How To Start Creating Content In 2026 | Full Battery Media

Stop Waiting. Start Creating.

Want to start creating content in 2026 but don't know where to begin?

In this episode of Full Battery Media Academy, Sean Trace breaks down the simplest path to getting started, without expensive gear, complicated strategies, or waiting until you're "ready."

You'll learn:
 ✅ Why volume beats perfection
 ✅ The easiest content format to start with
 ✅ How to choose the right platform
 ✅ The 3 content types that consistently perform
 ✅ Why your first 10 videos matter more than your first viral video
 ✅ The biggest mistakes new creators make
 ✅ How to stay consistent without burning out

The creators who win aren't the ones who wait. They're the ones who hit record.

#ContentCreation #YouTubeGrowth #CreatorEconomy #PersonalBrand #ContentMarketing #FullBatteryMedia #SeanTrace #VideoMarketing #CreatorTips #YouTubeCreator

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Full Battery Media Academy. I am your host, Sean Trace. I am El Professor. I am the content professor. I like that. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Sean Trace, the content professor. Actually, I did teach content and I was a professor. So it kind of fits. But here at Full Battery Media Academy, what's the difference? Full Battery Media Academy is something I'm offering to you guys for free. I want to teach you guys how to make content. Just show up, and I'm here to help you guys step up your content in 2026. All right, let's get started. The first big question that a lot of people ask me is how to start creating content in 2026. Well, they don't actually say, hi, Sean, how do I create content in 2026? But they do say, how do I start creating content? And it's 2026, so let's get started. This is gonna be your beginner's step-by-step guide. And this is not a foolproof list. There's gonna be a lot more to come, but let's start here. Number one, and this is the most important one. You don't need to be ready. This is the thing that holds a lot of people back. Most successful creators improve through volume, not preparation. This is an industry-wide creator trend. People get better from reps. Yeah, like Arnold. I'm doing the reps and doing the workout. If you don't know that reference, you're pretty young. I'm sorry, but you should look up Arnold, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Come on, the Terminator. You guys don't know the Terminator? Am I dating myself that much? That Terminator? Come on. Arnold? No? Okay. Most successful creators improve through volume. It means that you need to be out there and you need to be creating. And what does that mean when you're starting to create content? No one starts polished, no one starts looking super fancy. They start off with a camera or a phone and they press the red button. That's it. When I started, I had a flip cam. Now it was a little square camera like this. I'll put one up right there. And it had this square shaped and it had a little USB port that popped out. It was not high res. It in fact shot very low res. It was vertical shape, but shot horizontal video. And that's what I made hundreds of videos on. And where I helped people go from making no money to year to making a lot of money every year from just basic content. What did we do? I worked for a hair salon and I helped people make hairstyling videos. And that was it. Now what was interesting was that the more established people said, I don't want to be doing video. I don't need to do video. I'm already making a lot of money. And yet I took one guy who was making no money and I said, Do you want to make video? He's like, sure. And he kept stepping up. Every time I do it said, every time I said, Do you want to make a video? He made a video. You know what happened with every single video we made? He got his reach out there. People started knowing who he was and what he did. We started sharing those on the website, on the Facebook page, on the YouTube channel, on whatever other social media we had at the time. And you know what happened? People started showing up. Now, you figure it out by doing it. We figured out by iterating. Every video we made, we got better. Every video we made, we learned something new. Waiting is losing time. I don't know how many people have come up to me and said, I wish I had started when YouTube was new. I wish I had started when TikTok was new. I wish I, you know what? Stop wishing. Start now. Because the best time to start was like 10 years ago. But the second best time is right now. Because at this point in time, you've got the inertia, you've got the motivation. Get going. Get doing. Get doing. Start creating, man. Now, your early content is gonna suck. My early content was rough. These are some of the early videos from the Sean Trey show. And I can tell you, it looks pretty horrible. And it was. I didn't know what I was doing. I sat there and kind of was like, hi, what do you do? This is my podcast. And you know what? In 10, 20 years, I'm gonna be looking back at this time and again, you know what? Those years, 2026, my podcast was rough. But I was starting somewhere. I was building, and you need to as well. So what else can you do? Start off with talking. Talking head videos like this remain one of the highest performing formats across platforms. If you can talk, you can create. I'll say that again. If you can talk, you can create. There is no need for complex formats, complex styles, complex whatever. Just create. Simplicity wins every single time. Now, the first time you do it, just get out and press the record button. That's it. And for me too, like I started out early and I just press play and I started talking, and I've got the gift of talking. But you know what? You don't have to. You could be the guy from Ferris Bueller. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller. And if you don't know that culture reference, I'm really hating my life right now because I'm dating myself so badly. You should. Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a phenomenal movie. I don't care what generation you're from, you'll be able to relate to that movie. Go watch it. You'll love it. All right. And this is the thing that I think of. If I had started a long time ago, it would have been great. But right now, I'm where I'm at. And every single day I wake up and I press record. Now I pressed record six minutes ago. And I'm six minutes in, and I'm only a bit of the way in on this video. And that's okay because we're going to keep going and we're going to keep having fun. Now, one of the things that a lot of people say, and I have mixed feelings about this, but I hear a lot of people talking about it, it's pick one platform. Creators who focus on one platform can tend to grow faster early on. Now, across the board, you're going to want to be able to get things on different platforms as you go, but you got to think about what is your goal with your content. Because if you're aiming to get to a certain generation or a certain demographic, you might want to aim to a certain platform. If you want to be focusing on B2B sales and you really want to grow in that sector, LinkedIn is probably the place to be. If your goal is to really reach Gen X and you want to be able to get into that generation and make moves there, TikTok is definitely a platform that you should be thinking about. Now, when you can focus, focus can beat that energy of being spread too thin because you're doing a couple things. One, you're really focusing on and niching down on what you're good at and what the audience responds to. But also, you're learning one system deeply. And you know what? There's always time to expand later. But if you can get started in one place, that's gonna help you just kind of get the ball rolling. For me, I think right now, one of the heaviest focuses for me is on LinkedIn. But this right here, this is all about YouTube. My focus is kind of growing YouTube and that this these videos are gonna go onto YouTube and they're gonna go onto my website so that I can kind of draw people into the full battery media ecosystem so I can get them to be people that come and join us in the full battery media academy and we kind of grow together. Now, one of the things that I focus on is three different content types. Now, most viral and high-performing content falls into three different types. Number one, education, number two, storytelling, and number three, opinion. One of the biggest things that you can do is to teach something. This is something that really came natural to me because I was a teacher for many years. And I think that when you teach something, it doesn't mean that like, hi, I'm Bob, I'm gonna teach you about math. It could be, hey, I'm Tim, I love gardening, and I'm making gardening videos, and I'm gonna educate you about how you can garden as well. Dude, I thought that was entertainment. Well, yeah, it is, but it's also education. And when you teach something, you are able to bridge this gap and how to make sure my plants don't die. That's a video that I would watch because my plants always die and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I try, I water them, I forget to water them sometimes. That's probably why they're dying. But if you don't learn, if you don't have any videos out there that you can look for, it's really tough. But when you have videos you can look for, YouTube, TikTok, these are places that people go to find solutions to problems. So if you're teaching someone about something and you can give them that solution, they are gonna come back for your videos. Now, another thing you can do is tell a story. When you are telling a story, you're giving people information that might help them. It might help make them feel like their situation is not as challenging or whatever it might be. And also sharing your opinion or take on something. People love this. That's why everyone has those React videos. I'm not a huge fan of React videos, but I definitely get where they're coming from because maybe if the person that you really respect shares their opinion on a topic, you go, you know what, I've got a little bit more perspective now. And I really appreciate who that person is. And if he feels this way about this, then that's something that I might want to look into as well. All three of them can work, it just depends on what