What to do if you "COPY" someones content - Teacher: Juma Bannister

Hello and welcome to Useful Content and this week's podcast is going to be a bit different than what we usually do because I'm going to share some thoughts on how creators can approach releasing their content 

Even when they are challenged by some of the external things that they see on platforms and particularly when larger creators also release similar content. This is something that I've experienced and I know that people who are releasing content as a business and people who are releasing content for their business would experience this too 

because there are a lot of content creators out there 

and inevitably people will have these same thoughts or similar ideas to what you might have.

And so what do you do when that happens? How should you respond? And I talk for about 10 minutes about that and my perspective on it, what I'm gonna do for me, 

and how you should respond as someone who's creating content. for your business. This will be very useful.

It's less of a tactical thing. It's more of how to think it's a mindset thing. 

And I think it would help many creators make the right decision when it comes to releasing original thought content.

Let's make useful content.

I know there are many people who create content. Who are constantly being held back by the thought of being seen as someone who's just riding on the coattails of someone bigger. So recently I saw a creator that I like very much actually, and I've, I follow their content, talk about the fact that they've been observing people copying everything that they do. So they release something that is pretty unique, that is out of their years of experience doing what they do, and then somebody almost immediately comes up and kind of does the same thing, or says it in the same way, just changing up the words a little bit.

And it got me thinking, it got me thinking about how many times over the years that. I've not released something because I've seen a bigger creator do it first. So I've had many ideas over the years based on my experience, based on things I've figured out that could be defined as like unique thought leadership, or at least something that has been crafted out of things that I learned, my experience, and things that I'm thinking about that I feel haven't really been focused on in that way before and I've had lots of different pieces of content like that and I would like make a video or write it down or get some jottings.

And then what would happen inevitably is that I would see some bigger, more popular creator just offer the same idea. And of course, what then happens is that everyone who follows that person piles onto the idea, comments, and talks about how of a great perspective it is, and you know, this is unique and what not.

And then I'm like, oh gosh, I can't share this anymore because now everyone would think I'm just kind of just saying the same thing that they said just in a slightly different way because the language is never exactly the same. The language is always a little bit different because of course they are not thinking, thinking the same thing that you are thinking.

And so I, I, there are many ideas I've shelved. because of that or I've just waited till all of the fire around that particular person kind of dies down a bit and then I reformat mine and release it sometime after but I'll just, you know, I've stopped myself from releasing it almost immediately for the concern and sometimes even the fear of being pointed out as, oh, you're just copying this person.

Um, so I've decided now that I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not gonna not release an idea that I came up with or that came from my experience or from in business or from consuming content or something that I took and changed around and made it my own and I'm not going to hold those things back anymore.

And that's going to release it because it kind of stymies the process process of growth and of discovering what works. It slows it down. If every single time you have what you think is an excellent idea and you don't release it because somebody else does the same thing, then you never get to test it with your audience.

And, and of course your audience might not be the audience of the bigger creator. There might be some overlap, but you're allowed to do that. And even if someone ups and says. Oh, this is the same thing that X person said. You can just respond and say it's similar, but this is something I thought of X time ago.

And who knows when this person thought of the idea. So you don't know. It's not a race to see who thought of it first. It's just a your personal experience coming out in the way that you feel is the best way to express it and that is useful for your audience and for the people who follow you. And so I think that that is something that I'm going to endeavor to do.

I'm not going to be stymied or held back by if I see a bigger creator say, Almost the exact same thing. I'm still going to release it. And I said this already in a post previously, but now it's becoming like a real thing for me because previously I would kind of do it when I'm just going to throw all caution to the wind.

And if I feel this thing is good, it works. It doesn't matter who says something the same or similar. I'm just going to release it anyway. And you should do the same thing. You shouldn't be held back by if someone, um, releases some thought or some idea because ideas are floating around it's it's in the atmosphere people are seeing things at the same time information is being spread at a rapid pace and if someone is in a similar space to you It's kind of not a unlikely thing that they might have a similar thought maybe and it's, you know, depends on who is the first to release it or who has more reach, then they will get known for that particular thing.

And so you shouldn't worry too much about that. And I'm going to stop. Thinking about that so much. It didn't worry me before, but I did, I did censor myself in some degree, uh, because I felt like, okay, this person, this bigger creator has done this thing, has done already. Everybody has seen it. Now if I just do that now, it'll just look like I'm just copying it or saying, saying it in the same way, which in fact wouldn't be the case.

'cause you know, they have idea. I have had ideas that I've put down for a whole year. Before someone says something publicly about what they're thinking. And maybe they've been holding it for a long time too. Who knows, who knows all of these things. Nobody knows the details. Nobody knows the process. So you can't allow the unknown to stop you from doing what you think is the correct thing to do.

