How To Get Viewers ADDICTED To Your Content

today we're talking about storytelling is there a formula for telling stories so good that viewers get addicted I'm talking about Johnny Harris casy neistat even Mr Beast their fans are hooked and they did it by hacking viewer psychology to get people addicted to their videos now it turns out there is a proven framework for doing this and it's the same storytelling formula that all the biggest creators use to build massive audiences so in this video I'm going to break down the whole thing first the psychology behind a addictive storytelling and then the four best storytelling

techniques that you can use to level up your content by the way I'm Callaway I have a million followers done billions of views and I study storytelling all day long now the building block of this whole concept is understanding the psychology of addiction and it's actually pretty simple addiction comes from dopamine Loops in the brain you take an action your brain releases a reward the dopamine and that programs your brain to want to take the same action again to get more dopamine this is how all addictive things work it's just a ser series of reward

Loops you do it you like it your brain makes you want to do it again so if you want to make content that people get addicted to and build cult fans that keep coming back for more you only have to figure out one thing how do I tell stories that also consistently triggers that dopamine reward system and that's exactly what I'm want to break down in this video now the big question is what actually triggers that dopamine release when you're watching a video well it turns out the dopamine that gets released when you're watching something

comes from three different factors value contrast and relevance let me break this down value is what you're actually getting out of the video think of it like the purpose so if it's a Mr Beast video about surviving in an abandoned city then the thing you're getting out of it is pure entertainment but if it's one of my videos about how to grow on social media then the thing you're getting out of it is something like a tactical step-by-step Playbook something more useful to help you solve a problem now these two different purposes usefulness and entertainment

make up the two sides of the value Spectrum so when you watch a video you're either doing it because you're getting something useful something entertaining or something somewhere in the middle okay so that's the value component kind of like the overall purpose of why you're watching but that isn't really what makes the video addicting so the question is what actually moves the needle and what moves the needle is the magnetude of the value the more value you get the bigger the dot regardless of where it falls in the Spectrum the more dopamine that gets released

and the more dopamine that gets released the more addicting your videos become so what you really want to do if you're trying to engineer addictive stories is to maximize the amount of value for the viewer and that's where the other two factors come in contrast and relevance now contrast is the most important piece of this equation it's the magnitude the strength of the value so what exactly is contrast contrast is the difference between your previously held expectation and the reality of what you actually hear in the story so for example if I make a video

about New York City and all I show you is mostly yellow taxi cabs and dirty Subways well that's pretty close to what you would have expected to see and so the contrast between your expectation and the reality it's pretty small that means the value you got from the video in this case entertainment value is also pretty small but if I make a video about New York City and I show you footage of a crazy helicopter ride and then a mission to go spray paint the Statue of Liberty red well then that blows away your base

expectations that's a huge contrast and therefore way more value again it's about the difference between expectation and reality that difference is called contract okay let's take a usefulness video type of example if I make a video about how to grow a YouTube channel but all I do is cover the generic points that are out there that you've heard before well then when you hear my video your expectations and the reality are going to be very similar and therefore you're not going to get a lot of value from the video but if I share four new

tips that you have never heard before that you can tactically take and apply into your video well then that reality severely exceeds your expectation that's huge contrast and therefore huge value so all you have to do to maximize value value is to create a massive difference between what the viewer expects to see and what they actually see and this is why so many people are addicted to Casey n stats videos not only are his New York missions different topically than the typical video you see but his cinematography the style his personality and the story are

also significantly better than the average New York video that's a ton of contrast and that's why subconsciously you love watching his videos Max contrast equals max value now the third factor that influences strength of value value is relevance and where contrast is the size of the value relevance is the Precision imagine a dartboard contrast is the size of the dart relevance is where it lands on the board the closer to the bullseye for you as the viewer the more relevant the video is and the more relevant the video is to you the more valuable it

will be so the point is if you want the most amount of dopamine released to your viewer and therefore the max addictiveness in your videos you want the most amount of value targeted as precisely as possible at your ideal viewer cont contast plus relevance equals max value and this is the science of how dopamine is released in the brain when it comes to watching videos and hearing stories now of course that first part is a lot of theory so as promised I'm going to walk through four more tactical tips that you can use in your

storytelling to increase contrast and relevance now the first storytelling tip to increase contrast is value compression I sometimes call this speed to value at the beginning of the video you want to do two things one make sure the viewer can opt in right away and two expose them to the most dramatic contrast moment as soon as possible this means in the first 3 to 5 Seconds you should say exactly what the video is about pull the context forward to the beginning pull the value forward to the beginning if you take this video from Cleo Abram

