NOW is the time to be a Thought Leader in your Niche

Ever feel awkward about sharing a controversial opinion on camera? I get it! In this video, I’ll help you show up confidently, ditch the drama, and become a true thought leader in your niche. I’m sharing my anti-script outlines and inviting you to the Hot Take Challenge... Download resources and join the fun below.

I want to snail mail you a sticker! Complete your "hot take" challenge by the end of June 2026 and let me know on IG (handle: meredithmarsh.co)!

Grab my "hot take" anti-script outline here: https://videobrandtoolkit.com/outlines

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Transcript

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The thing is, no one wants to be this fear monger or this like addicted to drama content creator on the internet. But you do want people to be interested and intrigued enough to hit play on your YouTube videos. So how do you show up confidently, naturally, talking to the camera, just like you were born knowing how to do it, while drawing a line in the stand, being a thought leader, being opinionated about something that might be seen as controversial in your niche or industry. My name is Meredith, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can build your binge-worthy video brand. And I have a challenge for you. And if you're already inside a Video Brand Academy, you know what this is going to be about. Because in our most recent meetup, I suggested gently, gently suggested that we all do a hot take style video on our YouTube channels. And I thought this is a this is a great idea because if you watched my last video, I explained how I've been using these anti-script outlines lately instead of scripting a video. I've been working on um trusting the words that come out of my brain or the trusting the words that come out of my mouth, trusting my brain to come up with the right words to say. Um, and just kind of like being a better communicator without having to script a YouTube video word for word. And I came up with these anti-script outlines. I I'll link to them down below so that you can grab them, you can download the whole document because there's different kinds of styles or different uh like types of videos and different outlines that you can use depending on if it's a video podcast or a hot take or a how-to video. I always thought it would be fun as a membership owner, um, as the founder of Video Brand Academy, I always thought it would be so much fun if we all, or you know, whoever wanted to participate, if we all kind of made the same video and putting that in air quotes because obviously we all have different niches and different industries, but you see this on social media all the time. You see, like, here's a prompt for your Instagram story. Talk about a time that you like uh talk about how you got the scar on your forehead or whatever, like some just like random, like tell a personal story prompt. And I always thought it would be fun to like YouTube that concept where we all make the same type or same style of video together at the same time, publish it like around the same time, but within our own niche or industry. And so when I brought this to the meetup, hey, why don't we all do a hot take video and publish it on our channels? The look on some people's faces, you know who you are, was like, what? What do you want us to do, Meredith? What are you asking us to do? And I was so like devilishly excited to see the uncomfortableness because if there's like anything you already know about making free content for strangers on the internet, you know it's weird and uncomfortable, like already, right? And I think as you know, as a human on the internet, as a human on camera, I think, you know, the more um, you know, the more kind of raw, sort of unedited, off the cuff, off the top of your head kind of communication, the more connection and like realness and you know, you could say authenticity that you actually create as a personal brand. Like the better the connection you create with your audience, because your audience are just real people. We're all just real people who, for that, for those of us in Video Brand Academy who are just happen to um have thoughts, ideas, expertise, experience to share on camera for YouTube. So, as weird as it already is to do that, let's make it even more awkward by coming out with a controversial opinion, a controversial take. Now, I think I know why it feels like a a little bit too, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I want to be that controversial. I don't know if I want to be um like maybe confrontational. I I I think I know why nobody wants to be that person. And it's because you tell me in the comments if I'm right. I think it's because it feels like negativity, it feels like you're just being a negative Nelly. Um, or you're afraid of any negative comments that you might get or any pushback or any, you know, I disagree with you because X, Y, and Z type of comments. Never mind the fact that you could post the most positive, wholesome, helpful content on the internet and still get stupid, nasty, negative pushback comments. Ask me how I know. Like, there's no way to control the the the troll behind the thumbs that are like making those comments and hitting, you know, send on YouTube. So like just throw that out of your of your brain already. There's no way to control that. You could get positive comments or negative comments either way, regardless of your topic, regardless of whether it's controversial or a hot topic, or just like some random tutorial teaching somebody how to do something. But here's why I think it's worth it to be weird and awkward and controversial. Here's why I think it's worth it to um go outside of your comfort zone with this. And it's because you might be the only person showing up in your niche, in your industry, in your space online, whether it's YouTube or just like social media or content in general. You might be the only person saying out loud what your audience is thinking and hear. You might be the only person with the guts to actually say something that other people haven't even thought to mention, even though it may be going on in here, in your clients' minds, in your audiences' minds, or it might even be something they hadn't even thought of yet. It might