Transcription
If you want to get more views on your content, this video will be a cheat code because I'm going to walk through the four biggest non-obvious learnings that actually work in the content game. Now, here's the thing. Each one of these is a very important lesson that was holding me back until I learned it. So, this video will help you grow much faster. By the way, I'm Callaway. I have a million followers. I've done billions of views. And I made this channel specifically to help business owners level up their content.
All right. Non-obvious learning number one is about visuals. And to be honest, this single lesson kind of broke my frame when it came to approaching how to make content. Here it is. When you start playing the content game, you quickly realize that comprehension is what matters most. How well the viewers actually understand what you're saying so they can decide whether it makes sense to keep watching. And that part is pretty obvious. Now, here's where the nonobvious part comes in. When I thought about how best to communicate my ideas, my beginner content brain immediately focused on the words I was saying. Specifically, I was trying to figure out how I could say things to help a viewer understand my ideas better. So, my main focus was all on the spoken words. Now, most content, of course, has some visual elements, interesting graphics or B-roll clips, but I always thought those could be added on at the end as icing. For me, the words were the cake, and the visuals were the icing on top. But that's where I was wrong. When it comes to content, it's actually the visuals that are way more important. And that's because the human brain comprehends visuals way faster than it comprehends words. Think about it. Why does the saying a picture's worth a thousand words actually exist? Or why do communication experts say that 93% of humanto human communication is nonverbal and only 7% is from the words? Or why are memes some of the most powerful communication devices ever invented? It's because the human brain comprehends visuals much better than words. So, when it comes to the content game, it turns out it's not the best idea that wins. What wins is the best idea that's fully understood. And visuals are much better than words at helping a viewer understand. Now, notice I didn't say editing matters more than words. I said visuals. Editing is the pacing, switching, and movement applied on top of the base visuals. But the visuals are the raw imagery, videos, or graphics that act as a better medium to communicate your ideas.
Okay. So, tactically, what does this all mean? and how should it impact your content process moving forward. First off, when you're making content, you need to be thinking visual first. Instead of focusing mostly on what to say, you also need to be extremely diligent at figuring out which visuals to show that will increase the comprehension of your topic. The words matter, of course, but typically people overweight the emphasis on the words and underweight the emphasis on the visuals. You need to recalibrate. So, the first piece is just strategically. You need to prioritize visual communication and that means really questioning what visuals could I be showing that would increase the comprehension of this sentence.
Okay, so now tactically what does that mean? A common question I get asked is where to go to actually get visuals for your content. It turns out there's really only four ways to create or acquire visuals. Let me quickly break them down. To get visuals, you could shoot them, download them, generate them, or create them. Shooting them means you taking the visuals with a camera or a phone. And this is either using just the base A-roll shot like this of you talking to the camera or you out in the world shooting things that you can use as B-roll. Now, the problem with only using the base A-roll shot like you see here is that once all the contextual information of the environment is consumed, the only thing left other than my words is my facial expressions and my body movements. And there just isn't enough added context to increase the comprehension. Now, going into the world and shooting your own B-roll clips is a surefire way to have unlimited visuals, but this involves getting up from the desk and actually going out into the world.
Okay. Number two was downloading. Downloading visuals means using some thirdparty source or royalty-free stock footage to download those visuals and use them in your video. And this is essentially B-roll shot in the world, but somebody else shot it for you, so you don't have to go do it. This is a much easier way to get B-roll for your content, but it often doesn't look original enough compared to when you shot it on your own. Personally, when I need stock B-roll, I'm using Invato Elements, Story Blocks, or I'm downloading it from a third-party site, social media, or YouTube.