for example the title is what were dinosaurs really like I want you to watch the first 5 Seconds that right there is the toe bone from a baby dinosaur literally in the first 5 seconds she flashes a bunch of different pictures of dinosaur and then grabs a dinosaur bone and holds it up herself this is Max value compression because she's bringing the distance between when you clicked and confirming you're going to see some stuff about dinosaurs to like 3 seconds and this helps you decide if the video is actually relevant to you so you can

keep watching Mr Beast does the exact same thing in all of his videos he always shows the grandest wildest most ontarget reference to exactly what the video is about and yes this is the hook but what he's really doing at a psychological level is sprinting to show you that your expectations were significantly below what his reality actually is there's a reason why these people are so successful and have built cult fans of millions that are addicted to their videos it's because they're optimizing for max value as soon as possible if you can compress the speed

to Value significantly it will help you massively because it brings forward that contrast moment for Cleo you don't expect her to be holding a dinosaur skeleton and then boom 2 seconds in there she is holding the bone that's rapid contrast and Rapid value it hooks you it makes you keep watching now the other piece of this the cousin to Value compression is value density just like Cleo brought the first sign of value up to the first 3 seconds she also wants to maximize the amount of value per minute ongoing for the rest of the video

and this is called value density how packed with entertainment or usefulness is this video now this doesn't mean speeding up the editing or adding a ton of overwhelming cuts a lot of people get that wrong what value density actually means is simplifying the story cutting out all unnecessary details and increasing Clarity of the script if you have seven valuable things to say instead of saying it in 14 minutes could you cut it down to eight shorter is always better shorter is more distilled now a tactical way to get better at this is pressure testing your

scripts one line at a time when you read one line does it have to be there does it really make you want to go to the next line if not you should cut it when you do this for the full story you'll realize how much clearer and quicker you can Sprint to value and since the average viewer probably only watches a third of your video bringing that value moment earlier increases the chance that they will see at least some of it instead of saying I was talking with a bunch of friends and they were telling

me about how Luca got traded to the Lakers just say Luca got traded to the Lakers it's way quicker you don't need all that fluff cut straight to the Bone you want to compress speed to value and maximize value density this will significantly increase the addictiveness of your videos because they will seem way more valuable now I know that all this can seem a bit theoretical and hard to act on if you watch this and are interested by it it feels right to you but you don't know how to tactically implement it into your stories

I totally get it I actually built an AI storytelling assistant that can help you with this all these Frameworks and formulas and psychology it's all baked in automatically so it reduces the time to write a short form script from 60 Minutes down to 60 seconds and if someone that makes content all day long I cannot tell you how useful it is to save that time it's called sand castles if you want to try it out sandcastles or I've got a free trial link in the description all right the next tip for making your storytelling more

addictive ing is to prioritize format matching if you think about what addiction really is it's not trying something for the first time it's going back to the same thing again and again and again and repeating that enjoyable experience it's the repeat viewing that creates the long-term cult fans so when you're trying to tell addicting stories what you really want is for someone to get hooked the first time and then come back the second time and experience the same value a great way for making this easier is format matching and Casey neistat is the best at

this when you see a Casey neistat video you have a certain expectation for what you expect you're going to watch you know the content of the story is going to change but you're pretty sure you're going to get a view of his office the overhead shot of him riding the sunglasses him moving on some kind of vehicle these are all the elements of his format that's what makes a Casey nice that video a Casey nice that video I like to think of that as his format fingerprint it's the signature style that's unique to him and

the reason it's so important to hold your format consistent if you want to make addicting videos is because it's easier to accept expectations when fewer things are changing so if Casey can hold his format the same the way it looks the way he shoots the way it talks the way the graphics are then he can focus more of your attention on the purpose or subject of the video essentially more focus on the contrast which hooks you more now I'm not saying everyone should make videos in Casey style and I'm also not saying the goal is

to suck the creative expression and fun out of the process but what I am saying is that once you have a style that works creating a format match in the viewer's brain is the easiest way to get them hooked this is why TV shows and game shows have consistent sets and looks and feels it's to immerse you in a world and then keep you there as long as possible so format matching is essentially about coming up with a signature style and then sticking to it and now of course the hardest part when you're starting out

is how do you come up with a signature style in the first place that's what everybody's after to me the Tactical things to focus on are the visual packaging and the graphic compliments packaging is everything from shot selection to angles to branding craftsmans ship audio video quality it's all the video and audio Aesthetics that go into complementing the story you're telling now if you're telling a story verbally around the fire this would be things like your hand movements your facial expressions the way you move your eyebrows but regardless of format there's almost always some visual

