The new type of content that's starting to crush on social media

There’s a new type of content that is starting to crush on social media.

It’s called Application Content.

I think the people that use this over the next 12 months will have a massive advantage in their categories.

From 2021-2024, social media mostly looked like this.

Entertainment content on one side and Education content on the other.

You could pretty much make any type of video in any niche and it would perform well.

In 2024, we got a 3rd type of content that started really crushing…Storytelling content.

And this was a perfect blend of the two.

Entertaining stories, wrapped around educational lessons or perspective.

These are amazing for building authority but pretty difficult to make at scale, so most personal brands stick to education.

Well as AI content and copy culture has emerged in 2026, we’re starting to see Educational Content split.

There’s now three more categories…

Application Content, Tactical Education and Eduslop.

Eduslop is where the creator just lists words but doesn’t actually apply any insight or opinion.

This is complete junk food that has largely stopped working (and we’re seeing this everywhere).

Tactical Education is where creators share how to do something in a breakdown or tutorial.

This is still very effective but the topics must be novel or it won’t breakthrough.

Application Content is the newest category where I think there is a huge opportunity.

Application is when the creator shows or demonstrates their expertise in the video. 

These are things like scenarios, case studies, hypotheticals, live builds.

Any format where a creator can prove their skills are legit in the video itself has massive differentiation potential.

If you’re a business owner trying to build authority and drive leads to your business, you want to spend all your time making these 3 types of content: Storytelling, Application, Tactical Education.

Do not waste time with Entertainment or Eduslop as it won’t build you the authority you need to drive conversion.

To help you, I’ve put these two things together:

• This is a doc breaking down the ideal story structure for the top formats in each of those 3 content categories (Storytelling, Application, Tactical Education)

• This is a comprehensive database of top outlier video examples across all major formats in each of these categories (it has several hundred top outliers)

PS - I just published a new video breaking down the 6 best storytelling frameworks for business owners to use in their content (specifically designed to drive more conversion). Watch here