15 Tiny Fixes to Improve Your Content By 182% (INSTANTLY)

        If you want your videos to perform better, I'm going to explain exactly how to do it. Because the truth is, if your videos are flopping, you're probably just making one of the same critical mistakes over and over. Now, the good news is all these mistakes are very fixable if you know what to look for. Most people don't, which is why they keep failing. So, in this video, I'm going to break down all the biggest content mistakes you could be making and then solve them for you. And if you're struggling with even one of these, there's a good chance your videos are not going to perform very well. All right, the biggest content mistakes span four buckets. Ideas, storytelling, hooks, and editing. We're going to solve each area one by one. Let's start with ideas. Now, there's three major idea problems you might have. The first one is that your idea or topic framing just isn't interesting enough. This is called the interestingness problem. Okay, so how do we solve for this? Interestingness comes from new things or new ways to frame old things. If someone has heard about a topic five times already before, it's not going to be interesting when you tell them the same thing for the sixth time. Think about it. When your drunk uncle Larry at Thanksgiving tells the same story for the 10th time, are you still interested? Of course not. So, when you pick and develop your content ideas, you either need to find something no one has talked about or take a common topic, but build a more unique angle around it. Now, here's exactly how to do that. First, take the topic and list all the possible facts or takes that could be true about it. I call this 360 mapping. Now, you want to score each of those facts based on how shocking it is from 1 to 100. And to do this scoring, imagine there are 100 people in a room. If you said this fact out loud, how many of those hundred would be shocked to hear it? That is your shock score. Obviously, higher is better and the most shock you could have is 100. Now, once you score them, rank all the facts by score and pick the most shocking one to be the frame or angle that you position your topic around. For example, a few weeks ago, there was this strange comet called ThreeI Atlas that was rumored to be heading towards Earth. If you wanted to make a video about ThreeI Atlas that got the most amount of views, how could you frame that topic to be maximally interesting? Well, you could just explain there was a comet coming and report the facts. This is more of like the newscaster angle, but that's not that interesting unless you're the first one to do it. You could explain the comet's properties, kind of like this blue light emitting from the back of it. That's more of the scientist angle. You could explain the history of comets and why this one was different from all the others. That's more of the historian angle. Or you could explain that if this was an alien spacecraft h hurtling towards Earth, this is exactly how it would look and why. Now, as soon as you heard me say that alien angle compared to all the others, you probably leaned in a little bit and were way more interested. And the reason why is because that frame is a lot more shocking. The point is, if you don't solve for the interestingness problem in the way you frame your topics, the viewer will never watch. All right, idea. Problem number two is that your idea is not shareworthy enough. And this builds on the interestingness point I just talked about. Virality comes from shares. Either the algo shares you for free by pushing you or other human viewers share you in the DMs. But either way, those shares are how you get more views. If your shares are low, then your video wasn't shareworthy enough. And here's why. Imagine someone sees 500 videos per day and they're only willing to share one of them to a group chat. Is yours the best one out of 500 that would make them share? Probably not. And that's why you're not getting many shares. Now, here's how to increase your video's shareworthiness. People share because of emotional transfer. If they watch a video and feel a strong emotion, they'll immediately think of someone else that they want to share that common emotional experience with. For example, if you have a group chat with 10 guys from high school and you see something funny that references an inside joke that you all had, you'll laugh, you'll want them to laugh, and then you'll share it. It really is that simple. So, if you want more shares, you have to create the strongest emotional transfer possible in your video. Common emotions would be things like fear, shock, joy, happiness, sadness, intrigue, things like that. The video either has to make them feel, make them think, or share some tactical value so good that they want to hat tip you and share it with their friends. All three of those things drive some kind of emotion. And if you can't tap into that emotional transfer, you're not getting any shares. All right, idea problem number three is that the TAM of your topic is too small. TAM stands for total addressable market. If you had a 100 people in a room, how many of them would care about your video topic in the first place? If you want more views, you need to increase the possible slice of that TAM. Now, how do you do this? If you want more views, you want to pick topics that are more broadly applicable to a wider range of people. Things like health, business, money, family, relationships. These are things that have broad tams. Now, if you have a small niche and you want to make videos that have a broad tam, you want to wrap your narrow topic in a broader frame. For