Transcription
This is how to make killer social content for boring businesses.
Time and time again, whether it's people that are in Cut 30, brands I talk to online, or people that are starting a personal brand, they're always saying, "Oh, well, I'm an accountant. I'm a dentist. I have a massage business. We make candles. How could we possibly make interesting social content?" And this is absolutely the wrong mentality because there are dozens of ways with which you can make amazing, captivating content about the most boring things. And we're going to break down those strategies inside of this video. I'm going to talk about how to use exciting scenarios, how to put strong takes out there that establish personality, how to incorporate viral vehicles, taking an education-centric approach, really leaning into lore and depth inside of a niche, and using things like formats and speed to stand out. It'll be a fun video no matter what your brand is or what you do. If you're interested in making awesome social content, there will be a lot to learn throughout. Let's lock in.
So, first I'm going to start off by just rattling through a number of ideas I know can work for businesses that want to make content that stand out on the internet. And the first is what I call a format shakeup. You don't have to reinvent the wheel when you want to make something successful. So you could take the Hot Ones format. Everyone knows it: you are eating spicy chicken wings while answering questions, and you could do that legal edition. "Hot Law" came off the top of my head. Sometimes, sometimes you win, but literally with legal questions. Talk to people about why they shouldn't have a "beware of dog" sign while engaging in an experience similar to Hot Ones. But there are hundreds of format shakeups you can do that inherently are going to make even something that might not be the most interesting thing more captivating to watch.
The second tool I think is really interesting is speed. We've all seen a normal real estate tour. If you did the same thing in 10 seconds, a speedrun of showing an apartment, you're playing to the algorithm's strengths because it likes faster content. But there's always the element of: can you do something people understand faster than they're used to and make it an event that you are doing it faster? That's why you'll see things like 30-second makeup, one-minute recipes. Time is a vehicle.
Speaking of vehicles, I want to talk about the idea of viral vehicles. And I don't mean cars. I mean objects and things that you can buy or build into your business that will help guarantee you virality. For instance, if you are a toy store and you had a hydraulic press, all of a sudden you were one of the more interesting toy stores on the internet. Those videos do super well. Naturally, people are used to what they see, and you're just applying it to a different thing. And that investment is likely worth it. If you were to say, "Hey, we're going to spend thousands of dollars on getting not the hugest hydraulic press, but something that works for our videos or whatever that viral vehicle is." And you'll see people who rent really nice apartments for this or shoot everything with a vintage car or whatever it is; those are all expenditures that help guarantee them virality. But if you did that for your toy store or whatever brand it was, the result in terms of the views you're going to get on social media, the notoriety, the being known for being the toy store that has the hydraulic press—these are the kind of hacks you can look at and say, "Hey, maybe I don't want to invest tons of money every month in complex shoots, but I want to invest in that one thing that I know every time is going to help hit and go viral."
And one more quick technique before I get into the middle of this video and the big bulk of like the longer tactics is the "this is amazing" approach or using your skills for good. But how can you do something with that skill set that people go, "This is amazing," when they look at the content? For instance, if you were a copywriting agency that was bringing romance novels to life in 15-second videos, all of a sudden, you're a super interesting copywriting agency. All of a sudden, you're showing your skills in a way that is immediately applicable and viral to others. And it's interesting; I am built to think like this because I workshop with hundreds of people in brands every month inside Cut 30 and I do this strategy constantly with major brands. I'm thinking always in terms of what's the angle. I know not everyone thinks like that.
So, I'm going to try something new on this video where I want you to comment your business. If you have something you're like, "I cannot for the life of me figure out what I would do with X or Y," drop it below, and I will workshop in the comments throughout it, and we will see what ideas that we can come up with. I promise I will try to hit all of them.
You know, when you're running a creative studio, putting out seven short-form videos a week plus a YouTube every week on top of managing brand and client deliverables, you really start to notice where your systems and your process slow you down. That's why Dropbox has been such a core part of my workflow and why I was so excited when they reached out to sponsor this video. Whether I'm uploading footage from a trip or a shoot or reviewing a lookbook PDF with my team, Dropbox keeps everything moving and organized without a million apps or unnecessary back and forth. So, when I wrap filming, I head straight into my team's shared Dropbox folder. From there, my team of editors, my designers, my management can pick it up based on our shared calendar. Everyone's working off the same structure, synced in real time here and overseas. Then I love that I can literally mark up a PDF on my iPad during a flight, annotate images and do approval in one place versus a bunch of systems. Pro tip: we use this to actually mark if people have used footage or not in the folders. And also if something might make a great hook shot, so I can easily go through folders, and a bunch of hook shots are already identified. But maybe the most underrated part is that we have years of project files, and I mean years. Everything from first-gen product mockups to TikTok drafts from 2023, and it's all in Dropbox. And Dropbox Dash uses AI to help us find documents, images, and videos across the entire library of files that are less organized than I'd like. You don't have to remember the exact file name, and Dash can help you find the content you need. So, if you're managing a growing content pipeline or just want your creative projects to run smoother without the chaos, check out the full features of Dropbox and see how it can help your team push creative limits, not deadlines.
