Write Engaging Content: 6 Lessons I Learned From Successful YouTubers

Engaging content is a buzzword in marketing.

Many people claim they create it, but only a few actually do. And the few who create it hook their audience like magic.

When you see engaging content, it draws you in and sticks to your memory for months. Even better, it influences you to take action.

I struggled to write engaging content for years. And I still work hard every day to learn more ways to engage my audience.

But recently, it hit me. Successful YouTubers – who have garnered millions of subscribers – are masters of engaging content.

What can I learn about creating engaging content from YouTubers who hold me captive for hours with their content? 

After studying their videos for hours, I found six interesting lessons. By the end of this guide, you’ll be armed with concepts to engage your blog audience and influence their actions.

Stay with me as I unpack what I found.

Engaging Content Goes Beyond Just Flawless Grammar 

Content with flawless grammar is a shelter for a writer. Your boss loves it and thinks it’s high standard.

Yet, readers are the ultimate judge by what they read.

Having flawless grammar isn’t enough to engage people. And flawless grammar that gets in the way of engagement is even harmful to your goal: to get read and influence readers.

This is evident in many well-written literary novels that receive awards but struggle to find readers beyond college professors.

The concepts we use in content are just as important as the quality of our words.

After watching many of MrBeast’s YouTube videos, I wouldn’t say they represent flawless grammar. Just words you and I use every day.

So, why do millions of people watch these videos even without impeccable grammar?

That’s because successful YouTubers use important concepts that engage viewers to the point they don’t analyze the quality of grammar.

And let’s be honest, Mr. Beast is more likely to influence people through his videos than YouTubers with impeccable grammar that nobody watches. In fact, Times named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2023.

Of course, I’m not saying you should fill your content with grammatical errors. 

However, employing the right concepts to engage people will engross them so much that they’ll barely have time to think about the quality of grammar.

Here, I’ll explore six concepts YouTubers use to create engaging content.

Lessons from YouTubers About Engaging Content

1. Set a goal for the reader

If your employer gives performance-based bonuses at the end of every quarter, you have one more reason to put in extra hours to trigger those bonuses. 

But beyond work, we engage in many tasks daily to achieve specific goals. So, why should a viewer continue to read your content instead of watching that interesting Instagram reel?

State an important goal they’ll achieve.

And if achieving this goal can lift a heavy weight off their shoulders, they’ll have a strong reason to read the body copy. The goal may only be one sentence in the introduction, but it shapes the reader’s expectations. 

Lisa Cron said in Wired for Story, “It is anticipation that creates the intoxicating sense of momentum that hooks a reader, so stories without it remain unread.”

Then, stating this goal shows you understand the audience’s needs and how to meet them.

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) does this a lot in his tech videos. He reviews a range of tech products, from the Apple iPhone to the Tesla Cybertruck. In most of his videos, he lays a background for the product and then tells the audience what they’ll know from watching the video.

In his YouTube Original about the Game Boy, he told viewers what to expect from the video, “On this show, I’m rewinding the clock to discover the tech of the past that changed our lives forever.” 

Since many people like to reminisce, the promise of a trip down memory lane is a treat that will keep them salivating. I’ll admit that I smiled through most of this video.

At the beginning of his Apple Vision Pro breakdown, he asks, “What is using the Apple Vision Pro actually like?” He went on to state some features and then said, “This video is all about using the Vision Pro.” 

These details prime the viewer about a few aspects of the device, and the goal shows Marques is in tune with why the viewer is watching.

While he doesn’t state a goal explicitly in all his videos, most videos start by laying the foundation of what the viewer can expect.

How to implement it

You can dig up the right goal for your content piece by asking, “What’s the biggest goal the reader wants to achieve, and how will achieving it benefit them?”

Once you find this goal, create a sentence that shapes the audience’s expectations in the introduction and pulls them into the main content.

For example, if I’m writing about how to buy a reliable car, I can say, “This guide will show you how to pick a reliable car that can serve you for years without expensive repairs.”

The goal is to pick a reliable car, and the benefit of achieving that goal is a car that can last for years without burning a hole in the owner’s pocket.

The introduction to a content piece sets the foundation for the body, and one way to hook the readers is to tell them what they can achieve after consuming the content.

Lessons I learned

• Setting a goal for the reader is as important as setting your own content goal.
• Use goals that readers want to achieve.
• Mention the benefit of achieving the goal.

2. Conduct research and publish results

In 2023, Harvard University spent $1.4 billion on research and development. And in marketing and sales, HubSpot does a lot of research on several topics.

