If you’ve been a fan of Cesar Milan  (you might know him from his show ‘The Dog Whisperer‘) you know that understanding energy is crucial in our daily life.

While Milan talks about communicating with your dog, he makes a very important point about how we behave and choices we make as humans in general.

What does communicating with your dog has to do with content marketing you ask? I promise there’s a valid answer. Just hang in there with me.

In his many episodes, books, seminars (and in whatever other profitable channel he found I guess) the dog whisperer preaches about  the importance of energy in two crucial aspects:

1. When choosing the right dog for you
2. When communicating with your dog

I will focus on the first point in this post.

Also  you will understand what this has to do with marketing (including examples).

Choosing content format is a lot like choosing the right dog

We have two dogs, so I’ve read quite a lot Cesar’s content and watched his show.

One of the things that really made an impression on me was Cesar’s approach to choosing the dog that is right for you and your family.

Cesar categories dogs by level of energy: Low, Mid and High.

A Low energy dog is usually a little slower, more relaxed, while a high level energy dog is one that needs to run a round a lot, is over excited and over curious about things.

It’s important to understand that it’s not that one is good and one is bad, they’re just different.

Cesar suggests that when you adopt a dog don’t do the common mistake of choosing the first dog that runs straights towards you or just the one that seems the cutest. You’re choosing a long term partner, you have to be more serious about it than that.

Choosing the right dog means finding a dog that matches your energy levels. If you’re always tired, don’t like going out of the house or do walks – don’t pick the dog that is crazily wagging its tail and can’t wait to go out on a run. Your energies wouldn’t match and you will either be frustrated (a high energy level dog that doesn’t releases its energy outside is most likely to trash your place) or the dog will become depressed.

 

Same goes with content format.

Wait.. what?! Yup, you heard me.

Think about the different energy levels different content format requires.

For example – If you’re not a super high energy guy, Video and podcasts are probably not for you. If you are Video is a great channel for you.

Think about Gary Vaynerchuk (I’ve become a huge fan recently), he is the master of video. Why? Because he bring so much energy to his Ask Gary Vee show and the DailyVee. No wonder Wine Library TV was such a huge hit.

Gary has super high energy and video works for him. Text on the other hand, is not a forte’ of his. He writes blog posts, and they are good, but not as nearly exciting or inspiring as his video content.

Take Tim Ferriss on the other hand. His posts, books and podcast are amazing. They are super interesting and insightful. Tim is a mid-level energy guy. His is passionate, but he’s not crazy energized as Gary. So text and long-form audio work great for him. His TV show on the other hand, doesn’t work as well.

Now to you

Yes, i know, there are all kinds of marketing trends to follow – ‘2016 is the year of video’ bla  bla. But as someone once said – it’s not the tactic that gets you noticed, but your quality.

So when planning your 2016 marketing channels, budgets and where to place your efforts, don’t just follow the trends blindly.

Look deep inside you and ask yourself – What level of energy type am I? Will video work for me? Will I be able to keep up an Instagram account? Am I lower energy level kind of guy and writing text is the best way for me to go?

Match the formats you’ll use to your energy levels. If not, you will be putting double the effort and get half the results.

Trust me.

P.S Did you sign up for my special goal setting workshop this Sunday? If not, sign up here