Now, let's dive into the meat. Establishing personality for your brand is going to be the first one. The biggest thing that I think any boring business can take advantage of is leveraging exciting scenarios. So, for instance, if I were a CPA or I was an accountant and I was trying to make content, I would be starting with the Brabus G63. I would be starting with the G Wagon. Break down the tax savings if someone were to purchase a vehicle like that. Show the thresholds of how much money should you be making to consider having it be worth it to buy the G Wagon. Explain the differences state-to-state. Similarly, if there's a big trade that happens in the NBA and someone moves from Canada to Houston or New York to Houston, there's a tax benefit of moving to Texas based on the salary; break that down. Give your expertise in the context of exciting things because the hook isn't "how do I use bonus depreciation for my business." The hook is "G Wagon then bonus depreciation, tax difference between states like," and what does that implication look like? You can put your expertise in the context of exciting scenarios, and there is basically no limit to how many of those scenarios like exist, and those scenarios happen in real estate. There's obviously all kinds of either weird homes or expensive homes or controversial neighborhoods or places where news happens or famous people are from that you can use, and there is such a benefit to just showing your expertise in the context of something that actually makes people stop scrolling, and if you follow that formula, it's really hard to lose in terms of making content.
The same thing happens if you develop really strong takes about your niche. I want to shout out Lauren Crease. He's the current CEO of a furniture company, and he makes interior design videos online that are just hammering hot takes. He'll be like, "If you use this gray, I would never speak to you again in my life." You know, you are disowned for using kitchen tile of this type. But he makes these videos where he has his very strong opinions as someone who is in interior design, who produces furniture, and has proven to be a notoriety gainer for his pretty traditional furniture business. But it's not just about putting content out there that's educational or simple. The power of his content is that he is brave enough to have really strong opinions, which is something we've lost on the internet a lot along the way. Everyone wants to be everyone's friend. People don't want to be too negative or too this way or that way, but we actually need people who are barometers to say, "I think this is good. I think this is bad. I have credibility, and here's why." And you may disagree with them or agree with them, but that recipe for attention and the comments that come from it and people discussing it and people beginning to say, "Hey, I like that guy or that girl's point of view," is super powerful. And this works for everything. If you're like, "You should never shoot on a Nikon camera ever again," that video is going to do much better than "Here's the new Sony A7, whatever." Boring.
But put your service in the context of recent events. Very similar to the G Wagon attention hijacking, putting a business in terms of current events—something almost every business can do, no matter how boring it is. So, for instance, as a therapist, "Here's my analysis of the Secret Lives of Mormon wives," breaking down the different characters and why. Again, appealing to some kind of fandom or a therapist going through the different characters in succession. I saw this recently where it was a lawyer who was actually leading off with rap lyrics for like 3 seconds and then breaking down what they would have meant in court if you were to try and position it to be not someone committing a crime. But again, you take these things that are happening in pop culture and the news, and you put your spin on it. As a psychologist, I think as a massage artist, "Here's the massage that I feel that this person should get while they're in China negotiating whatever," because you—it shows your expertise of knowing all these different things around the world, recommendations you have as an expert as pertains to people out there. And we saw this trend really take off in a really light format with baristas and coffee shops where a bunch of videos went viral where it was someone being like, "Hey, if Lana Del Rey came in, here's the coffee I would make her." And it was like a, you know, like a Pepsi latte or whatever it is like this, but like having some sort of fun or interesting vehicle that goes with that. But this applies to almost any business. Again, you are attention hijacking. You are taking something people already know and like and applying your expertise to it. And that has a surefire recipe for success that I cannot say enough. When you look at the kind of content I've done to get hundreds of thousands, damn near a million followers, a good amount of it was being my hot takes on brands, my responses as a marketer to what I would have done differently, not just what happened, but what I would have done or what I think from a marketing perspective should be better about a campaign or a thing that happened.
Now, we're going to get to education. There's always room for education in the market. But a lot of people kind of get wrong about this is they make the education very straightforward. They make it almost dull, but it has to really have some oomph to it. And one of the things that I like to really focus on is questions that people feel dumb asking that you answer for them because there's a lot of people that go throughout the world acting like they know what's going on but really don't. And giving education to those people is a great way to start and get an initial feedback. And the second thing is education in a more competitive format. One of the things I always talk about in Cut 30, we've had some—a couple of people blow up on one—is an education creator. Great example of boring content. He—it's a—it's the format's called a "versus" format where you say "blank versus blank." You're going to compare two things. I would do this in my series "product versus brand." Are you buying the product? Are you buying the brand? This educator did it, and it was: "Is this education or is this edutainment? Are you just doing this pretending it's education but it's actually just a game?" And you break down a bunch of popular things and give your take on that versus format. "This is this; this is that, and here's why." In this video for an educator with a relatively dry approach blew up because it is an important thing for people to say, "I'm learning. This is what I should use for my kid or do in this education process. Here's why a pro thinks like this, and here's an approach to a topic that makes me interested to watch more and watch through it." So, I always look at educational content. You want to have a lens. You want to be able to say, "Hey, I'm going to answer the questions that people feel too dumb to ask," or you want to say, "I'm going to put everything in context. I'm going to break it down between these kind of two items. I'm going to make sure I have the ability to help people discern and what I educate."
