Creating a Video Series: Why Your Business Needs One

0:00I'm Mari Smith, known as the premier Facebook marketing expert, aka queen of Facebook, and this is actually my 14th time because I have been at every single social media marketing world. There is no amount of sophisticated technology that can ever take the place of live, in person, IRL, heart to heart, face to face. You could very well meet some of your best friends, clients, joint venture partners, alliances, have opportunities, podcasts, speaking engagements, it's extraordinary. So come on in for this beautiful, in-person experience. Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info.

0:38Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. I'm really excited about today's show. If you have always wanted to create a video series, for lack of better words, where you are regularly creating videos with an intent and a purpose, and you're kind of like, I have no idea how to do this.

1:18There is so much framework information inside of today's episode and areas where you can get inspired. I think you're gonna find it super valuable. If you are new to this show, follow us on whatever app you're listening to us on so you automatically get all of our future content. Let's now transition over to this week's interview. Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, we're going to explore why every business can benefit from a video series. My special guest is a video strategist who helps creators and founders create video content that builds relationships and grows their businesses.

1:54She's the founder of Digital Chick Productions. Her podcast is The Binge Session. Her course is Build a Binge-worthy Brand. Darren Strauss, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. There was a lot of bees in there. I know. It's like, it's a little bit of a tongue twister. So how in the world did you get into video and storytelling? I'd love to hear a little bit of your journey. Awesome. Yeah. So I went to school for it. I went to school for video production and video storytelling. for broadcasting. And then I went to UCLA for screenwriting. And like most creatives, I came out and was paralegal.

2:32I was working as a temp, which was awesome. It was a temp at a financial firm. So that was even better. But at the time, this was around 2009 and the economic crisis was happening. And there were stories everywhere because everything was crazy, if you remember that time. And so I ended up creating a web series because it was right at right as web series were starting to rise and people were really curious about web series. So I created a scripted web series was an ensemble series. I was in it, which is hilarious. But there were many other more talented people in it, but I was in it, too. And that series changed my life.

3:09I posted it on YouTube. And from there, I was nominated for a Writers Guild Award. I did eventually win a Writers Guild Award for something else. But I ended up then being able to build my own content company where I worked with different brands, a lot of media brands, and worked on all different types of content from web series to podcasts to live events to conferences to TV documentaries and kind of everything in between. and storytelling is the thing that connects it. So, you know, video strategy, content strategy is kind of where my expertise came in. Yeah, that's been my journey. Well, tell us what you're doing now.

3:50Oh, so I decided last year that I was going to come back to YouTube, but this time as a personal brand, which, you know, for anybody that's a founder, that's like, are you kidding me? I have to be a personal brand. I get you because that was me too. I'm raising my hand on that one. I'm in that crazy journey right now. Yeah, so I mean, I had a content company, you know, it was getting awards and stuff like that, but people trust personal brand. They trust the founder more than they trust your positioning statement. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to do what I would do for a client because of course, you know, you do it for your clients, but then you don't do it for yourself.

4:33So I decided to come back to YouTube thinking, oh, it's, you know, I've done, I'm doing YouTube for so long, but I've never been a personal brand. So that was, it was a little bit of a learning curve. And then I ended up, you know, I, now I consult with a lot of personal brands and founders. And so that's really interesting. I've gotten to see the creator economy pretty much, pretty much from every lane of content at this point. So yeah, but this is a new, new phase and I'm enjoying it. Love it. Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is you went to school and you studied the whole storytelling, script writing, film, whatever, you know, that whole thing from a traditional media perspective.

5:14And then you went and you got a job doing something totally different. And then you effectively said, oh, maybe we could figure out a way to take some of these skills. And you started creating series, you know, in the 2009-ish era, which is very different era than we're in right now, right? where people were publishing like episodic shows and series and stuff like that, which is really, really cool. And now you're back doing it for founders and it's really cool. So you've seen all the different angles and I'm just curious from your lens, what are some of the misconceptions that a lot of people have when it comes to online video?

5:48What are some of the things that maybe they believe is true, but is not true? I think the biggest misconception that people have about online video is that you need to go viral to be successful. And the reality is that going viral is overrated. You need to be binge worthy. And especially in this era, it is all about being binge worthy. And so that's the thing that I really focus on. The cool thing about my background is that because I come from the TV structure and the episodic and Hollywood world, I try to merge that type of storytelling to the personal brand, the founder brand, the brand, so that you can develop storytelling that is binge worthy, which is a new shift that a lot of brands and founders really need to be thinking about.

