Creating Content
or Making a Contribution?

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

We're told that the build authority, we need to keep producing content. We need to post more, we need to say more, and we need to stay invisible. I don't know. I've said it to many people. But there's a difference between creating content and making a contribution. Content fills the feed. Contribution changes how someone thinks, acts, or decides. So here's an uncomfortable question for you. If you stop creating content today, what would your audience actually miss? Good morning, Dixie.

Dixie Carlton 00:42

Good morning, Brad. Oh, I'm so looking forward to this conversation. It's really striking a chord. And I've had so many conversations lately with people who are saying the same thing. What is it all about? Why am I doing all of this? Is anyone listening? Echo chamber.

Brad Hauck 00:59

You know the old content treadmill or the AI slop, as a lot of people call it these days. It really is a thing in that we know we have to produce more content. And we have all these experts like Gary Vanderchak and people like that saying, I post 414 pieces of content per day across 50 channels, and you're like, I can't do that. And then you realize he has a media company and 500 staff. And you go, that's why I do that. But you know, like you've really got to look at what your experts are saying.

And yes, it's important to produce content. We know that. We know that fresh content, good content gets views, but just pushing content, is it really working for you, or is it doing nothing? And it's it's really hard to keep it up. It's exhausting in some cases.

Dixie Carlton 01:51

Well, it is. And okay, let's just differentiate first. There are people who are using AI to generate massive amounts of content, and they are a different kettle of fish, I think, than those of us who literally do write our own content and have some planning around it and think about what we're doing. All right. So there's two camps. And I think that's an important distinction to make because anyone can go on AI now and just generate a lot of stuff, and a lot of people are turning off from reading AI-generated content that is being reported everywhere.

However, people like us who genuinely like to write and think as we write and exercise our wordsmithing abilities, we're also finding that there's not a lot of engagement. Like the algorithms for all of the platforms keep changing. So it doesn't matter how often you post on LinkedIn now, if you've not necessarily done some arbitrary thing correctly, then thousands of people aren't going to necessarily make it go viral. Anything going viral now is in fact you don't even hear about things going viral anymore. And I wonder if that's actually part of it where we've stopped looking for things to go viral.

We're just doom scrolling constantly and not even seeing the value in what we are scrolling past.

Brad Hauck 03:13

Yeah, definitely with content, there's there's definitely content that goes viral. And you know, there's a lot of people professing to teach you how to do that. And a lot of it comes down to how you hook people. So you've really got to stand out from people. But the problem is that most of the top brains aren't video producers. And so unless you have a really high-end video team or a specialist team, you're not going to produce the content that actually does go viral because you don't hook your audience straight away and launch into it with a fancy cut to something else or whatever it happens to be.

And it really has become that where when you're producing good content, it takes time. Whereas I know from running tests, for example, on YouTube Shorts, if I post every two hours a short up to 30 seconds, the amount of engagement is far higher than if I post every four hours. And I obviously I can test that because I can do scheduled posts. But it's noticeable, it's a difference between, say, 200 views and 1200 views. So we know the algorithm's working against us. But if you're trying to produce great quality content that gets cut through, how do you fight the algorithm?

Because in the end, the algorithm is what controls everything on every platform.

Dixie Carlton 04:30

Well, this is true. And you can't beat the algorithms. And if you don't know what the algorithms are doing, or you have no knowledge of the rules of the game, then it's even trebly hard because you really are flying blind and you're just throwing stuff at a dartboard and hoping something sticks. If you work on the basis of saying, look, I'm going to do this on LinkedIn, substat my blog, and maybe Instagram or YouTube or whatever, and you have maybe three or four specific core areas that you're posting content on, you have to be consistent, you have to use keywords, you have to have a common theme in what you're writing about.

You have to have a purpose behind it. And that's great. You can do that, but it doesn't matter how well you do some of that stuff, you've still got to have people out there reading it, engaging with it, clicking on it, giving you feedback, and in some way letting you know that what you're putting out there is getting picked up in some way.

