How to Create High-Quality + Meaningful Content
I used to be a full-time blogger.
But then I discovered YouTube and my passion for filmmaking.
And podcasts.
And photography.
And 2200 character-long Instagram captions.
But before that – from 2011 until about 2017- I was writing all the time. Every day.
Posting shorter articles several times week eventually turned into long-form pieces published once a week.
Writing these deep articles was exhilarating because I discovered so many things during the writing process.
All these new thoughts and ideas helped me to:
come up with more truly original ideas
evolved my thinking around the subject
enabled me to create content that was truly meaningful.
As I started to dive more and more into visual and audio content, I wrote less and less – apart for the occasional newsletter and longer Instagram posts, and of course the outlines for the videos and podcasts. But almost no true long-form articles.
I recently realized that this was when I lost my edge.
Until a few weeks ago.
I just finished writing my book and observed that, as I was writing my 1000 to 2000 words a day, my ideas got better and more original. My thinking became sharper and more creative again.
In addition, few months ago, I started writing full-fledged essays as a script basis for my videos.
Through that, my videos became better, more creative, more meaningful. The feedback in the comments and emails supported that.
I put two and two together and understood this truth:
Writing is the most important skill as a creator – no matter what medium you serve.
The Shallow Problem
I love the Internet. I also really don’t like it.
I love social media. I also don’t like it at all.
I’m sure you can resonate.
Here is what I DO like:
I like the deep waters of the Internet and Social Media.
But the issue is:
We are mostly surrounded by the shallows.
It’s so easy these days to share our words and videos with the world at the touch of a button. Too easy maybe for many content creators, who literally just fart out noise – or also known as:
Undeveloped ideas and content with no real substance or little deeper meaning.
Here is an older interview with Moby, in which he talks about deep versus shallow creativity.
The problem is that people are happy to consume and always ready to distract themselves from their lives and inner world. They like shallow content because it makes consuming and distracting really easily accessible. Easier than books. Easier than a documentary. Easier than a 2000 word article.
Don’t get me wrong – I sometimes like the shallows too. But I have been having less and less tolerance for it in my information diet, because shallow content is like fast food.
What you put in, is what you put out:
If all I consume is Instagram, I’d hard to expect myself to produce a New York Times bestseller book. Or any real deep meaningful content for that matter.
But loads of creators on Instagram and YouTube (and podcasters) thrive in the shallows and are growing their followers and increasing their likes like crazy – shallow content is clearly popular.
I can’t deny that it works. Just look at the biggest YouTube channels or Instagram accounts out there. PewDiePie. David Dobrik. The Kardashians. These might be extremes, but also proof that shallow equals huge numbers.
I recently watched the movie Idiocracy. It got me a little worried, especially when looking at developments like TikTok and the increase in use of Instagram stories.
We are being dumbed down by bite-sized content. Actually, I’m not sure if much of it qualifies as content anymore. Just noise.
We are down to 15 seconds worth of attention. Nice.
I’m not saying we can’t share meaningful messages in 15 seconds. But how deep do they go within the receiver? Do you remember the stories you watched this morning? Or yesterday? Or last week?
These are negative doomsday thoughts and I usually don’t get caught up in them too much, but for the sake of my argument in this article, roll with it, will ya?
The New Hopeful Generation of Creators?
Many YouTubers and podcasters sit down, press record and just ramble on because they didn’t fully develop their ideas. They jam out on a five-point outline of maybe 50 words (or five). Others freestyle their video content without much preparation.
Or they don’t think about it much at all, vlog their days and – tada – a new video is born.
The average Instagrammer takes a few minutes to craft a caption. But even if you go all-in with the 2.200 allowed characters – that’s no more than 400 words. I consider that shallow waters.
So many content creators just shit out content – because well, they can. Technology makes it incredibly easy.
It takes time and effort to fully explore a topic or a question, to do some quality research and actually come up with original ideas and make them presentable. Many creators don’t want to make that investment.
And for many, it seems to work, because their platforms keep growing. But just because something is growing doesn’t mean that’s a good sign on the whole or for humanity at large.
But there is also a great development happening:
The rise of YouTube creators who create deep and meaningful content.
