I Studied 10,000+ Videos, These Mistakes Are Killing Your Content

0:00If you want to build a business using social media, there are a few huge mistakes you have to avoid making. And I see people fall into these over and over again. I call these the seven deadly pitfalls. If you can avoid all of these, it's pretty much guaranteed that you will eventually win on social media. But if you fall into even one of these traps, it will set you back months or even years immediately. So, in this video, I'm going to break down all seven deadly pitfall mistakes that you need to avoid at all costs when you're growing on social media. I'll cover what to do,

0:28what not to do, and most importantly, how to fix it if you've already made one or more of these critical mistakes. By the way, I'm Callaway. I have a million followers. I've done billions of views, and content is all I do all day long. All right, mistake number one is super simple, but it's devastating for the people that make it. And it has to do with running paid ads. And I'll say it super plainly. If you have an organic account that's already working on social media, do not ever run paid ads directly through that organic account. I'm talking about boosting organic posts directly. Do not do it. If you've

0:58already done this, you'll know immediately what I'm about to say and why this is such a critical mistake. When you run paid ads through an organic account, one of two things is going to happen. First, you send a signal to the social platform that you're willing to pay for additional reach. This means you have money in their eyes. When they detect this, it's rumored that the platforms will slowly throttle down the free organic reach you are getting to

1:20try to bait you into continuing to pay. Now, they'll never admit this and it's anecdotal, can't be proved, but if you think about it, it makes a ton of sense if this is how it works. If I was running a social platform trying to optimize for ad revenue, that's exactly what I would do. Now, I'm not here to spread rumors that I can't substantiate for sure. So, let's just assume the platforms don't literally throttle you just because you paid. It doesn't even really matter because the second thing that happens when you run paid ads on an organic account is that you will notice your reach go down. It's not the

1:48platforms doing it on purpose, but something happens that will force your reach down. Let me explain. When you have an organic account that's working and you're posting content for free and viewers are coming in, the algorithm has a super clear profile of exactly who is watching and engaging. This is called your audience avatar. When you run paid ads, you bring in a whole new crop of viewers to your original organic audience, many of which aren't a perfect exact match to that ideal audience avatar. And when they come in, they don't engage because of the content on its own. they engage because of whatever promise the ad was making. In other

2:20words, by paying for more reach, you've actually diluted the clarity that the algorithm has on who your audience is. So, when you run your next organic post for free, a portion of those viewers that see it are the ones that came in from the paid ads, and they won't engage or watch it because they didn't actually like you or the content in the first place. This leads to weak performance metrics on the organic post, which signals to the algorithm your content

2:43has gotten worse, so they push it less. That's why your views go down. The truth is, your content may not have gotten worse, but your content audience fit did. So, when you run paid ads on an organic account that's working, either the platforms literally throttle you or your newly expanded but less targeted audience engages less. Either way, your organic reach is going down. Now, I can't say conclusively exactly how many paid ads it takes to trigger this effect. I also can't say the amount of

3:09ad spend it would take to trigger this. But if this has happened to you and you had an account working, you ran paid ads and now the account is no longer working, you'll know immediately this is real and how devastating that can be. Now, I'll say this, there is a way to revive an organic account where this has happened. And the way is by shifting the mix of your audience more organic and less paid. So, all you have to do is post a ton of organic content, probably months worth in a row, and try to slowly

3:34rebalance that mix to be more organic. But if you did run a lot of paid ads and your audience is a lot of those pay-to-play people that didn't really want to be there, your account might be cooked. So my recommendation, and I cannot say this clearly enough, once you have an organic account that is working, do not run paid ads directly from that account. Now, here is a really important

3:53distinction when it comes to paid ads. And this is where I will square my advice from all the things you're hearing from people like Gary Vee and others. It's true that the best strategy for using social media is to first run organic posts to verify what works and then juice those organic posts with ads. That is the optimal strategy. But here's the critical difference. When you run them as ads, you don't boost directly from the organic golden goose. You either run them from a meta ads account that's connecting multiple accounts together or you take the creative that worked to a separate account designed for paid and boost it there. Once you