6:42Tell me a little bit more about why a viral hit isn't as big a deal as everybody thinks and then what binge worthy really means. I'd love to hear just a little bit more on that. Well, the thing about going viral is that it gives you a lot of attention, but once, I mean, maybe you repeat it, but a lot of times you're chasing that. And, and that person that watched that video often does not watch anything else. And if you're building a business, you, you ultimately want people to buy things, right? That's the goal. That's why you're making content. That's why you're making videos. And so if you're chasing that viral hit, there's no relationship that's built with that whatsoever because they come once they, you know, it's a dopamine hit and then they're gone.

7:26And there's no no emotional investment that they have in you as a brand, in your content. And so the difference between thinking about being binge worthy is that you're creating content for the relationship. You're creating content for the viewer to come back. And if you remember, Google had that 7-11-4 rule. You've probably heard of it. It's seven hours, 11 touch points, and four different platforms. It takes that many touch points to get a sale. I might be mixing up which was the 7 and which was the 11. So if you're chasing virality, you're not building enough time with that person in order to get the sale.

8:07And that's why being binge worthy is important for you as a founder. And the platforms all want you to make binge worthy content because they've all shifted to being operating more like TV networks, broadcast networks. And so they want the viewers to stay on the platform and keep watching. So it kind of works together. Love it. Really, really fascinating. So the concept of creating a series of videos or, you know, a bunch of videos that people want to watch in some sort of a binge session is a really interesting concept. What's the benefit or upside to businesses that are listening right now if they were to embrace this?

8:48said another way, like what's waiting for them on the other side? Like, what is that super cool thing that they could achieve as a result of possibly doing this? What we're going to talk about today? Video series, build relationships, relationships, build trust, and trust gets sales. And that's why a lot of brands right now are creating series. It's a really, really big trend that a lot of brands are doing. And that's for that exact reason, because you're building a long-term relationship with a potential client instead of chasing a one-time hit. A lot of ads in particular, the old way of creating content marketing was an interruption.

9:28And education, which is another type of content that a lot of content marketers make or a lot of brands make in their content marketing, is awesome. And it was awesome for a long period of time because video platforms operated on keywords and people were always trying to optimize their keywords for search. And so educational content was a big win because you could figure out what those keywords were and you could string a bunch of them together if you had to, and then you would rank for those keywords. But with AI search, everything is different. People are searching different. Context is different.

10:05And so that type of content doesn't work. And on the same subject of AI, people don't go to video platforms in the same way to get educated. They go to their AI tools to get educated. But what they do go to video platforms for is to get a human's perspective on it. And that's where the relationship building comes in because you want to be the person that or the brand that they keep coming back to, to help them through whatever problem that they're dealing with. Love it. Okay. Let's talk about what the heck a video series is real quick. And then once you define what it is, talk about like what kind of concepts we need to wrap our brain around before we were to create something like this.

10:46And then we'll get into kind of how to do it. So let's start with defining what the heck is a video series. So YouTube made this interesting for me because I always defined show and series differently. So a show is basically your brand narrative. It's your overall narrative. So if you have a YouTube channel, it's your overall narrative on that channel. And then I define series as a repeatable format within that show. Now, the problem is that YouTube just added a new feature or made a new feature available to partner channels, which is that in addition to being able to create playlists and podcasts on YouTube, if you're a partner member, you can also create a special playlist, which is called a show.

11:36And what that is, is a series. It's a repeatable format. It can be either serialized or episodic. And it's meant for viewing on the TV app because on YouTube, TV viewing has overtaken mobile viewing. And so they want to create an experience that's a little bit more similar to Netflix. So when you're on Netflix, you search and you come to a page for a show that you want to watch and you land on episode one and you watch it in order. But on YouTube and other social media platforms, you can land on episode 12. You can land on episode whatever. Right. And so YouTube just launched this new feature where you can organize your series.

12:20They're calling it, calling it show, but you could organize it in an, whatever order you want it to be watched in. So it always starts at the first episode and then it stacks basically kind of like if you're watching a TV show and you want to catch up, you usually start at episode one and you work your way through it. Yeah. Interesting. Obviously, it's not available to everyone right now. But effectively, what I'm hearing you say is this could be something as simple as a playlist on YouTube, right? Where you have a bunch of shows, or it could be something as sophisticated as this new format that YouTube is coming out with.