be what you might be offering, your perspective might be a way they just hadn't, it hadn't occurred to them to think that way about it. And you know what that makes you? When you show up as the person with that different perspective, it makes you the thought leader in your industry. It positions you as like a go-to expert, somebody who knows what they're talking about, and somebody who has the guts to be honest and transparent and real in 2026 and seven and eight and nine and beyond, real is going to be the most important currency that you have as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a content creator, being real. The more real you are, the more real the connection that you create with your audience, with your clients, with your customers, which means the bigger impact that you can have on the world moving forward into the future. At this point, because of AI, because content is so flipping easy to create with AI, go and watch an AI-generated video that's like an avatar where it looks like a human, looks like a human, sounds like a human, the mannerisms are just like a human, and you know what you don't see? You don't see jump cuts because somebody made a mistake in the words coming out of their mouth. You don't see mistakes being present at all. You don't see like a weird random thing of like, oh, let me just like put my hair behind my ear. AI avatars don't do that. I mean, they probably will at some point, like, because that's what real humans do, right? But making mistakes, being real, being authentically human is the new currency. And being somebody that has the guts to like say a controversial opinion, a hot take, you know, something that people might just might just disagree with. Being a person who's willing to do that is going to set you in your audience's mind as somebody who is real. Your audience wants you to be an expert. They want you to be a knowledgeable person. Like no one is going to purposefully choose to listen to somebody or follow somebody or take the advice of somebody who they don't trust, right? Who they don't trust. We want you to be real. And sometimes being real means people might disagree with you. People might come in your comments and say, Well, I don't think that's true because of blah, blah, blah. And in my experience, blah, blah, blah. And people can come with their opinions and their experiences. And that's wonderful. Like, what an amazing human thing to do on your content where you're the one who had the guts to show up and talk about the thing, right? Now, what does this have to do with posting on YouTube and the hot take challenge that we're doing inside of Video Brand Academy that I'm inviting you to participate in as well? Well, the humans do tend to like controversy, right? Humans are natural storytellers and story listeners, but no one ever expects everything to be perfect all of the time. No one ever expects anything to be like cut and dry all of the time. There's never any drama, there's never any hiccups. Like how boring would that be, right? We're drawn to controversy, drama, and hot takes, which is why I created this hot take challenge. Now, let me explain to you what we're doing in Video Brand Academy for the hot take challenge and how you can participate. And you don't even have to be a member of Video Brand Academy to participate in this. But first, let me explain what a hot take is. So, like I already mentioned in my last video, I um presented some anti-script outlines, which again I will link down to the in the description below so you can grab those for yourself. There's a free download and a free link in there so that you can do this on your own. And the whole purpose of these anti-script outlines are to help you train your brain to like have a structured outline for a video, a structured like flow. I used to I used to call this block scripting so that like each kind of section of your hook, your intro, your this, your that, your call to action is like a block. And you just like kind of build these blocks on top of each other. Um, same kind of thing. It's just, you know, it's also just like an outline. So the hot take antiscript outline is a video topic where there's some conventional wisdom in your nature industry, something that a lot of people assume is the accepted way of thinking about something. Um, you know, for me, one of my hot takes is that YouTube shorts are, you know, is like the worst thing that you could post on your YouTube channel as a business owner. That is a hot take. I stand by that still. I have a video on that that I did, I don't know, a couple of months ago, um, to back up my hot take. A lot of people disagree with it. A lot of people have found lots of success with YouTube Shorts. They are influencers, not business owners, mostly. And so I'm not, I'm not, I'm I'm like my brain so badly wants to get on the YouTube Shorts soapbox, and I'm having to like steer it back to the point of this video. But that's a hot take for me, right? It's something that other people in my ninja industry have the opposite view, and everyone assumes that on Instagram, everyone has to post reels. On TikTok, everyone has to post TikToks. On YouTube, we have YouTube Shorts, must be everyone has to post YouTube Shorts. No, it will tank your channel. Well, I'm off the soapbox. You get the point, though. It's an opposite viewpoint based on my experience, my expertise, my knowledge. I have an opposite viewpoint of what is uh what is like conventionally out there and accepted in the niche or industry. And every niche industry has this. You have this. If you don't have a controversial opinion or even a um slightly off-kilter opinion on something in your niche or industry, I really encourage you to like look around at the way things are being done, at the way things have been done in the past. Look at um, look at the like thought leaders or influencers or like the authors or the public speakers in your niche or industry. I guarantee they're saying something that you disagree with that you can back up, right? That you can back up based on your experience, your expertise, your clients' experience, um, and things like that. Or maybe just like in your gut, you know that it's wrong. That's a hot take you should make a video about. It's a hot take that you should like develop for your own sort of intellectual