Jay Acunzo has been creating content material on the Web for a lengthy time. His journey on social media started when, as a sports activities journalist in 2005, he began a weblog whereas interning and writing for a pupil paper.
When he moved into advertising and marketing, his sports activities weblog referred to as “Weblog, Don’t Lie” (named after the notorious quote by NBA participant Rasheed Wallace) shifted focus to writing about sports activities writing. He wrote about different creators who have been writing about sports activities, connecting with and celebrating their work. And to search out these folks, there was no higher place than social media.
Due to his early begin on social media and his deep understanding of the connection between advertising and marketing and creativity, Jay brings a novel perspective from which creators and entrepreneurs can be taught so much. On this article, we dive into the teachings from Jay Acunzo for the fashionable creator.
Your job isn’t to talk clearly – it’s to create connection
It’s straightforward to get sucked into the numbers and metrics and make that the main target of your work as a creator or marketer. Your viewers doesn’t have that perspective, and so your content material might not carry out nicely since you suppose the job is to create content material.
Nonetheless, the job is to create connection, and the easiest way to try this is to be certain that your personal private artistic fingerprints are everywhere in the work. Infuse your private perspective, your lived experiences, and your tales, and also you develop into irreplaceable within the eyes of your viewers.
In different phrases, share the stuff you lived by way of, noticed, or do not forget that led to a significant expertise or perception. That is what efficient storytellers do.
You may be questioning how sensible “creating connection” is, however Jay shares a good way to reframe your perspective: “Sure, you possibly can measure issues you should purchase. Or the issues social networks say it is best to prioritize. However you can even measure the issues it’s important to earn – and entrepreneurs do not do the second practically sufficient.”
So you should purchase downloads to a podcast, however it’s important to earn episode completions. You should buy site visitors to your web site, it’s important to earn repeat guests. You should buy emails to your checklist, it’s important to earn replies to your e-mail. These are the indicators that your work issues and resonates since you created connection along with your viewers.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Concentrate on making real connections along with your viewers by infusing your private perspective and experiences into your work.
For those who’re apprehensive about AI, you’ve acquired all of it flawed
There are two sides to the coin with regards to the usage of AI in content material creation and advertising and marketing – those that use it to produce their work as a substitute of to unblock or facilitate it.
On one facet, in the event that they suppose the job is to create content material, will fear about or use AI as a creator substitute. They’ll let it create complete items of content material for them, basically outsourcing their creativeness.
Nonetheless, the opposite facet, in the event that they know the job is to create a connection, will use the identical instruments doubtlessly, however in numerous methods to unblock their creativeness as a substitute of outsourcing it. They’ll use it to boost what they’re making an attempt to do. They lead, and the software serves them.
And in everybody else’s case, once they suppose the job is content material, they appear to be serving the software, which is senseless. In what world does a chef ask the carrot to cook dinner?
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Slightly than outsourcing your creativity to it, use AI to boost your creativity and unblock your creativeness.
Resonance > attain
Now, sometimes, when entrepreneurs are eager about progress, they suppose they’ve a attain drawback when actually they’ve a resonance drawback. For those who can attain some folks, and people folks aren’t actually excited and going and discovering the others for you thru phrase of mouth, then you might have a resonance drawback, not a attain drawback.
In case your work does not matter, no quantity of promoting will change that. And a simple instance is that we will all attain some folks very simply, very effectively, if not totally free. Are these few folks responding in huge methods? If not, the common marketer says, “We gotta go attain extra folks.” However the storyteller, and not using a advertising and marketing hat on, would say, why would we go attain extra people who find themselves whole strangers? These are the those who like and even belief us, they usually’re not excited? Should not we get them excited?”
Begin with one factor and make it actually good. If it deserves to be unfold, it is going to unfold simpler. You will not really feel like it’s important to beg for consideration as a result of you have discovered to resonate.
So the primary hurdle to get from attain to resonance is: are you creating something that issues to a few folks? If you cannot do this, do not make investments any extra time or funds into making an attempt to get in entrance of extra folks – deal with getting these few folks to care.
If you are able to do that, you need not widen the highest of the funnel as a result of each particular person who meets you adores you, buys from you, takes motion with you, and is worked up to share you with the folks they know.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Guarantee your content material resonates with just a few folks earlier than making an attempt to succeed in a bigger viewers. Resonating deeply with a small viewers is best than being ignored by a big one.