12:54And could it also be something you could do off of YouTube? Or is YouTube pretty much the preferred platform for, quote unquote, a series? No, series are taking over every single platform right now. Now, you may have heard of microdramas, which are vertical series. They were kind of like scripted soap operas. Each episode was under 60, 90 seconds, and they're meant to be binged. And they started, you know, in China and India. And then they came to the U.S. a couple years ago. But they really started to take off this year. It's like a$14 billion industry this year. Literally, its latest quote was that it was going to be worth$14 billion.

13:28And so because of the success of micro dramas, these episodic or serialized series that are meant for vertical feeds, TikTok now has a series app called Pine Drama. And I think they actually are launching a second app as well. And on Instagram, they don't have their own app. They do have a TV app that they're testing now. but on Instagram, the big thing is something called signature series, which is what in my day we called web series. Nobody says web series anymore. That's me being really old, but in, in the Instagram land, they say signature series. And again, it's just a repeatable format that people recognize, repeatable and recognizable format that people keep coming back for.

14:15Got it. Okay. So just to be clear, even though we're talking about quote unquote stuff that seems out of the realms of possibilities for small businesses. That's not really the samples we're talking that Darren is talking about are just hypothetical examples of the bigger movement happening on the social platforms towards television kind of shows, but we're not talking necessarily about television kind of content, right? So what do we need to consider right now? If we, as either marketers or entrepreneurs or founders want to go ahead and start creating a series, like what are some basic concepts we need to be thinking about?

14:51Because we do not come from that world that you come from. And there's probably some stuff that you want to share that maybe we need to just consider before we even begin something like this. Yeah. And a series is not necessarily a big budget Hollywood series at all. And if you look at Instagram in particular, it's people, there's a trend called yapping, which I kind of find hilarious that they gave it a name because it's just talking. It's just talking, but it's called yapping. It's when you sound like you're just talking off the cuff. And so that's also a big trend on Instagram. But the point being is that what makes people want to come back is not the production.

15:32What it is, is the storytelling. And it's thinking about content for emotional investment. And so the things that are most important is character. That's really important. Narrative is really important and tension, having tension, actually one more stakes. So character, narrative, stakes, and tension are the most important thing. And anybody can do that. That doesn't require you to have a big budget. You could be talking just like I'm talking right now and have all of those things in your videos. Love it. Okay. So let's start with educational stories. Cause when we were prepping for this, we discussed that this might be the easiest thing for a lot of people to talk about because we have so many people that can tell some sort of a story about what they do for their clients or what they do inside of their business.

16:23And let's just kind of break down, you have a cool formula on this just to kind of help people wrap their heads around this. Yeah, the base formula for creating, the base structure, I should say, for creating an engaging educational video is something I call the 4-H formula because, you know, I want to be cute. And it's got four H's and that is for hook, heart, help, hero. And let me break each one of those down. Hook, which most people are familiar with if you're creating content, because that isn't the thing everybody talks about is having a good hook. And so what your hook, what you want to establish in your hook is what the problem is and the promise that you're making to the viewer about what they're going to experience in this video.

17:11And so that's what you're trying to establish in the hook. You also are trying to establish the stakes, which is why does this matter? Why does this matter to the viewer? And that is something you're trying to accomplish in your hook. Then you get to a section that I always advise, which is called the heart. section because it's about you. So if you think about a television show, you think about Law and Order. Let me give that as an example. When you first turn an episode on, it starts with the problem, right? It starts with the case. It doesn't start with Olivia Benson showing up and saying, you know, hey, I'm coming into work and here I'm going to drink my coffee and I'm really qualified to solve this case.

17:55No, it starts with a problem and that's your hook. That's what you're starting with. You're throwing them right into the problem. And then in a Law & Order episode, Olivia Benson shows up and you figure out why she's qualified to solve this problem, right? And that's what you're doing. And that's where you would use something that I teach, which is called a bite size backstory. So if you know what your backstory is or your founder's story is, this is a great way to share that, right? Because it's sharing why you are the person that is going to be able to help them solve this problem. And usually it's because you've experienced it, you felt it, you've been through it, or you're qualified, or you have this, these years of experience.