All these point to one thing: we’ll always have questions that need answers, whether in soil composition, social media marketing, or ostrich racing. 

If you conduct research to answer critical questions in your field, people will beat down your door to know your findings. 

They’ll read every line, looking for information that can give them an edge in their lives.

Ruhi Cenet

Ruhi Cenet is a YouTuber who creates documentaries about places around the world. In his videos, you can find answers to questions like:

• How does it feel to live in a city that lives in one building?
• What does the world’s most dangerous road look like?
• What does life in the world’s poorest country look like?
• What’s the experience like living in the closest town to space?

He visits these places, interacts with natives, and reports on their challenges, daily lives, work lives, and social lives. 

These documentaries can answer questions tourists have and even provide ideas of locations to visit.

From Hiroshima’s recovery from World War II to air pollution in Lahore to a single-building city in Alaska, I learned new things about these places in Ruhi’s videos.

For example, in his video about Whittier City in Alaska, he provides a background on what the mega building used to be and how it became a residential area. Then, he shows what life in the city currently looks like, common businesses, and how the town connects to the world.

In the Hiroshima video, he doesn’t only explain that the U.S. bombed Hiroshima but also how the Japanese don’t blame the U.S. but the war. He also explained how the Japanese educate their children about the dangers and consequences of war.

Then, he tied it to current events and listed countries that still hold more powerful nuclear warheads and the potential consequences. His video doesn’t just deliver new information from the research but also builds perspectives around the numbers.

How to implement it

To deliver effective research, you have to form the core research question, define research methodology, use the right research tools, and uncover new insights. 

You have to consider available information about the topic before building on top of it to deliver new and relevant information.

While research is usually done by teams, individuals can also conduct research on a smaller scale. Here are some ways both teams and individuals can conduct research:

• Surveys and polls on website
• Customer surveys
• Email subscribers surveys 
• Polls on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram 

Every year, HubSpot publishes the State of Marketing and Trends Report. A lot of marketers look forward to this report to get new information about trends and what other marketers are up to for the year.

Databox is another company that does research on its website. As an analytics platform, Databox does research on topics like marketing, sales, and ecommerce.

On its contributor page, experts on a topic can answer multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Databox then features its findings and expert quotes in a relevant blog post. Because of these expert surveys, the brand builds trust with its audience to keep them reading their blog posts.

The novelty of research findings can engage readers who want answers to important questions.

Lessons I learned

• Answering important industry questions can engage people who want answers.
• The novelty of new information as a result of research can engage audiences.
• Building perspectives around research results can deliver more value to the audience.

3. Embrace controversy

In 2022, while Chris Rock was cracking jokes at the Oscars, Will Smith stood up after Chris made a joke about Jada Pinkett’s bald head, walked towards Chris, and slapped him on the face. 

At first, I thought it was a comedy skit at the Oscars. My mouth was ajar when it turned out to be real.

And, as you already know, it generated millions of reactions. It became the most popular moment of the Oscars that year, even beyond the fact that Will won the Best Actor award.

Now, I’m not saying you should go out every day looking for someone to hit on the face, but you can find controversies that won’t land you in jail and exploit them to engage your audience.

Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson is a popular Canadian psychologist. And one of the main reasons for his popularity is his penchant for courting controversy. He has had controversial opinions, like:

• White privilege is not a thing.
• Gender isn’t the biggest factor for the gender pay gap.
• Western society is not a male-dominated patriarchy.
• Sex should be assigned to children at birth.

He got so controversial that the Ontario College of Psychologists ordered him to complete a “remedial program regarding professionalism in public statements.” How come he’s so popular if his professional body thinks he’s unprofessional in his utterances?

The reason is simple. Many people believe these controversial opinions but are afraid to put them out because of backlash. 

Sometimes, “popular” ideas are not those believed by most people but those marketed by a few popular and vocal people. So, many people believe unpopular ideas in secret.

But beyond people on your side, controversy attracts people from the other side of the divide too.

The people on your side think, “Finally, someone who gets it,” while those on the other side think, “Let me see how you’ll defend this opinion.” A possible third category includes people who just want to learn something new. So, it’s a win-win-win in terms of engaging readers.

Apart from engagement, writing content pieces like these helps you develop clarity about important topics in your industry. Remember that the idea of the world being round was a controversial opinion at one time in history.

How to implement it

To use controversy, find a few controversial topics that draw lines between experts in your industry. 

