Speaker 1: 0:07

In this brief episode I want to talk about one of the biggest ironies in all of content creation, and that is a paradox. Your highest performing videos are probably the ones that you will care about least. I've found this to be true across podcasts, social media videos, emails that I write pretty much everything I've created. The things that I didn't think would take off took off and the things that I tried to have take off didn't take off. And then I've even gone so far as tried to not put in effort while still putting in effort, hoping that my lack of effort somehow still made it take off. To give you an example, I was like what if I just recorded a super loose version of a YouTube video? So I set up a YouTube account and I just kind of off the cuff, talked about different things but, like, put no effort into the editing of the videos. What happened? Absolutely nothing. I even gave it a couple months on the videos. Nothing happened. The videos got no traction. I even tried to incorporate some of the best practices, like titles and the topics I was talking about. They just weren't interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:16

It's funny how you can't exactly force this, the amount of effort we put in, the authenticity that comes through and just the human psychology of how we consume content. Back in the 1950s there was a man named Arthur Godfrey who was one of the biggest radio stars back in the day and his most successful broadcast was a show where he was so frustrated with the sponsors that he started making fun of the products. Now we've heard a bit of people do this these days, especially on podcasts. I believe Bill Burr the comedian. On his podcast he makes fun of the products he talks about. The audience loved it and they did studies on this In the 1970s. They found that TV hosts who stopped trying to be perfect actually connected better with their viewers.

Speaker 1: 2:00

This is what we can call the authenticity paradox. The moment we try too hard to become authentic, we become less authentic. If you think about it, your brain can tell when you're overthinking. We can tell when we're talking to someone that's overthinking. You're too focused on your performance. You activate your whole analytical brain centers instead of just your natural social circuits. You start talking funnier and not in a way that is easy to listen to. This is why if you open TikTok right now and you just casually scroll through, you'll see there's no way these people plan these TikToks out. They're just speaking from the heart, but they have a way of speaking on camera that is just so natural and authentic, that resonates with so many people and it gets millions of views. Mr Beast, he's even talked about how his first viral video was one that he made when he was sick and barely even trying and there's a lot of data to back this whole thing up.

Speaker 1: 2:55

In 2023, a study of TikTok engagement showed that imperfect videos often get two to three times more engagement than highly polished content. Just like I shared my example of, I tried to make imperfect content perfectly and share that in hopes that it would resonate and kind of take off, and it didn't work. That's the mind bending part. Once you know that authentic, imperfect videos are better, you can't fake the imperfect. You can't intentionally care less to get more views. That's like trying to fall asleep faster by thinking about falling asleep. So what can you do instead, now that I have inflicted this information on you that you didn't even know that you were going to be inflicted with?

Speaker 1: 3:39

Really, I think it's about finding the sweet spot. You want to hold your audience in your head, so you care about your audience and the content that you're making for them. But you also want to hold your content a little bit lighter. For so many creators, there's so much that happens before they press upload and they hold their content so tightly. It's wrapped up in their own self-worth and what they're making in their heart and their art and everything that they want to bestow upon the world. But what if you just held it lighter? You still cared about all those things. I'm not saying don't care, but just held it lighter.

Speaker 1: 4:17

And examples of that would be focusing more so on the message of what you're saying, letting go of the metrics and holding your audience at the forefront of your mind, closer than the critics, meaning the people who might disagree. Meaning, in the case of, like Arthur Godfrey, when he was making fun of the products on air, he wasn't thinking about what the executives were going to say, or maybe he was, but he just didn't care. At that point he stopped caring and that helped his message resonate with more people and, I'm sure, ultimately sold more products. And the same thing is true for the content we create from down from a TikTok video to a podcast episode, to an email that we write.

Speaker 1: 4:59

People wanna connect and it's hard to connect with someone who is so consumed in the process of connecting that they just forget how to connect. It's almost like if you were trying to set your friend up for a date and your friend's playing out every scenario of how the date could possibly go. At a certain point you have to think about that stuff and then you have to just put it out of your mind and let it be how it's going to be. It's going to do what it's going to do. You got to live how you're going to live, and while it can be beneficial to try really hard, it can also be beneficial to let go of everything and not try hard and just experiment with the idea of making imperfect content.