18:39And then also why it matters to you so that they build trust. So that's why I call it heart because it's about building trust, right? So if the first part is establishing that you understand their problem, the next part is establishing that they should trust you. Why, why should they listen to you? And this is why. Then you get into the help section, which is pretty much most of the video, right? That's where you're helping them. And there's, you know, I have an even more in-depth structure. I usually teach three-act structure, which I won't go into here. But within the help section is where you're going to be spending the bulk of your time.

19:16And then at the very end of the video, you want to think of your viewer. Actually, throughout the whole video, you want to think of your viewer, if you're making educational content as the hero because they're on the hero's journey. You're just, you're their guide. You're helping them. And so at the end of the video, you want to get them on, you want to keep them on the hero's journey and get them onto the next step. And so the next step may be to watch another video. And so you're going to give a call to action about what other video that they could watch. It may be to go to an offer if you're, if that's where you're at, but it's about taking them to the next step in their hero's journey.

19:55And that is the 4-H formula. That's very cool. And what I like about this, and we're going to go on to another story framework that you put together on origins. But before we go there, you could do this over and over again. And this essentially could be quote unquote, your series, right? Like you could say, I'm going to educate people on storytelling, for example, in your thing, right? And then you could just have a whole bunch of videos on storytelling that's binge worthy, right? And that are somehow interconnected. Is that what I'm hearing you say, or is this more of a one-off kind of a thing?

20:24You mean in terms of a thematic series? Yeah. Could someone take an educational story and just have it be literally the whole bunch of videos and somehow sew it together into a series? That's possible, right? Yes, sure. That's, that's a certain, definitely a type of series that is centered around a theme for sure. Perfect. Let's talk about origin stories because this one's really fascinating to me personally. I'd love to hear kind of how, how we can tell a really good origin story and why even people care about that kind of stuff? Origin stories, I usually call them backstories, but the same thing are important because they build trust.

20:58So just like I mentioned before, having a bite-sized version of it, you don't want to go on a, you know, you don't want to share every detail of your backstory because they probably don't care yet. You know, they don't, they're not that invested in you just yet. They just want to know, especially if you're doing it right after your hook, right? You just want them to understand why they should trust you and maybe what your channel is about, right? So a good way to think of it is like, before I did this, right, whatever your new thing is, I was this, right? And then this catalyst happened in my life.

21:36And I had this realization, I had this epiphany and now I help XYZ do ABC. And that is, you know, basically the framework for a backstory. Well, and let's talk about how you've done it for yourself. Cause you did it a little bit in the opening, obviously, right? Yeah, we did it a little bit in the opening. So I am a terrible example for backstory because, and this is probably relatable and this probably should be my backstory actually, because I don't like talking about myself. So whenever I get into having to do that is always awkward to me. But my I would say my my backstory probably is that I was a reluctant personal brand.

22:16But I did have this experience and knowledge of about storytelling that I felt like I could use and help other reluctant personal brands be able to overcome that. So that's kind of my backstory. But I'm I'm terrible at talking about myself. So don't use me as an example. Hi, my name is Mandy Hedrick and I'm here at Social Media Marketing World. My first time attending Social Media Marketing World and I had won my ticket. And so I attended online and the impact it had in what I could do for my business immediately. It was my goal as a business owner to be able to earmark the dollars. This is my second time in person.

22:57So I just love being in a room full of people that are like-minded. It's a big investment, but I'm not just investing in myself, but I'm also investing in my clients. And I will be coming back every single year. I'm already ready to buy my next ticket and book my hotel room. Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. So on the origin story, I've seen this happen on a lot of YouTube videos where they'll start with a hook and then they'll briefly make a declaration. Like I've helped thousands of businesses do this, that and the other thing. It's almost like a credibility establishing thing to get you to keep watching, right?

23:32Because they don't know who you are. Presumably this showed up in their feed, right? And they have no clue who you are. So are you proposing that origin stories are just tiny little stories that we inject into our other videos? Or are there circumstances where we actually share a little bit more of the origin story for our super fans because they really want to know our backstory? Because maybe sharing more of that story will actually benefit us. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. So you're talking about a couple, couple different things. So the credibility thing that you mentioned is a common play.

