We recently connected with Mariah MacInnes and have shared our conversation below.

Mariah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

I had a client the other day send me a voice note “I joined this social media training and I was so surprised to see what is being taught as a ‘strategy’ is business and content marketing”….

It was this “use more Instagram stickers (like polls, question boxes etc.) and position them in this way to get more engagement”.

Now don’t get me wrong, we should be using these for engagement. But to classify this as a strategy? This is a tactic. Not a strategy.

What I am seeing in the content marketing industry at the moment is exactly that. “Marketers” going online and sharing “tips, tricks and strategies” that are really just tactics. While yes, these are helpful, they aren’t helping the long-term sustainability of small business owners.

These business owners spend time and energy on these “tactics” and still don’t get the growth they are looking for. Why? They don’t have a strategy.

Instead, what we need to be seeing is a highlight on what is actually a “trend” and what is actually working for content creators and online businesses who are seeing an increase in engagement, followers and sales.

I think it is a blend of this: strategy and storytelling.

While I know we shouldn’t be “giving it all away”.

We need to see more marketers, social media managers and content marketers directing their audience and encouraging them to have business strategy, branding strategy and marketing strategy – otherwise all those trending audios and Instagram Story “stickers” aren’t going to help grow a business.

So what do I mean by strategy and storytelling in content marketing?

1. Building on the foundations to craft a content marketing strategy that works based on each individual business. No formula. It is about having a vision and creating the content and the marketing needed to achieve that vision.

2. Creating the plan on what content is posted where and building stories to craft an engaging message that is real, authentic and unique to each business. A story can’t be copied so each piece of content is original and engaging.

While the shiny toy of tactics is the trend I am seeing in my industry, I think business owners are starting to see the lack of results – so they are looking for something else.

Strategy and storytelling is that ‘something else’. The trend of the future, you heard it here first.

Mariah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

You know how we now feel like online is the best way to sell our products and services?

That social media and content creation is the “way of the future for business”? But this can feel overwhelming and time consuming?

Well what I do is help entrepreneurs and small business owners not only learn how to market their business through content creation, I help them save time by doing it for them or educating them on the strategy so they can do it in a way that works for these businesses.

I am Mariah, Founder of this business called Content Queen Mariah.

I am a digital nomad and travel the world with my partner (and Head of Visuals at the agency).

Content Queen Mariah is a content marketing agency and educational business. We offer done-for-you services and online materials and programs to help educate all business owners on content marketing and more specifically content strategy and storytelling.

We focus on a few pain points that come up with creating content for business and that includes: the time it takes, the lack of connection creation and the conversion that might not currently be coming from online content.

This is mainly done through the signature C.O.N.T.E.N.T framework I teach around building a content marketing strategy.

But, what makes our strategy super unique is the element of storytelling we bring into the strategy to help business owners and entrepreneurs stand out in their industry.

Content Queen Mariah is all about knowledge, growth and openness (we teach, help with growth and have an authentic and real approach). But we also are very loyal to our followers, audience, and clients and have a lot of fun along the way (we are all about making friends and connection).

So if you want to be friends, make sure you come and say hello online!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

November 2020 not only changed my business, it changed my life.

After a few health scans, I had my Telehealth appointment for the results. The word “tumour” rang in my ears. I was shocked. How could my body fail me like that?

But the next word that followed was “benign”, oh good.

I still cried all day.

However, that wasn’t the end of my true test of resilience.

December felt like a bit of a blur. I moved to Sydney for a change from Melbourne and was trying to navigate what this tumour meant and what I needed to do to remove it or not.

The next thing I knew it was the eve of New Year’s Eve and I was sitting in a surgeon’s office and he was explaining to me that it was possible I had multiple tumours, one on my pancreas as well as my bowel, benign was a wrong diagnosis and a major surgery was the likely solution.

I was at the peak of my business. Hiring a new team, and going full-time from it being my side hustle – I didn’t have time to be sick!!!

So I held on to the idea that maybe it hadn’t spread and I wouldn’t need major surgery. January was torture. Test after test, waiting around for phone calls and then the news.

Whipples surgery.

Removal of half my pancreas, part of my bowel, part of my stomach. At least two weeks in the hospital, time in the ICU, tests for cancer. It is what I now call ‘life-changing’.

But I was ready. I paused my client work, and left the business in the hands of my good friend and the university student I hired to help me with content writing.

That surgery was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and all at the young age of 26. I still don’t imagine anything will compare to that. Two weeks in hospital turned into four. I was high-dosed up on pain relief, couldn’t walk for 9 days, and was fed from a tube for 7 days. Neuroendocrine cancer was my cancer. No chemo needed, they removed it all. As I write this I am not cancer free but in remission – 10 years in total before I can be cancer free.

But in the back of my mind, there was this drive, this motivation to go after my dreams even more than before. Don’t get me wrong, there were days I cried all day, no motivation, no energy. But with a whole new perspective on life, I was determined to make entrepreneurship work for me.

April 2021 (6 weeks after my surgery), I started working again. I came back with more passion. I made big changes in the way I did business and pushed further towards my vision of creating a content marketing agency based on being a digital nomad. To travel the world and work online.

Now, every time I have challenges in business, I remind myself that if I can overcome a surgery, a cancer diagnosis, regular oncology appointments, blood tests, scans and the “why me” mentality that creeps in every now and then, I can overcome ANY challenge that comes my way. In life and in business.

This is what helps me pick myself back up and keep going.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

There is not one story I can share to tell you all about how I built my social media following. It is all the stories. Because social media presence and a following is not built overnight.

It is very rare that business owners create that “one post” that made them go viral and changed their business forever.

For most of us, it is the consistency and the long-term strategy that has made up the growth of our online audience. Now while that might sound boring, it so isn’t.

Because along this journey there have been many parts of my story that have helped me connect with my audience.

Like the time I posted content marketing analogies related to my health journey from my hospital bed.

Or travelling around Vietnam, Europe, Australia or Morocco and sharing how everyday stories or those crazy travel stories can be shared as lessons around what I teach – content marketing strategy and storytelling.

So when you follow a business owner’s journey online, you get to see all those stories that have made up the “success” not just that one ‘business changing story’.

But while yes it does take time to build a social media presence, it is the most rewarding thing. You get to share, create and connect all from one platform.

So if I had to give any advice to anyone starting out, this is it:

1. Build a strategy around your content marketing
2. Stick to that strategy as much as possible
3. Remember consistency
4. Share your stories
5. Learn what does and doesn’t work
6. Edit and iterate
7. Connect on this SOCIAL media channel
8. Keep going – you will get better with time and consistency
9. Find a mentor to keep you motivated (even if it is just from consuming their online content)

I am sorry to tell you it takes time, but that is life. Nothing comes “fast” and if you are ever told you can, they are lying to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.contentqueenmariah.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariah_contentqueen/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahmacinnes/
• Other: https://www.contentqueenmariah.com/podcast https://www.tiktok.com/@mariahcontentqueen https://www.tiktok.com/@atravellers.co

Image Credits
The professional photos: Anastasia Brown, BaLuca Media