Once you find these topics, you’ll discover you already have strong opinions about some of them. The next step is to develop your opinions (based on research and experience) to exploit these debates for more engagement.

Let’s take SEO as an example. Some people believe building backlinks has more impact on search rankings than having valuable content, while some think otherwise.

While both are important, if you had to pick a side as an SEO, which side would you pick? And how will you defend your opinion?

Recently, I saw a recommendation in a Slack group to read Bernard Huang’s blog post, Why Ranch-Style SEO Is Your Future-Proof Content Strategy. A day later, I got another recommendation from an email newsletter to read the same post.

Image source

After reading the post, my hypothesis is that this post from the co-founder of Clearscope is going viral mainly because it goes against a popular SEO concept: The Skyscraper technique.

So, it makes sense that anyone interested in SEO will engage with this page. Expert marketing writers look for these opportunities to hook readers.

Controversy is polarizing, but it can be a breath of fresh air, and it engages readers.

Lessons I learned

• Find polarizing debates in your industry and uncover the ones you have strong opinions about.
• Poke at popular ideas in your industry to either confirm their strength or find loopholes.
• Develop your arguments with research, experience, and interactions with other experts.

4. Feature subject matter experts (SMEs) 

If you feel lower back pains after hours of sitting at work and want the pain gone, who would you pay more attention to? A medical doctor or your well-respected Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)?

Using subject matter experts (SMEs) in content engages your audience for two main reasons:

• SMEs understand the subject they’re talking about.
• SMEs can distill years of study and experience into one tip to save you years.

So, when you feature an SME in your content, readers pay attention because they expect deep and unique insights.

Victor Ijidola, co-founder of Leaps, an SME interview tool, says, “Without subject matter experts (SMEs), you might find yourself just skimming the surface of most topics. You really need their expertise to give your content the weight and credibility that readers look for.”

Arun Maini (Mrwhosetheboss)

Arun Maini (Mrwhosetheboss) has featured fellow YouTubers like Ryan Trahan, Marques Brownlee, and … Bill Gates in his videos.

But it’s interesting that he features them in videos where viewers will see them as SMEs.

For example, the Android vs iOS debate is always polarizing. And to raise the level of this debate, Arun brought Marques Brownlee, a popular tech YouTuber, into the debate. Doing this gives the video more credibility, as many tech enthusiasts already know Marques as an SME on the topic.

Then, seeing Bill Gates featured in Arun’s video may look odd until you see the video title: Can AI really save the World?

Bill Gates answered questions about his efforts to develop AI use cases in Africa, a place many investors neglect.

How to implement it

To use SMEs in your content, you have to define what qualifies someone as an SME for the topic you’re writing about.

Once you do that, here are some ways to get SMEs to contribute to your content piece:

•  Create requests on SME aggregators (Help a B2B Writer, Qwoted, Connectively, etc.)
• Send an email to them
• Interview them
• Send a message on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
• Ask on professional Slack groups
• Use an SME interview tool like Leaps

To improve your chances of getting responses, you have to explain what benefits the SME will get from contributing to the content piece. 

For example, I was working on a guide about social media collaboration a few months ago. To get an SME quote, I asked on the Top of the Funnel Slack group, where I thought I could find social media managers.

An alternative to reaching out to SMEs is to go through their social media posts, blog posts, email newsletters, podcasts, and books. If you find their ideas on any of these platforms that fit into your content, you can quote them. This can help if your desired SME is too busy to respond.

Featuring SMEs can boost trust with your audience and keep them glued to uncover more information in your content.

Lessons I learned

• Feature SMEs related to your content topic.
• Publish interviews with experts.
• Ask the right questions to get the best insights from them.

5. Admit your struggles

I’ve known myself as an introvert since childhood. I find it difficult to have long conversations with people.

And this spilled into my social media life. So, posting on social media looks like getting an injection to keep my writing business healthy.

This weakness has disadvantages, but it also makes me human.

Nobody is perfect. If I ask about your friends or partner right now, you can highlight a few of their weaknesses.

But as an expert, most of your content pieces have to show you can perform specific tasks better than most people. This is the only way to market your expertise.

The problem here is that if there’s never a hint of your struggles, you may look perfect and fake. And you may lose the authenticity that pulls people close. 

In 1966, Elliot Aronson ran an experiment in which he found that competent people become more likeable when they make mistakes. This is called the Pratfall Effect.

Mentioning a struggle builds affinity with the reader and makes you more relatable. In return, readers will imagine they’re listening to a friend because friends are open about their struggles.

