I recently turned 35… and like any other teenager of my age would… I spent my birthday week in Goa.
Goa is a place of extraordinary beauty. What fascinates me is the wide variety of businesses ranging from cafes & shacks to bike rentals and taxis. All of them compete with each other to get customers. Trying to out-smart each other. Elbowing their way ahead. Sometimes indulging in shady tactics to make a sale happen.
Wouldn’t shady tactics destroy a business, though?
Not always. Their customers are tourists… and well, most of them are not repeat customers. So even if the businesses don’t build relationships or earn trust, they wouldn’t suffer as much. They can get away with aggression and sleazy strategies.
For others, trust is important
Unlike the businesses in Goa, your business probably cannot allow shady tactics. Repeat customers matter, and the lifetime value of a customer is not trivial. Your business needs to build trust.
Unfortunately, most of us fail to build this trust.
In this article, we will cover –
1. Why do we fail to build trust?
2. What is ‘point of view’ content?
3. How do we get started with it?
Let’s jump into the first point – Why do we fail to build trust?
But before that, let’s look at the current state of the internet.
Noisy internet and commodity content
If there is one word to describe the internet… it’s noisy.
Every day, a ton of new content is published. Most of it looks something like –
“5 ways to grow your website traffic”
“7 ways to make your book a best seller”
“6 ways to dress like a monkey”
And so on.
There is a word for content like this – Commodity content.
Commodity content panders to the algorithms
Commodity content is designed to please Google and social media algorithms. The plan is to hack the algorithms, be discovered, go to the top and get massive traffic. Unfortunately, multiple players are playing this game. There are thousands. Millions. Competing for the same spot. And while a couple of players would win this race, the others would lose.
So what do we do?
What do we do when we find out that the internet is noisy? We hustle. We try to beat this commodity content.
How?
By adding more noise to the noise. By creating more commodity content.
Sounds crazy… but that’s what we do.
We work harder than our competition. If our competitor has written an article on – “7 ways to improve your Facebook ads”, we publish – “The ultimate guide for Facebook ads.”
And then, what do we do?
We take our long-form content and chop it into tiny little pieces and frantically distribute it everywhere. No platform is spared. Repurposing, baby. Tik-Tok, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube shorts… we aspire to conquer them all.
And then we win
Err… No. Unfortunately, despite the hard work, we lose the battle. Or worse, get burnt out. Time and money wasted. And at this point, we truly feel stuck.
And what happens when commodity content is discovered?
Even by some miracle, when commodity content is discovered, does it work? Let’s find out.
Go to Google, and do a simple search – “How to lose weight?”. Click on the top 2 results and explore a little bit. Tell me what you find.
These are the results that Google showed me –
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As you can see, the advice is generic. I read the articles, and they didn’t transform me in any way whatsoever. Commodity content is mediocre and has negligible potential to transform the reader emotionally.
Yes, that is the purpose of the content that we create. To change the reader. To take them from point A to point B. Commodity content miserably fails to do that.
Can there be a better way?
Can there be an approach to content that prevents us from making dancing reels on Instagram? An approach where we wouldn’t need to fight with other content pieces to get discovered?
Instead of competing, can we pull our audience towards us?
‘A point of view’ does that
It’s like a magnet. When you have a strong, enticing point of view… you attract your audience. Not the whole world. Just a small part of the world… an audience that aligns with your values.
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What is a point of view?
A point of view is your unique perspective on a specific topic. This point of view showcases how you view this topic, how you approach it, and your closely held beliefs about it.
How do you articulate your point of view? The following template could be useful –
‘Most of the world believes ______. But from my experience, I think ______.’
Wes Kao has a good definition. She calls it a ‘spiky point of view’ –
A spiky point of view is a perspective others can disagree with. It’s a belief you feel strongly about and are willing to advocate for. It’s your thesis about topics in your realm of expertise. You can read more about it here.
Here’s a quick example –
If you are creating content on Product Management, your point of view could be – “For an early-stage start-up, being too data-driven can be harmful. Instead, founders should let intuition guide them.”
Or
Your point of view could be – “Most early-stage start-ups are not data-driven at all, and that’s why they fail.”
Both these are opposed to each other, and yet both of them are points of view.
How does a point of view help?
As mentioned earlier, commodity content has a few problems. Content with a point of view is better because –
A. Content with a point of view grabs attention
Unlike commodity content, content produced with a point of view doesn’t drown in the sea of sameness. It doesn’t struggle to get noticed. A powerful point of view will snap the reader out of their mundane scrolling and grab their attention. Point-of-view content has more discoverability.
B. A point of view resonates deeply
Remember the Google search that we did 3 paragraphs before? Compare that with the screenshot below. The content is published by Dan Go, who has built a significant brand in the fitness space.
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As you can see, Dan has a strong point of view – Don’t get lost in the distraction. Keep things simple.
This point of view separates his content from all the ‘weight-loss’ content we discovered earlier. It immediately connects with a reader. Perhaps, it won’t resonate with a cross-fit guy or gal, but it would deeply connect with a few select others.
His Twitter and Linkedin accounts show that. Go check them out.
A point of view saves you from burn-out
There is another by-product of having a point of view that no one talks about.
Anyone who creates content must put in a considerable amount of time daily and every week. He needs to get his butt in a chair and think of the next idea that he wants to talk about. The slog is never-ending.
During this slog, pandering to the algorithms is tiring. We get bored when we create just to please the google algorithm. Tired. Sheer willpower can take us to a certain extent. But eventually, we burn out.
The point of view gives us fuel
A point of view prevents us from burning out. It gives us the fuel… the motivation to produce content every day. This point of view is in our DNA… and it’s such a closely (and authentically) held belief that creating content doesn’t seem like a task.
Will I just randomly stumble upon my point of view?
The most obvious question at this point would be – How exactly do you build a ‘point of view’? Will lightning strike you, and you would be blessed with clarity? Or will there be an angelic intervention? Unlikely.
A point of view needs to be built and discovered simultaneously. How do you do that, though?
Writing everyday
To uncover this point of view, writing can be our best friend. When we force ourselves to write our thoughts every day, our point of view gets refined. Clarity appears. We make a hypothesis. And then we build on it. We get some feedback. We study other examples and get some more data. And then, we refine it further. The process goes on.
A point of view is revealed bit by bit. It’s a messy process and needs patience.
Summarize
Phew, that was a lot. To summarize –
1. Most businesses want to earn trust by hacking the system. And so they create commodity content.
2. We try to beat this content by creating even more commodity content.
3. A better strategy is to have a point of view
4. When your content has a point of view, it is discovered easily and resonates deeply with the audience
5. Point of view also helps you, the creator, to produce content every day
6. Point of view is gradually discovered and built. Writing is the best tool to uncover your point of view.
Next step
A good next step would be to build a villain (point of view) for your brand using these easy steps.