Even after 7 years, this video still driving tons of engagement, the power of timeless content

Topical content may last a day or week, but this video is still circulating on Instagram, just found that it was shared by 186,000 people recently.. (https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9ohYnvvCgW/)


To create timeless content:

1.. Focus on the basics, storytelling above all else, more real it feels the better.

2.. Dive deep into audience research, get to the tiniest micro-moments and pain points. Your products solves for one pain point of the audience, for all other pain points on the orbit.. use your content to solve them, your brand exists to make the lives of the audience better, through your products and content.

3.. Create authentically, no fancy graphics were used in this video.. actual book was printed and a top shot, oh and those are my hands

As a video creator, your client or boss keeps changing the scope.. what do you do?

Always remember: You’re creating for the audience of the client or boss, not to please them. When the audience is happy, everyone is happy – all stakeholders, the client, the boss and you.

There must be razor focus on providing value in every second to the audience. The video is made for them, and the purpose is for it to be worthy of sharing, not just watching. Sharing is the highest order of engagement for your work and skills.

So If you have a client or a boss who keeps changing the scope, align your direction with the audience because, in the long term, your skills and creativity in service of the audience will make you rise exponentially in your career.

If you keep pleasing everyone else, you’re just part of the rat race – maybe a faster rat.

You’re struggling to create high-quality video content. What tools can help you succeed?

I see a lot of questions about the steps to create high-quality video content, the tools for scripting, hacking away at faster video production, using AI, or tricks to promote it. Here’s what I think is the most important:

Before diving into all the steps—from scripting to tools, to promotion—you need to really figure out what the goal of this whole exercise is. Because the goal for videos is not just for people to watch. It’s not about reaching them, being in front of them, or capturing their eyeballs. The goal of the video is for people to share it—to genuinely drive engagement, to compel them to comment, to start or be part of conversations. If that’s not the goal for your video content, then you’re just creating stuff like everybody else, yelling at the user. We need to move beyond eyeballs and focus on ideas that will matter to them. Because when the idea matters to them, they make it their own. They share on WhatsApp, download your videos illegally, and do all sorts of things because they’re compelled to take action and be part of it because they love it—it’s about them.

For that, you need to dive deep, research, and connect a lot of dots to come up with that creative idea. Because if you don’t have the dots, there’s no creativity.

To do this, create a list of all the pain points and the micro-moments—all the little things your audience cares about. Collect as much research as you can so you can connect the dots and create something that will matter to them. Because the direction of your efforts—in applying steps, tips, hacks, and tricks, from scripting to promotion—should be about driving engagement, about creating something worth sharing. If the direction is anything else, you’ll end up creating something that just adds to the noise, blending into the crowd.

To make your video stand out and have high-quality engagement as the goal, all the hacks in the world will align because they help facilitate and speed up reaching that goal. In the book, the process of IUCTC helps you dig deep and create a lot of those dots you can connect to come up with ideas that are worthy of sharing. These five categories (Inspirational-Useful-Celebrate-Topical-Change the world), rooted in experience and validation over ten years, are not just random thoughts or brain farts but pointers to create ideas that stick.

The million-dollar question is: what to create. Once you know what to create, scripting, tools, AI—all these things on how to create videos become effortless. It’s the “what to create” that’s the most crucial part, and everything else aligns seamlessly.

And that ‘what’ must be share-worthy—period.