The 5-Tier Content Value Ladder – The Best Content: RANKED!

Today, I’d like to jump right into sharing the 5 types of content every single post you see online can fit into and which ones are the MOST valuable to your audience.

By value I mean, what are they going to love, remember, crave more of and share with their friends. And yes, you want to focus on creating MORE of the most valuable ones.

Think of like this: Content is communication between you and another HUMAN on the other side of the phone (not the algorithm). I want you to view your content as a relationship with that person.

Our favorite relationships are ones where we can pour into each other. Where an hour conversation can feel like 10 minutes. We’ve got our elbows on the table, nodding along with a giant smile saying things like, “No way me too!!!” and “Exactly!!”

Those relationships fill us up and energize us. We feel more open, safe and free to express ourselves.

Our least favorite relationships are the opposite. It’s someone who continually comes to you for your help and it feels like they just take, take, take. They provide no value to you and you end up feeling a sense of dread when they are around. A 10 minute conversation may feel like an hour.

These relationships drain and deplete us. We don’t want more of it so we retreat and barely engage in the conversation.

We want our content to energize our audience, not deplete them. And it doesn’t look much different than how you engage in the in person relationships that fill you up. There are specific kinds of content that do a better job of this than others.

Let’s go!

Before we dive in: All of this content is necessary as I will point out below. Don’t take this as, “never do this” or “only do this.” I think you should do it all if you want to grow your audience AND make money.

5. Offer

Any post that talks about your offer, product or service is the LEAST valuable type of post you can make.

I’m not saying your offer isn’t valuable, I hope if someone buys your thing they will love it and see tremendous value. I am saying, as a piece of content alone, it’s not valuable. In fact it’s the opposite of value. You are making an ASK, “Come buy my thing!” which is not inherently bad, but you don’t ask someone you just met to help you move. You just don’t. That’s a big ask.

You need to build trust first. And if you have built trust, you don’t go ruin that trust by asking and asking and asking and never giving.

That is how you get ghosted.

There are business coaches who teach to always be selling. To each their own. I tried it once. I hated it. I felt like that friend that’s always texting, “what are you doing this weekend?” but never has anything planned and never invites me to anything. Useless.

Yes, “selling is service,” and there are times to sell. There are people who (if you’ve been providing value) want to buy your thing and need to know about it, which means you need to talk about it.

This is why I like going hard on selling something for a few weeks. Then I shut up and get back to the rest of this content for a few months.

4. Social Proof

Social proof is you show casing how you’ve helped your clients or how your customers have benefited from your offer, product or service.

• Screenshots of texts from them celebrating a win
• Sharing their story (case study)
• or a testimonial video

People love to see success from others because we always think, “yeah easy for you Matt, but it’s harder for me!”

The more social proof you can share the harder it is to say, “but that won’t work for me!”

We love to see that things work for other people. It’s the heard mentality. When you see a line wrapping around the block for an ice cream shop, you will go wait in line there even if the ice cream shop across the street has no line.

Social Proof does build trust, which makes for great content, but it’s not that valuable unless someone is already interested in buying your offer.

---

👆 I mostly keep Offer and Social Proof content to the 3ish weeks when I launch a product or it lives on my sales and landing pages. I will not make feed posts (reels and carousels) about my offer or social proof outside of this time, with one exception. The only time I post social proof outside of a launch is when I share a screenshot text on my IG story. It’s a much more casual way of dropping social proof. Again, I don’t want to be that annoying friend not providing value.

👇 I would say 90% of my content falls in these next 3 buckets

---

3. Education

• Information
• How to…
• 3 ways to…

These types of posts fall right in the middle of value for your audience.

Consider this…

There are 258 million adult Americans.

The latest data indicates 40% of American adults are obese.

That’s 103,000,000 million people.

I know there are unique circumstances, but lots of these people could lose weight with a healthy diet and consistent movement practice.

Google, YouTube, and ChatGPT, gives EVERYONE free access to endless nutrition information and workout options. You could literally ask ChatGPT to make a healthy meal from the ingredients in your fridge and you’d be well on your way.

People are not obese because they lack information on what to eat and how to workout, it’s a much deeper problem than that, which makes information not that valuable.

Educational content is still valuable to post. When people do trust you, they are more likely to do the 3 things you tell them to do even if another influencer told them to do the exact same 3 things.

The next two pieces of content are how you get people to really trust you.

Pro Tip: Here’s a nice little two-fer. You can sneak in social proof as an education post by saying, “Here are the 3 ways I changed my clients top 3 pinned posts that helped her increase her sales by 60%” Now, social proof has just increased its value by one level.

2. Unique Perspectives

Sharing a unique perspective can give the feel of an educational post, but you don’t actually teach anything.

The example I used above with obese American’s is an example of a unique perspective. I didn’t teach you HOW TO create educational content. My goal was to get you to see for yourself that information isn’t the most valuable thing. Once you see that, you think, “oh wow that’s a really good point.”

Unique perspectives can look like metaphors, counter examples or even telling stories.

This kind of content is so valuable is because it breaks you free of current beliefs that are holding you back.