Character must be current in all of your content material
Jay is a storyteller above the rest, and his private perspective is hardwon. He described his work saying, “I inform tales and attempt to extract sudden insights from these tales for individuals who need to produce high quality work. My mission is to assist folks make what issues to their careers, to their corporations, and to their communities.” However he wasn’t all the time this clear on his positioning. He shared that he began out imitating quite a lot of his heroes earlier than he was in a position to outline his personal voice.
“The issue with many creators is that they by no means attempt to escape of the sameness and discover a distinction of their class. There’s quite a lot of commodity content material, there’s quite a lot of copycat pondering, and there is quite a lot of sameness on the market.”
Lots of people who need to stand out from that sameness suppose that their job is to get more and more loud, outrank, or outhype the competitors. However, as he places it, “I truly suppose that the job is to resonate deeper, so it’s worthwhile to beg for consideration much less.”
For those who’re engaged on one thing, even should you’re ticking a guidelines, somebody ought to discover should you stopped engaged on that undertaking as a result of one thing about your execution made it completely different and distinct.
The concept that you might have issues in your life that no language studying mannequin (LLM) or AI has been skilled on – they cannot entry that stuff, so use it. Your perspective and persona – all the pieces that makes you you – is your distinctive, unfair benefit.
Most individuals haven’t been utilizing that benefit absolutely, even earlier than AI burst into recognition. We predict we’ve to be a vessel that creates what “works” for the “viewers”. So we seek out lists of the very best hooks for TikTok or essentially the most participating Twitter Thread format.
The issue with that strategy is that you just begin creating generic content material and not using a perspective or viewpoint and with out an experiential differentiator to it, so AI is your substitute. But when you understand how to imbue your work with private perspective and persona, AI turns into your intern.
Jay thinks we should always look more durable on the individuals who aren’t apprehensive about AI as a result of they’re letting their private views, beliefs and frustrations, and imaginative and prescient for the world and their work lead as a substitute of leaving it to probability that one way or the other they’re going to present up within the work.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Your distinctive perspective and experiences make you irreplaceable within the eyes of your viewers, so let your persona shine by way of your content material.
Course of, Posture, and Follow
If you’re eager about creating content material, and also you get stumped, return to your roots. Create the stuff you want existed, and go discover the others who additionally need that to exist. To cite Jay, “Decide your viewers, decide your future.”
Most individuals strategy content material creation by pondering, “What do folks need?” After which they run right into a wall as a result of they’ve a monolithic concept of “folks” and “viewers” and “content material”. They’re going, “Our “viewers”, desires “snackable short-form movies.” Do they? Or will they devour something you create as a result of there’s a persona that shines by way of the content material?
A number of entrepreneurs (and creators) consider themselves as having mastered the craft of content material. What they’ve mastered, although, is Course of, outlined by Jay as the workflow, strategies, and instruments to information your work. However there are two different items that not sufficient folks think about: Posture and Follow.
Posture is the way you see your self and the world. It’s the messy bag of humanity that you just convey with you to your work, your confidence, your fashion, your tone, your lived experiences, and your reminiscences.
Then there’s Follow, which sees you delivery on a constant, coherent schedule, not for work or as a result of somebody gave you permission, however as a result of it is Wednesday, and on Wednesday, you ship an article or tweet or put up simply to get higher at it. That is the place you grasp your craft.
Course of is one thing somebody palms you – it requires the least quantity of effort. And if that is all you are good at, quickly you will not be wanted as a result of AI is basically good at Course of. However when you might have a Posture and if you’ve labored at it by way of Follow, and if you use all three in tandem, you develop into irreplaceable. You develop a perspective, a tone of voice, a mode, and other people begin coming to you, not due to your content material, however as a result of it is you.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Grasp your craft by specializing in the workflow, strategies, instruments, and private components you convey to your work, and constantly create content material on a schedule (Buffer may help with this final bit) 😉
Wish to area of interest down? Develop a premise
We have a tendency to consider niches when it comes to demographics – who your seemingly viewers is, their job title, their sector, their expertise degree, and so forth. Layered onto which are psychographics or ideas and emotions of your viewers. Jay describes this kind of niching as a filter that you just arrange in the best way you place your self and present up on the earth that brings the appropriate folks all the best way to you and repels the flawed folks.
