Everything you know about content is (probably) wrong

0:00If you want your content to perform better, you have to avoid a few critical mistakes. And it sounds so simple, but the hard part is these mistakes are not obvious to the average creator or brand. Most people don't even know they're making them. So, in this video, I'm going to walk through the five biggest content traps that are holding people back from growing faster. And once you solve for these, the content game will be much, much easier. Now, I know this works because I spend all my time at the cutting edge of content and marketing. I have a million followers. I've done billions of views. So, if you feel like

0:29you should be growing faster, this will help you a ton. All right. Now, the first massive content mistake is speed versus size. Most people assume that when they make content, more information equals more value for the viewer. In other words, if I just tell the viewer more stuff, they will learn more and trust me faster. And it makes sense that this is the common assumption. But it turns out this approach is actually a massive mistake and one of the reasons why your content isn't working. If you give the viewer too much information, even if it's all valuable independently on its own, they'll get overwhelmed, absorb nothing, and bounce. Because the

1:01truth is, humans only have so much capacity to consume new knowledge in one sitting. This is why school classes usually aren't 4 hours long. The human brain likes to learn in bursts, let that new knowledge sink in, and then revisit it later. So, when you make content trying to slam 10 different concepts into one compressed video, most people just can't absorb it. When this happens, they get information overload and they leave on a bad note. So, here's what you should do instead. Instead of optimizing your content for pure quantity of information, you should optimize for the speed of how fast you can lock in one core learning. Because the truth is,

1:35when you make content, you're really in a race to see if you can transfer some value into the viewer's brain before they get bored and churned. If you can beat their boredom and stick literally any value at all, they will trust you and keep watching. So, if you want people to watch for longer, share with their friends, and follow you, you need to compress the time it takes for them to get that initial hit of value. And this means really focusing on cutting the fluff at the beginning of your content to bring the value closer to the top. Here's a quick exercise to help with this. When you read your script

2:04back, highlight the first line where you actually introduce something novel of value. If that line is not in the first 7 to 10 seconds of a short form video or 45 to 60 seconds of a YouTube video, it's taking way too long to get to the value. You want to cut any fluff above that highlighted line to bring the value closer to the top. Once I started doing this, every single content metric that I

2:25measured was off the charts immediately. So, if you can only work on one thing to improve your content, it should be speed to value. All right, content mistake number two has to do with your approach to finding new ideas. And when I say ideas, I'm talking about the topic and angle that you make your content about. This is the most important and most underrated aspect of the content workflow. There's a reason why you hear Mr. Beast talk adnauseium about how important ideas are. It is the difference between good and great on any social platform or YouTube. Now, the common assumption for most creators and brands is that they have to come up with

2:57super unique and original ideas every single time. And this is one of the reasons why making content feels so stressful as a beginner. Because let's face it, it's really hard to come up with original ideas day after day after day. Well, the reality is you don't actually need original ideas to win with content. Here's why. Humans are creatures of habit. This means they tend

3:15to behave the same way over and over. So, if you find content that is already outperformed for a given audience, chances are that same content will outperform again. And we know this is true because the top creators literally repost their exact same videos word for word, frame for frame every four to six months. and they work over and over. So, here's what this means for you. If you want a way to generate a hundred new proven ideas in just 20 minutes, follow this exact process. Go to sandcastles.ai and build a watch list of the top creators or channels in your space. If you don't know who the best channels

3:47are, just find one, go to who they're following, and build the list from there. Once you have that watch list built in Sandcastles, go to the videos tab, filter by that watch list, and you'll see all the videos from just those channels aggregated in one feed. You can then filter and sort those videos to show you the ones with the most views, the most engagement, the highest outlier score across literally any metric you want for any post date range you can think of. When you do this, you'll start to notice patterns for what has already worked from the top channels in your space. You can take

4:16those ideas, use those hooks, find those visual formats, and remix the winning ideas for yourself. Now, here's why this works so well. Virgil Abau was a famous designer that came up with the 3% rule. He said, "All you have to do to make something your own is take something that already works, change it 3%, and then you've got something new." What I just described is the 3% philosophy for content ideation. Except for you, you can remix 20, 30, even 50% still using that same content idea. And it will work because humans behave the same way over and over. I promise you, if you approach your idea generation like this, your hit

4:51rate for winners, how often you have a viral video, will go way up. And this is the process that all the top creators, the top brands, and the top agencies are using to come up with content every single day that outperforms. So, if you're not approaching ideation in this way, you're just making the game way harder on yourself. All right, content mistake number three is misunderstanding how the algorithm actually works. Now, I made a ton of videos breaking down the science, math, and psychology for how social algorithms are built. But let's just simplify it here. Most people think that if they try really hard, the algorithm will eventually reward their

5:22content by pushing it. and when it doesn't that there's somebody in the back end trying to shadowban them or just hates what they're doing. Here's the truth. The algorithm does not care about you. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care where you went to high school. It doesn't care what you look like. All it wants is for users on the platform to spend time watching and

5:39sharing the content that you make. That's it. If you can get people to watch and share, the algorithm will push your content to everybody. I guarantee it. Now, if you want to make lots of watch time and shares happen, you need your content to create an emotional transfer in the viewer that ends up sparking a discussion in the comments or

