'Oh SH*T, That's Good!' — 5 Ways to Craft Unignorable Content

The False Choice Between Quality and Viral Content

Louis: So don’t you think that the kind of obsession that many people have with algorithms, you know, on Twitter, on LinkedIn and whatever, lead us to create shittier and shittier content sometimes?

Amanda Natividad: Yes, and I do worry about that. I think, I think there’s an overall problem with people’s. Or I’ll just say our, because we can all be guilty of this with our inability to see nuance. So when people, when some people are saying, hey, you need to create content that hooks people, that gets people to click and read and enjoy and, you know, retweet and share, then there are other people who receive that and go, got it. Full bro mode. I’m doing it.

Louis: And it’s funny because I know exactly who you’re talking about. So this lack of nuance is very important here that you’re saying, because I know a lot of things that you share, a lot of insight that you share is nuanced. But in today’s world, I guess, where things are very binary, it seems, you know, it’s either against, either you hate or you love and all of that, people are not really used to nuances anymore. Is that your own kind of view on it?

Amanda Natividad: I think so. I think there’s also just this. I don’t know, maybe it’s an age old debate among creators where people feel like you have to choose between creating amazing, high quality content and creating content that appeals to the lowest common denominator. And there’s no in between. And I’m here to say there is an in between. I think it’s important actually to find ways to kind of lean into each side of those things as needed. I think you can care about both and you don’t have to choose. And I think anybody who chooses is really just making a false choice, right? Like they’re making a false choice of thinking, like, there has to be one. When I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot. If you think you have to choose one, you have to lean into moments. I think there are moments when depending on what your goals are, right? And your goals as a business marketing team, whatever, they change month to month, quarter by quarter, whatever it is you might have when you’re starting out, you might be thinking about like, I need to just, I need to grow my audience, I need to grow this email list. I need to get more people in the door. How can I do that? And so A good way to do that would be to focus on impressions. And by focusing on impressions, what I’m also saying is focus on creating content that is meant to get seen by people. So create content that’s native to the platform. It doesn’t require people to like click to a landing page and put in their email and then sign up for the thing and then wait for the thing to show up in their inbox. Like, no, that’s too much friction. Don’t worry about that yet. That can, that can wait a little bit. Just make it as easy as possible for people to learn from you to people, for people to know who you are and to see your content boost your impressions. Right? And then over time, as you’re as that is working, you can also then think about, well, what makes me defensible. So at this point I’m bringing people in the door, growing my audience, but why should they stick around? Why should they really trust me? What makes me, as this thought leader, defensible? And then that’s where you have your high quality content, right? Maybe your, your 2000 word blog posts that dive into the nuance of strategy versus tactics or what it actually means to do effective nano influencer marketing. I don’t know, whatever it is. But those are the things that people, all the people who really care or the people who are like, I don’t know about this person, they notice that stuff, then they’re going to click. Those are the people that are going to read more or over time they’ll see like, oh, okay, this person actually does have something to say. They actually can defend all these like viral posts that they managed to come up with. And then you’re using these things to kind of feed each other. You bring in people through the door and then you help them stay with your high quality content.

Louis: If I had to rephrase to make sure I understand what you’re saying is that one piece of content on its own can’t do both.

Amanda Natividad: It can if you repurpose it accordingly.

Louis: Right? Yeah, but. Right, exactly. But on its own, when it’s in a specific place, it’s either this or that, unless you repurpose it. So that’s when it becomes interesting. So that’s when, if you have 2000 World blog post, that’s like very high value, longer to digest, longer to understand in depth, but then repurposing it into like a Twitter thread that touches more on the emotions of people, like surprising them or whatever, like a very tiny little thing, then that becomes the address type. Is that Correct?

Amanda Natividad: Yeah, I think so.

Louis: You think so?

Amanda Natividad: Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe. I feel like what we’re talking about now, now it’s becoming nebulous, and I think it’ll help if I give an example.

Louis: Yeah.

