Jay Schwedelson: We are back for Do This Not That podcast, and I wanted to break down some content formats that are crushing it right now for business, for consumer, for nonprofit, and it costs no money. And the reason it's really on my mind is I was just in this meeting, and it... The, the client was talking about how much money they were spending trying to create these new templates and these new pieces of content, and they were even f-- hiring, like, video people.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm like, "What an epic waste of money." First of all, you're gonna create this garbage. Nobody's gonna care. It's gonna look so, like, stiff. It's gonna look like AI made it, quite frankly, and it's gonna get no engagement. So I want to share some data that we have on stuff that's actually crushing it right now that I don't care what...

Jay Schwedelson: If you're in a boring industry, "I'm in a regulated industry, I can't do that," garbage. "I'm a consumer marketer," you could do this. Anything. "I'm a nonprofit," you could do it. Doesn't matter. Okay, so first of all, in general, the thing you need to have seared into your brain is you need to un-AI your marketing.

Jay Schwedelson: Everybody now can go to any AI tool, make any ridiculous thing, make it look really slick, and it is wallpaper. It's not even wallpaper. It's more boring than wallpaper. What we wanna en- what we want to engage with now is humanity stuff. Okay? That's all that we care about, is humanity stuff. So let's get into, for example, what crushes it.

Jay Schwedelson: The number one content format that we all have now known for the last year, this is a no-brainer, then I'll get into some better ones, is BTS, behind the scenes. Okay? Behind the scenes content is everything. Uh, if you are a manufacturer, you take your phone, say, "Let me show you how we're making this stuff."

Jay Schwedelson: Okay? You are a consumer brand making sneakers, "Let me show you about how we're doing the sneakers." You're a boring B2B SaaS company, "Let me take you over where the developers are and how they're developing the code for blah, blah, blah." And you walk there with the phone, and you show everybody how you do it.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay? Or, "Hey, you wanna see a peek into our lunch room? Walk over here. Let me show you behind the scenes what we do for lunch." That content, BTS video content, for example, on LinkedIn specifically, BTS content has a two hundred percent higher engagement rate than any other form of content on LinkedIn. BTS.

Jay Schwedelson: Now, you can take that same video, whether you're a consumer marketer or business marketer, doesn't matter. Okay? You could take that same video, and you could stick it in your email newsletters. How do you stick video in your email newsletters? Well, all you do is this. You're not really sticking a video in there.

Jay Schwedelson: You're taking a screen grab, all right, of the first image of the video, and then you're putting a giant play button on top of that image, a red play button. Okay? And then you're putting that image in your newsletter, you know, behind the scenes of whatever. And then when they click on it, then they're gonna go to the page that actually has the video, and they click again, and they play it.

Jay Schwedelson: When you... This is wild s- wild data from my research group, World Data Research. Okay? But emails that show the play button for video content Versus those that don't, the ones that show the play button in your emails have a 34% higher average click-through rate. All you're doing is giving people the opportunity to actually click on the thing.

Jay Schwedelson: Now, what are other formats that right now are doing phenomenal? I know how this- ridiculous this sounds, but record hallway walk-and-talks. Walk-and-talks, it doesn't have to just be in a hallway, are doing amazing. On Instagram they're crushing it, on, uh, LinkedIn they're crushing it, on Facebook they're crushing it.

Jay Schwedelson: Because you're moving with the person, it's pointed at your face, and you're giving commentary. Believe it or not, walk- walking selfie videos have a 49% higher completion rate on LinkedIn and a 57% higher completion rate on Instagram. The walk-and-talks are doing so, so good. Now, some other formats that I don't have the stats on, but we've been testing them and they've been working great for us that I think are worth trying Is the desk drive-by.

Jay Schwedelson: Again, it's all about lo-fi content. This is not something AI would ever make. Okay, you literally take that camera, you point at yourself, say, "Okay, we're gonna walk over to, uh, Sarah's desk, and we're gonna see what she's working on today." And you go right over there. She says, "You know, I'm actually working on this new feature for our app.

Jay Schwedelson: It's gonna be so cool. It comes out in a week." Or, "Hey, I'm working actually on setting up the new webinar we're doing on Friday, and this is the speaker." It's another way to get your information out there that it takes three seconds, and it couldn't do better. Another one that we love doing is basically the one-take mistake videos.

Jay Schwedelson: How often are you making a video and you don't get it right the first time? That's like me every time. All right? I do my podcast in one shot. I do. I hit record, and I'm like, "Let's roll, dude," and that's it. I'm, I'm not sitting here with a script. I have a couple of stats that I know I wanna mention. Other than that, it's whatever nonsense is in my brain and I talk.