Brad Hauck 05:33

Yeah, it's really interesting looking at what people are doing. A lot of the time, people are just adding noise rather than advancing the conversation. So content these days seems to repeat so much what people already know. Whereas if you put an idea forward that's new, it doesn't get cut through because it's just not coming through the amount of generalized content coming through all the time. And I sat down and analyzed a couple of what I would consider to be really good influencers who are teaching people stuff and all that. And when I had a look at their really top quality content, I went through and analyzed it all.

And what I found was there was no actual depth to the content. So all they were doing was jumping from popular topic to popular topic to popular topic. And when you looked at the content, you realized they weren't actually doing the thing that they were showing you how to do, they were demonstrating that you could do it. So they were saying the way to write a book is to sit down and write every day for a thousand words for an hour, but they weren't actually producing any books.

Dixie Carlton 06:46

That builds a name to do that, yeah.

Brad Hauck 06:48

Yeah, so all this content was being produced by these experts, and they were getting thousands and thousands of views and driving people towards courses, but they weren't actually writing any books, they weren't authors, for example. So it was really interesting to look at it. And I started to notice that pattern being repeated again and again.

Dixie Carlton 07:10

So, what's the solution? What do we do? I mean, do we just stop writing? Do we stop caring that people are interested in anything we have to say? What's the solution, Brett?

Brad Hauck 07:21

I think, and this is going to sound terrible because you're gonna hate me, it all comes back to who we're trying to actually influence. One of the biggest problems I think we have is we compare ourselves to influencers and people like that. And it's not the same. You have to choose your audience. We always talk about knowing your audience and being in a niche and all that sort of stuff. But the truth is right there, if you're a speaker, for example, and you speak at small business conferences, then you need to be specifically targeting those people and where those people are and not worrying about being a million views on every video.

What you need is a hundred views of a hundred small business owners, and you need them every time. And it's really hard because you naturally get drawn in by the content you watch. So on your own feed, you're watching as you slide up through Instagram or TikTok, wherever, these videos about whatever topic being done by influencers. They're not people who actually do what you do or work with the people you work with. So your mind's being influenced by them and their content. So you think you should be doing that content, but that's not what people are actually, the people you're trying to speak to or sell to are actually watching.

And so it it becomes this kind of I don't know, very confusing sort of area to sit in. It's like, well, if I want to reach them, I've got to do this stuff, but they're not reaching the people I want to reach. But I'm seeing it. So if I'm seeing it, how come yeah, you're right.

Dixie Carlton 08:57

I think you're hitting the nail on the head. It's so backwards. And I mean, even like there's stuff going on politically in the world today. You know, this is going out in a couple of days, but so we're pre-recording, but specifically something big happened in the UK over the last 24 hours. And so I've been looking for that information, looking up to see what people are writing. And ironically, it's actually hard to find it. And I find that is extraordinary given that I am interested in that content. I'm interested in seeing what people, specific people are saying.

And when I go to even their channels, it's still not giving me the information that I thought I would find. How is it that is so backwards?

Brad Hauck 09:40

Well, I think again, it comes down to this influencer versus expert sort of marketing, in that, you know, the influence will be talking about the problem. So I don't know, let's say immigration is a problem. They'll all be talking about immigration from their perspective, but they're not talking about the person who's in charge of immigration or whatever. They'll just say the government. They always use broad terms, they always use conspiracy style information. And because there is lots and lots of views in that sort of content, it rises to the top. So anything else gets pushed down so far, unless you're looking in news channels or factual sites like say Skeptoid or Snotes or something like that, you won't find anything about the topic.

And it becomes really difficult to beat this flood of topic-related, but nothing to do with the actual thing you're interested in.

Dixie Carlton 10:36

How many hours a week do you think you put into content creation at the moment?

Brad Hauck 10:43

Quite a few hours. I mean, obviously, this podcast, leadership in the line of fire podcast. You got planning and all that, and plus editing and producing and cutting shorts and doing all that sort of stuff, and then working on the website for them as well to get the content out further. It adds up. But yeah, cut-through on the other hand, it's really interesting to see what catches people's attention. So when we look at the stats and what doesn't, and when you compare it to, say, some of the controversial podcasts, there's no comparison in the numbers.

