My friend, Justin Rhodes, .

I never really get tired of his content because he has this awesome gift of taking educational content and presenting it in a way that makes his audience feel something. That is REALLY difficult to do.

While there is still certainly a place on YouTube for tutorials and educational content that delivers information in that way, there’s another approach to education that, when done well, many people don’t even notice that it’s actually education.

That’s because the education is wrapped up in a story that captures the viewer’s attention, holds their attention, and actually makes them feel something. It gets the viewer’s heart involved and, before long, causes them to even build a perceived relationship with the educator. Those are the channels that often find the most success on social media platforms like YouTube.

As a homesteading channel, Justin has quickly risen above the competition by wrapping engaging and heart-felt stories around the education he provides and, as a result, has grown a successful business that now supports his family and a small team.

In our recent podcast episode, Justin will share his process for how he takes what most people would turn into a normal tutorial or educational video and instead wraps a story around it that captures not only your attention, but your heart, too, which more quickly converts viewers into subscribers, subscribers into fans, and fans into customers.

Here are some of my takeaways from our talk.

  1. Show the human side of yourself. Bring in other elements besides the exact how-to process. Share a funny anecdote, show your audience your quirks or interests, etc.
  2. Risk vulnerability. Show your mistakes. I know this is hard for those of you that want to be seen as experts, but I PROMISE you – this will help you build greater trust with your audience if they see you’re human just like them.
  3. Start the video with the desire and get into the obstacles and stakes ASAP. Didn’t talk about this, but Justin often teases that desire and obstacles in his titles and thumbnails, so opening the video with the conflict makes sense.
  4. Follow the proven story structure. If you can answer the 7 questions we discuss in the podcast episode and anticipate some of the obstacles even before you hit record, do it. Even if you can’t, start with the process and look for the opportunities to record the obstacles as you go.

We hear from a LOT of educational creators that story doesn’t work for them. I’d encourage you to listen to the podcast episode and to learn how to incorporate story into your own educational content. It is possible!

We help many educational channels do this all the time.

If you are still struggling to figure out how to get viewers to CARE about your educational (or other) content, . We’d love to help you meet your YouTube goals.

Thanks for reading!

Keep changing lives,

Tim