24:05I mean, I do that in my videos too, where I won a writer's guild award. So I will throw that around, you know, every once in a while. So I say, hi, I'm Darren. I'm a writer's guild award winning content producer and strategist. And I am blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. A lot of people do that. They're in the process of learning because you can be, you don't have to be an expert in what you're talking about as long as you recognize and acknowledge that you're learning in public, right? And so if that's the case, what a lot of people do, and even experts will do this as well, is they will share, you know, I spent the last, you know, 15 days researching blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

24:43Or I watched a thousand videos and this is what I found. So they're giving you a credibility story. So that's a different option that would kind of replace a backstory. A backstory is more about your journey and getting people to connect to your journey. So it's a little bit different than credibility, but they both have their place. Then the third thing that you're talking about is having an arsenal of personal stories. So instead of just giving a bunch of facts. Like if you ask ChatGPT to give you an answer on something, it would give you a bunch of facts back. But if people are watching your content, they probably want something more than that.

25:24They want to know your personal experiences with it. So what I always say is to have a story vault of different stories. I actually have a free workbook that people can download with a bunch of different stories that you can have that's part of your story vault so that when you are giving examples and you're giving facts and you're giving your frameworks and you're giving whatever else that you're doing in your educational videos, you can weave in personal stories throughout. It's really interesting because I have a background as a copywriter. That's really what I used to do as I was a professional copywriter.

25:58And I'm sharing a little bit, obviously, my backstory right now. And copywriting is all about persuasion, right? It's all about getting someone to move in a certain direction. And I'm beginning, I, like you, Darren, did not want to talk about myself because I've always learned it's to talk about the customer, talk about the prospect, focus on them. They are the hero. I've always agreed with that. Right. But I'm beginning to understand that now we are in, obviously we're recording this in the middle of 2026. We're in an era right now where actually talking about yourself is a delineator. It's a differentiator because people want to know they're dealing with humans, not with just AI scripts.

26:36Right. So there is something about being raw and authentic and sharing some of the journey and the backstory about some of the struggles and stuff. Right. And I don't know if that's necessarily goes into the origin, but every successful business founder has had struggles. And I would imagine there's stories they can share. And if they're strategic about sharing stories that relate to the target audience, this can be exceptionally powerful. I don't know. What do you think about that? Yeah. And there is something about hearing a story that people remember better. So if you're trying to get somebody to learn something, they often learn better because you've told a story, right?

27:16If you think about The Princess Bride, have you ever saw the movie The Princess Bride, right? Amazing movie. Oh, of course. A million times. Yeah. That's exactly what we're doing basically, which is what the grandfather did. Right. The grandfather came, you know, to see his grandkid and the grandkid was like, grandpa, I just want to play video games or whatever. Right. Like he wasn't, he wasn't feeling it. Right. Which is kind of like your, your viewers, right. On social media, they're ready to watch something like they want to watch something else. Right. And so you're telling stories, right.

27:45To keep like the, the character that was on the hero's journey in that movie was the grandson. Right. Because the grandson was the one that really changed and the grandfather was telling stories in order to make that happen. So on social media, on YouTube, but really any social media, it is a two person conversation. And that's really important because a lot of people are talking about personal storytelling and you should use that. Absolutely. It's people will connect to that. But when it becomes all about you because you think, OK, well, I got to tell all these personal stories. Right. If you were in a two person conversation with somebody and you were just talking about yourself the entire time, they would be like, I'm out, like, peace out, like I'm going somewhere else.

28:28Right. And so so if you start doing that on social media because you think that's what people are going to connect to, it's it will do the opposite at a certain point. So you got to find ways like regardless when you're telling your personal stories or whether you're giving information, you want it to feel like a two person conversation and you want to do something called rehooking. You want to constantly make sure you're checking in with the person that you're talking to. And when you're talking to the camera, which is odd, it's a weird thing. You're talking to a camera, like not a person, right?

29:03But you should talk to that camera as if you are talking to one person, talking to that one person that like the grant, as if you're talking to your grandson. Yeah, that's really cool. Okay, so so far at this point, here's what we've talked about. We've talked about the elements of a good educational story, right? which is hook, heart, help, and hero. Hook is that beginning thing that we all understand, which is gets them to watch it. The heart is sharing a little bit about your heart and who you are. The help is like, okay, here's something, here's a tip, here's some insights, here's some wisdom from my arsenal of thoughts on the world and then focusing on them.

