Nicolas Cole explains how TikTok and Instagram Reels viewers judge creators in five seconds, not by credentials but by whether they quickly show expertise or name a problem you recognize. Your degree doesn't matter. Your ability to articulate what the viewer needs does.
If you scroll TikTok or you scroll Instagram Reels and all of a sudden someone appears on your page, you don't know who that person is. You don't know if they're the most credible person in the world or if they're a super random person in the world. You don't know anything except a talking head on the screen in front of you. And what do you do? You give that talking head about 5 seconds, and if they start talking and they start demonstrating expertise that's relevant to you, or they start educating you on a problem that you have or a problem that you don't know that you have, you keep listening. This is like short-form content consumption 101. Our first question is not, "Where did you go to college?" Our first question is not, "How much industry credibility do you have?" Our first question is listening to the words that you are saying and trying to gauge whether or not you know what you're talking about by your ability to articulate my problem.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
