We’re going to be talking about why your online content sucks. There you go. Do you want to hear about that? So many people are perplexed by this. In fact, if you want to know the real stats, it’s 720,000 hours. That’s right. I mentioned that nearly a million, three-quarters of a million hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every day. That’s right from YouTube themselves. So holy Mac, there’s your there, there’s the competition out there and you better have a way to understand how that content is being consumed. Who’s consuming it? And if they’re actually, uh, consuming it in the background or if they’re actually being active, uh, involved in that process. So why does your content suck? I can tell you that the first question that I always get is, “How do I take my live stuff and take it online?”
And that’s a really important question because there’s no correlation between living and online. The live version is I’ve got time. I can read the room. I can get some, uh, information back from your participants. I can smile and joke and see, oh, oh, I better be a little bit more serious. Oh, I can be a little bit funny. I can jab a little bit, give you a little dig here and there, you know, make a few, you know, borderline jokes and still get some, you know, involvement in the process. whereas online is blind. And so you’re going to not know for a while. And most people pull their heads under the covers and try not to find out much later how much they really are. And this is what’s really, really important is, and this is it, guys. This is it. If you want to know the difference, the main massive, ridiculous difference is feedback in the real world.
You’re going to get feedback. You’re going to get questions. You’re going to get puzzled looks on people’s faces. You’re going to get, you know, biases that kind of come up, and you’re going to be able to twist or manipulate or move your content in the direction of your audience. But when your audience is everyone, and your feedback is zero, now you’re screwed. If you don’t have a higher level of understanding of what needs to happen with your content, because you’re not going to be able to answer questions immediately if you haven’t thought those out in advance, here’s the key: Here’s what I want you to do. This is like your third, second, uh, way to take your crappy content and upscale it and just really plan it ahead. And this is where I swear to God. 99% of people are failing miserably because they think if they just take an outline, present the outline online, and put it up, it’ll just be consumed.
But that isn’t how it works. You need to look at your outline, look at your content, and say, “Hey, if I was talking to X person, Y person, and Z person right now, what type of questions would they have?” What type of gray zone would they have? What type of misunderstanding of information would they typically have? You must really get into the heads of your customers, whom we will refer to as prospects, students, or customers. It totally doesn’t matter. It is your customer. And now, and we like to, I like to get away from users because, uh, I don’t know. It’s kind of a weird thing to think about when you’re talking about users; it’s more like consumers now, and you really need to understand that there’s a huge difference between a user and a consumer. So I want to push everybody towards really, uh, applying concepts to their consumers.
Consumers are the key. We’re not talking about users anymore. So you’ve got these consumers now, and it doesn’t matter what type of information you’re getting out there. You’ve got these consumers. Where are the stumbling points? Where are the roadblocks? What are their questions? How do they take this information? And this is true. This is why I’m having you write this down. And just honestly, take chapter one of whatever the heck you’re presenting and look at it and say, “Where would my ideal consumer stumble on this information?” When you start to understand that, the light bulbs will start to explode because you will now be able to present that information in ways that have a massive impact on the ideal consumer of your information. And remember, remember, remember. 720,000 hours are being produced every single day. That’s what you’re competing with. And if you’re forced now, let’s say it’s staff training.
If you’re forcing staff to watch your content, to consume your information for, say, continuing education or, uh, you know, onboarding new staff. If you’re, if this is a forced enrollment program, then come on, you tell me how much stuff you actually learn. If you’re being forced to learn it, you’ve got to get in there. You’ve got to make that content desirable. That’s what you’re competing with. You’re competing with entertainers who are out there actually being funny people who are making fun happen. And you’re competing with them for your current staff. And everybody watches Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on Bueller, but you can’t watch that. You can’t. Your attention span is too short. Whether it’s mine, whether it’s yours, or most definitely your consumer, you’ve got six seconds to make an impact. And guess what? Every few seconds after that, you
Better yet, make another one. You better make another one. You better keep it alive. Keep it exciting because if you let them go to sleep, you’re going to lose them in the first episode. And they’ll never come back for the second or they’ll push play and they’ll walk away or they’ll have their kid watch it for them and just take some notes because your stuff is so fricking dry. They can’t get through it. You must step up your game, which begins with understanding your customer. All right, guys, I’m Dr. Kelly in your learning moment. Get out there, analyze your content, get in there, get dirty, tear it apart, get some freaking feedback, people, because that’s what it’s all about.