4:28have the golden goose, you do not boost directly from that or you'll lose the organic reach. This is the nuance that not a lot of people talk about, but I've seen over and over again is a huge mistake from business owners. Again, I'm not saying paid ads are bad. Paid ads are amazing, but running paid ads on an organic account that's already getting you free reach is a disaster. All right, the second major social media mistake that I see is people that get spread too thin way too early. I call this failure by suffocation. Not to be crude, here's what happens. Typically, someone will start to get some traction on one social

4:59platform. Maybe it's Instagram, maybe it's Tik Tok, maybe it's YouTube. But what happens is that instead of doubling down to really focus your attention to scale and systematize, instead they immediately try to expand from one to many platforms. When you do this, you fracture your focus, kind of like Voldemort's Horcruxes in Harry Potter. And this suffocates that initial golden goose platform of the creative and

5:20operational attention that it needed. So, you go from spinning one plate successfully to spinning five plates poorly. And this is probably the biggest hidden mistake in all of business, not just content. You jump to a second, third, or fourth battle before winning and locking things up on the home front first. Now, I know this mistake intimately because this is the single biggest misstep that I have made in my content and entrepreneurial journey. So, here's what I recommend you do instead and what I wish I would have done if I could go back to the beginning. Start with a single platform and a single content format. So for me it would have

5:51been short form video on Instagram. What you want to do is compound all your focus and attention on that one single surface. And that means becoming automatic at making winning content every single time for that platform. Responding to all comments, responding to all DMs, really going allin on that one platform ecosystem. Then build a system for producing the optimal content volume on that platform. In this case for Instagram with short form video, it'd be one post per day. Build a system for doing that and do not focus on anything else until that system runs itself. And the way you judge if it can run itself is that you hire yourself out

6:27of every non-delegatable task without the quality or quantity going down. Now, that system must be resilient enough to run for 30 days in a row without breaking. That's how you know it really works. This will probably take you 3, 6, maybe 12 months to do that one system for that one platform in that one format. It is only at that point, once you have a system running for 30 days in a row without breaking, that you should then expand and try to tackle another content platform. I call this overall approach methodical expansion. This is the right strategy to prevent yourself from burnout and really set up a strong

7:01foundation to be able to build on top of. But most people don't do this. Most people get a tiny bit of traction on that first platform, realize it's going to be a ton of work, fracture their focus somewhere else because they think it's an easier game, and then they're fighting on two fronts, which brings both of their outputs down. I know this

7:16intimately because this is what I did. The truth is, and this really is the golden nugget, if you pick the right platform format combination the first time for whatever it is your business is, you might not ever need a second, third, or fourth. That first one could feed your business forever. So, if you're a beginner, hopefully this is encouraging to hear. You don't need to fight on all fronts. Pick one format, one platform, and go all in on getting the most out of it. Build a system, delegate yourself out of that system, make sure it's resilient, and then consider expanding to a second. All right, social media mistake number three

7:47is what I call shotgun topics. And this happens when you cover too many different topics on the same social media account. This is one of those mistakes that is going to make your growth feel like quicksand. You're moving, your legs are turnurning, but you're actually going nowhere. Here's what happens. Social media algorithms are designed to cluster around similar topics. That's how they're built. This is why social media in the 4U era is not really social media anymore. It's more like interest media. The algorithms figure out what topics you're interested in as a viewer. Detect what topic a video is about and then try to best match the two so that viewers see things

8:18they're interested in. So, as a creator, your only goal is to train the algorithm that your channel is a go-to for a specific topic cluster set. The more it feels confident in this designation, the more it will know who to put your videos in front of and the more it will push them. The big mistake that many creators and brands make, especially at the beginning, is that they assume the

8:39viewer is there for them as the person. And because of that, they have a free license to talk about whatever topic they want. The truth is, viewers aren't watching for you. They're watching for their own selfish interest, whether that be entertainment or educational value. Now, I'll admit maybe your top 5 to 10% super fans will listen to you talk about whatever topic you want, regardless of it's in their interest set. But for the other 90 to 95%, the masses, they couldn't care less if you cover a topic they don't care about. So, when creators or brands try to cover too many topics on the same channel, the algorithm gets

