Crafting Connection: Mastering Authentic Content and Strategy on LinkedIn

Jeffro (00:00.955)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance, where we empower service -based business owners with actionable insights and strategies to elevate their digital marketing efforts. My guest today is Barbara Pocuchova. Barbara is a content strategist, coach, and writer who specializes in helping conscious entrepreneurs find their voice, sharpen their message, and achieve greater visibility and impact. She has a decade of experience in the marketing realm, and she’s done collaborations with brands like Healthpreneur and Thrive Global.

She has a wealth of knowledge in crafting compelling content strategies, and she’s also a certified yoga instructor to boot. So today we’re going to explore the intersection of content strategy and personal authenticity. We’re going to discuss how entrepreneurs can enhance their messaging on platforms like LinkedIn to connect more deeply with their audiences and drive meaningful engagement. So whether you’re looking to refine your digital presence or expand your impact, take notes, because I have a feeling Barbara is going to dump some wisdom on us today. So thanks for being here, Barbara.

Barbora Pocuchova (00:57.016)
Thanks for the lovely intro and for the invitation. Really excited to be here with you.

Jeffro (01:02.853)
Yeah, definitely. think there’s so many great things we can talk about here. So one thing I wanted to start with is, you you talk about embodied messaging on platforms like LinkedIn. When I hear that phrase, I usually think of body language in direct personal communication. But can you explain what you mean by that and how it applies to online content?

Barbora Pocuchova (01:23.022)
That’s great to hear the different associations that people have with this word, right? Because it can mean so much or so many different things to everyone. So the way that I love to use the word embodiment, which actually comes from my own personal development journey, like going into the body through different practices like yoga and breath work and really experiencing who we are beyond the mind.

It’s when I decided to connect it to marketing strategy, to content, to messaging, because I found that in the last years, a lot of marketers have been too much in the mind. And especially like with AI coming out and so much overload, right, and content and everything kind of sounds the same. Nothing really catches attention. I started then to realize like, what kind of content actually resonates, like what cuts through the noise, what creates connection with someone else, because connection is not just we read some nice words, right, and we connect to it. It’s mostly the energy behind those words. Where does it come from? And the embodiment is so important in this case, because we connect to our own emotions, experiences, what we’ve been through.

And then we express it outwardly and someone else might resonate with this experiences with this value with this thing that we’re sharing. And it creates a deeper connection rather than when we’re just regurgitating something from the mind that has been expressed before that is not actually original. is, you know, it’s repetitive. Whereas when it comes from within from our own experience, it just lands so much more. I don’t know if that that resonates with you, too.

Jeffro (03:17.979)
Yeah. So making it a little more personal, being a little vulnerable and adding your own experience to the content instead of just being a boring textbook, your novel essentially. And you can layer that in there, the lessons, but at least is coming through that personal experience. So that makes sense. How can entrepreneurs use that to kind of improve their authenticity and resonance with the audience? Or does it just kind of happen automatically?

Barbora Pocuchova (03:20.013)
Mm -hmm.

Barbora Pocuchova (03:26.209)
Exactly.

Yes.

Barbora Pocuchova (03:45.71)
It can happen if someone is just ready to come out there and share themselves with the world. But I think that’s rather rare, right? Like we all have our own blocks and things we need to move through. A lot of the times when people start posting, they’re a little bit worried what other people will think. You know, like, is this going to resonate? There comes this kind of rejection wounds come into place. But as we kind of move

through those, then I feel so there are different levels. So then people start getting really strategic about their message, because they’re like, okay, this, this is, I’m just speaking to everyone and anyone, right? It doesn’t really resonate with my ideal audience. So then they start getting really clear on like, who’s my ideal client? What are their problems? What’s the transformation that I’m delivering? And all these, this messaging work that I do with people is being really

clear and strategic and relevant to the audience, which is all good. But then what these people usually hit is like a block is like, okay, but I’m not really like motivated to share more or like I’m hitting a wall like I have a writer’s block. What should I share? Like, it’s it’s also repetitive, like there there’s no passion or spark behind it.

So that’s when we kind of swing from that really strategic to more like that authentic side. So that’s the other thing is like discovering that like, what are my values? What’s my vision, my passion? What do I really want to share with these people? And that’s where a lot of the people then get lost, especially like the people I’ve worked with, they’re like coaches and in the personal development field and they get really like into like more of those.

intangible outcomes that people have difficulty connecting with, because it’s not like on our everyday kind of level where we can connect with it. So then we hit the other extreme, right? And it’s really authentic, really beautifully said, the inspiration flows out, but it fails to connect. So then we come back and start hitting that balance is like that balance between strategy and clarity, and then authenticity and embodiment. And that’s like,

Barbora Pocuchova (06:06.466)
where you can produce a lot of beautiful content, like you have such a stream of content ideas, but it’s also resonating with the other person. it’s a good balance.

