3-steps to seamlessly create *highly-unique* content ideas

If you're worried about what other people think...

Hey Part-Time Creator,

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One thing that puts A LOT of people off building a brand online is the fear of judgment— worrying what other people will think.

You don’t want to post or share your ideas because you’re scared of being criticized, laughed at, or misunderstood.

So you stay silent, even though deep down you know you have something valuable to say — you just don’t want to risk looking foolish or “getting it wrong” in front of others.

If that’s you — you want to build your brand online but you’re scared of what people might say — today’s newsletter will help.

Let’s get into it.

The problem with writing from personal opinion

The problem with writing from personal opinion is that it can make your work easy to dismiss.

There’s always going to be someone who says, “That’s just your experience,” or “That might be true for you, but not for me.” When you build your ideas purely around personal takes, you leave them wide open to being challenged — because opinions, by nature, are subjective.

If you’re playing the personal opinion game, you win by having lots of experience, lots of knowledge or lots of credibility. If you’re starting from scratch, you likely are lacking in one or more of those departments.

If you constantly frame everything as your personal view, you cap your growth.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your view — I would also argue that your personal experience, you’re way of seeing the world, is the place to create from, because it’s yours and nobody can take that away from you.

But what I’m saying here is that a new way of thinking is not to make it the front and center (and in the case below we’ll see it’s barely visible at all, in fact, the only place it is visible is in the idea phase, not the actual content itself).

Remember people read and watch for *them*, not you.

The question is — how do you *use* your view of the world to capture the attention of it. One way is to write from your unique perspective; another way (the way we’ll explore today) is to put your perspective in the idea phase and remove yourself from the details.

Don’t write from opinion, write from fact

Instead of trying to write from opinion, write from fact.

But not just any facts, I’m not talking about researching for ten minutes and writing from that. I’m talking about creating content that has unbelievable layers of detail in one specific element. That is your calling card.

It’s the makings of what I call *highly-unique* content.

What can you do when you have a lack of personal brand but lots of energy to make it work? You can do the things that nobody else is willing to do in the subject you are most interested in.

You see, the internet is full of content, and most of it is different flavours of the same thing. There are 2 ways of seeing that:

1. There’s a flooded market with high competition — I’m never going to make it.

2. There’s a huge opportunity to stand out by being different — I can do that.

This is you for you if you’re thinking is aligned with no.2.

What you want to do is take popular topics and present them in a new way.

I’ve been researching a YouTube channel called BoxLapse. This creator films the growth of various plants over time. We’re not talking a few days, we’re talking in some cases, years. It’s absolutely genius.

What he’s done is take a topic people love: growing plants, and change the format.

That’s it.

Instead of using his personal experience of growing or top tips on how to grow, he simply puts a seed in soil, lets it grow, and films it. Does it work? Sitting at 2.73M subscribers, I think we can safely say it does.

Brilliant YT channel - BoxLapse

Think of it like this: the topic has been validated, so the format can be leveraged.

This is how: in 3 actionable steps:

Step 1: Pick a topic that has *evidence* of success

First, pick an idea that aligns with:

a) what you’re interested in (there’s no point doing this if you’re not having fun)
b) has evidence of success.

For example: You’re into growing vegetables, so you start figuring out what veg people like to plant and come across tomato growing. You look at the views on several YouTube videos: 2M views, 279k views, 647k views.

What does this tell you? Lots of people want to learn about growing tomatoes.

This is the equivalent of validating the market — we can say that there’s interest to warrant spending effort creating content in this space.

So then we move on to step 2.

Step 2: Copy and paste the *format differentiator* prompt

Here’s the prompt:

Format-differentiator GPT

You are a world-class content strategist, known for creating innovative, unique content ideas that disrupt standard formats and leverage universal human curiosity and engagement. Your goal is to take a given content niche and apply different levels of creative differentiation to help it stand out. Think of Boxlapse—a YouTube channel that films plants growing over time with no human interaction—as inspiration. The goal is to apply the following creative principles to come up with 3-5 content ideas:

Key Principles:

- Time as a Storytelling Tool: Use time as an integral part of the narrative, creating a sense of progression.

- Minimalism: Focus on simplicity; avoid overwhelming viewers with excessive commentary or complex elements.

- Process-Driven Content: Emphasize the journey and evolution of a subject, not just the outcome.

- Subverting Expectations: Challenge traditional formats and expectations in the niche.

- Curiosity-Driven Content: Appeal to viewers' curiosity, making them want to watch something evolve over time or reveal deeper layers.

- Relaxation/Therapeutic Value: Introduce peaceful or calming qualities that viewers can engage with in a meditative way.

- Connection to Fundamental Instincts: Tap into viewers’ natural attraction to something satisfying, universal, or inherently interesting.

Additional Differentiation Features:

- Unseen Perspectives (Camera Angle Experimentation)
- Extreme Time-Lapse (Extended Time Horizons)
- Sound-Centric Content (Focus on Audio Over Visuals)
- Anonymous Process (No Faces, Just Hands or Tools)
- Time-Reversed Content (Reverse Process)
- Slow-Motion Detailing (Every Moment in Slow Motion)
- Inanimate Objects as Protagonists (Focus on Objects, Not People)
- Hyper-Realistic Lighting (Play with Light and Shadow)
- Abstract Time-Lapse (Deconstructing the Process)
- Environmental Storytelling (Place Over Person)

Topic: [INSERT ANY TOPIC HERE]

This prompt will spit out a load of ideas that can help you think differently about creating content in your space. This is about taking a popular topic, sticking with it, but thinking slightly differently.

All you need is 1-point of differentiation in a well-established, popular space, and you’re onto a winner.

Step 3: Find your angle and leverage it

Next is about leverage. So after you’ve used the prompt, you should end up with a list like this:

It’s then your job to read through and make an informed decision about which idea seems like it has the most interesting angle.

A good way to gauge this is to just read through and pay attention to which one your brain pays the most attention to. Don’t overthink it, read through the list and then look away from your computer — ask yourself: which one(s) can I remember?

Reading through the list it generated for me, I liked the idea of ‘sound-centric’ coffee brewing. So what I’d do is find high-performing videos or content that uses sound as its USP, and FYI, turns out there are creators that *only* focus on ASMR as their USP.

I just delved into that world for all of 30 seconds, and let’s just say it’s eye-opening.

Then it’s about applying those learnings to your well-established topic and hey-presto, you’re onto a winner.

Remember, find validated ideas and figure out a way to play in that space with a differentiated idea.

All it takes is 1 point of differentiation.

That’s all for today.

Much love,

Eve

Founder - Part-Time Creator Club

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