29:40Like, here's how you could put this to work. I'd love to hear from you. That totally works. And then we talked about the origin story. We zoomed in on that a little bit. And the origin story is really like, Like we went at it from lots of angles, right? But there's stuff about the way you started that might make sense to inject into some of your stories. Now what I really wanna do is get into the concept of a series, right? Because now that we've set some foundation stuff here, the whole idea of like, we're gonna create a bunch of these things that are somehow going to be connected. I really want you to help us understand this because so many of my audience is a lot like me.

30:14And I'll be very transparent right now. I've been doing these Mike thoughts from the porch, okay? And literally I just show up for three minutes and I've got my thing down. I open with some sort of a hook and then I tell a story that has a moral and is designed to serve an objective, right? Which is to either encourage marketers or entrepreneurs with either business advice and or AI insights and wisdom from my discoveries as I go along. And I'm learning as I go. And the only thing that makes them kind of a series is the fact that I'm doing them every day. I haven't figured out what we're about to talk about next.

30:47This is the part that i'm really interested in there's a lot of people doing this yap challenge thing that you've been talking about And you can argue i'm i'm just yapping, right? It's unedited. It's just me i'm talking directly to the camera Sometimes i'm moving around but generally i'm just sitting on my front porch So there's a lot of people that know how to create these one-off little videos that are just a couple minutes long But what they do not know how to do is what you know how to do, which is to create the series Let's dig in what like what do we need to know about creating a series because we we know so far that the social platforms want it It's all moving in that direction.

31:18So equip us, please, Darren. Awesome. I'm happy to do that. So my golden series formula, if you will, is composed of four major parts. Character, which we've talked about, right? Having a backstory and founder story and having an arsenal of stories. But really, it's why is the audience following you on this journey, right? Right. And then having a quest, which is what journey are they joining? And then making sure that there's tension and the way to think about tension really, really simply, because it is a new concept for a lot of people is to think about an unresolved question. So in your video, in your in your series that you have.

32:07Right. Right. There's a different problem every single episode, right? That's like the way people have been trained to think about videos, right? What's my hook? What's the problem? What am I solving in that video, right? But if you have an unresolved question across your whole channel, right? An overarching thing, like if that's AI, for instance, right? Which is what I think you just said, right? Will I be obsolete? That's the big question. Yes. There you go. So that's, you're not going to answer that in one, in one video, right? You're going to have to, you're going to have to have multiple videos to explore that topic.

32:42So having an unresolved question, that's not going to be resolved in one video and then having a repeatable format. Okay. And that is basically the four major components to a series. You can go make one. Okay. So let's dive in. Obviously let's, start with the character. So obviously explain what you mean by character. And I know what I heard you say is like, you are the character when you are the person on, on screen, but many of us know that we have multiple characteristics of our life, right? We've got our work life. We've got our personal life. We've got, we can take on different quote unquote personas depending on what it is.

33:19So give us some advice on how to be in character and what it means to be a character. Does that make sense to you? It makes absolute perfect sense because I teach something called creator archetypes. Okay. And so the five creator archetypes that I teach are the visionary, which is that you see something that other people don't. The problem solver, which you are the person that fixes, you know, what's unfixable. The rebel, which is that you're, you know, challenging the status quo. underdog, you're the person that's fighting against the odds or you're the sage. You are providing the calm, providing clarity, providing meaning, right?

34:01Can you be multiple or do you have to be one? Okay. So I'm glad you asked that because that is the question. I feel like I'm the visionary and the sage a little bit sometimes, you know? Humans are complicated, right? We are complicated people. In life, you are complicated, but you should serve a specific role for your viewer. And that role should be clear. It can be two things. You can have, I always talk about a primary archetype and a secondary archetype. So the primary archetype is how the viewer sees you. And the secondary archetype is how you feel inside. You know, it's like a sun sign and a moon sign.

34:36And so that makes it interesting. You said visionary sage. Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. Like that makes it, that makes it interesting. But, but I see me as a visionary and other people see me as a sage. So that would be my secondary one, right? Okay, perfect. Right. So, so then you, that, that is the role that you were going to consistently serve in your videos. Now, if you were an underdog rebel, your videos would feel different or they should feel different. You know what I mean? Like real quick, which one is the one, uh, is the primary one, how they see you or how we see ourself?