9:10confused, doesn't know who to push you for, and then pushes you less. So, my recommendation is very simple. Build a channel that is worldclass around a single topic. If you have an offer, a product, or a personal brand domain that you know you're building for, this shouldn't be hard. You already have your topic. Stick with that. And if you're early in the content game and you're not really sure what category or topic to pick, that's totally fine. Feel free to experiment and jump around. Just know you won't grow very fast until you lock in on one. Again, this is something that I personally struggle with a lot in my

9:39own channels. And upon reflection, I realized I was playing the game completely wrong. That's why I didn't grow as fast as I wanted. I had a tech and AI channel where I also intermixed videos about brand and marketing. I thought I'm the GOAT so I can violate the rules and people would just follow for me and it doesn't really matter. I was wrong because even though I was getting millions of views on both types

9:58of videos, my audience wasn't growing. And that's because every time I posted, only half of my audience would have cared about the topic in the first place. And that half was switching depending on whether I was making tech or marketing. What I realized is that I'd be a lot better off just making two different accounts and training them separately, separate algorithms, separate audiences, and compounding like that. This way, I could become a go-to in each field and have the algorithm

10:20help me both times instead of hurt me. Do not cover too many topics on a single channel. If you're trying to grow faster, just pick one or make multiple channels. All right, social media mistake number four and a huge trap is probably the most common question that I get asked and it has to do with picking your niche. specifically feeling like you wasted time and effort if you picked the wrong one. So, the question we're answering here and the pitfall we're really avoiding is, how do I pick the right niche based on my goals so that I make sure I use my time wisely? Now, I'm

10:48going to make it super simple for you. I have a four question framework that you can use to figure out what niche is best for you. And this works for every person, brand, creator, any scenario. This is the ideal formula for figuring out your niche. Okay, it's a four question thing. The first question, are you trying to make money from content or not? If not, the answer is easy. You should pick the niche or topic that you're most interested in. Don't overthink it. Don't try to calculate things. You're not going for money. You know that. And so, pick the topic that you actually care the most about. If

11:16yes, you are trying to make money from content. Maybe not today. Maybe today, maybe eventually. Keep going to question two. All right. Second question. Do you already have a product or offer or service or an established personal brand niche that you know you want to drive traffic to? Yes or no? If yes, then that's also easy because the topic or niche decision has already been made for you. If you have a product or service or offer, you're making content about that niche. Your goal is to become an expert or position your brand as an expert in

11:44that niche to flow back to the product. If you sell accounting services, you're making accounting content. If you sell social media growth coaching, you're making content about social media. Again, your goal is to become one of the most well-known brands or personal brands in the space, developing an expertise or perspective on that topic. Okay? Now, if you don't already have a product or offer or service or personal brand category defined, you're going to keep going to question three. Okay, question three. Are you a complete beginner with zero content skills in this format, or do you have the basics already dialed? And by the way, the only

12:15way you should consider having the basics dialed is if you've made a lot of content in this exact format. So, if you're doing short form video, the only way you can say you have the basics dialed is if you've made 30 or more short form videos in the past. So, if you've never done 30 short form videos, if that's the medium you're going for, you are considered a beginner. Okay. So, question three is, are you a beginner or not? If you're a beginner, you're going to pick whatever topic you're most interested in. Doesn't matter, and you're going to make 20 or 30 short form videos on that. And I know this will

12:41sound counterintuitive, but you're going to assume after those 20 to 30 videos, you may have to start over from scratch on a new topic. And this is completely fine. It's completely okay. Those first 20 to 30 videos are what I consider your learning era. Because the truth is, if you're trying to actually make money from social media, closing the skill gap on how you make content will come before you actually make any money. So, the most important thing you can do is pick a topic you actually like so that you make enough videos to be able to close the gap. You have to close the gap. The