Amanda Natividad: So here’s an example. I. Sometime, I think last year, I wrote this blog post about audience Personas where marketers are always taught that they should be creating buyer Personas, but I think it’s too short sighted. Here’s why you actually need audience Personas. Here’s what they are, how you can make them, and what makes up an audience Persona. Now maybe somebody listening to this, they might think that’s kind of interesting. Broadly speaking, marketers, founders, creators, solopreneurs are probably, as a whole, are probably like, what? Like, what is she even talking about? Audience Persona. This sounds kind of boring and wonky. I don’t want this, right? If I’m pitching that, like, here’s why you need this audience Persona new word. Because it’s, you know, more encompass. It’s. It’s more inclusive of your audience beyond buyers. Okay, I get it, but you said encompassing and I’m bored. Right? Like, there, there are a lot of, like, wonky details there that sound boring. But it’s a. It’s a longer blog post that I have, but with it, I have a couple of, like, jokes or rants or things in between, and the punchline is a fake buyer Persona slide that I made about myself. And it was all like, part of the way the blog post is written is it kind of leads up to that as, like, here’s what you don’t want. You don’t want this stupid, reductive Persona called marketing Manda who, like, loves coffee. Like, that’s not useful to you. It doesn’t help anybody. And that’s like, kind of fun or funny, right? Uh, you. You are, like, meaning, like, you reflexively understand that that was what. That was something that I used to hook people in. So it wasn’t even the intro of my blog post. It was the conclusion where what I then did was I just took the screenshot of that or the image of it and I posted that on Twitter as like, hey, everyone, I made you a buyer Persona slide. Feel free to use this template as a joke. And then that got people, some people laughing, right? People were like, oh, that’s great. Like, I want to see more. And then they followed it up with like, here’s. Here’s the food for thought behind this. Or like, here’s why this is a bad idea. So it kind of. It Covers the feeling overall or the like. Here’s why buyer Personas are reductive and not useful without actually saying it, right? It’s like it’s saying it in the form of a joke. And then people will see that. They kind of, they understand what I’m getting at, they understand the itch that I’m scratching, and they’ll go, oh, okay, now I’m going to go read your blog post.

Louis: So your tweet was actually unmade, this buyer Persona template, Feel free to steal it. That’s it, right? And the image, then you kind of need to click on the image and this is when you understand that it’s kind of a joke, right? So a lot of jokes and stuff like that. And then the reply to that tweet, which was roughly an hour after, was the actual blog post. I think it’s a really good example of both, which is the longer stuff to make people think and that it’s definitely not going to go viral. I mean, it could, but like, it’s not really. And the other thing for impression that gets a lot of, quote, unquote, eyeballs. You know, when I was preparing the episodes, I was thinking, how the fuck do you manage to do your job as a VP of marketing for a young startup, have a family, you know, friends, whatever, interested in cooking and all of that stuff, plus being an absolute powerhouse when it comes to like your own personal brand, air quote, right. Your newsletter, your tweets, you know, your LinkedIn. I mean, it’s really amazing to see from an outside perspective. And I know for a fact that many, many, many people are wondering the same thing. How the fuck does she do it?

Amanda Natividad: Well, the first thing to know is I don’t do it all. I have many, many days, most days where I feel like I fail miserably because I only did two out of the five things that I hadn’t set out to do in that day. So that’s the first thing. But the second thing is, I think with that, that means that when I choose something, I really choose it. If I’m in full SparkToro mode startup, gotta build out some onboarding sequences, gotta look at some, look at, look at the homepage, provide some edits. Like, that’s my world for the next like six hours. And it’s only that, just like on weekends, for instance, on Sundays, and this is every Sunday and I missed this past Sunday and it is completely messing up my week. Every Sunday I do some level of meal prep for the week. I make some quinoa ahead of time for salads. I chop up and wash and dry. I wash, dry, and chop up all my fruit, kind of organize some of my vegetables and plan the menu for the week. And I put it in my calendar where I’m like, last night it was Thai fried rice with shrimp. That was it. And I have all the ingredients in my fridge, and I don’t think about it, right. Once I. Once I do it on Sunday, I spend a couple. I spend a couple hours. It takes a while. That’s my Sunday. I do all of it. Put it in the calendar and don’t think about it. And then next day, no, it’s Monday. Great. What’s for dinner? And then at 5:50, the calendar invite pops up and it says, you’re making this? And I’m like, all right, let’s go. And it’s done in 30 minutes. And that’s kind of that.

Amanda’s Weekly Content System and Meal Prep Strategy

Louis: What helps a lot is that you do have a experience as a. As a chef, right? Or, I mean, you know, you know your way around food, right?

Amanda Natividad: That does help. Yeah. Yeah. Having. Having already some proficiency helps, but I do make a lot of the same things pretty often. So what I’ll do helps is I’ll buy enough quantity for the whole week of dinner. I’ll either make a big batch and then we have it like every other day. I also get sick of leftovers. So every other day we’ll have that. And then in the days in between, I’ll have the other thing that I have prepared. So it’s really just like two meals a week. And then maybe Fridays we order takeout.

Louis: Right. So you avoid making too many decisions every working day, it sounds like. Right. Like that seems like, you know, it could be a big burden for when you have a family. You have to think of, what the fuck am I cooking? And all of that. That removes some of the hurdle. But that’s clearly not the secret. Even though you don’t have secrets. I know it’s going to be quite hard work and discipline and routine. But still. And before as well, I mentioned in the intro, you do also, you used to be a journalist, right? A tech journalist. So not only you know how to cook, you know how to write. Those are two skills that are extremely valuable into this world, which adds to the fact that I think all of your skills are compounding to where you are today. Anyway, what does a typical week for Amanda looks like then after Sunday, like, what do you tend to do?