35:06How they see you. I see. Okay. Got it. So I might see my, I see myself as the visionary, but they might see me as the sage. Okay. That's important. So keep going. So you're a sage visionary. Yeah. Yeah. So keep going with your story if you don't mind. What that helps you figure out is your tone, right? So an underdog rebel is going to make your series different than you are as a visionary sage or a sage visionary, whichever way you want to see it. Sage visionary, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So your energy is probably going to be different. Your style is going to be different. Like if I'm a rebel, like I may be doing things real different, you know, everything's gonna be different and unique and maybe bombastic or whatever.

35:49If I'm an underdog, really, it's just gonna be me and I'm just gonna be talking and it's gonna be stripped down, right? Because it's all about my authentic story, right? If I'm a visionary, I might be using a lot of effects and things because I'm telling the future, right? If I'm a problem solver, maybe I'm sharing slides, you know, I'm doing a live stream, right? Because I'm just about, I'm being about being clear and giving you solutions, right? So it's, I find that really helpful because a lot of people get locked up because they compare themselves to other people. So they watch other videos of other creators and or founders.

36:26And they're like, oh, I'm not doing that. Or I am doing that, but they're doing it better. Like they compare themselves and then you get into comparison syndrome and that doesn't help you. So that's why I say think of your archetype because it takes you out of that. So you're not in your own head comparing yourself to anybody else. You are thinking about the role that you want to serve in your viewer's life. I love that because that makes it really easy to know kind of which face you got to put on, for lack of better words, right? What mindset you have to adopt for what you're about to do. Because if you know that you're being perceived as a sage, then you should act like a sage, right?

37:05And then you can inject some of that vision stuff in there. Okay, so the quest thing, talk to me about like this. You said it's what journey are they joining? Like help people understand what that means conceptually, practically. Yeah. So it's kind of like the heartbeat of your series, right? It's the central conflict that's going to be driving the story forward. Now, I usually teach four different quests that you can use on your channel, on your Instagram, whatever. It works across any platform. and they are being in a life transition, battling an antagonist, solving a mystery, or being on a mission.

37:42Now, the first two, being in a life transition and battling an antagonist, those don't necessarily have to be this way, but those tend to lean more personal storytelling. So if you are driven by your personal story, then you might lean a little bit more towards those two. But if you're like, Darren, I don't want to make my life a reality show. That's like, how did we get here? That's not what I want. Then the other two are more like solving a mystery is really about like, you're digging in, you're doing deep dives, you're investigating, you're searching for something. So it's not necessarily about your story, right?

38:22Your passion is there, your curiosity is there, but you're not like opening your life up to the world, but you are opening your passion and your curiosity for this particular subject. Like you mentioned with AI, right? Like you're, you know, you're, you're want to dig into this, you're investigating it, right? So you're on a solving a mystery. A mystery doesn't have to be like a literal mystery, like you're solving crimes or something, but it is, it is something that you're on a quest to figure out an answer to. And being on a mission just basically means that you're on a pursuit of something very specific.

38:54And usually it means you're on a mission to help certain type of people, right? You're a certain group of people or a person that maybe it does have a personal storytelling element because you're on a mission to help the person you once were, right? But it doesn't have to. Well, this is really fascinating because if I think about what I'm doing, I'm definitely in a life transition. And so is the, because the overarching story for everyone is we're all in this like crazy transition, trying to adopt to this changing world of artificial intelligence and how it's impacting our careers and our, in our businesses.

39:23So there's that side of it, but I also do feel like I am trying to solve a mystery, which is how to employ these tools to help us be more valued. So do you recommend on the quest, you usually choose one lane and not confuse it with multiple lanes? Is that one of those kinds of things where you should have a clear objective of where you're going, or can you have a primary and a secondary, just like you do with the character? So I think of the quest as a guide, right? Because people, this is probably the thing that people struggle with the most where they're like, I don't, what am I talking about?

39:55Clarity beats cleverness on social media in general. So people understanding very clearly what they're going to get out of your channel. That doesn't mean that, you know, in your, in your world, it might make sense to be playing, you know, with on both lines. Love it. Okay. We talked about the tension already, right? But is there any other stuff you want to mention on tension and just why it's so unimportant? There's other ways to think about tension, but I think the easiest way is to think about that unresolved question that you have. But, you know, tension can be emotional, tension can be intellectual, tension can be situational.