Dixie Carlton 11:16

Well, I think that I would be spending at least 10 hours a week on content production. And then I would probably spend maybe another three or four hours a week on absorbing other people's content. And that includes the 3 a.m. Doom scrolling, etc. Maybe it's more time than that. But one of the things that I have noticed is that while I may not have huge numbers on many of the things that I put out there, when I do get someone who's interested, or if I get someone who is interested in what I am doing and they've come across me in any other way, even for example, I tested the market recently and did a snail mail dropped something into someone's office.

It was nicely gift wrapped, it was interesting. I got an appointment with that person that I wanted to meet with and the author that it was associated with the project. We both got to sit down and talk to this person and we got some results, and that was really good. Now, in those kind of instances, in whatever way it takes, whether it's the old way doing what I've just described or putting something out there in any other way, when someone is really interested in what you're doing, then they will still come back to you and they will thoroughly check you out.

And in some instances, the payoff for doing all of this content creation is there, but in ways that we're not necessarily expecting. So for example, I've just picked up a really cool client who has thoroughly checked me out because of all of the content that I had created over them, even made a comment about something from months like a long time ago, maybe a year or more ago. So I know that person was interested enough to thoroughly look at all of the content that I'd been creating. Now that's where it starts to pay off in spades.

So if you do what you suggested before, where if you suddenly stopped creating anything and someone would notice that, would anyone notice, for example, that you were no longer posting or sharing content, what would happen? Well, I hazard a guess to say that if you stopped, the people who are genuinely interested would notice that you had stopped because they are the ones who are actually looking at what you're doing.

Brad Hauck 13:31

Yeah. It comes down to that thing again, are you contributing great content or are you just producing content to fill the need that the algorithms have? Many years ago it was said to me that there's more business within five minutes of where you live than you can possibly handle. And I honestly believe that we've lost sight of that, and yet it hasn't changed. I can guarantee anybody, it doesn't matter who you are and what your business is, if you work with other people, there is more business within a five-minute drive of your house than you can possibly handle if you went out and found every one of those people that needs your help.

And it's kind of funny because if you measure out a five-minute circle, how far you can drive in five minutes, which is say, I don't know, say five or 10Ks, let's say that, and you drew a circle around that, most people there'd be quite a large area if they live near a city. Yeah, if you're more isolated, it's a bit different, obviously. But I think we've become so ingrained with digital marketing, with online marketing, and your point about doing the drop-off of the snail mail actually even facilitates this even further. We've become so focused on reaching the wider world that we forget that we actually don't need to.

When I started speaking, I was in a networking group on the Gold Coast here. And one day they didn't have someone available and they said, Oh, would you like to give a talk on SEO for 20 minutes? And I said, Yes. So I got up and I did talk. And it went well and it was fun. It it was nothing, it was just a little talk, no practice. And next thing I know, I got a call from the organizer and I said, Well, we're going to run a whole day called the Big Day Out, sorry, the Big Day In.

And would you do a 45-minute session? And I said, Yes. And suddenly I was on a stage with Olympians and other people like that speaking. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. And so started my career as a speaker. But I was speaking to groups of 10 and 15 in my local area, and my SEO business was growing from speaking to those groups. I wasn't going out of my local area. I wasn't online because, quite frankly, online didn't really exist. It did, as such, in that websites and SEO and all that were around, but social media was my space and worse.

I think that we used to look at things a little differently. And I think that what we need to do is pull back again rather than you can't fight the algorithm, so you have to work with them. There's no doubt about that. But just producing content to push it out into ether to reach the whole world may not be the answer that you're after.

Dixie Carlton 16:16

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. In many instances, that is true. I would hazard for myself that my number of clients would not necessarily be within a five minute because I am specifically offering a global service. But if everything shut down tomorrow and I had to suddenly just work in my own backyard, I could make that work in a way that would still give me an income, right? And I think that would be true for 99.9% of us. And I think sometimes we are forced to have a look at one, what is it that we're putting out there?

Who is it for? And how is it serving us? And that's really what it comes down to, right?