Amanda Natividad: Well, actually, you know, the. The Sunday thing that carries over throughout the rest of the Week in that different days are generally used for different tasks. So Monday tends to be my ramp up day. So Mondays will be no meetings if I can avoid it unless something comes up. Right. If, if Rand or Casey at SparkToro are like, hey, do you have time to chat? Of course, I always do that. But we just, we don’t have a, we don’t really have a meeting culture. So let me talk about that next. So Mondays are ramping up. Preparing some content or like doing boring administrative stuff, getting through email, that’s ramping up. Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be more of production days where I’m writing a lot, publishing something or scheduling something. Wednesdays slash Thursdays mostly. Thursdays tend to be speaking days. So like podcasts, webinars, meetings, those kinds of things tend to be on those days. And then Fridays tend to be planning for the next week. So I do batch some content on Fridays or I try to at least. And then I start thinking about my newsletter.

Louis: So I’m taking notes here. I’m not looking at you because I’m not because I’m rude, but because I’m taking notes. So Sunday meal prep, I’m just like, you know, chilling. Monday, the ramp up. And you said prep a few pieces of content. What does that mean?

Amanda Natividad: So for preparing some pieces of content that kind of tends to be personal stuff like on my own accounts where I’m thinking, oh, what should I say this week on Friday, it’s more of the SparkToro content that I’m thinking about.

Louis: So what should I say this week? This is one of the biggest thing of people like, you know, I’m not going to say anything original. Everything has been said before. I’m afraid of being mocked, I’m afraid of being criticized. So you have all of those fears of people, but you clearly have a way to kind of face those fears and challenge them. So tell me about, what’s your process to find out? What do you want to talk about?

Amanda Natividad: Gosh, many times I feel like I’m in a rut, so there’s that. But other times. So for SparkToro, a lot of times what will inspire me are the customer success emails. So people who are writing in, asking questions or sharing what they’ve done, that usually inspires me to write something else. Because sometimes, you know, oftentimes people will write in with a question like, oh, how do I use this to or how do I use SparkToro to find people I can do some partner marketing with. And then I think, oh yeah, I can. I can answer this. And then I type out a nice email and I go, oh, this should probably become a blog post. And then I start preparing it for that or repurposing it for that. So that definitely helps a lot. Other things that help me are either looking at replies to things that replies on social media or thinking about my own replies. Like when I scroll through the feed and if I don’t agree with something, I’m not very likely to comment on that person’s profile to say, hey, I disagree. For this reason, I’m more likely to essentially invisibly subtweet it, where I’ll just create my own content about it as a separate standalone topic and say, here’s what I think about this thing and I feel it’s more productive.

Louis: Like 52 minutes ago you posted that some of you are using ChatGPT for your replies and it shows, which is clearly based on your own experience. Anyway, this is where we get to the meat of it and this is when it becomes very interesting. So you say that kind of, you know, off the cuff, you know, the replies and whatever. It seems like it sounds like from right now that you don’t have that much of a process that you’re like winging it, but I’m pretty sure you’re not. So let’s just split just for a sec. The personal and Spaktoral. So let’s start with the personal stuff. You say Monday tends to be more the personal stuff. So do you have any places where you store ideas? Do you have any places where you prioritize ideas? Or is it genuinely posting something today? Because I just thought about it.

The Three-Notebook Evernote System for Ideas

Amanda Natividad: I do have places. I use Evernote for all my note taking. It is not sexy. People will laugh. They will say they don’t maintain that anymore. I’ve been a paid user of Evernote since 2012, so it’s hard to let go. And as long as the search function works, it’s fine. So. So I just, I basically just have three. I have three main folders or notebooks that I access in Evernote every day. It’s Info, Create and SparkToro.

Louis: Okay?

Amanda Natividad: So whenever I take in information, I dump it in the info notebook. Whenever I’m writing a draft or just writing down an idea for something that goes in Create and then everything SparkToro related goes in the SparkToro notebook. It’s basically intake versus output. So anything I learn about any idea I get. Anything that originated from somewhere else that I didn’t make up that’s like, oh, I’m going to reference this later. That goes in info.

Louis: Okay, we’re getting somewhere. Interesting. Okay, so you do have this habit. Clearly you’ve been a subscriber of Evernote for more than a decade, which is how long you’ve been in marketing. So you seem to be someone who really knows how to have systems and routine, knowing the importance of doing things regularly. So talk me through what makes you put something in the info notebook. You know, like, what’s. What usually happens. Do you do that on purpose? Like going through stuff or just when you stumble upon a nice piece of content, you’re like, fuck, yeah, I need to put that there.

