If you want your audience to trust your brand and connect meaningfully with it, you need to create content that shows you as relatable. One of the best ways to do that is by sharing personal stories. A compelling personal story can capture your audience’s attention and leave them wanting more.

However, when telling a relatable brand story, you must strike a good balance. If you share too little, you will appear inauthentic and hide something. On the other hand, if you share too much, you might leave others feeling uncomfortable. In this article, we will guide you on how to tell personal stories without oversharing.

How to Tell if You are Oversharing

There are times when we all share more than we meant to. To enable you to prevent oversharing, here are things to watch out for: 

• Using your family and friends as therapists. If you are sharing online as a way of venting or sharing your personal struggle, you are more likely to overshare. While there is nothing wrong with leaning on others for support, if yours is a one-sided talk, it can strain or drain your relationship since your loved ones will begin to feel like they are your mental health specialists. 
• Seeking family input in every decision. If you always ask for your audience’s feedback, even when making a small decision, you can easily end up oversharing. When you regularly rely on others for guidance, you force them to contribute to your personal matters. 
• You reveal too much on social media. You should pay attention to the frequency at which you are sharing your personal details online, especially when not all the people you follow are your close friends. According to one study, if you are sharing more than five times a day, you are already oversharing. When you disclose too much on social media, your colleagues and acquaintances may feel ashamed and even avoid you.
• Don't respect people’s privacy. If you are oversharing, you might have revealed other people’s secrets in the name of connections with them.

Tips to Avoid Oversharing in Personal Stories

These tips will act as a guide to help you share the right amount of information:

Have Boundaries

People have different boundaries when sharing personal stories. Some don't mind sharing personal details such as their struggles, relationships, and daily lives. Others like keeping their details private. Therefore, begin by determining what you are comfortable sharing. That will help you decide what to share and what not to share.

Some of the factors that can help you determine your boundaries are your values, comfort level, and the consequences of sharing certain kinds of information. You should remember that when you share something online, it's going to remain there in the long-term, and you would rather be cautious than overshare.

Ask Critical Questions

There are some questions you need to ask yourself that will determine if you are sharing too much. These include:

• What value does this information add to me or my audience? When sharing content online, ensure that you have a goal in mind. This could involve educating, entertaining, or connecting with your audience. If the information you share doesn't add any value to you or your target audience, then it's probably not worth sharing.
• Is it the right time to share? The information may be suitable for sharing online, but it might not be the right time to do so. This is because there are certain topics that are best shared at specific times or in particular contexts. For instance, if the personal story is about your personal struggles, you are better off sharing the story after you have built a rapport with your audience.
• What are the risks of sharing this story? Whatever story you are sharing, there are potential consequences of sharing the information. For instance, the story might end up spoiling your personal or professional life or even put you at legal risk. When you realize there are consequences of sharing a personal story, it is good to refrain from sharing it. 

Act Like You Are Sharing Physically

When you aren't close to the person you are sharing with, it's easy to overshare. Whether it's on your blog post or social media, you can easily overshare without giving it much thought. However, consider whether the image, story, or other forms of content you are sharing are necessary. Does it have content that would feel inappropriate when speaking to someone you respect?

For instance, imagine sitting next to your mom or brother. Consider whether the content would offend them; if it would, avoid sharing it. You can also consider how you would feel if you randomly came across the content from another person online.

Focus on Polite and Positive Sharing

Harmful content is more likely to stir controversy than positive content. Positive content is often personal and may make people feel comfortable, even when you are talking about other people. For instance, if you are an influencer building a personal brand, instead of sharing about your kid's negative behaviors, you can focus on sharing their positive ones.

Consider Your Audience

If you share content with a strong language, you can limit the content to only certain people. You can also adjust the post’s settings to make it hard for certain people to see it. For instance, if you share a post that your parents may find inappropriate, you can adjust the post's settings so they cannot see it. You can sometimes share an inside joke with friends instead of all your social media followers. You may even send the joke as a group message to all your friends.

Don't Share Body Activity Information

In an attempt to appear funny and make your audience laugh, you might feel tempted to share about your recent diarrhoea that resulted from food poisoning. However, nobody is interested in information about your vital functions, such as bowel movements, menstruation, urination, and colonoscopies. However, there are a few exceptions, such as when sharing content about pregnancy or weight loss, where you may want to discuss the changes occurring in your body.

Take note that sharing physical events or states can be appropriate. For instance, you can share that you have a kid on social media or even share an image of your wrapped newborn. However, sharing your pictures in the labour ward may be inappropriate.

Switch Off Location Functions

Many social media apps have a check-in functionality that allows people to know your location. This is risky for you and your family, as it reveals your current location to social media users. If someone has bad intentions, they can then use the information to steal from your home when you are away.

Therefore, it would be advisable to turn off the location function as it helps you control the people who already know your location, what you are doing, and where you are doing it. If you are using a GPS, turn off the location function. You can check your phone or tablet’s user guide to see how to turn off location. 

Tips for Avoiding Oversharing

On top of the above steps, there are also several other things you can do to help you avoid oversharing. These include:

• Focus more on industry-related news. When you make industry-relevant news your main topic and personal content second, you can easily avoid oversharing. Therefore, share more industry insights, expert tips, and thought leadership on your main issues. You can then add some personal anecdotes to illustrate your human side. A good idea would be to stick with a ratio of 70% to 30% for professional and personal content.
• Have a core message in personal posts. If you share something personal, you can show how it is connected with an insight or lesson from your work. For instance, you can share how you learnt patience from your puppy and why patience is essential.
• Avoid posting for likes. Personal posts receive more likes on social media platforms like LinkedIn. That can make you feel good and even encourage you to overshare personal information, such as holiday photos. However, pursuing likes can lead to oversharing. That is why you shouldn't focus on vanity metrics such as likes; instead, you should focus on building a community by showing your industry expertise.

Final Thoughts

There is no doubt that authenticity is important in building your brand. One way to show your authentic side is by sharing personal stories. However, when doing so, be careful not to overshare. If you want to know how to do that, our detailed guide will help you.