100 IDEAS IN 10 DAYS: Supercharging The Idea Phase

Hey guys—it’s here! 

As promised, The Upload Club Newsletter is all systems go. <cue air horn> We’ll be coming at you on the second Friday of every month with fresh content creation and audience growth insights, so be sure to whitelist this email. 

Now let’s get into it: with our very first series…

ANATOMY OF AN UPLOAD

A Five-Part Guide to Better Posting

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely already logged a bunch of hours building your channel. You know what it takes to make great content. But even seasoned pros get stuck. Or burnt out. Or find themselves running into the same challenges over and over. So the first five installments of this newsletter will be breaking down the content creation process, step by step. 

At each phase, we’ll look at how some intentionality and a few best practices can unlock new growth potential. 

Let’s start with Step One: The Idea Phase. Warning: some hard truths to follow.

YOU HAVEN’T THOUGHT ENOUGH ABOUT YOUR IDEA…

YouTube is a hungry beast! Stop posting, and your channel slips out of the algorithm’s recommendation feed. This constant pressure to ABP—Always Be Posting—can drain your idea bank, and leave you with a low balance.

So what then?

• You could lean into fan service, recycling an idea you know your fans love. You’ll get the clicks, but it can trap you in a cycle of self-parody, and diminish growth over time. 

• Or, you could catch people’s attention with something really off-brand, like grabbing onto a viral story in the news. This has its own problems (which we’ll talk about at the end). 

This is why you need to be intentional about your content ideas—yes, all the time. The race to unlock high-volume flow can find you reaching for ANY idea, rather than the best idea. 

…AND YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH OF THEM. 

Volume is the key to better ideas, period. And the key to generating high volumes of ideas is a robust brainstorming process. 

Brainstorming is how you fill up your idea piggy bank. And the good news is, once you fill it up, it can stay full for weeks or even months! (Just remember: not EVERY idea is golden. Be prepared to throw out 4 out of every 5 ideas, at least at the start.) 

OK: enough talking about the problem. Are we ready for some solutions? 

HOW TO GENERATE 100 IDEAS IN 10 DAYS

Proven strategies to generate the ideas you need

1. PUT ON YOUR IMPROV HAT
   If you’re familiar with improv or sketch comedy, you know that great content starts with a mindset shift from “No, but–” to “YES-AND.” At the first stage of idea generation, saying yes is Job #1. (Don’t worry, you’ll be able to say NO later!) 

2. TRY OUR IDEATION WORKSHEET

OK, this is Upload Club, of course we made a tool for this! This Ideation Worksheet has previously only been available to our 1:1 clients. But we want to share it with you for free 😀 See? This newsletter is paying off already.

We’ll use this worksheet to help you create your BIG BRAINSTORM: a ‘brain-drain’ session that gets all the ideas out there, from the good to the terrible to the truly inspired. Then, it will help you develop more intentionality behind your content ideas. How do you define your target audience? What problems of theirs are you trying to solve? What do you want them to feel? 

To get a copy of our Ideation Worksheet, just write to us at [email protected] with the subject “Ideation Worksheet Please!” and we’ll share it with you, free. (Nothing else to sign up for, and you won’t be put on any other mailing lists.)

A NOTE ON AI: If you’re thinking about using GenAI to whip up some ideas… do your cerebrum a favor and keep the ideas human-made for now. (We have thoughts on AI as an idea-generation tool. TL:DR, it’s not all bad, but comes with some caveats. More to come in a future post!)

3. MAKE YOUR SELECTS

Once you do your Ideation Worksheet, you’ll have a big pile of ideas. But of course, not all of these ideas will be right for you, right now, for your growth strategy. Here are a few criteria to keep in mind when it comes time to pick your finalists:

Choose…

• Things you love

• Things you’re great at (e.g. skill sets you crush, topics you’re incredible at talking about, expertise you have) 

• Topics your audience wants to watch and learn more about 

• Topics that have performed well on YouTube

4. TEST THE IDEA BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Wait, is that a thing? Yes! It is. And full disclosure, it’s a service the Upload Club now offers. Read on for how this works and how you can utilize this service! 

OK! So once you’ve completed steps 1-4, you’ll have in your hands a viable, healthy list of exciting post concepts for your channel. It’s about time to move on to the next phase… But before you do, we’d like to leave you with this last thought. And it’s a juicy one:

THE GOAL ISN’T VIRALITY, IT’S CHANNEL HEALTH

Yes, we are growth strategists, so this may seem a little blasphemous. Don’t we always want to go viral? Not so fast, Moo Deng. Virality—surprise! Isn’t the end-all-be-all of a powerhouse channel. 

Let’s say you’re a creator who posts original Instapot recipes for vegans. Your audience is specific, and they come to you for specific niche content only you can provide. 

But then you read about Zendaya’s engagement ring reveal at the Golden Globes (or something). You think: “everyone’s talking about that.” So you upload a quick post about it. And it goes mega-viral. Congratulations! 

… Except… now you have a huge new audience that may not care at all about vegan recipes. So all those new viewers won’t stick around. And your loyal, lentil-loving fans may feel pushed aside. 

We call these viral spikes “empty calorie views.” Like that Reese’s PB cup in your desk drawer, it tastes really good in the moment. But it’s not contributing to your overall health.

This doesn’t mean virality is always bad. (One day, you may see some breaking Instapot news—in which case, it’s worth posting!) But chasing virality at all costs doesn’t just distract you from your channel’s growth goals… it can actually stand in your way.  

OK, that’s it for now. See you next month for Part Two of our “Anatomy of an Upload” series… PRE-PRODUCTION. Bye!

– Hayley