40:34and then there's also philosophical tension right like you know a worldview that maybe is a little different right i mean and it doesn't have to be something outrageous it could be like you're a minimalist right you're you're talking about minimalism which is you know a different worldview or different perspective or slow living or something like that so you know that's a little bit you know deeper dive in into tension but you know the first step i would say is to think about that unresolved question. You said repeatable format. Talk to us about that a little bit, because that's going to require people to just understand that a little bit more.

41:07Yes. You mentioned earlier, we've talked about your series a couple of times, right? And so that I would say is a theme based series. So there's a couple of formats that were, I mean, there's many formats, but here are some. One is a progress series, right? So viewers are returning because there's some sort of transformation unfolding. So, you know, think about like - HGTV shows, right? Exactly, exactly, exactly. That's exactly what it is. So people really love that, right? Like they like to see it and they'll keep coming back, right? For other transformations or maybe it's the same, like on YouTube, that's really big, like home renovation stuff, people buying some crazy property, like a castle in the middle of nowhere or something like that.

41:48And being like, I'm going to renovate this whole thing, right? And you're like, I'm watching every episode because I want to know what's going to happen into this random castle, right? So that's a progress series. Identity series is more about a personal transformation. So if progress was about like, and you know, transformation or a project, identity series is like you're in a life transition, right? You are retired or you're moving from the city life to rural life and whatnot. So again, these two lean a little more personal storytelling and not everybody wants to do something personal story.

42:22Like that's not what that's not what they're looking to make. So then there's more professional storytelling formats, which is like what you mentioned, a theme based series. Right. You like I do a series about storytelling and it's called Story Caffeine. Right. And every episode I talk about storytelling techniques. Right. And the great thing about theme-based series, if you are trying to build authority, is there authority building, right? Every time you make an episode that's delving into this theme, you further prove your authority to yourself, but also to AI, right? Because you are repeatedly talking about these topics from different angles.

43:01Another way to think of it is an investigation series, you know, where you're trying to investigate something that's going on. There's a lot of series like that. But then you also have like the podcast or the case study type of series. I think they're slightly different, but still in the same category, right, where you're conversing with somebody like we're doing right now. Right. That's that's a different type of series. And then the last one would be like a challenge or adventure. You know, that's kind of like, you know, the I love Lucy type of thing where like every episode she's like faced with some crazy thing, usually of her own doing.

43:39Right. Yeah. We remember the chocolate, the chocolate factory one is the one everybody remembers. Exactly. But there's also like, like if you have like a cooking business or something, right. You know, you have a different challenge, like the great British bake off. I'm using TV examples because people are familiar with them, but like, there's a different challenge. They're, they're, they're from some crazy thing. Like you got to bake with your eyes closed or something like that, you know, like some crazy challenge. So those are a couple of different formats that are repeatable, that will make a series.

44:09Darren, first of all, I just want to say thank you for helping us understand, especially those of us that like to have frameworks, to understand like, oh, okay, this is how we can do this. It's super exciting. I know we have only scratched the surface of all the cool stuff that you have to offer. So why don't you tell everybody where they should go to discover more about you and if you've got any kind of ways that they could potentially work with you, where should they go? But let's start with your preferred socials, since this is a social media marketing podcast, and then any particular services or products you want to mention.

44:43So my name, Darren Strauss, D-A-R-Y-N-S-T-R-A-U-S-S. Just search for that on YouTube and you'll find me there. And that's pretty much my main platform. I'm also on Substack and a little bit on Instagram, but not really. And then the other place that you can get more information would be to go to my website, digitalchicktv.com. And I do consulting. So I work one-on-one. I do one-on-one consulting. I also have a community where I work with people in groups. We do challenges and different things to help people try to figure out their personal story. I'm also launching a new program, which will probably be launched by the time this comes out called Digital Showrunner.

45:28And that's the whole, if you're trying to figure out how to create a series from beginning to end, we scratch the surface here. But if you're like, Darren, I need like the whole implementation toolkit and everything, that program is going to help with that. Awesome. Darren Strauss, thank you so much. And it's super awesome to see God's bringing down his thunder to affirm that you got some good stuff going on. We really appreciate your time today. and thanks so much for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 733.

46:03If you're new to the show, follow us. If you've been a listener for a while, we would love it if you would share it with your friends and you can tag me on all the socials. I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Instagram. And also check out our other show, the AI Explored podcast. This brings us to the end of the social media marketing podcast. I am your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.

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