Antonio Centeno (Real Men Real Style)

Antonio Centeno (Real Men Real Style) creates YouTube videos that help men appear stylish. In many of his videos, he brings out his vulnerable side by mentioning his struggles to engage viewers.

In his video, Why I Choose To Live A “BORING” Life, he explained his ordeal when his parents went through a divorce and he had to live with his aunt. He also explained his anger issues when relating to his children. 

In another video, How I Struggle With Loneliness (And What I’m Doing About It), he shared his experience with loneliness to give the audience a sense that he has gone through these problems too.

And comments under the video show that viewers engaged with the content and learned important lessons. See some of the comments:

Of course, you don’t have to share super personal struggles in every content piece. Sometimes, it can just be as simple as a task you struggled with.

In Antonio’s video about 10 things a woman notices about a man, he shared a simple struggle: his difficulty smiling at people. Sharing this weakness wouldn’t make him feel naked, but it can draw his audience closer as it shows he understands their struggles. 

How to implement it

While you don’t have to admit to struggles in all content pieces, you can find topics suitable for it. These struggles can be personal weaknesses, struggles in social life, or struggles at work.

One way to find these struggles is to think through work tasks that gave (or still give) you a lot of headaches. Another way is to find personal experiences that can help you connect with readers for a particular topic.

That said, keep in mind that your experience should fit into the topic you’re addressing.

Ramit Sethi, a popular personal finance author, is an expert at writing attention-grabbing emails. And one thing I often see in his emails is his past struggles with the topics he addresses. Here’s an email about great conversations:

Admitting to struggles can make readers more receptive to your message.

Lessons I learned

• Everybody has struggles, and admitting them makes you more human to your audience.
• Explaining how you struggled with and overcame a problem can fill the audience with the hope of achieving similar results.

6. Engage your audience’s imagination 

Consider the following phrases:

“A professional basketball player.”

“LeBron James.”

Which is easier to imagine?

People think in specifics. Nobody thinks, “I want to eat food.” It’s more likely, “I’m craving a pepperoni pizza.”

So when a content piece says, “I want to eat food,” it stresses the reader’s brain. Because it’s easier for the brain to picture pepperoni pizza than go through a library of 53 foods and wonder which one to imagine.

When vague sentences litter a piece, taking out the trash suddenly looks more exciting than suffering through the content.

Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)

Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) starts engaging your imagination right from the video title, with titles like:

• $1 vs $1,000,000,000 yacht
• $1 vs $500,000 plane ticket
• I paid a real assassin to try to kill me
• Stop this train, win a Lamborghini

With these alone, you can easily paint 10 images in your imagination. MrBeast said in an interview about titles, “You want to make it so interesting or spike their curiosity or whatever emotion so much that if they don’t click it, they’ll wonder before they go to bed, like what happened?”

But it doesn’t stop with the title. When you get into the videos, prepare to get your imagination working for the next 15 minutes.

Take for example, the video about yachts. This video explains the features of each yacht, such as the price, number of rooms, size of yacht, number of staff, size of rooms, and other amenities.

This means that, apart from the video, his words make it easy to imagine what each yacht looks like. Beyond just stating facts, he supports them with details to make them imaginable. So, instead of saying a room in the $1 million yacht was small, he only mentioned that he couldn’t stand fully in it.

These elements ensure that his videos feel more like five minutes long rather than 15.

How to implement it

I’ve learned that to engage your audience’s imagination, you have to mention things you’re reasonably sure they can picture, use popular analogies, and leave curiosity gaps.

In Kayla Schilthuis-Ihrig’s blog post about the science of productivity, she used her words to paint vivid images in the reader’s mind. For example, here’s an analogy about an unproductive person depending solely on AI apps:

If you go through the page, you’ll find many phrases and sentences that readers can easily imagine. These words make the reading experience easy.

When you paint pictures in your reader’s brain, they’ll follow – without hesitation – to wherever you lead them.

Lessons I learned

• Mention things, people, and places your audience can easily recall
• Use popular analogies relevant to the reader
• Leave curiosity gaps to draw readers in to get full information 

Conclusion

Engaging readers today is tough because of the many exciting content options available to them. 

However, without holding your readers’ attention, it’s impossible to deliver your message to their brains and influence them.

That said, the concepts here have helped successful YouTubers garner millions of subscribers and billions of views.

Study your content and see how you can implement these concepts to keep readers reading and taking the actions you want.

And if you need someone to write engaging content for your SaaS company, reach out to me, and let’s talk.

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