Ep 95 - Content Has 1-2 Seconds Max...

Content MUST stop the scroll... It's 90% of the success formula.

In this episode, I break down the simple framework behind high-performing short-form content — the structure we use to turn quick videos into engagement, trust and inbound leads.

We cover:

• Why the hook is 90% of the battle in short-form content
• The simple Hook → Deliver → CTA framework
• How to find powerful hooks using Google search data
• Why video length matters less than structure
• The role of overlay text in stopping the scroll
• How to turn engagement into conversations and leads

If you’re creating Reels, Shorts, TikToks or LinkedIn videos, this structure will dramatically improve how your content performs.

Because great content doesn’t start with the camera.

It starts with the hook.

If you want to see how we turn one 30-minute conversation into 30 days of content using this framework, head to contentonly.au and watch the demo.

Subscribe for weekly episodes on content, marketing systems and generating inbound leads.

Transcript

Hook, deliver, CTA. If you can stick to that, that's when you're going to get content that stops people scrolling, gives them value upfront so you create this trust and goodwill impact, but also promote that opportunity for engagement, which can create leads. It can create people that are raving fans. Getting attention and stopping the scroll is becoming increasingly more difficult. We're going to go through a structure for creating short form content. We're going to talk about hook deliver CTA today. And I'm going to take you back to a situation in a boardroom where I was presenting and there were 10 business owners and a slide was up on the screen and it said the average human attention span was 8.25 seconds. Business owner put their hand up. It says, "Well, shouldn't all our videos be 8.25 seconds?" I said, "No, great if it can be. " There's a structure and a framework that we use for short form content that dictates whether it's 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds if we follow this format. 

He found it very hard to accept that I couldn't give a black and white answer on exactly how long a video should be. And I'm going to share that framework with you in today's conversation. So the hook is undoubtedly the most important part of any content, whether it's advertising, long form, short form. That split second we have to stop someone's scroll and to get them to look at what we're doing and potentially engage and interact with the video or the post is everything. We need to nail our hooks because that's 90%, if not more, of the content battle. Even if it's a great piece of content, if we don't get that opening sentence right, we don't get that headline right, if we don't get the overlay text on a video or an image right, then they're probably going to go straight past it onto the next thing that gets their attention. 

When it comes to creating hooks, particularly if you're a business owner and you've got a niche target audience, a step that I mentioned in a lot of podcast episodes to find these hooks is going to the people also ask section on Google. There's a GPT that we've built that if you go to the show notes, it'll bring up the top 30 questions people are asking for any search in your niche, which you can play around with. And let's say I'm doing one for social media and one of the questions was, what's the best time to post a social media? That would be the hook. So I'd open up my short form piece of content with when's the best time to post a social media. That would see it as a text overlay on top of my video. It would also be the first sentence that you see in the written part of the captions when you read the post. 

And I know when I'm doing that, I'm creating a relevant piece of content for what my audience is searching and asking online. Step two in this process is deliver. We need to nail what we promised in the hook. So we're ticking the boxes for the person that has traded their attention to watch what we've posted online. So I might say, if you've got a mom and dad target audience, it's the best time to post to a platform like Meta, TikTok or YouTube is between 7:00 PM and 10:00 PM at night. Then I might say, if you're a B2B business owner and you're posting on LinkedIn, it's usually between 7:00 to 9:00 AM in the morning. That's delivering on the value as efficiently and effectively as possible. We don't want to waffle and linger here. Ideally, if we can keep our short form content under 30 seconds, that's a really good benchmark. 

So our hook, deliver on that as efficiently as possible. And then we sign off with a CTA, which is where we ask for engagement because we want to tell the algorithm that people are interacting with our content so they show it to more people. So I might say as my CTA, put in the comments, your target audience, I'll let you know the best platform and time to post your content. And then I'm giving additional value and I'm also able to potentially open up conversations with the people that comment that could go offline and into Messenger, which can be a powerful way to monetize and create inbound opportunities for your business. So that's the structure for short form content. And I want you to write that down, hook, deliver, CTA. If you can stick to that and you'll get much better at delivering with practise over time, that's when you're going to get content that stops people scrolling, gives them value upfront so you create this trust and good will impact, but also promote that opportunity for engagement, which can create leads. 

It can create people that are raving fans, people that are having these human back and forth exchanges with you that create multiple touch points. I'll reiterate one point that's really, really important with this topic and that's the overlays. And we're starting to introduce this in a much higher level now with our clients that we work with. And that's having the text sitting on top of a video or image. So people, when they're scrolling, that's hovering and they know exactly what that piece of content is about. So in the example that I use, I would have a overlay on top of my video. When's the best time to post to social media? And then people, when they're scrolling and there's all these different videos and posts screaming for their attention, they know if that's something that they want to stop, press play on and hear what I have to say. 

And people that aren't interested can scroll past. If we don't do that step at the moment, it's very hard for people to determine what your content is about. And you put your head in the mindset of someone scrolling through the newsfeed and do this after this episode and have a look at what gets your attention first. It's usually the visual. And if we don't demonstrate on that visual what our content is about, people don't know and therefore they're more likely to move on versus if they do know what it's about and they are interested, stop, press play and start listening to it. If they see that it's only 20 or 30 seconds long, chances are you can retain their attention if you deliver on the value. And that's why it's really important to have this structure for your short form content. Now, if you want to find a very powerful way to create 30 days of content in 30 minutes a month using this strategy where you answer the questions that are front and centre of your target clients that they're searching online, you can go to contentonly.au and watch a demonstration there. 

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