13:11only way to close it is to make videos. The only way you're going to keep making enough videos to close it is by picking a topic you actually care about. Now, once you hit 20 to 30 videos on whatever topic you picked, you will graduate from a true beginner to having the basics covered, level one to level two. And at that time, you can decide to keep going with the niche you've chosen based on all the new information and skills you have, or restart from zero with a new niche, but you get to take the skills with you. Okay? Okay. So, once you graduate from being a beginner to having

13:38the basics dialed, whether you came into this exercise having the basics done, or you've done step three, you did the 20 to 30 videos on your favorite topic, and now you have the basics covered, we're going to move to the last question, question four. Question four, are you trying to eventually monetize from your own products, services, or offers, or are you mostly trying to monetize from brand deals? And I know you may not understand what this means today if you're a pure beginner, but let me try to break this down. Really, what I'm saying is, do you eventually want to both have to make content and make

14:07products, or do you just want to make content and get paid to make content? Those are kind of the two paths. Now, like I said, if you're a true beginner, you may not understand the difference today. But that's fine because you're not going to be on step four today. You're going to be on step three, making your first 20, 30 videos to close the skill gap. Okay, now back to the monetization because question four is really where people get tripped up. If you're trying to monetize from your own products or services, but you don't have them today, you don't know what they're going to be. The best way to pick what

14:30content to make is either a space where you have unique insights or experience. Maybe you worked a job in the past, maybe you've really studied it or focused in, or you pick a customer profile that you want to spend the next decade interacting with, talking with, studying, and communicating with. This is how you work backwards. If you don't have a product or offer today, but you think you want one in the future, this is how you start with the content audience to then fit into the product or offer. For example, let's say you have a bunch of unique knowledge around wellness. You studied nutrition in college. You worked at a wellness

15:05startup. You just really care about wellness. Or you just want to be in the wellness space. You know that. You just don't know how. You don't know what you want to make, etc. Well, then I would pick wellness as my content topic and start hammering videos in wellness. Eventually, you will figure out what people need and build a product or offer. But you don't need to close that gap today. What you do want to do is make sure directionally you're angled towards a space that you want to keep going in. And so thinking about where you have expertise or which audience profile you want to play with is a

15:32really good way to think about this backwards. Okay. Now, on the other side, let's say you never want to own your own products, right? Making content is enough. You don't want to have to both make content and make products. You're good just making content. That would be the brand deal side. What you really want is to make content, have brands pay you to do it. So, if that's you, the way I would pick my niche, if I don't already have one that I'm obsessed with, I would pick one where you have huge companies that make a ton of profit already paying influencers a lot to make

15:58content. So, for example, if you're trying to monetize from brand deals, but you cover nonprofits, well, you're going to have a problem because the nonprofits don't pay influencers that much to cover them. So, if you actually want to build a business and make money from brand deals, you got to pick a niche where the companies that are already paying influencers are paying a ton because

16:16that shows they're willing to pay more. So, if this is your path, I would spend less time thinking about what customer you're selling to and more time thinking about the players in the industry or the players in the space that would be paying you for those brand deals cuz your customers really are the brands, not the end buyer. Now the truth is ideally whether you take the products and services path or the brand deal path there's some vin diagram that merges what you actually care about and then either where you have unique interest or which brands are paying. Ideally there's an intersection that overlaps and that's

16:46the niche you pick. The reality though is that it's going to take hundreds of videos or hundreds of posts on social media for you to see any amount of money. So you really do need to pick a niche that you think you could make at least 100 posts about. So, that's the four question framework that really applies to any creator or brand on earth that runs through exactly how to pick your niche. The honest truth about content and social media is that the only way you lose is if you stop posting. And so, as long as you pick a category that you'll keep posting in, you'll win for sure. This is why I can't

17:15tell you personally which niche to pick specifically. I can only give you a framework to try to think through what matters at every stage. So, if you're a beginner, and I know a lot of people are watching this, pick a single category you're interested in. Make 30 videos. close that beginner skill gap and then re-evaluate with question four. All right, by the way guys, if you like how I'm breaking all of this down, kind of trying to explain these heady concepts that not a lot of people talk about into simple terms, I actually built a free community specifically for business owners where I do this for every aspect