Amanda Natividad: It goes in info. If either I see something and go, oh shit, that is good. Or oh, I need to remember that. Not if it’s, that was nice. If it was, that was nice that just I read it, whatever, I move on. But if I have that, oh shit, I need that. I need to keep that for later. That goes in info. Or if I know for certain that I’m going to reference it. So it tends to be a recipe. For instance, if I see a recipe that I like that I think I want to try, then that’s going in the notebook. Because I refuse to go back to that blog and go through their ad network again and deal with the pop ups. I just copy and paste it into a notebook and strip out the ad copy.

Louis: Okay, important question. Is there any of the Everyone Hates Marketers episode in that notebook?

Amanda Natividad: There is not, but I don’t tend to have notes from podcasts. It all just tends to be devastated. I didn’t want to lie to you. And it only tends to be.

Louis: Yeah, because I would have asked which episodes? Why did you like it? So mostly written stuff. Yeah.

Amanda Natividad: Yeah. And it’s the difference being that when I listen to podcasts, I’m on the go, I’m in the car, I’m driving, or I’m doing something, so I’m not really taking notes. I also do use Note the Notes app on my phone and if I have a couple of moments of like, oh, I have to reference that. And if I get out of the car and still remember it, I’ll scribble it down in a note. And it doesn’t get organized, but I think the act of writing it helps me remember it. Because I do, now that I think about it, I do have some notes on your April Dunford episode. And it’s like just scribbled like some phrases here and there and I’m like, great, finally.

Louis: Yeah, that was a good One. Do you write down every single idea you have that pops to your head?

Amanda Natividad: Only if it’s good.

Louis: How do you know if it’s good either?

Amanda Natividad: If it sticks in my craw and I just, like, sort of can’t stop thinking about it. Like, I think about something while I’m brushing my teeth, and then a couple hours later it pops up again. Then I’m like, okay, it’s bothering me in some way or it’s sticking to me. I should write that down. Gosh, this is so unhelpful. But sometimes it’s just, you know, when it’s a good idea. Like when something has. Like when it feels like it’s writing itself in your brain, when you have an idea and you’re like, oh, yeah. And then it needs to have this. This is the outline. Here’s the conclusion. Or it’s just, oh, yeah, I could. I could write that thing. And then also, that would lend itself well to that graph. And also, doesn’t it remind you of that meme about that, about the girl from the burning house? Like, that’s kind of funny. Like, once I see some of those elements coming together in my brain, then I write it down because I’m like, okay, I have something here. This is going to be worth pursuing.

Louis: So it is very helpful because I think one mistake that one could make is to really treat what we’re talking about here as extremely rational. System two thinking stuff. So, like, the brain, the 5% of the time on the brain, we actively think through stuff, but most of it, most of the time is system one, which is automatic, 95% under the radar. Right. I’ve learned that throughout the years. I think the best, most talented people are the ones who are seen to be the most talented and the most creative. Lean on System one a lot by leaning on their intuition a lot and leaning on how their body responds to stuff. Right?

Amanda Natividad: Yeah. Well, maybe the other thing to add to intuition is, you know, at this point in my career, intuition isn’t just. It’s not just a random feeling. Right. It comes from. It also comes from 10 years of marketing of. So it comes from those feelings of like, oh, I remember this feeling. Like, I. I remember I fucked up that thing one time. I’m never doing that again. And so you have that, that hone, that intuition that tells you these are the warning signs. That thing you messed up on, you’re going down that path again. Don’t do that. It’s like learned experiences that you feel in your soul.

Louis: Yeah, that’s actually Very well put. So the three notebooks info creates Pactor. So then you just. You seem to be writing a lot, right? Am I correct?

Amanda Natividad: Okay, yeah.

Louis: How do you turn those ideas that you put in those notebooks into Twitter threads? LinkedIn posts obviously repurposed quite a lot. But you know, when we talk about the original piece, how do you get there?

Amanda Natividad: So when I am writing it, I usually draft in the platform that I’m in, or at least I at least start it. Because I think just for me, that helps me put my brain into that platform. Like if I’m drafting a thread, for instance. But I also will use the Twitter native app and I do that so I can see how the text is laid out in thread format, which is important because that’s how readers are going to see it. So I’ll start doing it there and then at some point I’ll usually draft it in Evernote, Google Docs or Lex, which is an AI writing tool. But I like the writing tool part of it. It’s a very minimalist text editor and I think it’s beautiful. Kind of same with LinkedIn. Well, LinkedIn I’ll just draft directly in the LinkedIn box. Cause I treat them as like 100 word blog posts. But anything for long form, like a blog post, I either draft, I usually draft it in Lex, you are known

Louis: to know how to fucking write. Like, let me. Yesterday I interviewed the guests and she mentioned you, I think as one of the main resource to follow. Like for someone who’s really like, who knows their stuff and seem to have a way with writing. Right. And then I told her that I was talking to you today and she was losing her shit. I had to like, I had to calm her down and everything. She was hyperventilating. So I’m curious about this and I know the answer you’re going to give me roughly. I have an idea, but let’s, let’s try it anyway. How do you write good content like that?