All right, the third option is generating visuals. And this means using AI tools to manufacture your own B-roll, literally generating it from scratch. And this is kind of the best of both worlds between option one and two because you can be infinitely creative, but you don't have to go out in the world and be limited on what you can find. This category of visuals didn't really exist in a viable way until a couple of months ago. And I think this is going to be a massive category for creators and content over the next few years. To generate your own visuals with AI, I recommend using Midjourney for images or Google Veo 3 for video. Those are the best two AI tools right now. And I'll have tutorials coming out soon on this channel breaking down the power workflows for each of those two platforms.
Now, the fourth path for visuals is to create them. And what I mean by this is using motion graphics, text, or shapes that you bring to life using animation. That's mostly what we're using on all of these videos. And I think they add so much comprehension as I explain topics with words. Now, animation is not mandatory in any way for videos. But I find that if you're doing educational style on YouTube, there's almost nothing better for explaining your concepts. Now, it takes a long time to learn how to make animations like what you see on these videos. So, if you can try yourself using something like jitter.video or just hire a world-class animator like I have doing these. If you want to find editors that can do animation like I have in these videos, I've got a link below.
So, those are really the four ways to come up with visuals for your videos. And even though it seems kind of obvious, I spent a couple minutes going through that because once you know the sum total of options to play with, it becomes a lot easier to pick which path works for you.
All right. All right. Now, before I go on, if you're a business owner and you're trying to level up your content, I built a free community for you. There's tons of lessons, trainings, and 24,000 other business owners that are all working together to improve their content together. It's called Wavy World. I have a free invite link in the description if you want to join.
All right, non-obvious lesson number two is about content seasons, and this really is a mindset related lesson. When you first start out trying to make content, you will see amazing pieces made by experts, and you will anchor that output quality as your baseline expectation for what good looks like. But the truth is, there is a massive skill gap between where you are today and that ideal endpoint state. The reason most people fail with content is that they do not set the right mindset for how to close that skill gap over time. Most people see that shiny end state, assume it was easy to get there, try three to four times, realize there's hundreds of things they don't know, push super hard through pain and friction to post a couple times, see zero results, and then quit. If that sounds familiar, that's because that is super common across all disciplines, learning any new skill, especially content. And the reason people end up quitting is because they were disappointed in the lack of results. And the reason they were disappointed in the lack of results is because they set faulty expectations on what to focus on. So, let me explain how you should approach content instead. I think of it in seasons. And instead of thinking of seasons in a time frame, like months or weeks, think about it by number of reps. So, you can accelerate through each season much faster if you're shipping and iterating with more reps sooner. Okay?
Season 1 is called newbie gains. And I consider this season lasting about your first three reps. It's possible to breeze through newbie gains in just three backto-back days or take three months depending on how fast you can make each rep. These first three reps are based purely on adrenaline and excitement. I like to call this the initial and often fleeting burst of newbie momentum. Now, during these first three reps, you're going to struggle super hard because of all the unknown unknowns. In this stage, you simply have no clue what you don't know, what it takes, and the things you do know you need, you don't know how to do them. But for those that are able to persevere through this prephase, you do get a taste for what it's like to start and complete a full rep. Your mental expectation through this first three reps, the newbie gain season should just be to show up, eat glass, and get those reps posted no matter what it takes.
All right, season two is what I call skill waterboarding. And this really is the first phase of the journey. And this is where the biggest nonobvious mistake comes in. Season 2 is about from rep 4 to rep 50. Now, during this phase, your goal should not be to focus on metrics, only on input skills. Metrics include views, likes, comments, shares, followers, dollars, and literally any mathematical number that could measure the result of your input. At the beginning of season 2, you're going to realize you have a tremendous deficiency in skills for content. And this could range from knowing what a good idea is, knowing how to write a script, knowing all the equipment required to record, knowing how to edit, knowing how to post, knowing what good looks like. There's an endless list of skills that you don't know. I call this season skill water boarding because over the next 45 reps, it will feel like a fire hose is blasting you with all types of stuff you don't know. It'll feel like you can never get caught up, never catch a breath. Now, most people quit during this phase because it's the least fun part unless you actually like the craft. You work a ton and you get no results and it feels unfair because your skills are improving slowly, but the results are just lagging. I'll tell you though, this is what you want. You want skills to lead results because everything eventually reverts towards the mean. All you have to do is get through this season. Survive skill waterboarding. Somewhere towards the end of this phase, you will feel a click and start to understand how the content game is played. You'll be able to look backwards and notice your skills have really started to progress. The beauty of this phase is if you can frame your mind around not needing the results to happen, you can't lose because skill acquisition in content especially is a one-player game with a 100% win rate. As long as you keep going and don't stop. The non-obvious truth is that most people frame this season incorrectly and they focus only on the output results way before their skills justify getting them. It's not about the results in this phase. It's only about skill development. And the truth is to get skills you need violent volume.
