Tutorial: Look Over My Shoulder As I Curate Amazing Video Clips [Video]
Blockbuster Booster: Every Thursday I provide you with a tutorial, template, or tool to help you create blockbuster content. Today is the fourth blockbuster booster.
I Posted A Video Clip Every Day For 5 Months. Here’s What Happened…
In late February 2023, I started posting a daily video clip to LinkedIn.
At first, I just posted the clips with minimal context. But, over time I added thumbnails, deep context (≈500 words), and video subtitles. Originally, it took me one hour to post a video, but as I increased the quality, it took me 2-3 hours.
By early June, I had published 100+ posts, which had been viewed 2M+ times.
This experience gave me confidence to double down on video clips for a few reasons:
I felt like a kid in a candy store. I loved the process of following my curiosity, finding amazing clips, learning more deeply (see Explanation Effect), and sharing my lessons daily.
I could publish as I researched. The research I was doing for the video clips was helping me develop an article series, which I was spending hundreds of hours on. But rather than having to wait until the articles came out, I could publish and research at the same time.
My momentum was increasing. When I started publishing, the average video clip was getting 20 likes. By June it was 100+.
I could syndicate in the future. I knew that I could eventually syndicate the clips to Twitter, YouTube, Medium, and Instagram. This is exciting because I can reuse all the work I’ve done.
With all of the green lights I launched this newsletter on July 11.
Here are some of the stats from the first month…
Newsletter Stats So Far
Free subscribers: 150,000+ (emails I’ve collected in the past 8 years)
Open rate: 33.66%
Average new paid subscribers per post: 10 (2,080 subscribers per year)
Average reader shares per post (within Substack only): 5
Time it takes me to create a post: 6 hours
I’m still refining the format and workflow. For example, I wasn’t expecting it to take me 6 hours per post. As a result, I’ve had to work over the weekend two times.
I’m also hoping that overall, I can grow the number of new paid subscribers per post and reader shares exponentially. I’ll do this via lots of iteration from feedback.
But, overall, I’m really excited that I have found a newsletter model that checks so many boxes:
I love doing it
It’s sustainable from a time perspective
The format stands out in a crowded newsletter landscape
I have a direct relationship with readers (rather than going through a social media platform which has a constantly changing algorithm)
It’s free so it reaches many people and makes an impact
It’s also a product so it brings in revenue
It markets itself as each email can be shared with others
It lets people know about my other programs if they want to go further as a thought leader with my support (Mental Model Club, Thought Leader School, etc)
Today’s Game Plan
Whenever I tell people about the newsletter, I get questions about how I find these unique and useful clips.
So, a few weeks ago, I did a tutorial on how I make a list of keywords to search on YouTube.
Today I provide you with a second tutorial on how to find amazing clips.
More specifically, I walk you through 50 minutes of me actually searching on YouTube. I also share my screen and everything I’m thinking as I go along.
Walkthroughs are great because you get to see:
The mental models I use
My tools and how I use them
My workflow
My problem solving approaches
How I handle rabbit holes
Summary: 6 Hacks To Easily And Quickly Find Amazing Video Clips
I consider research to be my #1 strength as a thought leader and my process reflects thousands of hours of iteration.
In the walkthrough, I touch on 6 critical research hacks. I cover each of them in-depth in the video and in this post:
Create and update a mind map as you research
Use the power of the Celebrity Effect
Do Landscape Learning
Queue clips to review in the future
Use the Networks Of Enterprise mental model
Use academic studies to build a topic map faster
Free Preview Walkthrough (5 min)
In the full 50 minute research session, I accomplished a lot:
I built a mind map of the topic (people, keywords, ideas, etc)
I found several compelling video clips
I came up with two article ideas
Let’s jump in so you can see how I did it…