How to choose the best content formats for your niche

The second most common problem people tell me about content is that they don't have time for it.

Here’s where you might be going wrong…

Most of the hours you spend making content get allocated before you ever press record...at the moment you pick your format and visual style.

If you pick a vlog-style format, you've signed up to leave the office every time you want to post.

If you pick an interview, you've signed up to need to coordinate with a second person (even if they're remote).

This is why I judge every content format on four things:

1. Time to execution - how hard is it to go from idea to finished video (1 to 10)?

2. Visual requirement - what visuals do I need and can I get/make them easily?

3. People requirement - who else do I need, and can I coordinate with them easily?

4. Overall difficulty - how hard is a single rep to execute (1 to 10)?

This may sound surprising, but my goal was never to become a professional creator.

I've always viewed myself as an entrepreneur who uses social media to drive leads & sales for my business.

Because of this, I wanted the formats and content I produced to take the least time to make, have the fewest dependencies, and let me film without leaving my desk.

This was a creative constraint I put in place to make it easier to scale high quality volume.

My tech channel uses a single format and a single visual layout for every video on purpose. I’ve scaled to 1M+ followers and 1B+ views in that ecosystem.

My marketing channel uses 3-4 formats and a single visual layout for every video and that has scaled from 0 to 150K+ followers in <6 months.

Both of these channels were designed to maximize efficiency during production.

This may sound “anti-creative” but it’s actually the most important content decision I’ve ever made (and a big reason for my success).

So before you film your next video, judge the visual style you're considering making on those four dimensions...then film whichever one is easiest for your first 50 videos.

It’s also worth noting, the format plays a huge factor in your content results as well.

Talia, another one of our members, is a travel journalist in Mexico City. She was already a natural storyteller when she joined, but her videos sat at 3 to 5,000 views...her biggest constraint was formats & topics that a broader slice of her audience could easily consume.

She added a second core format, and 5 of her next 7 attempts using it got 40K+ views.

Now, if you’re considering joining the upcoming Short Form Launch 4-week live cohort, here's the honest number on how much time you should set aside.

Each video is built to be started and finished in a single working session of about 3 hours (and it should get quicker over time).

You'll make about 3 videos a week, so that's about 9 hours, plus one lesson a day (15 to 30 minutes) and the live calls.

And if you don’t finish all the lessons in the first 28 days, you get to keep access to them forever.

Btw, my 150K+ follower account runs on under 5 hours per week of my time...but that's with the system built and a team behind it.

Format is one of the critical components that makes scaling content volume easier, and most people pick theirs without a strategy.

I teach all top 20 formats in Short Form Launch, each with its script structure and a bunch of examples, so you can pick what fits your schedule instead of eating up all your free time.

I believe it’s the highest time ROI you’ll get in the content world. Reserve your spot here.

PS - Doors close Sunday, October 25, at 11:59pm ET. I may never run this program again (and if I do, the price will never be this low).

Not interested in Short Form Launch? Click here and you won't get any more emails about it. You'll still get my regular newsletter.