example, let's say your niche is reviewing vintage Jeeps. How would you make content that expands the TAM around that narrow topic? Well, you could come up with some ideas like this. This is the most expensive Jeep in the world. Let's break down why and what it's made of. Or, this celebrity has a hidden collection of vintage Jeeps that no one knew about. Let's break down what's in their collection and why they have it. Or, this vintage Jeep is actually built using the same internal components as a Lamborghini with three distinct differences. Let's break that down. You get the point. If you want more views, you have to pick topics and framing that gets more people potentially interested in the first place. Expand the TAM, expand the pie, expand the views. Now, I'm going to go into the other categories next, but let me just say, if your videos are not working, the real reason why is ideas. The hook and the storytelling and the edits, that all matters, but the real problem you have is ideas. Anyone that knows anything about content will tell you that. If you're working with a coach or guru that doesn't think ideas are your problem, you should fire them immediately. Everybody thinks they have great content ideas. They usually don't because ideas and content ideas are two different things. It's two different processes, two different ways of thinking. So, if you really want to dominate the content game and make it so that every time you post the videos crush, you really need to train your brain to spot and develop unique ideas. Now, the easiest way to do this is to study what's already worked from the top creators in your niche. Take those topics, remap the 360 exercise with all the facts, find a more shocking or more interesting frame, and remake that idea. If you do just that, that's how you really close the gap when you're a small account trying to grow in a saturated category. Now, my tool, sandcastle.ai, is the easiest way to do this whole ideas exercise. I'm not going to go through how to do that now. I've got a video below breaking down the exact process and system that I use for ideas, but I'm telling you, if you don't have this solved, the rest is just icing. The real cake is ideas. All right, let's keep going. Now, we're going to shift to storytelling. The first storytelling problem you probably have is called over stuffing. The first reason why your script writing and storytelling isn't working is because you're covering way too much ground with way too many topics in a single video. Chorefront videos are meant to be mini bursts, one bite at a time. You want to stockpile one trust coin, get them to like and trust you a little bit, and then get out of there. One topic, one takeaway, that's it. The problem is that people get excited when they know so much about a topic that they want to slam in 5 to 10 different things into one short form video. But this is not what you want to do because the average person's brain is so cooked on the feed that they're not going to be able to absorb more than one core idea in the video. And this really goes back to the selection exercise for picking your angle. Your goal is not to demonstrate how much you know. It's just to frame the most interesting possible wedge. Tell the story about one thing and get out of there. So, what you want to do tactically is audit your script to count the number of unique ideas you have. It should be built around one core idea and maybe sprinkling one or two other things with one single line about them, but that's it. If you have three to five main ideas, it's way too much. All right, storytelling problem number two is going to shock you and it's that your videos are probably not optimized to work very well when the sound is off and that is killing you. It turns out 80% of people watch videos on the feed with the sound off. And it makes sense. They're probably on the bus or like at work and they don't want to play the sound out loud. So, they're just watching the visuals in silence. Now, I bet if you do this exercise, it'll shock you. But I want you to open the last video that you posted, turn the volume all the way down, and watch it in silence. Is your visual storytelling able to hold your own attention in silence? Are you able to follow along perfectly without getting lost? I mean, you made the video, so you should be able to. But if you can't, imagine what a new viewer watching in silence for the first time is experiencing. This is a huge non-obvious problem if you've never looked for it. So, you want to make sure your video holds without the sound coming through. So, your visuals and the text on screen have to be super dialed so that all the context can be communicated just through there. All right, storytelling problem number three is called poor speed to value. And if you follow this channel a lot, I talk about speed to value so much, but it's so important that I want to cover it again. The reason your stories are not working is because you're burying the value way too late in the script. The reality is the first or second sentence has to tease the value or payoff and then you got to get to that value or payoff as soon as possible because the average person is only giving you 2.5 seconds to decide whether they want to stay or go and they need some reason to stay or why would they. So the exercise is when you look at your script I want you to bold the line where you actually start getting to the value or teasing the payoff. Again that value can actually be information in an educational sense or a payoff in an entertaining story. But either way, bold that line in the script. Now, once you have that bolded, see all the