Now, season 3 is called OMG, it's working. Season 3 is about from rep 50 to rep 200. And this is where things start getting fun if you don't like the craft. If you do like the craft, things have been fun the whole time. So, you're probably already winning. Now, this season is called OMG, It's Working for an obvious reason. At this stage, your skills have gotten good enough with content that you can start winning from a results perspective. It's only in this season where you should start focusing a little bit on output metrics in addition to the input skill development. You of course still need to be developing your skills, but you can start to look at the scoreboard a little bit. Now, there are way more advanced seasons that come after, "OMG, it's working." But I'm going to stop here for now because the big non-obvious problem is in season 2 when you focus on output results and tie your happiness to that instead of only on skill development. See, the problem is when you start out with content, it's very hard to check your ego at the door and not look at all the shiny metrics. You're getting those on purpose. They've built a dopamine carnival so that it would get you addicted. But ignoring these when you're developing your skills is absolutely necessary if you're trying to play a long-term game. The beauty of content is that it's impossible to lose if you don't stop because you're riding the biggest wave of all time, which is attention. So, the non-obvious lesson here is how you should approach the game, thinking in those seasons. If you structure your expectations this way, you can't lose.
All right, non-obvious lesson number three is quantity verse quality. Now, this is a super common question and a trap area for most creators. This quantity verse quality debate. Do I bias towards a high volume of posts sacrificing quality? Or do I bias towards a lower volume increasing quality and originality? Let me explain my journey with this, why I was wrong in my thinking, and how I think you should approach if you're starting from zero. For years, I fell into the quality over everything camp. I tried to sell myself this narrative that I was an artist and artists make fewer things, they just do them better. So, when it came to my content, I focused on quality. eight hours per rep, three reps a week, instead of quantity, four hours per rep, six reps per week. I did this for a while. I had a high hit rate of outlier bangers, but I was only posting three times a week. So, my follower growth was pretty average. Now, for reference, these numbers are short form platform focus. The equivalent for YouTube would be highquality, low volume, only posting like one to two times a month. The problem with the quality over everything strategy and making less videos but doing more quality is that this assumes the algorithms have a way to detect that quality and once they recognize it's there will push more aggressively. But here's why this is faulty logic. Quality assumes that you know how the market is going to react to your pieces. You're spending more time because you know they're going to react better. But the truth is you can't actually control the reaction. My assumption was that the more time I spent, the more quality, the better the results. But this didn't end up being true every single time I posted. And that's the big problem. The quality approach puts too much risk on too few reps because the volume is way lower. Quantity allows you to spread that risk out across more ideas. You don't have to be as right as often. And I go into the nuance here because so many people struggle with this problem, but they never hear anyone articulate why it's good or bad. The truth is, if you claim the quality argument like I did, you either are an actual artist and can't produce more than one a month or you're lying to yourself justifying why you're doing less with a narrative around quality and art. The problem with playing the quality game is that algorithms are now rewarded to push quantity. There's like a multiplier effect that they give when you post more often.
