Thread by @AliAbdaal

Over the past 4 years of making videos on YouTube, I’ve figured out loads of ways of generating new video ideas and a system to manage them.

One of them I like to call the ABC(s) of idea generation 👇

1. A → Ask Your Audience 🙋

Everyone has an audience, even if you’re just starting. If you’ve got social media followers it’s easier but even if you don’t you can still ask friends, family etc

This is a super-easy way to generate a handful of ideas and get your creative juices flowing.

So how do you do it? 👇

If you’ve got an audience that knows, likes + trusts you, it’s easy → just post on Twitter or Instagram...

If you don’t have an audience, just explain to friends and family what your channel’s about, what you’re interested in and what they’d like to know about that subject.

This has genuinely helped me get through creative block loads of times over the past 4 years.

B → The Birdsong Technique 🐦

Bear with me on this one.

This came from the idea that when you spend time learning about the chirping of different birds, you start to really notice and appreciate the sounds they make (rather than it being some random-ass background sound that most of us ignore).

So by understanding the basics of birdsong, it suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.

And guess what? It's basically the same with content...

When you're a content consumer, you passively enjoy the things that other people have created.

You don't think anything of it other than "this is kinda cool".

But as soon as you decide to be the creator, everything shifts.

You start consuming content as a creator, and begin thinking "how can I use this content in my next video/article".

So the Birdsong Technique is all about recognising that all content is great for helping us generate ideas ourselves.

You can find ideas from lots of different places using this technique.

Twitter, Podcasts, Articles, Books etc

This is great because idea generation becomes a natural part of your day, making it so much easier to keep generating ideas over the long term.

There's just one thing you should keep in mind...

If the content you consume is very different from the content you create, something is going wrong.

In an ideal world, the stuff you're consuming would have some correlation to the stuff you're creating.

This makes the whole creation process a lot more streamlined.

C → Coal Mining ⛏

The idea behind coal mining is that you’re actively looking for 'coal mines'.

A coal mine is an area where you're likely to find coal (i.e. video ideas) if you start digging.

This coal can then be used to create diamonds (i.e. banging video content).

Coal mines could be Twitter lists, Reddit threads, Instagram pages, newsletters, even other YouTube channels.

Whenever you find one of these mines, make a note of the link and refer back to it whenever you’re feeling short of ideas.

This isn’t about plagiarising or copying content, it’s taking inspiration to create your own stuff.

The internet is remix culture.

And over time you want to go back to the original sources and make yourself an authority in a space, rather than distilling the wisdom of others.

(s) → Build your system.

The ABC method is only as good as the system behind it.

If you don't have a system to properly store/capture your ideas you're just going to forget them which isn’t very helpful.

My solution was something I call the 'magical insight logging framework' which I explained in this video 🎥 

The objective as a YouTuber is to never run out of ideas.

If you're lacking ideas, it will inevitably result in you giving up.

Having different methods to effortlessly generate and capture ideas - like the ABC(s) method - is key to finding success.

For more tips on how to be a YouTuber, check out my Part-Time YouTuber Academy and join the 5th cohort of the online course 😃 academy.aliabdaal.com/?utm_source=so…