Brad Hauck 17:01

Exactly. Look, you can spend hours and hours producing content because that's important. But on the other hand, is it doing anything for you? Can I ask you, if you rang someone and said, let's have a cup of coffee, would that be more valuable than writing another LinkedIn post that you spent an hour writing an article for? You know, maybe it's time to start weighing up your content and saying, okay, I do need to produce content. What's the most efficient way to produce content? For example, from a podcast or a video, we can cut shorts, we can write articles, we can do social media posts.

One good piece of content can produce 30 days worth of ongoing content. We've always said that that's not new. And it's strong content because it's a discussion like we're having now. But could I take the rest of that time that I normally do other stuff and go and sit with someone, spend some face-to-face time, build connections, would that be better for me? So it's an interesting question to ask yourself.

Dixie Carlton 18:05

It's sure. Oh, we've gone to some deep places today.

Brad Hauck 18:09

Well, I think obviously a lot of speakers are introverts. And I think that we've, and authors too, we've fallen into ourselves. COVID forced everybody kind of into a bubble. And I don't think a lot of people came out of that bubble afterwards. We just saw, well, we can reach an audience online, but in fact, maybe we can't reach an audience as effectively online as what we might be able to if we put some time offline as well as online. Maybe the two together, producing good quality contributions as content and doing some other stuff might be better for us.

Dixie Carlton 18:45

But here's the paradox, Brad. If you do fast, even if you're looking closely at what you're doing locally instead of digitally, it's what you create digitally that helps build your profile that positions you as being someone of worthiness for even someone that you're wanting to do business with locally.

Brad Hauck 19:09

Oh, absolutely. I refer this to as your back catalogue. I talk to businesses about this. In fact, I often say you need to backstop yourself, and that's the old-fashioned term for it. In that I recently had a client, I was looking through their stuff, and I realized that their LinkedIn profile was way out of date, and it needs to be updated. It really does, because it doesn't reflect what they're doing now, and they're doing some fantastic work. But that's the first place that shows up on Google when you search someone's name is LinkedIn. So you need to have some good content, new photos, new information there to backstop yourself.

And that's exactly what the content you're talking about, good quality contribution, actually does for you. So when someone does name check you, they go, Oh, look, here's all this stuff. Like when you name check yourself in AI, does it come up and talk about the things you talk about? Like I was checking mine the other day. It's important. Oh, it's not working. That's me. Yeah.

Dixie Carlton 20:09

And we've been saying this for years. You always have to Google yourself, Google your own name. And now, of course, AI check your own name. See what comes up. See what you might need to look at changing. And again, this everything that we've talked about comes back to one thing. You've got to have a plan, you've got to have consistent content and a good theme or a good understanding of what it is that you're trying to achieve with it, and know who your market is. Simple.

Brad Hauck 20:37

Exactly. It sounds terrible, but a lot of people will say to you. Because it's all these books on marketing, and they always say the same thing. It's like that is a good production for that. Anyone who's been in marketing long enough will tell you that you can't achieve this if you don't know that, no matter how much you try.

Dixie Carlton 20:56

Yes, exactly. I mean, I wrote a book a few years ago called Advertising, Branding and Marketing 101, which really is just literally hitting those points. It is 101 basic stuff. And too many people think, oh, but I've got to go out there and find all of the complicated stuff, all the fancy stuff. Yes, but you've still got to get the 101 parts right first.

Brad Hauck 21:19

Exactly. Exactly. So as you plan your next post, video, or podcast, don't ask, what should I publish? Ask what can I contribute. More content won't always build more authority. More value will. Create something that helps people think differently, make a decision, or take an action. Because the real test isn't really whether people saw your content, it's whether they would notice if it disappeared. This episode has you thinking about writing a book, but you're not sure how to shape your ideas, reach out to Dixie at indiexpertspublishing.com. She can help you turn what's in your head into a clear, compelling book that wields real authority.

And if you want to get more out of AI and marketing online, join my authority multiplier coaching community at bradhauck.com. You'll learn how to use AI to grow your business and save time and money.

Dixie Carlton 22:11

Wonderful. Thanks, Brad. That was a great conversation, as expected. And of course, just to remind everyone if you love what we're doing, please review us, share us. We always love to get the feedback. And of course, the reviews always help our numbers and our algorithms.

Brad Hauck 22:28

See you in the next episode.

Dixie Carlton 22:30

Thanks.