Why 'value-driven' content doesn't work

You aren’t as smart as you think.

There's a saying, 'The more you know, the more you know you don’t know,' often attributed to Albert Einstein and Aristotle.

This sentiment is also known as the Paradox of Knowledge, which is the humbling realisation that there will always be more to discover and understand.

True experts know this inherently. However, they go on to tell the world in their content how smart they are, trying to assert their authority in their field.

But, in actual fact, they know deep down that what they know now is different from what they knew yesterday. And it will be different again tomorrow. Because knowledge isn’t absolute and finite.

So their content ends up in this Valley of Death, sometimes for months or even years.

Until, finally, they realise that sharing their 'expertise' isn’t working for them. And they give up.

But what if I told you there was another way? Two, in fact.

Most of us take the same path in our content journey. We start with what I call The Reporter, before transitioning into The Expert (this is the Valley of Death). And then, hopefully, we finally realise the truth that we actually know nothing, and become The Fool instead.

Let me break these all down for you. As I do, ask yourself which of these phases describe where you are right now. Then, hopefully, your path forward will be clear.

The Reporter

When people first start posting content for their personal brand, they typically show up as The Reporter.

Usually, this looks like sharing stories about things they have learnt from others or things they have done.

Think about when you see people sharing pics from their holidays. In a professional sense, they might share pics from a networking event they went to and what they took away from it.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this sort of content, but the people best at this style share truly valuable insights from their experiences. They are reporting what they have learnt or experienced. Then, their audience can share in the experience or learning with them.

This is also how almost all podcasts start.

Someone will start inviting people onto their podcast and ask them a bunch of questions to either uncover their story or have them share their specialised knowledge with the world. It’s simple, takes little prep, and can quite often make valuable content.

The Expert

At some point along the content journey, everyone experiences the Dunning-Kruger effect.

This is a cognitive bias that occurs when someone with limited knowledge or skill in a certain area overestimates their abilities.

When you transition to The Expert, your content is going to change from reporting on experiences and learnings. Instead, you'll begin to state ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ about your area of expertise and call it ‘providing value’ for your audience.

You're going to tell them why you're right, and why they need to stop and listen to you.

I’ve been guilty of this plenty in my content journey. Telling the world why they have been building their brand wrong for so long.

(I'm doing it in this article, for F$&K sake haha. But hopefully by the end of this article I’ve managed to make myself look like The Fool, but we’ll see).

The reason you know I’m right here, though, is because you, too, don’t follow people who make content that teaches forcefully. Think about the following two headlines and which you’d most likely read if you were randomly scrolling on LinkedIn.

1. How to write a great post

2. I wasted $100,000 on content last year

You're going to read the second one, every time.

And for everyone saying you’d read the first one, it’s because you're primed from this article to want to learn how to write a great post.

But if you were just scrolling, which is how we all consume social media, you’d skip right past it. Because reading about how someone spent $100,000 on content is fascinating.

I could write a post about the concept of this article and start it with either of those headlines. But you're much more likely to read the one that doesn't position me as a know-it-all.

The reason I call The Expert phase the Valley of Death in content creation is because we start making more and more of this content as we get more confident with our ability to produce.

But it starts delivering diminishing returns until we hit a point where we can’t justify the expense of time or money to produce said content.

Then, we quit.

The Fool

If you’ve made it to this stage in your content, you have more determination and drive than almost everyone in the world.

Because to truly get to this point in your content journey, you have had to make so much crap content that no one consumed for long enough for you to take this next step.

I congratulate you.

For everyone else who hasn't become The Fool in their content yet, let me break this down.

When you are The Fool, you have fully embraced the paradox of knowledge. You realise that you actually know nothing. You understand that you are constantly learning and growing as a person, as a content creator, as a marketer, as a business owner.

You start producing content, sharing stories about what you’ve learned and the challenges you have had to overcome.

Take the headline 'I wasted $100,000 on content last year.' This inspires a story that shares how I was creating content for years by speaking as The Expert.

By doing so, I left money on the table with potential leads who weren’t reading my content and therefore didn’t reach out when they needed my help. It also speaks to all the time and money I spent to make this content.

I’m sharing a story that still teaches a lesson that I know well, but in a format that humanises me. We all know what it’s like to waste money, either by doing it ourselves, or watching others do so, and so it's a concept that resonates.

And the best stories always win. By being open and vulnerable about my journey, it allows you to trust me, relate to me, and it’ll make you read it even if you aren’t trying to learn about great content writing.

So, where to from here?

And this is where we try to wrap this article up so I don’t look like The Expert.

Because let’s be honest, this simplistic analogy for content creation stages is far from comprehensive.

There are so many areas it doesn’t touch on, and in a year I will have evolved this concept again. But what I do know is that this method has helped me when I create my own content to look at it again and ask myself, am I being an Expert here? Or a Fool?

It stopped me wasting $100,000 a year creating content people don’t want to consume. It’s shown in the almost doubling of viewership I have had, and that's just on LinkedIn.

Next year, I’ll have more to share on this and maybe even a new theory.

But for now, if you are stuck in the Valley of Death, just remember you are a FOOL.

You know it, so embrace it and stop trying to be The Expert.

No one asked you to be one, anyway.

-Stanley, Founder & CEO