Take your experience with content. Forever marketing coaches have said, “give away your best information and you’ll have tons of leads knocking down your door!”

So, not only have you been posting education content over and over and over, but so has everyone else in your industry. You’ve done it so much and you’ve seen everyone else do it, it’s become part of your identity and community. “People like us do things like this!” (shout out to those of you who came to the training this week 😉 – you can get the replay here)

It’s HARD to change because the unknown is notsafe.

Just as the obese American might want to lose weight, it’s scary to become the person who says no to McDonald’s because their community eats at McDonald’s and if you stop going you no longer belong to the community. That is not safe. That is scary.

By sharing unique perspectives you give people a chance to identify with a current belief they already have and connect it to a new, and hopefully, more empowering belief. That’s what people call an “a-ha” moment, or they may drop a few of these: 🤯🤯🤯

It’s valuable because it can change your life without using much brain power.

Pro Tip: This whole email is more of a unique perspective than educational because I’m not actually teaching you how to make each of these pieces of content. Today, my hope is to change your perspective on what posts you can create that will start getting more engagement and reach and stop being frustrated wondering why your content isn’t helping you grow. If you want to learn how to effectively make these posts, join the 6-week group program that starts Monday, August 5th. ​Click here!
​

1. Connection

Connection content is sharing your deeper purpose, taking a stand for your world-views and beliefs, and telling stories.

We (humans) are always optimizing for safety. The safest thing we can do is to belong to a tribe. There is safety in numbers. It’s written into your DNA.

☝️ Let’s play a game.

You got a casual date this Friday and you’re gonna get some fresh white shoes to pair with your jeans. Which shoes you buyin?

I knooooow you’re rockin the white Nikes. Don’t fuck with me.

Nike’s are COOL!

Facts.

No cap.

(I’m blowing it, aren’t I?)

We make decisions to fit in and to uphold our identity.

We wear Nike’s because, as Seth Godin says, “people like us do things like this.”

Seriously though, you can choose the Sketchers. There are no wrong answers. If you did choose the Sketchers, my bet is that you are doing that BECAUSE everyone else wear’s Nike’s and you want to be different. Choosing to be “different” is you wanting to fit in with the people who don’t conform to the mold. And if you see someone else wearing sketchers you’d be like, “Yooooo Sketchers!!!! My mannnn!!” (or if you’re a woman you’d say, “Sketchers girlieeee!!”).

It’s the same reason my brother bought (and is willing to pay more for) an Audi A4 hatchback because when he rolls up to his Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island it fits the identity he wants to uphold.

He wouldn’t be caught dead in a Subbie!

But I drive a Subaru because I live in Bend, Oregon. I trail run, snowboard, and bike just like literally everybody else here in this 120,000 person city and probably 40% of the cars on the road here are Subarus.

I fit in here!

So does my brother in Newport.

When you share your deeper purpose, world-views, beliefs and stories people get a chance to identify and feel like they belong and fit in.

It literally just happened just now. Did you notice yourself doing it?

In your head you are identifying with my brother, or me, or somewhere in between, or neither. You just took a stance and were like, “haha that’s totally me” or “nah, I don’t really resonate with this” or “I think I’m a bit of both. Is that okay?”

We all do this automatically because we need to make meaning of the things in our lives so we know where we belong.

When we belong, we are safe. Nothing is more valuable to humans than feeling safe.

With connection content, you give your audience an opportunity to feel seen, heard, part of a tribe and maybe even a place to call home.

Ahhhh 😌

Doesn’t that feel nice.

Pro Tip(s): Making connection content is an opportunity to fully embodying who you say you are.

If I say I’m a storytelling athlete who loves personal development and just wants you all to speak your truth and own what you love. Then I get to tell great stories. I get to go play sports. I get to work on my personal development. I get to speak my truth and own what I love.

Then, I get to develop mastery in all these areas by expressing it online in form of content. If you think you’ve fully embodied a lesson you’ve learned, try turning that lesson into an effective 90-second reel that people love. The greatest leaders are the greatest speakers (re: MLK, Oprah, Tony Robbins, Steve Jobs, Alan Watts, etc. etc.)

The best part is… it’s EASY to make connection content because this is just who I am. I just have to be bold enough to own my truth publicly.

Looking for examples of 5 types of content?

Now that you are aware of these 5 types of content, you can probably spot your favorite creators doing this.

If you want to see concrete examples of this, in my latest training I show how Hormozi and I do this with our content.

You can ​click here​ to get the replay.

And if you want to learn how to do this for yourself and get live coached by me, I am launching The Brand Framework. I teach you all 5 of these types of content and how to incorporate your multi-passionate self into your social media posts. In 6 weeks you will know exactly how to LOVE your content AND your audience will be obsessed with your content too.

We start August 5th. It’s only $497 AND as of sending out this email, only 2 spots are left to get $100 off the course. If you reply to this email saying “I’M IN” I’ll send you the discount code.

I am capping it to 30 students since I’m offering to give feedback on all your content and I can’t handle supporting more than 30 of you. Soooo jump on it and I’ll see you in there.

Click the button to learn more!