose in mind um i think that's really the biggest misconception that you need x amount of followers and growing x amount of followers is actually not hard um if that's your goal sure i have that all all the time i feel like where somebody comes you know signs up for a consulting call and says well i want to grow a hundred thousand followers and then my question is why and they don't have an answer for that what should they focus on instead then they're true why what do they actually want or why do they need a thousand followers at a hundred thousand followers for what yeah if their answer is because i want to make money off of this well then you don't need a hundred thousand followers if you think about all the ways because being a creator is being an entrepreneur and you are building a business think about all the different ways that content creators because if you have a business you have a product okay well we'll shelve that for a second because that's sort of more obvious but i think creators they kind of get lost in how should i build up my little personal business empire right should i do sponsor deals should i do brand partnerships should i do affiliate should i have a course should i whatever what should people start with where should they start because i i am a firm believer if you try and do everything you do nothing successfully at least so where should they start um i would say start with having a focus in mind and finding yourself finding your own voice on social media if you want to utilize social media as that um experiment with that experimentation never stops don't be afraid to experiment and just get out there and find your voice find what's unique and what sticks um because again going back to trying to do what everyone else is doing isn't going to set you apart and is there um do you have advice for people who are trying to figure out should they show up on every single platform or should they pick one or because there's also so many platforms now that it gets overwhelming yeah definitely do not try to be on every platform pick one maybe two or three it depends if they have cross posting um options or not might as well cross post um but even if you say okay i'm gonna pick various amounts of platforms be mindful that every platform is different and you cannot just utilize the exact same content in every platform it doesn't it does not work well when you do that it does not work well at all um so when do you when do you sort of start to expand or do you ever i guess i guess it comes back to what are your goals that is truly the answer yeah i mean you don't want to um put all your eggs in one basket um so definitely um utilize your content if you are already creating content and then it depends on what kind of content are you creating if you're creating long form um best absolutely best way um to chop that down and you know use it for other platforms um but so many people are afraid of creating long form so they start with you know short form content um or graphics because they don't even want to show up on camera um where this is a whole different a situation and what would be your advice i have my views but you work with way more creators than i do so what would be your advice what do you what is the advice that actually works not just scott's opinion it should you figure out how to get over your fear and you have a strategy for that or you just triple down on what you're actually comfortable doing um yeah so i think um content creators and small business owners i see that even more with small business owners they don't know how to show up on camera because they you know they like to show their products or whatnot and not themselves um content creators i feel like the majority of them is aware that okay i do have to show up on camera but you can absolutely to make tweaks to that some feel very comfortable and i think it's a way to ease into that um feel comfortable of recreating a trend that's an easy way to ease into showing up on camera because you're just recreating something instead of jumping on camera and talking on camera because that is a whole different ball game i feel like where people are like oh my gosh now i don't know what to say or i don't know how i look or you know they're overthinking it in all kinds of ways is there a hack to becoming better on social or is it just putting in the wraps and then the then follow up is if you're trying to make money off social what's the percentage of promoting versus value that you see really really works well um first um question um about showing up so i definitely think there there are variations as i said um you don't need to show up on camera and start talking to the camera and you know be all vulnerable um you can you can you know baby steps baby steps will get you there and um my first pieces of content look terrible um i think every creator feels that way it's so cringe to look back at your old content and yeah it was just not good but this is how everybody feels if you would be perfect already um at what's the point that's boring like where are you going to go and how are you going to evolve so um being okay with that and just you know say okay well this is what it is i think another big one that we haven't touched on is um just separating um the outside world of friends and family from your account and from that pressure especially when it comes to showing up on camera i feel like that's a big topic for a lot of people where it's like well but what are my friends and family you're going to think um it doesn't matter i really doesn't matter the people who want to support you and that is that is something that i've really learned on social media being active on social media is the people you don't know are the most supportive people sometimes um on especially on social media the like-minded people that you meet there it's wild and then you have your own family um yeah making you feel cringe every time it's tough it's very tough um but i think that once you do it more and more you start to get you start to realize it nobody really cares that much that's that's a main takeaway um when somebody is just the second part of that when somebody is trying to make money on social or sell a product what is your best ratio for salesy versus value um i mean it's kind of bold to say don't sell um because you are selling by showing up um but honestly i i don't really think that we need to actively sell um i think taking a step back and passively selling is the way better approach by showing the value let's say you have a product by showing the benefits of the product or product or how you use the product um is indirect selling and that works a lot better if you look at sort of 2025 and beyond what are some things that you're excited about with the creator economy and and social media in general like what are the things that you're seeing that people aren't even aware of yet great question um i think even tapping even more into the humanization of how i do things i touch based on that a little bit um away from the how-tos more to the how-i um and just adding that piece of personalization and humanization into content um and i think trends will always exist um but they will evolve and i think as we all get more comfortable in front of camera um because you know looking four or five years back except youtube um but you know when when it comes to this um short from video content creation now we're all used to it we're all used to creating um so just seeing the different creators evolve and going into different directions instead of following trends um yeah i think that will be interesting if somebody is sort of wrestling with the idea of should i do it should i not what what's what's the words of wisdom to that person what is the thing that you want them to ask themselves that will sort of point them in one direction or or another why do you want to do it a lot of people don't have the answer for that why do you want to do that i feel like at a such a there's again so much noise um on it's so easy um but it's not it's not that easy and i feel like barely anyone talks about how hard it actually is um how consistent you actually have to be and how determined you have to be to get there because how many times have you tried something that didn't work out if people want to uh if people want to connect with you if people want to sort of reach out to you and sort of learn more about how you can help them with social with content with their business where do you want to send people um you can find me on social media um instagram linked in um reach out i am the one answering my dm's no way i tool is doing that or none of my team members um yeah i i i love connecting on socials um yeah what's the main handle i think on instagram main handle is um elos marketing services ELIS marketing services and um same on most other platforms but um when it comes to linkedin youtube then it's first and last name danielos written locker perfect yes i i'm not even gonna try it it's written locker i got it i got it danielos written locker but we'll link everything in the show notes the last question i like to ask obviously you've had a great career multiple seasons to your career as well when you look back um and sort of and the way that i like to ask this question is say you could just pass on sort of one lesson could be about business could be about brand built and could be about life i don't care you take it as you want uh but you could pass on just one lesson to your kids after all the different things that you've built and different successes that you've had uh what would that lesson be and why believe in yourself and don't give up um time is your um most valuable asset and use it wisely