So, what does this all mean and what should you actually do because of what I just said? The big takeaway for me and the aha moment is that you want to max out quantity at a minimum viable quality bar. Let me explain what that means. Let's say out of 10 minimum viable quality is a seven. So any video that's below a seven quality is going to lose for sure. And anything above a seven has a chance of winning. 10 has a much higher chance, then nine, then eight, then seven, etc. Now, here's the optimal strategy. Your goal is to get your skills up to a seven quality as fast as possible and then max out the optimal format volume. For short form video, Instagram, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, optimal format volume is posting one time per day. So, five videos per week. For long form videos like YouTube, optimal format volume is posting one time per week. So, the flow for you in terms of quantity versus quality should look exactly like this. If I was starting over from scratch, which I'm about to do soon on a new account, this is exactly how I'm approaching it.
Step one, do everything you can to get your quality up to a seven out of 10. If you don't have any skills, that means posting a ton of reps below a seven to inch your way up until you feel seven quality. This is that skill waterboarding season that I talked about before. Now, at this stage, there is no minimum or maximum reps per week. You want to get that skill up as fast as you can. The more reps, the faster you go, the sooner you'll get that skill up. Now, what does 7 out of 10 quality actually mean? That's very mushy and subjective. It means that if there were 10 videos made on that exact same topic by you, this one would be the seventh best out of 10. And unfortunately, there's no great way to know that. Mathematically, it would be based on views on the 10. The seventh best is what you're going for. You will know it when you get there. You will look at the video and have a feeling of I think this is good, but I know there's a couple things that could be better. That's around a seven quality.
Okay. Step two. Once you feel like your skills are at a seven quality, you should divert all of your attention towards chasing the max optimal format volume per platform. Again, this is five videos per week for short form, one video per week for long form. That's your baseline target for volume. Now, this is the big mistake everybody makes. Instead of focusing on increasing that quality from 7 to 7.2 to 7.4, four, keep it at seven and focus on getting the volume from two pieces a week to three pieces a week to five pieces a week for short form or one for long form. Just focus on systematizing your workflow and process to make sure you hit that volume. What will happen is that force volume will trigger the algorithms to push you more and actually your quality will start to bump up incidentally because of all the reps you're doing. This also acts as a forcing function to eliminate overthinking. you're making so much violent volume, you don't have time to overthink and second guess whether what you're doing is right or wrong.
Now, once your systems and workflow can comfortably support optimal format volume, five videos or one video, then you're going to go back to quality and try to inch it up from a 7 to a 9, 7, 7.4, 7.8, and so on until you get to a 9. You can get millions of followers and unlimited views with a 9 out of 10. You do not need a 10 out of 10. the chances are because of all that quantity volume, your seven is probably around a 7.6 or 7.7. So you actually have less distance to close than you thought you would. So step one, quality to a seven. Step two, quantity to five videos or one video, add a seven. Then once you hit that volume, back to quality up from a seven to a nine. At this point, you have a quality 9 and you have the optimal format volume of either five or one video depending on the platform.
Now step three. Once you have that nine and five or nine and one, double volume again from 5 to 10 and one to two. 10 short form videos per week, two YouTube videos per week at a nine quality. If you get here nine quality and 10 or two quantity, you are world class. You are better than anyone in your category and you will crush and print money. Again, this is a non-obvious learning. I only learned this once I failed trying to go 7 to 8 to 9 to 10 with two videos per week and trying to bring it up. I didn't realize that was the learning, but it is. Follow it this way. I guarantee you can't lose.