They inspire others with smart original ideas, amazing storytelling and deep food for thought:
How do they do it? What makes their content different?
Here is what they don’t do:
They think deeply about their content, they plan it out. They don’t just smash out an outline and riff on it.
Here is what I know most of them do – let’s call it their “creative secret”:
They sit down and write (some consider it scripting or storyboarding).
Let’s talk about it.
Writing.
Real writing.
1. Writing is the most fundamental and yet underrated skill for all creators
“Writing is mostly thinking, which means becoming a better writer makes you a better thinker. You learn to communicate more clearly and persuasively.”
No matter if you call yourself a YouTuber or podcaster or influencer or online entrepreneur –
Writing is golden.
It is at the core of everything I put out into the world.
My videos are based on my writing.
My podcasts are based on my writing.
My courses, programs, and workshops are based on my writing.
I share my writing in my newsletter, my blog and on Instagram.
I have written two books.
I believe that the art and the skill of writing are highly underrated in a world that is increasingly dominated by visual and audio content.
Most people only write rough outlines for their podcasts and videos. But think about it:
How deep can you go mentally when jotting down ideas in an outline? Not very. You will stay in shallow waters.
The best creators on YouTube write out their videos.
The best podcasters write out their podcast episodes.
The reason why some the creators mentioned above are so inspiring and their channels so fast-growing is because they sit down and write out the content. At least, they plan it out in a lot of detail and they put a lot of effort into planning their content.
On top of that, most written social media content is shallow. Even when creators share (pseudo) long-form writing on Instagram – how deep can you really go in 2200 characters? I always struggled really hard with that, because that limit is often the beginning when thinking and ideas get real good.
2. Writing leads to organized thinking, which leads to better content
What if you wrote an entire essay about a topic before you pressed record – instead of just an outline with bullet points?
What if you went 1000-3000 words deep with an idea instead of just a couple paragraphs?
Because you know what will happen in that process?
You will think deeper, like way deep. In doing so, your mind will open you up to new ideas to come through. Better ideas. More ideas. More original ideas. It raises the quality of your thinking by infinity.
The more you dig into the writing well, the more you will discover treasures that you wouldn’t get to find if you only stayed on the surface of an outline or the length of an Instagram post.
Writing forces you to pay attention. It helps you understand your mind more and become more curious about your own thoughts and the world.
So it is not that you NEED the essay for your videos or podcasts – you don’t need to read it off word by word. You can cut it back down and turn it back into a rough outline to riff off. You need the writing to explore and come up with new ideas and original thought.
As Paul Graham writes, “expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong”. And for me too, the best ideas and thoughts come to me when I am deep into writing.
The same is true for the video editing process. I don’t have the best ideas before I start editing but during. The muse visits those that show up and sit and sit and create and are brave enough to go to deeper levels than most others.
In essence: Writing will make your videos better. It will make your podcasts better. By better, I mean more high quality.
It helps you articulate ideas that an outline or just “winging” it never could.
I usually write about 1000-2000 words on a topic. Then I decide what to use it for – a video, a podcast, a newsletter or article. Depending on the decision (usually very intuitive), I adjust the length or structure.
3. Writing will help you make a more meaningful impact
Thinking deeper through writing will help you become smarter and more articulate. Which in turn will have a higher and more meaningful impact on the people who consume your ideas. This is crucial.
The better your ideas, the more of an impact you will have on the people that take in your content.
It will enable us to create more meaningful and sophisticated content rather than more noise in a never-ending world of endless content.
Deeper equals more meaningful.
I’m sure there will be people disagreeing with me by pointing to content that would disprove my argument. Sure.
The exceptions prove the rule.
But most of us are not born storytellers or public speakers. Most of us are not Seth Godin, who can express original and deep ideas in very few words (also, he has written like 18 books – so that man knows how to think).
My mission is to encourage creators to help raise the bar of the quality of content out there.
I believe one way we can do this is by improving our skill of writing and by dedicating more time to it as we create our content.
We need less fast food and more higher-quality nutrition for our minds.
A true dedication to writing will not only change your life but those of all the people you reach with your content.
Writing is the most important skill you can cultivate.
Writing is golden.