Jeffro (06:16.901)
Well, and some of that comes from the feedback of trying different things and seeing, you know, did people comment on this? Did people say they liked it? Did they repost it? Like that’s all feedback that lets you know, okay, this is the right sort of thing, or this is the right way to do it. Because I imagine there’s also things such as oversharing, right? You talk about being authentic, but you can also share too much. now people are like, okay, well, maybe, maybe I don’t want to work with this person, right? So you got to find that balance too.

Barbora Pocuchova (06:20.258)
Mm -hmm.

Barbora Pocuchova (06:41.646)
Mmm.

Absolutely, that’s such a thing you’ve hit the nail on the head because when people feel like they want to be more vulnerable, a lot of the times what happens is they share like what’s going on with them in that moment and they might be processing something, going through something and then they just share it out there without being intentional how the audience will perceive it and how will it land. So they’re not putting themselves in the shoes of the reader and that could actually

of harm their reputation. Because as you say, like the other person might think, can I trust this person? Are they emotionally stable? You know, so it’s, it’s really important to share from an already processed state, like I’ve learned a lesson, and now I’m sharing it with you. Or like, we don’t need to dive deep too much in like, there’s a misconception, we need to share our personal life story and go into our failures. But

Jeffro (07:22.502)
Yeah.

Barbora Pocuchova (07:42.636)
That’s not really what vulnerability is. Vulnerability is when you can just share what’s alive for you, what you feel about a certain topic, what’s the truth about that topic, what others might be afraid to say. That’s what real vulnerability means to me.

Jeffro (07:58.277)
Got it. Yeah. So there’s definitely some strategy there still, right? And understanding, I like that you clarified it. You should share from a processed state. Not something you’re currently going through, but something you’ve already dealt with and come out on the other side of. So you’ll have a better perspective on that. So we’ve talked before about copywriting on this show and knowing your customer. And we know it’s important to have clear messaging, but a lot of times it’s easier said than done, right? So what are some common challenges that

Barbora Pocuchova (08:01.634)
Yeah.

Barbora Pocuchova (08:08.087)
Hmm.

Jeffro (08:25.317)
entrepreneurs and business owners face when they’re trying to clarify their messaging. Maybe they’re willing to be authentic, but they’re like, I feel like this isn’t landing. Nobody’s resonating with it. How do you overcome that?

Barbora Pocuchova (08:36.63)
Right. usually these entrepreneurs, come in like with a service, something they want to share with the world and offer. the first stage is kind of they look at only through their own eyes. So this is what I do. And this is how you can work with me. There’s a lack of empathy from the other side. Like, what is this person actually looking for? What are they struggling with? So once they realize that, then it comes like

Okay, who am I actually talking to? Who’s my ideal customer? And there comes all this like, niching down who, who, who do I work best with? Who do I enjoy working with? Who gets results with me? And that’s where a lot of entrepreneurs have kind of a fear around niching down because they feel that it will limit their possibilities and

they’ll just get a piece of the market, whereas targeting everyone, right? It’s more opportunities. But that’s far from true, because when you are speaking clearly to someone, that’s when your message really lands with them. And oftentimes, it’s about like, when you share your values, not just like the problems you’re working with, then you’re opening yourself to a bigger amount of people who have the same values. So

Jeffro (09:53.253)
Mm

Barbora Pocuchova (09:54.606)
That’s kind of the process of like niching down and then just being really empathetic about what these people are going through. What have they tried and failed so far? Because a lot of time we just think, okay, they want to go from point A to point B. This is their end state and that’s it. But now like we’re not in 2020 anymore. People have tried so much, right? They’ve done so many programs. It hasn’t probably worked for them. So having that clarity, like

What have they tried and why hasn’t it worked for them and how this is different? This is often like a more convincing argument.

Jeffro (10:32.805)
it. And then that makes sense. And, you know, it of made me think usually in business, we’re talking about measuring ROIs from a financial perspective. But as we’re talking about impact and reaching more people, how do you actually measure the effectiveness of your content strategy in terms of that real world impact or alignment with your business goals?

Barbora Pocuchova (10:53.388)
Hmm. So yeah, the first thing you see is like real time feedback, right? Like how many people are engaging with this? What’s the velocity of the comments? Are people really into this? Like, are they writing like big paragraphs really resonating with this sharing from a heart centered place? Or do I get AI comments? You know, all right, there you can see if real humans really want to engage with it. But then we need to go beyond engagement, right? Because

Jeffro (11:13.767)
You

Barbora Pocuchova (11:22.7)
lot of the times we can have great engagement, but then are we actually moving people to get to a state where they are excited to buy from us, where they want to get into the DMs and explore our offer? that’s the most exciting metric that I love exploring with my clients is how many people actually are then clicking on the call to action or are in the DMs and wanting to get on the call. And that’s what we’re measuring.