And this ties into the last like big bucket I'm going to talk about here. And that is lore and depth. Because I think what people underestimate is how, if you are extremely into something and you want to be the most into it person out there and you're going to get in deep into the inside jokes and the lore and the history of things, how many other people there are out there who are just as passionate or who would become as passionate from it. So I like to use Americana Pipe Dream. I brought them up in my meme video, but these are a great example of: they sell army surplus. There are plenty of army surplus stores out there that don't have any social media worth recognizing, whereas their social media is massive because they are obviously gigantic war history nerds. They will talk to you about the German Focke-Wulf airplane, about what camo the Swedes switched to in 1962. They'll not only talk about it and educate about it, but they'll literally make memes about it and jokes about it. For the other people that care that much, who had all the model armies when they were growing up as kids, they are going all the way in, and you can enter that world. And if you're a little interested, you can learn way more, and all of a sudden, you know, the eight types of Danish sniper rifles, whatever it is, that are able to come up from that there. And this applies not just to something like army surplus because people even will look at that and be like, "Well, that's exciting." Yeah, guess what? Most people would be like, "How do I make content about my army surplus business?" They made it exciting. Most people can't make that jump. This is more to my point of: there is no such thing as a boring business, only boring content. They're a perfect example because you would look at army surplus and be like, "This is boring," until someone made it exciting. This applies to anything. Uh, my friend Ashman had a hook the other day where he went to a dermatologist conference cuz he's got a skin brand, and he was like, "I went to the Coachella of dermatologists." That's a great hook cuz, right, we all go to these events. I go to these events where I make viral videos, and it's like, "I went to the fashion show with the most exotic materials in the world." Like, of course, that's exciting. When you're going to a dermatology conference, you're like, "How can that be exciting?" It's like, "Hey, it's the Coachella of dermatologists," because they find it exciting because X and Y, here's the things that they love about it; you're treating it with that level of excitement, and you're nerding out on it to that extent. And if you try to be like the most in-depth nerd-out account about this, whatever that ends up being—again, massage, beverage, co-packing, construction, roof work, whatever it is—be the most knowledgeable and in-depth about that, and then treating it with fun and nerd and fandom and mimedics around that can really get you a long way.
A few parting shots. Uh, one I want to talk about a social media campaign I've worked pretty in-depth on that I thought was really interesting that ties into this. Before that, I want to talk a bit about doing normal content with an interesting approach. I was talking to someone with a roofing business about this the other day. I'm like, "Hey, you can actually give roofing tips. You can do a basic roofing video, but if you do it on a ladder, it's inherently more interesting." One thing makes your content more interesting. That's why you see a lot of videos will like shoot from a single angle. There's—all it takes is that one thing—hydraulic press—doing it from a ladder where you can do normal content and add on to it. But if you don't have that one thing, it's probably why the content's failing.
But I want to give a good example of some of the work I've done advising my manufacturer who I work with, Crease Group, where they're—look, they're a manufacturer—a factory of clothes. There's people who make good content with that. There's thousands of people that don't. Yahoo works for them, went through Cut 30. We've worked on strategy. We've done collab videos together. We spent a lot of time together. We worked closely. It's kind of natural. Is like, "Hey, the goal isn't to be like, 'Here's our manufacturing business. Here's how it works. Here's what you can buy from us.' Cool. That's one part of the content." The goal is to be like, "We are tour guides to the hidden exotic world you have never seen of Wong Joe, of the place where fabric happens, where people make product," and now expanding that as the world changes. They're exploring Ho Chi Min, going to Vietnam, going to these different trade shows in other parts of China. But like literally the job is to enter people into this world they did not know existed and be the tour guides of it. And guess what? That is extremely viral. And then you become the people when anyone is interested or at that stage in the company where they want to go into and have that experience. You are the people who know the most who go to the places. If you're actually going there to visit somebody, you're the people to call. And that shift in mentality from "sell our thing" to "sell access to this world that no one knows about" is the reason why they have 10 times as many followers, 15, 100 times as any of the competitive people within that basis.
I like to look at that too. If you have a world, whether that's the world of the area around you or the industry that you're in, you can position it as a secret, as something that you're able to shed access to. No one's ever seen, especially for international companies, maybe never. You're from Lithuania. No one even knows what to do there. And you can share the intricacies and interesting nature of that as part of your content pillars. It's a really unique way to think about what you make.
I will end by saying one of my favorite phrases again: There is no such thing as a boring business, only boring content. So, there's a whole wealth of tools within this video that you can use to help move that, whether you're a personal brand or an expert, whether you actually have a brand in one of these niches. If you want to work with me on content at any point, you can look at cut30.co for when our next session is. I will link here some of the many other videos I have breaking down different social strategies and approaches from everything from carousels to treating your social media like a TV show. And you can learn more and go as deep as you want. I have a whole playlist on social media marketing.
Always, I appreciate y'all watching. Comment your businesses below.
If you do want me to workshop any of the things you have and try to come up with an interesting angle for it, I will be doing that in the comments.
Thank you all so much.