property, your own thought leadership, and make a YouTube video on it and then post it on the internet. So it a hot take is not just a random opinion or a random thought. Um, so for example, you already know my hot take on YouTube Shorts, right? My opinion, my expertise, my expert opinion is that long-form YouTube content is the best way to grow your audience on YouTube. It's the fastest way to establish you as the go-to expert in your niche on YouTube. That's just me stating my expert opinion. There's no hot take in there. The hot take is YouTube Shorts is the worst way. That's that's a hot take. Long form being the best way is just like the opinion. And I could do a video on that as well. Like that's that's part, that's one of the anti-script outline that I provide in that download. But the hot take is meant to be controversial and it's meant to. I'm not saying you have to stir up drama. I'm not saying you have to be negative. I think you can state a point, an opinion backed up by your expertise without being negative. Because here's the real, the real root of this. Here's the real reason why I want you to have the guts to state a hot take, a controversial opinion on your channel. It's because you care about your audience, right? You care about your audience doing things the right way, the most efficient way, the easiest way. Otherwise, you wouldn't be making content. And if you only ever show up with the sunny side of the coin, I don't know, is that a term? Probably not. The sunny side of the street, and you never get really real with your audience. Are you really caring about them? Are you really fully showing up and caring about the outcomes that your channel exists to help your audience, your clients, your students with? So there's some depth to this, right? It's not just this is gonna help, you get views on your channel. Although I think this is gonna help you get views on your channel, especially if you package your video in a um in package your video with a hot take right up front. For example, I came across a video on YouTube the other day that said personal brands are dead. That's a hot take right there, like in the title, in the thumbnail. That's a hot take right there. It's packaged there. If I vehemently disagreed, which I do, but not I didn't like care enough to go and watch the video and leave a comment, but if I disagreed uh so strongly that I had to go and like debunk whatever it was they were saying, then I'm gonna click that and I'm gonna watch it. But where this is important for you, for your audience, is if I was kind of questioning, should I be building a personal brand? Is that really the right thing to do in 2026 with AI and everything and people being fake avatars and fake voices? Um, you know, if I was questioning it and I was curious and I started seeing people talking about personal brands being dead, and then somebody like you that I look up to in your niche posted that video, I would have to go watch it, right? Especially if it's somebody I already know, I already like them, I already trust you. Yeah, I want to hear your opinion on this thing. If I'm not too sure about it, I'm gonna look to the thought leaders that I already trust to help me make decisions and make sure that I feel good about um personal brands or not moving forward, right? That's what thought leadership is. It's it's showing up with your perspective, your experience, your point of view from the experience that you have and laying it out for your audience. And because people love drama and because people love controversy, and because people want to feel like they're always doing the right thing, they want to know that they're doing the right thing from the people that they trust, they're going to want to watch your hot take because they need to know your opinion and they want to learn from you. And that's why you have your channel to begin with. I think without having any line in the sand, without having any kind of controversial opinions at all, and without confidently stating them outright, you know, I think you risk being just like every other person in your niche. You risk not standing out, not being memorable, not being visible. And, you know, if you're here to build your business, if you're here to actually help people in your niche industry, then you can't afford to just blend in with all of the other like average content creators and people in your niche industry. So if you want to participate in this hot take challenge, here's what you need to do. By the end of June, which you have, I don't know, like two weeks or so, I guess, by the time I publish this. By the end of June 2026, let me just be clear about that. By the end of June 2026, publish a hot take video using my anti-script outline, which I will link to down in the description below. And then tell me that you did it. Send me the link. The best way to contact me personally where I'm actually gonna see it is on Instagram. Send me a DM on Instagram, meredithmarsh.co on Instagram. If you're not using Instagram, you can probably find my email somewhere. And I will send you in the mail, I will send you one of my can you see this? Video brand academy uh mascot stickers. I call this my mascot. This is basically me. I'm powered by caffeine and juggling all these things. Um, and so like I call this my mascot. I have t-shirts with this mascot on them, and I have these little stickers. I will send you one in the mail, in the real mail, the snail mail. I will send it to you. That's my challenge. You post a hot take, you let me know by the end of June 2026, and I will send you a sticker. Anyone watching this video can participate, but you only have two weeks to get it done if you want me to send you a sticker. And I have to state this because some folks in my VBA meetup felt like they would be more comfortable if they skirted the whole point of this challenge. You have to post your video publicly on your YouTube channel. It has to be a public video, not an unlisted video, not a private video, not a video in Google Drive that you send me a link to. Post a public video on your YouTube channel. Now, like I said, you don't have to be a member of Video Brand Academy to participate in this hot tech challenge. And let me know in the comments if you choose to participate. That way I can keep an eye on your channel.