Jeffro (11:48.677)
Nice. Well, that makes sense. And it’s like a perfect crossover there because you’re now touching on multiple areas. You’re feeling better about it. It’s better content and you’re getting better results. Now, I think for some people though, there’s some kind of mental block between when you say you need to integrate your personal values and passions, but it’s, is my professional messaging. It’s my business. Like how, how do you get past that? When someone’s just like, those doesn’t compute. These are separate realms in my head.

Barbora Pocuchova (12:17.555)
Yeah, I feel there needs to be a little bit more inner work and an alignment to be done. It’s because a lot of the times these entrepreneurs quit their job, like their nine to five, to pursue something that’s meaningful for them, right? That they’re passionate about. I would rarely say that someone quits their nine to five to get stuck again into something they don’t like, right? That would be a paradox. So here we need to do a little bit more exploration work.

Where is the intersection? I once did like a diagram on it. Where’s the intersection between what makes you feel alive, like that passion, then the work that you do. So this beautiful service and the results that you deliver and the desires of your audience. So what do they really want? And when we can find this intersection, that’s where it all connects.

Jeffro (13:08.295)
That makes sense. Do you have an example of how doing this well, maybe with the client that you worked with, how that’s actually played out and attracted better and more opportunities?

Barbora Pocuchova (13:19.426)
Yeah, absolutely. So I love working with clients who are in the coaching personal development space, who really love transforming the lives of others and helping them see the world differently, helping them achieve other states of well -being and consciousness. And what this client was actually when she came to me, she was producing content, she had an offer, but it wasn’t really resonating with the audience. She got some likes, but

there were no sales. what we did is we became really clear, first of all, like, who is she speaking to? How this offer is going to change their life? Like, where are they at? And where are they going? And like, what is her uniqueness? What is her voice? What is the gift? Because that that is what cuts through the noise is like, your difference is within right and knowing that and she had a beautiful service that was actually

very unique, like, no, I don’t see anyone else on LinkedIn doing that. It’s like an energy healing. And once we learn how to package it in a way that people like would connect with it on a like grounded day to day level, so using language that actually helps people like for example, they’re struggling with sleep or decision making, you know, some really practical terms like grounding it down, while showing like what what’s

possible for them and creating different angles for her content. Talking about her story, like going really deep into how she had a transformation in her life. Doing some education, some problem awareness, some belief shifting, you know, all the different angles, some then promotional content, a lot of people struggle, for example, just to say what they do, you know, and communicate, hey, this is my offer. This is how I can help you. So really,

Jeffro (14:59.76)
Mm

Barbora Pocuchova (15:16.942)
That’s again a block, like not being afraid to promote yourself, you know? And when you have this beautiful alignment of different content types and clear call to actions and you navigate people to the next step, that’s where the alignment happens. So she went in terms of engagement, she went like from 550 likes to 200 likes and she was just repeatedly consistently selling out an offer just because there was this clear alignment. yes, on LinkedIn.

Jeffro (15:43.931)
Was this on LinkedIn? And I like how you mentioned the different content types. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because everybody always asks, how many times should I be posting? Should I do a personal post and then an offer post? And then how do you break that up and kind of find that ideal strategy?

Barbora Pocuchova (16:03.522)
Yeah, absolutely. So the content strategy is personalized for everyone. That’s their statement is like, who they help and like, what types of content do they need to post in order to move people on a journey where they just discovered them, they don’t know who this person is to warming them up, nurturing them to like, my god, this offer is so good, I need to reach out, right. So we need to understand the audience, like, what how do they consume and then

what do they want, right? What do they need to hear in order to become enthusiastic about it? So that’s where I love being a little bit more strategic about this here, like having more top of funnel posts where we grow the audience where, for example, the storytelling is a great way, know, lot of stories go viral just because they’re so unique or vulnerable, or we just love reading stories in our free time, right? So

The storytelling is more top of funnel attracts new people. Once we have the new people is like, okay, now how are we going to engage them? Like maybe they’re not even aware they have this problem. So maybe doing something like shifting their beliefs, showing that another world is possible, sharing some myths, know, sharing some how to tips, but that’s not necessarily what will get someone to buy, but just showing them, you know, like

there is something they didn’t know. So that’s mid funnel and then bottom of funnel that’s more like the conversion content. So once they’re already warmed up, but they have maybe 5 % doubt if they should reach out then maybe sharing a case study, like what’s possible for other people, some testimonials, like how does this process look like? Because a lot of people are afraid to step up because they don’t know how this process of working with this person is, right? So just…

doing a post like, hey, this is how I work. in the first session, we do this, and then we do that. And these are the results you can expect. So just being really upfront about what you do. And yeah, that’s usually very nicely gets people warmed up and then ready to buy.