paired with the verbal thing you're saying and this helps add comprehension to the story now the best way to come up with your own visual style honestly is to pick someone that you like and try to emulate them exactly what does their visual set look like how do they talk how do they move move what do you see on screen when they're presenting if the best way to learn how to write is copywork which is literally handwriting copying the best novels of all time then the best way to learn how to build a visual signature

style is to do the same what you'll find is that you naturally end up changing and tweaking a bunch from the person you're emulating and so you'll probably end up with 50% difference here and there with various tweaks but this solves the blank page problem of a signature style because when you're starting out making videos or even public speaking it's so hard to start from scratch with the blank page on everything this way the visual copy workor gives you at least something to chase after now the other thing that can help especially if you make

videos is to add visual graphics and visual Graphics are meant to increase the comprehension of the story because if you don't use visuals you're asking the viewer or listener to imagine what you're saying and some people are good at this but inevitably there will be some loss in comprehension to increase comprehension and therefore to increase contrast it's super helpful to use Motion Graphics or movie clips or any visual they can help represent what you're saying again the easiest way to close the gap here is to find somebody with Graphics that you like and figure out

who makes them honestly a big reason for My Success on YouTube has been my editing team because their Graphics help increase the comprehension of what I'm saying significantly now if you like the graphics I have and you want a style similar to that I actually have a link in the description where you can hire an editor just like mine all the third tactical tip for making your stories more addicting is to improve your story flow now story flow is everything from the clarity of your word to the transitions you use to the general flow of

how you speak how distilled is your message and all this goes back to comprehension comprehension is how much of your story is actually being absorbed by the viewer the contrast just doesn't hit as hard if there's a bunch of loss in the comprehension so the best way to increase that comprehension and the contrast is to improve your story flow and the distillation of your message so it's not just about bringing the value earlier and improving the visual packaging it's actually about simplifying your words and increasing the flow so people understand more of what you're saying

and the easiest way to do this is to use simpler words if you're using big words and complex phrases chances are you could be simplifying it down without losing any of the impressiveness of the story and the easiest way to do this tactically is to take a piece of your script put it into chat jpt or Claud and literally prompt it to have it rewrite it simpler we actually built that directly into sand castle so you can have your script and then you just highlight a section and you can immediately ask the chat to optimize

your story flow and regardless of the tool that you use distillation of your words reducing the fluff increasing comprehension is the best way to increase contrast and therefore value all right so far we've talked about three main ways to supercharge the value in your stories making your storytelling more addicting the first was increasing speed to Value so bringing that contrast moment up sooner the second was format matching which was also to help increase the contrast but this time to have visual consistency so the viewer can focus more on the subject and the third was to

optimize your story flow to really distill your points down to increase comprehension and clarify the message now the fourth and final tip is what I call the fun rapper a fun rapper is basically the outside layer of how you tell the story and it's not complicated you want people to be entertained and actually enjoy listening to you as you tell it now I already mentioned that stories are on a spectrum from entertaining to useful well entertainment stories are already inherently entertaining but if you tell useful ones adding a fun rapper can really increase how addictive

your stories are and it's really about making it more fun for the viewers to watch high energy jokes laughing around smiling increasing overall likability of either you as a Storyteller or the subject of the story because likeability maps to viewer Buy in they just want to watch it more and when the viewer Buys in they focus and when they focus it increases comprehension more comprehension equals more contrast more contrast equals more value when your videos have more value they're more addicting again the whole point of this whole framework is to try to figure out how

to make your videos and your stories more valuable so it triggers that dopamine reward Loop when people feel like they're getting what they want either entertainment or usefulness they tend to come back this is what makes stories addicting at a psychological level and if you can Master how to tell addicting stories consistently you basically unlock a cheat code to Growing any online business because addicting content means cult fans and cult fans means Max trust and when you have Max trust directionally towards any space where you have a product or service you tend to win now

one of the things that can help solve the inaction and overthinking when it comes to storytelling is actually being in the trenches with other creators and entrepreneurs trying to write better stories as well I wish I had more of this when I was starting out so to help solve this I'm building a free community of creators and entrepreneurs focused on improving their content to grow their businesses it's called wavy world we already have 12,000 members in there if you think it help you to be around other creators entrepreneurs working on this stuff I've got an

invite link for you in the description it's completely free all right guys that's all I've got for this video as always please let me know in the comments if you thought this was helpful and what you want to see for me in a future one until then we will see you guys on the next one peace