17:43of the content workflow. If you're trying to grow on social media, you're trying to grow on YouTube, you need help with strategy, with thumbnails, with execution, with editing, all of it is explained in this type of framework in Wavy World. We have 65 free trainings. 35,000 entrepreneurs are already in there. It's really a no-brainer. If you want to get better at content and you're a business owner, it's for you. Got a link in the description below if you want to sign up. All right. Social media mistakes number five and six really go hand in hand. So, I'm going to combine them together here. And they really have

18:10to do with experimenting to find new visual formats and then sticking with one once you have it working. Most creators and brands are on the hunt for one thing. When you scroll and you're like, I want mine to look like this. What you're really looking for is a signature visual format that you can hit over and over and over that just looks like you branding visually execution that just feels like you. That's what most people are looking for. Now, there are a ton of great examples of this in action on social media today. Of course, my friend Orin has a signature format called product verse brand where he

18:41takes a category, water bottles or coffee machines, and he breaks down the different products or brands that people buy. Are you buying it for the product because the utility and functionality or are you buying it for the brand because you're paying a markup for the name or logo? There's a popular creator called Khloe Sha who has a famous series 30

18:56lessons under 30. She crushed from that. Another creator Adrien Purr, super sick, has his own kind of signature visual format. You recognize immediately that it's one of his videos. My friend Ryan too has a really cool series called Creator Marketing where he breaks down creators. Again, you see this, you immediately know it's his. The list goes on and on, but most of the biggest creators have their own signature visual format, and that is what you know them for. But why I wanted to cover this in this video is that there's a common mistake a lot of people fall into when it comes to approaching this visual

19:24format. And the first one has to do with beginners stressing themselves out when they don't have one initially. When you're a beginner, and I know this because I was a beginner and felt this too, all you want is to close the gap between where you are today, meh, and then the future of having a dialed signature visual format that people

19:41love. All you want is to close that gap. But from my experience, and this is the huge mistake, you cannot force the discovery of this signature visual format. If you constantly think about it and try to overengineer it, it will not come. Most of these signature formats or signature visuals were born out of one rogue idea that those creators had. They tried a bunch of stuff, threw it at the wall, something stickked, they doubled down a couple times, realized it was a pattern that it was working, and that's how they eventually emerged to have this signature format. So, here are two quick tips for beginners or brands for how to

20:13find your own signature visual format without getting super anxious or forcing it. The first one is all you really need is one unique angle or signature visual element in your videos. Maybe it's a small object you hold every single time you film. Maybe it's a specific animation or graphic style. Maybe it's a certain font. Maybe it's a certain color

20:33palette that you use every single time. Instead of trying to force architect an entire world on day one, which is a lot to bite off, just focus on picking one visual element that you want to experiment with including this element might morph into your full signature visual style eventually. Now, second, this is the most helpful workflow I found to try to discover what these signature visual formats are that are working in your space so you can get inspiration for your own. The first thing you're going to do is pull up all the popular creators in your niche on sandcastle.ai. Then, when you're in the videos tab, you can go to the channel

21:06filter and search individual creators one after another. When you sort all their videos in the videos tab by views, you can see their top performing videos. What you'll notice pretty quickly is that any series they have will show itself in the top. So, for example, we pulled my friend Orin up, his last 12 months worth of posts and sorted it by views. And right away, you can immediately see the product verse brand format and series really shows at the top. A lot of his top performing posts are in this format. So, if you're in the brand marketing or social media growth or creative direction space and you like

21:38Orin and you pulled him up, you might see this and be like, hm, what can I take from this and twist to make my own signature visual format? So, maybe instead of his product verse brand, if you're in the cooking niche, you come up with a series called Dine Verse Dash, where you go to restaurants and you film in an interesting visual way their signature dishes as they get served. And then you decide in the video if you're

