Most content is 'easy' content:
- Easy to create
- Easy to ignore
- Easy to forget
It lacks depth. Never challenges us to think. And fails to resonate.
The three techniques I'm going to share below are not easy.
They're hard content:
- Hard to create
- Hard to ignore
- Hard to forget
The bad thing about hard things? They're hard.
The good thing about hard things? They differentiate you, make you stand out, and build a competitive advantage.
Let's look at three techniques that are hard but worth it 👇
1/ Add a thread of opinion from start to finish
One of my favourite ways to create instant and sustained engagement in content is by taking a clear stance that acts like a thread from your opening line all the way through to your conclusion.
You can do this even in evergreen educational content—there's always a right way and a wrong way to do things, right? Which means even a "definition" can be an opinion.
Let's take the most bland example: What is SEO?
Intro:
"Most people get SEO all wrong. They think it's 'X, Y, Z', but really it's much more 'A, B, C'."
First section - H2: Definition of SEO
"SEO is defined as A, B, C. Note how I purposefully didn't say X? That's because...."
Second section - H2: How SEO is evolving
"SEO is one of those frustrating businesses than change continuously. A, B, and C are dynamic, but some best practices stay consistent."
...
So, see how throughout the piece we can keep bringing it back to our hard stances and opinions?
It could be one slant that runs from top to bottom—this makes a piece way more engaging because you know you're getting just one perspective, just like you would talking to a real expert.
But it could also be a set of 3-4 hard stances that run through the piece and come up at relevant moments.
These are the articles that get bookmarked.
2/ Use personal anecdotes
"Nobody wants to be stuck in the corner of a party talking to the friend who has no anecdotes." - Stephen Merchant
In school, I was taught a very basic framework for presenting an argument: PEE.
- P: Point - State the main idea or answer to the question
- E: Evidence - Provide evidence to support the point
- E: Explain - Explain why this evidence supports the point and is super relevant to the reader and question
(sorry to everyone who just got school day flashbacks)
I read writing every day that still doesn't actually make any points, provides weak evidence and fails to actually explain to the reader why something is important to them. (Use the LEMA framework to take PEE to the next level for business writing.)
One of my favourite and most overlooked forms of evidence is the personal anecdote.
A personal anecdotes is often going to start with "For example, I...". Or perhaps, "for example, our...".
They allow you to pull a real-world example from your own background, a colleague, a LinkedIn post or wherever to support the point you're making.
What does this do? Personal examples transform abstract concepts into relatable stories. And they make your content a helluva lot more interesting.
3/ Instead of "How to", try "How I"
Like the personal anecdote, bringing "how I" into your content is hard.
Because you actually have to go do the thing you're trying to teach and show it.
"How I" framework shows your direct experience solving problems. Instead of generic advice like "How to grow your audience," write "How I grew my newsletter to 10K subscribers by breaking every 'best practice'" - it proves you've done what you're teaching.
Tips for creating this content:
- If you didn't do it, go do it. If you can't go do it, find someone who has done it and talk to them.
- Think about obstacles and challenges to success - help the audience overcome them.
- Be specific and detailed - it proves you did it and is actually the most helpful.
All three of these "ways to make your content stand out" are difficult. But difficult content is what you want - because if you do it, consistently, you actually build a moat that your audience respects and your competitors can't easily copy.
— Benny