Jeffro (18:14.341)
Okay, and so you’re doing that all on LinkedIn as posts, right? Is there ever a time to keep just a post as top of the funnel, then you move to DMs for middle or email, you know, to get them to the bottom of the funnel? How do you break that up?

Barbora Pocuchova (18:29.718)
Yeah, so there are posts, right, that you create. I usually recommend having at least one per week of each category. And then for each of these posts, you can have a CTA. So where are you directing them? Usually the top of the funnel post, they’re not meant to sell. there, I wouldn’t recommend having a direct call to action. Maybe you can lead them to your newsletter, because you’re offering free value, right?

then they can explore more of your world in the newsletter. Then for mid funnel, you can make them aware that you have something to sell, but maybe you’re not really direct about it. You just write a really nice long comment about that field and send me a DM with the words, Jeffra, if you want to hear more, for example, you know. And then for the bottom of funnel there, it’s really, I recommend, okay, being really clear, like,

Jeffro (19:20.657)
you

Barbora Pocuchova (19:29.056)
either like book a call, calendar link, or a link to your landing page, because there people love to click and see what’s next, right? It removes that ambiguity of reaching out and not knowing what’s happening.

Jeffro (19:44.293)
Gotcha. Are there any other common mistakes that you see people making when they’re trying to do this on their own?

Barbora Pocuchova (19:51.278)
I feel a lot of the people don’t know about this. That’s the common mistake. see a lot of people think they need to post educational content and just really prove their value. Like, look, I’m an expert on this and I’m just going to educate you and overload you with all the education on this topic. And now it’s especially in 2023 we saw, right, like with AI, so easy to generate content like that.

That’s not going to create that emotional connection. So just I feel that awareness of, okay, I need to get people in through that embodiment, through that storytelling. I need to also release any blocks that I have towards promotion, selling. Many of us probably have that. So and just being clear that it’s valuable what I do. I feel a lot of people are like, yeah, but I’m not sure.

Let’s see, but being having that confidence and conviction. Yeah, I know this bring results, right? And I’m so passionate about this and that’s when people feel it as well.

Jeffro (21:00.859)
Gotcha. Yeah. And I think imposter syndrome gets in the way of that. do you think refining that messaging can actually help combat those feelings of imposter syndrome?

Barbora Pocuchova (21:03.706)
Hmm

Barbora Pocuchova (21:11.68)
Absolutely, because the more clarity you have, the more you you kind of trust yourself. Like, I’m clear on the results that I help people get. Right. I’m clear on what people are struggling with. There is not an ambiguity of, hmm, I’m not really sure what is people what this person needs help with, you know. But when you have

Jeffro (21:23.163)
Mm

Barbora Pocuchova (21:35.72)
That’s what I help people with, that messaging map, that content strategy. When you have everything nicely laid out, you’re like, wow, I really know what I’m doing here. And then that positive feedback reinforcement you get from the audience, these comments, you get, it’s just like, wow, it’s like an upleveling that happens.

Jeffro (21:56.355)
Right, and that’s how know you’re on the right track. All right, well, we’re coming to the end of our time here. So Barbara, thank you for being here today. I think this is very helpful discussion because it’s something that often feels intangible. So kind of putting words to it is a useful thing. For those of you guys listening, go check out the links in the show notes to learn more about Barbara. And last question for you, what has been your favorite messaging project that you’ve worked on?

Barbora Pocuchova (21:58.145)
Yeah.

Barbora Pocuchova (22:21.568)
Wow, that’s a great question. There have been many. But I think the one that I shared with you, it just was my favorite one. I can really see that someone has a genuine passion for what they do and their service transforms many people’s lives. So this person was specifically targeting men when we were working together. And just by seeing how many men then came to her page, to her content, and

testimonials she got and the results she got. was like, wow, this is really transformational. And if more of us, you know, would just step in with this mindset, just me showing up who I am and sharing myself, I can really help others, you know, it would change the world.

Jeffro (23:08.239)
Yeah. Well, that’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And thanks again for being here. And thanks to all of you for listening. I hope you took lots of notes because now’s the time to start putting this stuff into practice. Today’s day one. Get it done. So take care, everybody, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Barbora Pocuchova (23:19.63)
Absolutely, go for it.

Barbora Pocuchova (23:25.176)
Thank you, bye.