Jay Schwedelson: And if I make a mistake, so be it, and that's what allows it to feel a little more human. So if you take the one-take mistake videos, and you could label them that, they crush it. That's why we all love bloopers, right? We love watching bloopers. The last one is walking to the gate at the airport. It's similar to the walk and talk, but for whatever reason, the airport is ph-phenomenal content, and mostly the reason is you're talking about whatever you wanna talk about, your new consumer launch, your nonprofit thing you want people to donate, your business to business thing, but then there's so much nonsense that goes on in the airport.

Jay Schwedelson: So for example, you'll go there, right? And you'll be like, "I'm here, uh, two hours before my flight, and there's already a lineup at my gate. What are these people lining up for?" Or, "I'm here, I'm trying to get on the people mover, but people won't walk on the people mover. They think it's a ride. What's wrong with them?"

Jay Schwedelson: Or, "It's eight o'clock in the morning, and this dude's just three drinks deep already at the bar. What is he doing?" There's so much additional commentary that you could put in that makes it so much more human, and that is what we wanna do. We wanna add humanity to every single thing that we're doing. This is the content that's crushing it, not this boring, generic, garbage template nonsense...

Jay Schwedelson: garbage nonsense. Is that a full sentence? Probably three sentences. I have no idea. So all right. Let's get into the ridiculous portion of this, of this podcast. So right now, I have, like, no work-life balance, like a zero burger, uh, which is bad. I'm not happy about this. I need to work on this, and the reason being is...

Jay Schwedelson: This is not a commercial. I'm being honest. So next week is Eventastic. That's my giant free virtual conference. You can go register for it, eventastic.com. It's two days. We got, like, fourteen thousand people registered. It's all about events and webinars, in-person events, all that stuff. But I have no work-life balance because this thing is such a cluster to put together Um, you know, it's not even the, the speaker sessions.

Jay Schwedelson: Those are great. Okay, fine. People are speaking, great. So we do these ridiculous sessions. So for example, uh, on my schedule today, on my calendar of calls that I have to have today, is we have a call with this woman, her name is Taylor Too, T-O-O. She's a Taylor Swift impersonator. And so, like, at the event, we're doing this thing where Taylor Too is gonna bring a bunch of people on stage, and she's gonna teach the entire...

Jay Schwedelson: everyone that's attending how to do the Fate of Ophelia dance. And we're doing a dry run with Taylor Too of how the Fate of Ophelia dance is gonna go, and I'm like, "What, what is going on? How is this what we are like?" And my team is like, "I don't know if it should be like this, or if everyone should be like this.

Jay Schwedelson: Should we be in outfits? Should we get friendship bracelets?" I'm like, "I don't know." And then the call that I have after that, just so you want to know the nonsense that I deal with this. So we're doing a session, um, with the mouth guard game. I don't know if you know the mouth guard game. It's that thing where you put this giant mouth guard in your mouth, right?

Jay Schwedelson: It's like a kids game, and then it's impossible to understand what the person is saying. So we have a real deal panel of industry experts, and they're all gonna have these giant mouth guards in their mouth, and then we're gonna be asking them questions, and then everyone has to try to actually guess what it is that they're saying, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: And it's going to be a disaster. And then so they're like, "Jay, we need to all put it in our mouth today." So I try to get this thing and shove it in my mouth, and I am sitting there, I'm here at work, trying to shove this thing in my mouth. I'm like, "I need a new job. I don't know what I do for a living. This is very, very weird."

Jay Schwedelson: And then the, the third meeting that I have today is we have a cannonball guy that's gonna be at Eventastic. He's gonna be shot out of a cannon live. And so we were talking as a team. I said, "You know, instead of him just being shot out of a cannon live, it would be so cool if he had to hit, land on something, and then maybe, like, everyone gets a prize or, or, or maybe we make a donation if he lands on, on the target."

Jay Schwedelson: So we're try-- So we have a call with this dude to see if he's willing to have us put some sort of really cool big target thing, and I also want to fill it with paint. That would be... I think it'd be cool if he landed in, like, paint or something. And, and, and, and if he lands on the target, then cool things happen.

Jay Schwedelson: Now, you might be thinking, "Oh, you have so much more of a fun job than I do. I have to sit here and talk about something super boring." And you know, yes, fun, agree, but also it's like I have stress about a dude flying out of a cannon ball machine thing. That's a weird thing to have stress about. It just is.

Jay Schwedelson: It's not normal. Um, anyway, this, this episode wasn't normal. But you're awesome. I hope I see you at Eventastic. If you don't register, you stink. It's next week. Later.