5:56sparking a discussion in the group chat. When it comes to algorithms, emotional transfers in the viewer are the key. That's the one thing that matters most. Now, emotional transfers are things like shock, sadness, fear, awe, or inspiration. So, the million-dollar question when it comes to content and algorithms really is this. How do I ratchet up the emotional transfer in my videos without coming off as cringey or over sensationalized? And here's the best exercise for increasing the emotional response that you drive in your videos. When you read your script back, ask yourself one question. What are the top three comments that I expect to see from this video? One from a super

6:31fan, one from a neutral observer, and one from a super hater. If there's not a clear diving board into a discussion for each of those three groups, then your script is not emotionally charged enough. And I call this emotional charge your commentary value score. The best videos have an extremely high commentary value in that when they're posted, the comment sections go crazy. So, if you want the algorithm to push your video to others, you need to increase the commentary value score. Now, there's three ways you can improve your CBS. One is to take a stronger point of view on either side of the issue. The people

7:02that believe you will back you, and the people that don't will argue. Two is to use more words that lead the viewer into the emotional charge you're trying to drive them to. So if you want them to feel scared, saying the words, "This is scary," will help push them there. And the third way is to seed the discussion, not with a question, but a subtle reference for how the target group will be affected by the topic. So for example, let's say you're making a video on the future of AI and its impact on children's ability to learn. Now, that topic is already default pretty large, which is good. So to further increase

7:32the CBS on this topic, you could include a few examples talking specifically about how children will succeed or fail in AI. You could use words like scary, uncertain, or unknown. Or you could plant a stake in the ground on one side or the other for where your point of view lies. And by doing any of these things or all three, that will spark insane discussion. The CVS will go up, the watch time and shares will go up,

7:54and the algorithm will push your video. The takeaway is this. The secret to activating the algorithm to really ratchet it up is by driving an intense emotional transfer in the viewer. All right, content mistake number four is about the process of making each piece of content. specifically figuring out how to build a system for improving from rep to rep. Most people can see a great video, look at their own, realize there's a pretty big gap there, but then

8:17not know what to do to close that gap. They'll try to change a bunch of different things from rep to rep, it still won't work, and they won't know exactly where to go next. So, here's a non-obvious framework that really helped me improve my intentionality when it came to iteration. And this helped me close the gap from bad to good to great much faster. The framework is called content Legos. Every video can be broken

8:38down into a series of independent Legos. Think of them literally like a stack of different colored and shaped blocks that makes up the video. For short form video, there are seven different content Legos. The topic, the angle, the hook format, the storytelling style, the visual format, the key visuals, and the audio. Those seven pieces stacked together in colors and shapes to make the individual video. For YouTube, it's those seven plus title thumbnail. So, there's nine. Now, what this means and why it's so helpful is that when you're trying to figure out what to improve in your video, all you have to do is key in on an individual Lego block and focus on

9:12solving that first. You fix that, find a new piece, swap those out, and then you have a new video. If you go incrementally like this, it's way easier to find the problem and improve each aspect. So, for example, you might feel like your hooks are the reason why your videos are underperforming. You have a good sense for picking which topics you like. you have a visual format that you like, but you just don't like the way you execute the hooks, and you know, it could be better. What you can do is isolate the fact that the hook format is what's wrong. Go to sand castles and

9:39look at the hooks from all the top performing videos in your niche. This allows you to put blinders on, and focus on the one element that you want to improve. You take your hook block, you find one that's working from someone else, take that block, and swap it in. Now, you have a new stack of Legos. six

9:55are the same, but the hook has changed. And you can run that a few times to test if your hypothesis was true. This is kind of like using the scientific method to experiment on individual pieces instead of changing everything from rep to rep. And what I found is the process of breaking down videos into individual components makes it way easier to focus on what to change. Now, here's a pro tip. When it comes to building a signature style, most creators use the same hook format, storytelling style,

10:20visual format, and audio over and over. So when it comes time to make a new video, all they change is the topic angle and the visuals. So I'm telling you, thinking about the video in terms of components, content Legos, makes it way, way easier. All right, content mistake number five is about mindset. And this is really important for beginners. The common assumption from creators, entrepreneurs, and brands is that they're just too late to enter the content game. That every content niche is full, that there are way too many creators that are already so good, and the gap to close is just too far. That's the common excuse pattern. Let me dispel

10:52this for you. once and for all. The content game is always open, especially now that followers and subscribers are no longer the gatekeepers to getting views. When for you algorithms became the prominent way to rank content in 2022, this shifted everything where literally anyone could get a million views on their first video. And this really means that every content category is wide open every single day. In fact, because of this, you could argue that social media and YouTube are now more up

11:16for grabs than in any era previously. So, if you're overthinking and getting blocked about starting making content because of this narrative, take it from me. We are in the golden era if you want to enter the content game. Now, I will admit it's not all roses and rainbows. The problem if you're starting out in this era is that the quality bar required to hit a home run with content is much, much higher than it was 10 years ago. And so, while the walls of the garden have come down, the distance between the entrance and the throne is much wider. But if you're ambitious, this is the best time in history to be

11:46playing the content game because you can beat anybody, no matter how big their following is. All right, guys. That is all we've got in this video. Now, as a reminder, if you're a business owner and you're focused on improving your content over the next 6 to 12 months, I've got a free community that I built just for you. It's called Wavy World. We have 65 free trainings and over 33,000 entrepreneurs, all working together to help each other get better with their content. It's a really great community and it has everything you need to really take the next step forward with social media or YouTube. So, I got a free

12:15invite link in the description if you want to join. All right, that's all I've got here. We will see you guys on the next one. Peace.