Nonetheless, Jay proposes an alternate strategy to choosing a distinct segment: creating a premise. He defines the premise as “the precise, defensible function to your content material that’s pulled out of your private imaginative and prescient for the viewers.” It’s a tipping level from folks being loyal to folks being tremendous followers as a result of you appear irreplaceable to them. There’s not one more exploring what you are exploring.
What makes a powerful premise? Hrishikesh Hirway began a podcast about music in 2014 referred to as Track Exploder. The class was crowded even again then, however there was quite a lot of sameness in it. Hrishikesh noticed each musician being interviewed with generic questions. He needed to listen to these folks speak about one thing particular: their craft. So Track Exploder requested musicians to take aside a single tune and, piece by piece, inform the story of how they made it.
You possibly can simply pitch that podcast with a defensible premise: “It is a present about music. In contrast to different reveals about music, solely Track Exploder asks their music company to take aside a single monitor and, piece by piece, inform the story of the way it’s made.”
The formulation is definitely replicated in what Jay dubs the ‘XY Premise Pitch’:
It is a [Project type] about [Topic]. In contrast to different [Project types] about [Topic] solely we [Unique Proposition].
Your XY premise informs all the pieces about your content material. It motivates subscribers, shapes tradition, and helps promote your concepts by sharing your worldview with the viewers. And should you or your viewers can’t determine what it’s, you haven’t found out your area of interest but. It is not straightforward to provide you with one thing like that, however the very best media corporations and storytellers know that it is value placing within the work to develop a resonance along with your viewers.
One purple flag to be careful for as you develop your premise is should you begin evaluating your self to others, saying, “In contrast to different reveals, we *truly* dive deep to get you the actual techniques and practitioner language.”
As a substitute, it is best to say, “In contrast to different content material that explores these matters, solely we [Unique Proposition].”
It is not what you discover however how you discover it.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Differentiate your content material by creating a novel and defensible function that units it aside from others in your area of interest. Use the XY Premise Pitch to obviously talk the distinctive proposition of your content material.
Jay asks you to think about, “What are you doing to compel folks to need to spend extra time with you and join with you on a degree that’s not potential on social media?”
Social media is a landlord that may change the foundations or kick you out at any second. It prioritizes the loud minority of utmost views or attention-grabbing gimmicks at scale, not giving the platform to folks with nuanced and significant issues to say.
It’s additionally actually good at creating interchangeable personalities at scale. So despite the fact that some folks stand out, they’re nonetheless preventing to be seen, albeit amongst a smaller class than all people else. Wherever you look, you’ll discover subgenres popping out of each broader style constructed and influenced by social networks. They usually all appear replaceable – if one shuts off, you can discover one other, and it may not be actual, nevertheless it’d be fairly shut.
As creators and entrepreneurs, our job is determining find out how to develop into our viewers’s favourite – their most well-liked decide for a particular function. If you’ve piqued their curiosity on social media, you possibly can convey the really engaged members of your viewers extra into this worldview by directing them to your owned platforms. Now you’re left to think about what these owned platforms are.
Social media must develop into merely a strategy to uncover you – a window into the deeper, extra connective work you are doing by way of newsletters, podcasts, memberships, e-mail lists, and issues you could management with larger certainty.
🖊️
Key Takeaway: Social media must be a window into your deeper work, so deal with transferring your viewers from social media to your owned platforms.
Takeaways
TL;DR? Listed here are the important thing takeaways from our interview with Jay Acunzo:
- Prioritize making real connections along with your viewers. How are you going to do that? By infusing your private perspective and experiences into your work.
- Use AI to boost your creativity and unblock your creativeness to not outsource your creativity
- Take a look at your concepts with a small viewers earlier than looking for a big one. In case your content material doesn’t resonate with the small however loyal subset of your viewers, it gained’t work simply since you enhance the dimensions of your goal.
- Your distinctive perspective and experiences make you irreplaceable within the eyes of your viewers, so let your persona shine by way of your content material.
- Differentiate your content material by creating a novel and defensible function that units it aside from others in your area of interest. Use the XY Premise Pitch to speak the distinctive proposition of your content material.
- Social media must be a window into your owned platforms – prioritize constructing one thing that is yours so that you don’t have to fret about social media no matter its future.
- Concentrate on the workflow, strategies, instruments, and private components you convey to your work, and create constantly.
Jay’s parting phrases are, “Try to be the private most well-liked decide to your viewers by creating a powerful premise and showcasing your distinctive perspective.”
