Think about standing in the midst of a stadium the place everyone seems to be screaming on the similar time. No microphone. No stage. Simply you and your voice competing in opposition to hundreds of others.
That’s what constructing a presence on-line seems like proper now.
The numbers inform a stark story. In keeping with Sprout Social’s 2025 Content material Benchmarks Report, manufacturers revealed a median of 9.5 posts per day throughout networks in 2024. For some industries, that quantity quadruples. In the meantime, analysis exhibits our collective consideration span has plummeted – from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to only 47 seconds as we speak.
So how do you get heard when everybody’s shouting?
You don’t shout louder. You develop a voice value listening to.
The exhausting entice of volume-based affect
Once I first began writing about wellness and psychological resilience, I fell into the identical entice most individuals do. I believed visibility meant posting continuously. I scheduled content material across the clock, jumped on each trending matter, and measured success by how a lot I used to be producing.
It was exhausting. And truthfully, it wasn’t working.
My brother Nate, who works in tech and watches me wrestle with these items, lastly stated one thing that caught: “You’re creating noise, not sign.” He was proper. I used to be so targeted on being in all places that I’d stopped being intentional about what I used to be really saying.
The issue with taking part in the quantity sport is that it’s unwinnable. You’re not simply competing in opposition to different folks in your area of interest—you’re competing in opposition to viral movies, breaking information, and everybody’s family and friends posting about their weekends. As one inventive director quoted in Sprout Social’s analysis put it, “It’s everyone versus everyone.”
If you attempt to out-post and out-shout everybody else, you inevitably sacrifice depth for frequency. And depth is precisely what makes folks cease scrolling.
What it really means to have a voice
Having a voice isn’t about being loud. It’s about being recognizable.
Take into consideration the writers, creators, or thought leaders whose work you genuinely observe. You most likely don’t observe them as a result of they publish essentially the most. You observe them as a result of once they do publish, it appears like them. Their perspective is distinctive. Their values are clear. what you’re going to get, and that consistency builds belief.
Analysis from Harvard Enterprise College discovered that 67% of Individuals are prepared to spend extra with firms whose founders’ private manufacturers align with their values. Authenticity isn’t only a nice-to-have – it’s a aggressive benefit.
However right here’s what most individuals get mistaken about authenticity: they suppose it means sharing all the things or being maximally susceptible. It doesn’t.
Authenticity means alignment. It means your public presence displays your precise values, experience, and standpoint. It means saying belongings you genuinely consider, even once they’re not fashionable.
My mother, who has taught yoga and diet for many years, by no means tries to be anybody she isn’t. Her college students belief her as a result of they know precisely who she is and what she stands for.
That consistency, that readability of voice is magnetic in a means that quantity can by no means be.
The science of why voice beats quantity
Carol Dweck’s analysis on mindset has formed how I take into consideration affect. A set mindset says, “I must show myself continuously.” A development mindset says, “I’m right here to be taught, contribute, and join.”
The amount strategy comes from a hard and fast mindset—a determined want to remain seen, to show you’re nonetheless related. However the 2025 Sprout Social Index exhibits that originality is without doubt one of the high components that makes manufacturers stand out in an more and more saturated area. Forty-six % of customers say originality makes manufacturers memorable on social media.
You may’t be unique once you’re posting fifteen instances a day. Authentic considering requires area, reflection, and the willingness to let concepts marinate earlier than you share them.
Brené Brown, whose work on vulnerability I come again to continuously, constructed her total platform on one TED discuss that captured one thing true and distinctive. She didn’t out-volume anybody. She stated one thing that mattered, and it resonated.
Discovering your voice takes subtraction, not addition
Once I work with shoppers on constructing sustainable habits—whether or not in health, wellness, or skilled growth—I all the time begin with the identical query: What can we take away?
It’s counterintuitive. Individuals come to me wanting so as to add extra. Extra routines. Extra methods. Extra content material.
However addition creates noise. Subtraction creates readability.
Discovering your voice works the identical means. It’s much less about discovering new issues to say and extra about stripping away all the things that isn’t genuinely you. The trending matters you don’t really care about. The content material codecs that really feel compelled. The opinions you share since you suppose you need to, not since you consider them.
My chilly plunges and path runs with Luna aren’t simply wellness practices—they’re readability practices. One thing about bodily problem strips away the psychological muddle and helps me reconnect with what I really suppose. The content material I create after these periods sounds completely different. It appears like me.
Sensible methods to construct voice over quantity
So what does this appear to be in follow?
Right here’s what’s labored for me and the entrepreneurs and creators I’ve discovered from:
Submit much less, however with intention. Earlier than hitting publish, ask your self: Is that this one thing solely I might say? Does it replicate what I genuinely consider? Would I nonetheless stand by this in a yr?
Develop signature views. What are the 2 or three concepts you retain returning to? For me, it’s the intersection of self-discipline and self-compassion, the significance of sustainable habits over fast fixes, and the underrated energy of consistency. These aren’t simply matters – they’re lenses via which I see all the things.
Let silence be just right for you. Not posting is usually essentially the most highly effective assertion. If you’re not in all places, the locations you do present up carry extra weight.
Interact deeply fairly than broadly. One significant dialog within the feedback is value greater than 100 surface-level interactions. Individuals bear in mind the way you made them really feel, not how usually you appeared of their feed.
Be prepared to take a stand. Voices are distinctive as a result of they’ve perspective. If you happen to agree with everybody, you’re not saying something.
The compound impact of consistency
James Clear writes about how small habits compound into exceptional outcomes. The identical precept applies to voice.
Every bit of content material that sounds genuinely such as you—that displays your values, your perspective, your means of seeing issues—deposits a tiny quantity of belief together with your viewers. Alone, every bit would possibly really feel insignificant. However over months and years, these deposits accumulate into one thing highly effective: a popularity.
That is what my dad taught me via his years of teaching. He didn’t construct belief along with his athletes via grand gestures. He constructed it via displaying up the identical means, day after day, yr after yr. They knew what to anticipate from him. That predictability turned trustworthiness.
Your voice works the identical means. Consistency isn’t boring—it’s what makes you somebody value listening to.
Conclusion
The web will solely get noisier. The strain to publish extra, shout louder, and chase developments will solely intensify. However affect has by no means been about quantity.
Actual affect comes from being somebody folks wish to hear from. Not since you’re in all places, however as a result of once you do communicate, you say one thing value listening to.
That requires braveness. It means trusting that high quality outweighs amount. It means sitting with the discomfort of not posting when you anticipate one thing real to say. It means being prepared to be neglected within the quick time period so that you will be remembered in the long run.
The excellent news?
Most individuals received’t do that. They’ll hold shouting, hold churning out content material, hold taking part in a sport that exhausts them. Which suggests in the event you’re prepared to take the slower path – growing a voice that’s genuinely yours – you’ll finally stand out just by being actual.
Cease making an attempt to be heard by everybody. Begin making an attempt to matter to somebody.