Writing for People Who Don’t Want to Be There

Amanda Natividad: All right. I would now want to try to surprise you because you said you think you’ll know what I’m going to say. So now I have to surprise. In a sense, I write for myself. It’s not that I’m always a target audience of something that I’m writing. It’s that I get bored easily. I tune out easily. I usually skip the intros of blog posts in general because I just don’t need to. I don’t need it. It’s no secret that marketers today, like, I don’t need to read that. So I write for that. I write for the person. I mean, it’s not for me. Then I maybe I write for the person who doesn’t want to be there. So that, that’s one. And my. So which means I keep my intros very short. They’re typically only like maybe a couple sentences and I dive right into the, into the topic. I’m much more excited about writing something when I have examples that I feel confident nobody else has.

Why Personal Examples Beat Generic Case Studies

Louis: Right.

Amanda Natividad: It’s more fun for me. And so those examples then tend to be things that come from my own experience. Because nobody can compete with you at being you. Right. Like only you know your stuff best. So if I’ve tested something or seen something firsthand, I’m excited to use that as an example. What does not excite me is using some kind of external tear down case study where somebody says, here’s how masterclass did their SEO strategy. Where I’m not interested in that because unless masterclass were to say it themselves, they were to say, here’s how we did it. I’m interested. Random person outside of that team saying it, not interested. So I don’t use those types of examples.

Louis: I love that. I wasn’t expecting that answer. I thought you’d be. It’s just experience and it takes a long time and blah, blah, blah. But no, that’s a very good kind of cue into your thinking. I try to do the same. Right. I’m very much the same. I just, I just can’t deal with any type of bullshit or just I don’t want to waste my time anyway. And I think most people are like that anyway. But the second thing you said, like those internal stuff like getting excited about my own examples or examples that no one else have ever gotten. That really speaks to me because that’s what I try to do a lot, which is like featuring small business that no one has heard of or even solopreneurs and whatnot. All my own experience, as you said. But there’s something there. It’s funny, you know those teardowns. I know what you’re talking about. You know those teardowns of people who were not in the company. Right. And they just try to get data from like third party software that will tell you roughly the traffic and then roughly the social media stuff. And then it’s just missing the core of it, which is like usually what, what is the most important. So I get you. So you have like the writing for, for the people who don’t want to be there using real tangible example from your own experience or like, stuff you haven’t seen before. Anything else on that?

Amanda Natividad: I’m not afraid to not publish. So if I’m. If I’m writing something and I get maybe a quarter of the way through and I just have that feeling of I don’t know where this is going. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know what this is leading up to. I don’t even know what examples I’m going to use here. Is this even worth writing about? Like, should I complete this? And that’s sometimes a feeling. I have that feeling maybe half the time where it’s like, I don’t think this is that good. I think in the end, if I forced it and said, just finish it, I think it would be okay. But I don’t strive for okay. I strive for better. Better than okay.

Louis: Okay. So from your. For your personal stuff, do you have a, like, content calendar or a cadence that you kind of stick to?

Amanda Natividad: I mean, for my newsletter, it basically is when I can do it, when I have time, and when I feel like I have something worth it, that’s what that’s worth people’s time. That ends up being monthly or so. And then for Twitter, LinkedIn and now Instagram, I guess I would just say I’m trying to shoot for three to five times per week of posting something that I think is insightful, novel, amusing,

Louis: and you repurpose that, right? So, I mean, if a Twitter thread goes well on Twitter, obviously it’s easy for you then to repurpose it on LinkedIn.

Amanda Natividad: Yeah, definitely.

Louis: It’s really one. I want to dig a bit further here because you definitely stand out, right? Like, you have a voice, you know, and it’s all of those intangible things that I’m trying to, like, break down, which is difficult, obviously. Do you have, like, I don’t know, a list of hooks that you use or, like templates that you use? Or is it just your brain, your good examples? The fact that, you know, you’re writing for yourself, that makes it good.

Hook Frameworks and the ‘Why Do They Need This’ Test

Amanda Natividad: I have fewer templates and more heuristics, I guess, or frameworks that I think about. In the case of hooks, I mean, you know, there are lots of existing examples out there, like examples by Caitlin Burgoyne, Julian Shapiro. Hooks that are in the realm of, like, shock and awe. Right. Or like, counterintuitive, counter narrative. So that’s one. I do kind of think about that. But mostly what I think about is why does somebody need to read this? Why do they need this? And that, that’s usually enough to carry me through to write a hook. Because once I’m thinking about why do they need to read this? Then I don’t write the things like, are you struggling to get more leads? Like, that’s not interesting and not fun. You know, that’s derivative. I don’t think anyone reads that and goes, oh, I need to read more. It’s just what makes someone need something versus go, oh, that’s fine.

Louis: What are the typical things? Let’s say maybe the top three. That tends to happen. Like, what do they actually need?

Amanda Natividad: What.