sentences above that. You need to leapfrog that bolded line up higher so that the value in the payoff comes sooner. If you're not auditing for speed to value religiously, you're definitely burying it too late and people are bouncing before they get to it and then not acrewing trust. All right, the last storytelling problem number four is called boring story. And this is obvious. Your story is just way too boring. Even if you do everything else right that I've mentioned so far, if you have too many sentences that are fluff or just unnecessary, the story is going to drag and people's attention will not be able to hold. Well, try this. Imagine you had to pay $100 for every single word that you included in the script. If that were the case, you would cut every single word and sentence that didn't need to be there. This is a helpful exercise because it trains you to treat the viewer's time a lot more valuably. Short form video is not a Christopher Nolan movie. People aren't paying for tickets and then forced and held captive for 2 hours. You got to get them quick and then hold them for the shortest possible time so that they can acrue trust. Every single sentence should need to be there. It either has to be a missionritical story critical fact or a unique take that they have not heard anywhere else. If you read your script back and it reads too boring to you, then it for sure is going to be for them. So make sure to compress and remove all the unnecessary details. All right, we're cruising. Let's go to hooks. Now, the reality is, if your hooks suck and they're not hooking, there are four main reasons why this is happening. Problem number one is that after the hook, the viewer does not understand why the video matters to them. And this can happen for two reasons. Either the viewer didn't think the video was relevant to them, or they just weren't interested in the topic at all. Now, if they weren't interested in the topic, no worries. Your hook would never have hooked them because they weren't going to stick. But if they would have been interested and the hook didn't work, the reason it didn't work is because you didn't signal why they should care and stay to watch. In other words, they didn't understand what was in it for them. You need to speak to them like they're an individual in the room. Make it make sense for why they should care. If you go back and read the first line in the hook, does it sound like it's for them or at least is it clear enough so they can make an informed decision on why they should stay or not. If they don't understand why it's for them, that's a huge problem and the hook will never hook. So, that's the first thing you have to solve for. All right, hook problem number two. To build on that, the hook never gets the viewer curious enough to want to stay. And the exact mistake you're making is that you're not introducing the new topic in a relative way compared to something they already understand. For example, if I say this new plasma is hotter than asphalt, that's not really going to hook you. Why not? Because you don't really know what hotter than asphalt means. That's not like a common term or phrase that you have stored. Which means the effect of the words I was saying about the plasma don't hit you and make you curious. But if I say this new plasma is hotter than the surface of the sun, you do know what the surface of the sun should be. It's extremely hot. And so that makes you more hooked relative to the other one because you know what the sun's temperature should be. In other words, you have a relative comparison, something you know and now a new thing you don't. So when you come up with a new topic or frame or video idea, you need to first think what is the common understanding that a viewer should have in this category and then position your new topic or new idea relative to that. Always introduce new things as a relative comparison to something that exists. And what this really is is contrast. And that's the root of where all curiosity comes from. So, if you're not contrasting the thing you're saying with something else they understand, they're never going to get curious because they don't know how much better or worse that new idea is. All right, hook problem number three is called hook alignment. There are really three components to hooks. You've probably heard this. I kind of invented this idea. There's the visual hook, the spoken hook, and the text hook. The visual hook is what is shown with the visuals on screen. The spoken hook is what is said with words, and the text hook is what is written on top of the visuals. These three hooks have to align, meaning the visuals have to mean the same thing as what's being said and what's being written. If they are misaligned, the viewer will get confused because they don't know what to focus on. So, make sure all three of those things actually mean the same thing. All right, the fourth reason why your hooks are not hooking is because the visuals in your visual hook are just not stopping the scroll. Your visuals have to cut through the feed and get the thumb to lift up or you're going to lose. Now, there are four ways to get your visuals to stop the scroll. Number one is to use an attractive or unique-looking person. Number two is to use a recognizable person or subject. Could be a celebrity, could be a brand logo, could be something the viewer recognizes that makes them stunned for a split second. Number three is to use atypical visuals that contrast against what they normally see in the feed. And number four is to use an atypical visual format or layout. Now, I talked about this exact thing in my last video. So, if you want a