21:59going to dine, eat it, or dash, leave. That could be an interesting twist on Orin's signature format that you use on your own. Or maybe you make the series eat in or take out where if you're a chef at home, you cook your own version of a signature dish. You also take out one from the restaurant and then you compare them side by side and you could

22:17shoot it really cool in the kitchen. See, the core of Orin series product versus brand is there. The core bones are there, but you really iterated and twisted it a ton to where it's almost not recognizable. So, the mistake here is avoiding forcing the visual style from day one. either pick a small element and experiment or do some research on the top creators in your space and try to understand what format visually and series-wise they've created and then twist it to try to make your own. Now, one other tip on the flip side for the few people watching this that do

22:47already have a signature visual format. Don't go away from it. Too many people have something working but then pivot and try to chase corny styles or weird trends that only last for a couple days. If you have a bell cow, run it over and over. Once you have something working, run it over and over and over and over until it stops working. If you strike gold, it'll keep working. I'm telling you, people will tend to associate you with this visual style and it will deepen their fandom more quickly. So, if you get one of these winners, do not abandon it. All right, mistake number seven is really the macdaddy of all

23:18these mistakes. And this is not letting the data tell you which content you should make next. It boggles my mind how many creators and brands are making content fully based on their gut, not using any data at all. The truth is, if you just replicate the content that's already working in your niche over and over, you will win. It really is that simple. And that's because human viewers tend to behave the same way over and over. Now, I realized pretty early on that using data to inform my ideas and the way I executed videos was a cheat code that most creators were not tapping into. And so, that's why I spent the

23:50last 12 months codifying that system into a tool. That's what Sandcastles.ai is really. Sand castles is just a social media data engine that lets you find and use proven content formats to then incorporate in your own content to make it better. This exactly how I use it to get a data advantage over everyone else. First, I build a list of all the top performing creators or brand accounts in my space. Then I use that list and organize all their top performing videos in one place. So what you're seeing would be the last 3, 6, or 12 months organized by views or by outlier score or by engagement score. Immediately, I

24:25can see all the winners organized right there for me. Now, here's where it gets crazy. I can now click into any of those videos, and I can extract out the topics, the hooks, or the storytelling style that they use one click. So, right here, I can take this video, go to the transcript, see that I like the hook, click save that hook to my vault, and then I've extracted that hook as a component template that I can use in future videos that I make. Now, this vault is basically my personalized database of all the winning hooks and styles that I found across all winning videos. So then when I go to write a new

25:00script on whatever topic I want, I can use that proven hook or proven storytelling style again and again and again with one click. So it's my topic using their proven hook or their style or it's my topic using their proven hook or my style or it's my topic using my best proven hooks and my style. There's infinite combinations when you build this vault out. Either way, I'm using the best of the best of the best components at every stage. And this workflow allows me to build a banger script in literally 60 seconds using validated pieces at every step. I know the topics worked because I saw them

25:36ranked. I know the hooks worked because I saw the views. I know the style worked because I saw the views. I'm using databacked pieces to make my own versions. This is what using the data to make content on social media really looks like. And the truth is, most creators and brands are not yet

25:50approaching social media in this way. The ones that do are crushing everyone else because they only use the things that are proven with data. If you want to learn more about how to build one of these datadriven content systems using sand castles the way I did it, I'll link a few things below that walk you through

26:04exactly how to do it. All right, guys. That's all I've got for this video. We covered the seven deadly pitfalls, really the most common mistakes that people on social media make that prevent them from growing more quickly. And as always guys, I'm trying to bring the stuff that most people don't talk about. I'm trying to cover different things that aren't just regurgitation so that you get unique insights and you have an edge over everyone else. So if you're a business owner focused on using content to grow your business, this YouTube channel is the best in the world. Also, if that's you and you like this channel,

26:31there's no reason you shouldn't be in Wavy World. I've got 65 free trainings in there with 35,000 other business owners. If you're not in there, they're getting an edge over you cuz everyone's collaborating with each other to try to improve their content together. So, if you want to join that, I got a free

26:44invite link in the description below. All right, we'll see you guys on the next video.