Louis: What do you tend to lean on?

Amanda Natividad: I, I will, I will kind of lean into absolutes as a hook. An absolute meaning. Like, let’s see, a recent one that I wrote was something like, there isn’t a one size fits all social media strategy, but if I had to give one, here’s what it would be. So that’s a little bit of an absolute. A little bit of absolute. Haha. But that, that has somebody thinking, okay, well there’s only one. What is it going to be? And then I kind of dive into some of the nuance explanation, and then I tease for what’s, what’s to come.

Louis: Okay, what else?

Amanda Natividad: What else?

Louis: Give me more.

Amanda Natividad: There is sometimes, oh, here’s another one where if it is a coined phrase that I have like a phrase that I made up, then that, that I can, I can usually tie that to something that somebody would need to know. Like, I think it was last year that I did a blog post on something I coined with a friend, Corey Haynes, called Permissionless co marketing, which, which is like, you know, it’s sort of a catchy thing, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a name for a tactic that a lot of people already do. And so the way I introduced that was something like, there’s a marketing tactic that a lot of people are doing, but you’ve probably never heard of it.

Louis: Hmm.

Amanda Natividad: It’s called Permissionless Co Marketing. So that has somebody thinking, what’s the tactic? Wait. Huh? Wait, what is that name? Okay, I’ll read more.

Louis: Nice. Do you have a place in Evernote where you have all of those for easy just to remind you, or is it just in your head?

Amanda Natividad: It’s just in my head as I’m writing it. I usually get my shitty first draft out and then I try to put it down for a couple hours, come back to it, and I come back to it with like a stranger’s perspective of why does somebody need this like, is this boring? Can I get to the point in like, half the time?

Louis: So roughly three to five tweets or LinkedIn posts roughly per week. Right? And that’s. That’s your personal stuff. You also have a day job and a family. Obviously you need to optimize your time. Like, do you have a content calendar? Agreed with, like, with Rand, in terms of, you know, what you’re going to publish next? Do you have a cadence? Agreed with them. What’s the deal?

Being CEO of Content at SparkToro

Amanda Natividad: So I do. I do have a social media calendar for SparkToro, and I usually fill that in on Fridays. And it’s even as simple as, like, here are some of the topics we have. And at this point, because we have so much content built up at SparkToro, a lot of it is repurposing. So I’ll take some of our old tweets, rewrite some of our blog posts or aspects of our blog post into like, 100 word snippets. That’ll be part of it. Rand records a lot of video, so I’ll schedule those into the calendar as well. I don’t schedule or I don’t automate a lot of it, or I automate very little of it. Well, largely because the functionalities of, like, scheduling and Instagram are just not great. But LinkedIn is pretty good, so I’ll schedule there. But this calendar is. It’s mostly for me, right? It’s mostly just so I stay organized, so I stay honest to a deadline, and so that when I don’t know what to do on a given day, I can just look at the calendar. The calendar and think, oh, I’ll publish that thing. Great, done. So I can. I own that, Manage that. Rand and Casey can see it. I don’t even know if they look at it, but they can, they can look at that. And then as far as what I’m doing, like, daily or weekly at SparkToro, I try to ship something every day. And ship something is pretty vague, right? It could be a. A podcast appearance. That’s the thing that I’m shipping today. Like, the thing. And then in any, in any given week, I have a longer project that I ship. Basically, it’s whatever work that takes me, like, four to eight hours of dedicated time to do. I try to have that ready on Fridays, whether it’s for publishing on Sunday or whether it’s being like, oh, hey, Rand and Casey, like, I drafted all these automated emails for our onboarding sequence. Like, that’s the thing I’m shipping that helps me stay productive in some way without beating myself up too much if I have a bad day and don’t. Don’t feel that productive.

Louis: What it sounds like is that you are a talented copywriter and therefore also content marketer. And so you’re able to create as well as plan. And you’re not just like strategy planning shit. No, you’re doing both. So you are kind of a. You’re definitely a CEO inside the startup when it comes to the content. That’s what it sounds like. If you had a team, you had to do fucking one to ones every week and whatever, you probably wouldn’t be able to do this anymore, Right?

Amanda Natividad: Exactly. I mean, it is a very special kind of role that I’m in, in that, you know, I have a lot of autonomy, I get to make a lot of decisions like, like a VP would. But I, I’m also very tactical. Right. I’m writing blog posts, I’m writing email flows, I’m responding to customer support tickets, but all three of us are doing that stuff.

Louis: When we summarize how you’re able to do it, I think it’s also part of the context you’re in. Right. Rand Viking is obviously one of a kind. The aura that he has in the marketing world makes it, I think, easier for you to do your job as well because he has so much trust. And following that, it’s easier to amplify. You have huge advantages, competitive advantage, but it doesn’t remove your talents for being able to create shit and all of that. So actually that helps a lot to understand how you do it. What percentage of your time would you say you spend on the big picture stuff like strategy and stuff like that?