dedicated video breaking down hook visuals in detail, I'll link that below and you can watch that. All right, let's close this loop on the editing side. Now, I'm going to rapid fire a bunch of the key editing mistakes that I see over and over that are really holding back people's edits from driving more views. The first editing problem is called overediting. People's brains are absolutely cooked going into 2026. Full mashed potatoes. The more stuff you put in the edit, the more flashbang, sound effects, overlays, the more stuff you put in, the more the viewer has to wade through to get to the core essence of what you're communicating. Fresh brains are able to sift through. Overstimulated brains are not. My hypothesis for the reason why more raw content is doing well is because people are so overstimulated and have such mushy brains that they just can't wade through all the high retention editing. So raw videos are edited at a pace and stimulation level that most people can handle. Now you may be thinking, "Well, you said my hook visuals have to cut through, but I'm not allowed to overedit. So which is it?" And I'm glad you asked that, Daryl. Overediting has to do with adding unnecessary things. Like I said, flashbangs, crazy transitions, overhyped sound effects, additional layers that you don't need. The truth is, comprehension actually comes from deleting edits. In this case, less actually is more. But hook visuals cutting through is about the actual visual and layout that you're using. It's not all the stuff you add on top. It's the core visual, the base layer. So that is how they differ. Thank you, Darl. All right. Editing problem number two is called visual misalignment. When you say something throughout the whole video, the visual you show has to match what you say. Just like the hook alignment with the visual spoken in text, that actually is true for the entire edit. If you say something you don't have a good visual for and you slap on a random visual, this causes confusion and the attention decays for the viewer. So, you really want to audit for this and go sentence by sentence to make sure the visuals match what you're saying. And if you don't have good visuals, just use naked A-roll with no overlays. All right, editing problem number three is when the music and the vibe of the video is misaligned. Like I said before, the goal with video is to create an emotional transfer that triggers shares. The background music is a huge factor in driving that emotional state. If you pick a song that contradicts the emotion of the tone of your words or the actual words themselves, the viewer is going to get confused because the music doesn't match. This is why you don't see EDM soundtracks behind those orphan dog commercials for animal shelters asking for donations. It just wouldn't make sense emotionally. So, you really want to be careful to avoid picking the wrong music. And I think this is something I've struggled with in the past. No music is actually better than the wrong music. All right, the fourth editing problem is called underoptimized pacing. This is when your story is edited with pacing that's either too fast or too slow. And when I say pacing, I'm talking about delivery speed of the words. To screen for this, you want to run the closed eye test. When you listen back to the video without the visuals, just audio, does it bore you? Cuz if it's boring, the pace is too slow and you need to go in and chop some of the space between different sentences. But if you listen back and it's over stimulated, it feels like it's driving too fast, then when you add the visuals on, it's going to be way too much. So, you want to add a little bit more space between the sentences. This can be a really helpful exercise just to make sure the pacing is delivered optimally without being too fast or too slow. All right, guys. That is all we've got for this video. As a recap, I covered the top biggest mistakes across ideas, storytelling, hooks, and editing that are really holding back your videos from getting more views. And I did my best to rapidfire these so we could cover as much ground as possible, but make sure to value your time. If you can solve for all of these, I guarantee your videos will get more views. Now, I just want to say this, what I just went through was the full breakdown for short form view maxing. If you're trying to maximize views, these are the things you want to focus on. But if you're trying to maximize dollars or rev maxing, this is a completely different list. So, I also have that list written. If you want that video, make sure to comment something like, "Give me the sauce chef" and I will know to make that. These things are how you rev views. But if you want to rev dollars, it would be a different list and different focuses. Also, as a reminder, if you're a business owner, I run a free community called Wavy World that is specifically designed for entrepreneurs trying to get better with content. We've got ideas, algorithms, storytelling, editing, all types of trainings just like this one. 60 plus free trainings for you, and thousands and thousands of other entrepreneurs that are all working together to get better with content. Also, one more thing. I know I sprinted through the hooks part in this video pretty fast. The video that's showing on the screen right now is what you should watch next if you want to focus on improving your hooks. I take a bunch of those concepts I referenced here, but go way deeper with a lot more examples. So, make sure to click that one and watch it next, and that will help solve all of your hook issues. All right, awesome. We will see you guys on the next video. Peace.