All right. Not anonymous learning number four. The last one is called one verse all. And I mean this in the perspective of the platforms and the content formats that you are covering. You've got 10 different content platforms. Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Substack, Spotify. There's all types of platforms. And you've got eight different content mediums. short text, long text, short video, medium video, long video podcast, audio podcast, static Instagram images, Instagram stories. As a beginner, my expectation was that I wanted to be everywhere as soon as I could because that's what I needed to win. And my rationale was that there are pockets of people that I want to attract on every platform. Different surfaces have different types of people. I want to sample all of them, so I need to be everywhere. I do not believe this is the right approach anymore. Of course, if you can be allin on all platforms at one time, you'd rather that than just being in one place. I'm not going to dismiss that. But most people just don't have the team bandwidth or resources to be allin everywhere at once. Many business owners are facing this question. Do I go deep on one platform or do I spread myself thin across five? And the good news is, and the answer you probably want to hear is that the right answer is to go deep on one platform. And if you pick right, you may never need to expand from there. Because the truth is, platforms are so noisy now that shallow attempts to cut through is just going to get drowned out in the noise by people that are all in deep on one platform. If you take the half-ass approach across all these different places, your content will never reach escape velocity. It's just hitting a dead wall and dying. It's not breaking out. Instead of doing this, it's better to be extremely deep and allin on one platform where everybody knows you in that niche. And the reason this is is because most markets are so big, you really only need a couple thousand people on one platform and you'll have a multi-sefigure business.
So my tactical suggestion here and the non-obvious learning that I wish I knew would be to pick one content platform, one content format, one content bucket, and go allin. So for example, on this channel, I'm trying to be the content guy for business owners on long form video on YouTube. That was my only focus, only content vertical, only content platform. Now, to prove that I eat my own dog food, my quantity verse quality followed this exactly. The first thing I try to do is get my quality up to a seven out of 10. Then I tried to hit the optimal format volume, one video per week. Once I had the systems to do that, I tried to bump my quality up to a 9 out of 10. Hopefully, you think we're there, 9 or 10 out of 10. And now, pretty soon, I'm going to double the volume from one to two per week. That is the quantity quality approach on a single content platform. And by the way, the quantity quality thing is much easier to do if you're only focused on one platform. So for you, really the only question is to make sure you pick the platform that has a pool of the buyers you want already on it. If you're looking to target B2B CMOs to sell your B2B SAS, well, those people probably live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Substack. They don't spend as much time on Snapchat or Tik Tok. So you want to make sure if you're picking one, you pick one of the places that a lot of them hang out. Now, once you have confidence on where a pool of those buyers hang out, pick one of the platforms and go all in on just that for 6 to 12 months. And all-in means using every feature they have to offer. If you pick Instagram, you're using reals, posts, stories, community messages, comments, and DMs. If you pick YouTube, that means posting videos, leaving comments, and engaging on the community feed. Again, this is non-obvious, and I wish I learned this on day one because it works.
All right, guys. That is all I've got for this video. As promised, those were four non-obvious learnings that I did not know on day one that after realizing completely unlocked and changed the way I was playing the game. I also have a list of six more. So, if you guys want me to do another video like this, just comment and say unlock the rest. I'll know what that means and then I'll put another one in the pipeline. As a recap on this video, we covered number one, the power of visuals. Number two, content seasons and the way to approach your mindset for content. Number three, quality verse quantity. And number four, one platform versus all. And I say these are non-obvious as a beginner because these were my actual biases for each of those. On number one, I focused mostly on my words and kind of overlooked the visuals. On number two, I focused mostly on output metrics instead of skills way too early. I was tracking the views. I was tracking the likes. I was tracking the followers. I approached that wrong. Number three, I focused on quality above everything else when in reality, social platforms reward quantity much more than I thought. And number four, I tried to focus on many platforms at once when in reality I should have focused on just one.
Now, the truth is even I struggle with these lessons. Sometimes I get distracted by shiny objects and I lose focus of what the right answer actually is. But as I've made these adjustments in my strategy and tried to remain disciplined, my content results have just gone skyhigh. As always guys, the reason I started this channel is because I actually am trying to help business owners grow their business faster by getting free unlocks on content. I wish somebody told this stuff to me. I had to learn it the hard way. So, if you need more help, there is so much free stuff in the description. Make sure to join Wavy World. It's better than some of the paid communities. I'm just doing it for free. Until the next video, we will see you guys then. Peace.