And I thought that, you know, I thought that was something that I should kind of share because I, I, I know there are many people who create content. For their business and for their own personal development as content creators who are constantly being held back by the thought of being seen as someone who's just riding on the coattails of someone bigger.

Now, mind you, there are some people who actually do that. They actually just rehash things that bigger, uh, creators have said. They don't come up with original thoughts. They don't come up with things that are even reworked and put through the filter of their experience to present something useful and present something.

Fairly original to the audience. They're just taking what people say wholesale and copying it. There are creators like that. Even large creators do that too. Uh, so who are you to not share what your original thought is and the things you own experience. Obviously the way in which you can kind of avoid that is to really only share exactly what you've experienced.

But you can't just do that. There are some things that are experimental. There are some things that are, you know, They're unfinished thoughts. They are exploratory. You haven't gotten a chance to do it exactly yet, but you think it's a great premise. It's a great idea. In fact, I saw someone release a, uh, of, uh, um, it's not video.

They released a kind of a graphic that says, um, The edgy idea that you thought of last year is now getting approved now that a rival company has gotten an award for that exact idea or something of that of that nature was the graphic and basically it was saying that no one believes in these ideas until someone does it successfully and so the more popular you are the more likely someone is to believe in your idea.

And you are, it's easier to get it out there, nobody shares a hundred percent of the experience. Everybody shares exploratory things, things they haven't done before, and that is a part of development that you, if you only share what you experienced and nobody would have new ideas that they can bring to the table and say, let's try this.

And there'll be no room for growth, you know, if you only focusing on the past as a means to share things. Now your past is very important, but it doesn't mean that you can't come up with new concepts and ideas, even if they're untested and share it and build publicly. Nothing is wrong with that. That is also a valid way to build.

And so that's it. So that's basically the point to this whole video is that no longer will. I hold back from sharing these maybe unfinished and sometimes untested thoughts and I will share those things unless of course I have a reason for not sharing it. That is not based on somebody else doing it as based on some other reason.

I will share it still and you should do the same if you have just thoughts. Don't care about what people will think so much. Don't care about what Whether somebody will point that out and say, and say X big creator said that already, who cares? There might be one dissenter, but you take something, make it your own, and you share it as much as you want.

And of course, what you do thereafter is you go on, you test the thing, you implement it in your business, you find the best way it works for you, and then you report back on what that produces. But that, it shouldn't stop you. From being okay with sharing these thoughts and these ideas and um, and yeah, and I think that's a healthy thing to do for your content development, for your business, when you're experimenting.

Otherwise, no one will ever do anything new. Everyone will be stuck in the same cycle of what I've experienced. And no one will be able to be on the cutting edge at all. The people who come up with the brand new things are the people who are brave enough to say, okay, this is what I'm thinking of. Let me test it.

Let me go in and try it and let's see what it is. And then of course the spoils belong to the victors for the people who actually try it and they get the results. So, so yeah. So don't kill your ideas because somebody else might be doing the same thing. Still share it and do it exactly the way you want.

And then of course everyone will know after that, it's good to relate. 

So I hope that was very useful for you. And in the future, I want to share a little bit more of the mindset things along with the tactical and strategic things that we already share and the very specific granular things about content strategy and about copywriting and about branding, all those things that we usually talk about here on Useful Content.

I want to share things that really attack the mind of business owners who function as content creators as well. And for the teams that they run too, so that they know how to approach content and how to think about things. Because sometimes, We do have challenges that are not skill or technical challenges.

We have challenges that are 100 percent how we think about content or how we think about content in our business challenges. And so I hope that, um, I'm able to bring some perspective to that and help calibrate the mind of the people who, uh, the people who listen to this podcast so that they will be more confident and more sure.

and more balanced and more certain about how they create useful content that helps grow their business. So thanks a lot useful content creators for joining me today on the podcast.

Useful content classroom dismissed. And we're clear. Oh great. I don't know what I'm going to talk about next when it comes to mindset things but I think this is something I might do. This one that I recorded was literally me having the thought based upon what I'd seen recently and I sat down and I thought it was going to be Like a two minute video and I spoke for 10 minutes straight about it because it's been on my mind and in my heart And i'd made a post about this sometime last year and it really resonated with people So expanding it this time really wasn't a surprise for me at all And so next time i'll probably You know, bring up something else that I think is important for business owners to know when it comes to content creation and how they approach content.

And maybe that might be extremely useful for them as well. So, um, you know, thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking around to the end and don't forget you can submit your questions. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter. All the links are in the show notes And also don't forget to follow me on socials particularly and specifically on on linkedin and i'm also Active on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it.

And these days I'm putting on some content, you know, on here and there on different platforms on, on Facebook. And sometimes I would make some reels and different things, just experimenting. And also I'm on TikTok, but not very much, uh, serious about that anymore. And so thanks again and uh, and I'll see you soon.