Strategic Repurposing and Getting More From Each Asset

Amanda Natividad: I would say maybe less than half.

Louis: And so what does it mean then for you when I said we’re a strategy and big picture?

Amanda Natividad: Yeah. Where I struggle to answer that is all the tactics that I do, I do through a strategic lens. Right? Like it’s not, hey, write a blog post. Okay? The blog post is done. Whenever I write a blog post, it’s what can we get out of this blog post? Or maybe it’s what can we get out of this webinar, Right? I’m not just running webinars or running or writing blog posts or posting on social media. I’m always asking myself, well, what else can we get out of this? So like a couple weeks ago we had, you know, our good friend Asia Arangio, co founder, founder and CEO of Demand Maven, a growth marketing agency. She co hosted an episode of Spark Doctoral Office Hours with me, talked all about growth, uncovering growth opportunities, jobs to be done, interviews, and like, even went through a case study of one of her own recent clients. So great session. But I was already thinking, like, what else can we get out of this, right? Like, as a, as a business. So then it became, all right, well, I have to send the follow up email that has a recording, of course, but I really want to send that when I have a blog post written, because I do want to take all this and write it into blog post format and so have these two things be very complimentary assets. So one, it’s a blog post based on her session. And it’s also nice for Asia, I hope, in that she doesn’t, she doesn’t have to do extra work. And then I embed her presentation into the blog post that anybody reading it can get value from. Both. Because I didn’t summarize the entire session I took, I took parts of it, what I felt like were the most salient parts, and wrote it into like, I think 1200 or 1300 words. Much more in the video. It’s like a 45 minute presentation, so it’s quite long.

Louis: How did you write this one, for example?

Amanda Natividad: So sometimes I use transcripts, but I’ve found that I do better or I’m faster in my work when I just take good notes during a session.

Louis: Right.

Amanda Natividad: And then I just come back to it later and flesh it out. So I was able to write this pretty quickly. I made notes of like, slides that I thought, like, okay, great, I’ll embed this slide in the blog post. This, this is very visually appealing. And also thought, oh, this is a good. I know this is going to resonate with our audience or they ask about this stuff. So I’ll make sure to write about this. And then as I’m, you know, as I’m taking notes, I’m already thinking about like, okay, here’s a general outline that I’m thinking of. It’s going to cover customer research, audience research growth, Bam. Like how. Here’s what you can do next. It was pretty easy. And like, look, Asia makes it easy for me, right? Like, she’s the one who brought the original content. All I had to do is repurpose what she said.

Louis: Yeah, well, it takes skills to do that as well to be able to, to identify what is important, what, what is not, and write it. And you need to love the act of writing. Even though no one really loves it. Loves it.

Amanda Natividad: It’s always, no, that’s true, that’s true. Because I think what I described also, there’s. I’m sure there’s somebody listening to this thinking, oh, my God, I can’t imagine anything worse than what she describes.

Louis: I mean, I. I mean, I love to write, but I hate to write. And there’s certain things I like to write, like small. But this kind of stuff, I just can’t do it. So I admire you for that. I told my guests yesterday that you were probably going to be one of the biggest. I don’t want to use it. I don’t really use the word influencer because we both know what it actually means. But you will become one of the biggest marketing source of influence in the next few years because of that. I think you have an intersection of skills that make you extremely good because you’re a copywriter at heart, you know, journalist, copywriter, and you understand all of that. So, yeah, I’m sorry to give you a compliment. You weren’t expecting this one. I said I wouldn’t say more, but I do. I definitely have this kind of feeling that it’s very clear. So I think that explains all of it. And at the source of it, if I had to break down how you’re standing out and how you’re able to do all of this is really the. It starts with the writing, the understanding of each platform and making sure you create something native for each so that people stay there and you play the game of the platform as well as making sure that people like it and always thinking of repurposing and getting more juice out of it. Just to go back to the strategy briefly, positioning, messaging, stuff like that. Right. Are you involved in that?

Amanda Natividad: Yeah.

Louis: Yeah. Okay.

Amanda Natividad: Yeah. So we do a lot of that together. I mean, ultimately Rand owns it, right, as the CEO, but we do have, like, I’d say about quarterly or so in person meetings where we meet for a couple days and hash out a lot of this stuff. We also do rely on the help of some really talented consultants and agencies like Gia Laudi and Claire Suellentrop at Forget the Funnel. They’ve been really helpful for us in improving our onboarding sequences. So we rely on them to help us with a lot of this strategy too, and then we implement it. We’ll also be working with Asia Arangio on some growth marketing. So I say, like, a lot of the strategy that we do is stuff that we do together. We decide on it together. We bring our points of view to the table and then how we divvy it up kind of happens naturally or in an Obvious way, Like, obviously all the tech stuff, like building things, Kasey does that. I guess for me and Rand, it’s a little bit like things can kind of be split up, however, but if it requires like much deeper, deeper knowledge of the product, then usually that’s the thing he would take on. Or even if it’s just whatever lends itself better to each of our respective worldviews or points of view or experience, then that also informs how we divvy up work.

Louis: Let me just recap a few things that you said that I found incredibly interesting. You first talk about the nuance between it’s either good content or it’s either shitty content, but actually, no, there’s an in between. You can do both. You can attract eyeballs to talk like a fucking marketing guru and make it good. Right? And then you talked about your week. Sunday, meal prep, Monday, ramp up, no meetings, Tuesday, production days, Wednesday publishing, Thursday speaking days, Friday, planning, patching content, newsletter and stuff like that. And then, yeah, you mentioned you have those three notebooks on Evernote. Like the info, the creator SparkToro info tends to be the stuff, that information that you see that you. That you find really interesting. You’re like, oh, shit, it’s that good. The create is more like ideas and stuff that pops into your head as well as the actual writing of things. And then SparkToro stuff, I guess that’s more like everything else related to SparkToro. And then just to go back to what I asked you, you know, when I asked you, are you what makes you that good at writing? And I was expecting a, well, just experience answer, but you didn’t. And you say, yeah, I write for the person who doesn’t want to be there, which I think is very interesting. As well as you get excited when you get to write about examples that no one else can give. Either it’s your own story or maybe someone like a company that no one has talked about and you’re not afraid not to post, which again is like testament to your experience. And you aim to publish three to five times a week for your own stuff. And then you tend to ship one thing a day for SparkToro as well as a bigger project every week. And then strategy tends to happen with Rand every quarter also when you meet up. Is that a good summary?

Amanda Natividad: I think it is. I think it’s great.

Louis: Yeah, People like that, so that’s why I do it, you know? Um, great. Yeah. We’re already past the cutoff time. I could talk about it about you. Yeah, I could talk about you for hours. But I could talk to you for hours as well. So the last few questions I tend to ask every guest. What are the top three resources you recommend listeners today?

Amanda Natividad: Uh, so I like to recommend some of my favorite resources are one Demand Curve. They’re an agency but also a like education platform for marketers. They have a lot of really good long blog posts, playbooks and they also have a growth marketing course also. Great. So highly recommend that. I also recommend Grow Class where I think it’s Grow Class. Grow Class co where you as marketers, you know, can learn super discreet tactics in within marketing. So it’s not just like here’s how to do growth marketing. It’ll be like here’s exactly what you need to know about Google Analytics 4. So super specific things that’s also helpful. And then the third one will be Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast. Not that he needs extra eyeballs, but that’s a podcast that I often listen to to help me think about being the CEO of content. Because that show is all about like businesses, growth, marketing, product and I think understanding all of these things help marketers think more holistically about their work.

Louis: Where can listeners connect with you? Learn more from you?

Amanda Natividad: I am, I’m on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram as Amanda Natt. So you can find me there. You can also find my [email protected] and then SparkToro. Check out SparkToro to help you do better marketing and find your sources of

Louis: influence or your influencers, whatever you call them.

Amanda Natividad: Yeah, or influencers.

Louis: Fucking hate influencer as a term. Yeah. Amanda, you’ve been great. Thanks so much for sharing all of those nitty gritty details. And yeah, it’s good to talk to one of my idols, you know.

Amanda Natividad: Oh my gosh, Lily, I’m like, I’m fucking with you.

Louis: I’m fucking with you. Alrighty.

Amanda Natividad: Thank you for having me.

Louis: And that’s it for another episode of Everyone Hates Market. Thank you so much for listening. I’m super, super grateful. I’d love for you to consider subscribing to my daily newsletter Monday to Friday called Stand the Fuck Out Daily. I send very short, hopefully interesting, surprising, shocking, entertaining content to help you stand the fuck out. It’s ateveryonehates marketers.com you can subscribe for free and obviously unsubscribe whenever you want. I’m just going to read a couple of emails that I got recently as a reply. Juma said your content attacks the mind primarily, which is such a good thing because most of us are skilled at what we do, but we don’t have the courage to do it our way. Mark, who just subscribed couple days before, said, this is my first issue of your newsletter. Love it. Glad I subscribed. Brianna Said, I just realized this morning that my email Habit is now to 1. Came through the list 2. Select all unread industry email except yours 3. Delete and don’t think twice 4. Quickly scheme yours. Amy said, Also loving the new content that’s coming from you. It feels really lovely. Candle said, I like your writing a lot. It really resonates. There’s so much bullshit out there it’s good to touch the authentic. And Chloe said, where is the I love this email button? Brilliant. I hope you subscribe. You’ll be joining more than 14,000 subscribers subscribers at this stage which is crazy. It’s the size of a small stadium. Anyway, thank you so much. See you on the other side.