kind of aligns with you best. Now, the next thing you're gonna do is film your first 10 videos. And this seems overwhelming to a lot of people, but get out there and put it out there. Early content performance is inconsistent. Improvement comes after repetition. Start simple, answer some basic questions and clarify and kind of get your clarity over that creativity. You don't have to be trying to go viral from the beginning, just get some ideas out. Teach something, tell a story, share your opinion. Your first videos need to be simple. Your first videos just need to get done. Go search 10 topics, use AI, help you kind of brainstorm things that might be interesting to you. And then film 10. And actually, I'm gonna challenge you, film them all at the same time. Sit down and record in batches. That's one of the things I think is so important. I'm filming three back-to-back long form videos right now. And then yesterday I filmed 20 short form videos in a row. It helped me out and it helped me keep that momentum going and helped me kind of then I can relax the next couple of days and just spend time editing and getting them out. That is an important and powerful tool to get you there. The next thing that I swear by, and guys, if anyone's telling you opposite to this, run for the hills. They are trying to sell you something. Keep your gear simple. Audience retention is driven more by value than production quality. I'm shooting this, got something in my face. Sorry about that. I'm shooting this on a very simple camera, but it looks good. I don't have any super amazing, expensive, mirrorless camera that costs $4,000. I don't have an expensive lens that costs $3,000, $4,000 more. I'm shooting this on a basic camera. And you know what? You could be using your phone. I do like having a little bit better audio. I've got a mic here that came with this camera and it works great. And you know what? That simple tool is more than enough. Your phone is enough. Audio matters actually more than video. People are gonna get annoyed if you have really bad audio quality. But there are simple ways to up your audio quality, and we're gonna talk about that in future videos. But don't hide behind gear. I know some people that have the best gear in the world, and they make crappy videos because they're not getting out there and making them regularly. This is something I challenge myself. I'm planning this whole documentary this August to get out and make 12 different episodes to this one documentary. It's gonna be a 12 video series, and I'm gonna combine them all into one giant documentary that I'm gonna submit to film festivals, but I'm also gonna make them individually up on my YouTube. And you know what? You know why I'm doing that? It makes me better. Evolve, get better over time. But you only can do that if you know what you need and you get out there and practice on it. And if you got a phone, dude, start recording today. Now, this is one of the most important things. Number seven, post before you're ready. You might not feel ready. Get out and do it anyway. Perfectionism delays output and slows growth. Now, you know what? I'm not gonna lie to you. Your first videos are going to make you cringe. I hate watching my own videos. You will cringe, and that is normal. Don't show them to your teenage daughter. My 10-year-old is not the person I have watching my videos. That is not the judgment that I need in my life. I don't show her my videos because I know she'll be like, oh my god, you're so cringe, dad. So, you know what? I just put them out there. Let it go. Progress is way more important than perfection. So I have so many times where I almost didn't post a video where I looked at it and said, Oh, it could be better. I could do this better. And then I sat there and said, No, post the damn video. Get it out. And some of those videos have been some of the best performers I've ever had. There are great famous stories of great musicians, Sting, the Rolling Stones that had people record and made these huge mistakes, but the mistakes they included in the music, and it became iconic, that weird sound. Stick with some of these mistakes and let yourself have permission. Make mistakes, but you're gonna release it anyways. Number eight, we're getting there. I know you guys are like overwhelmed right now. You're like, oh my god, Mr. Shaw, it's too much. Number eight, stay consistent. Consistency is one of the strongest protectors of audience growth. Batch your content. Don't be like, I'm gonna film one video every day. No, don't do that. Stupid. That's not a good idea. Don't do it. Post one video a day, but don't film one video a day because there's gonna be days that you're really motivated. And those are the days that you wanna batch 10, 20, 30 videos. Get them done, get them out. Today I'm recording three long form videos. Why? Because I have time. I'm gonna be going into three podcast episodes back to back after this. And you know what? Tomorrow I've got a ton of videos. I don't know what type of chaos I'm gonna have at work, so I need to get stuff done today. Make it sustainable and then show up regularly. For me, I've found that my podcast has taken years to grow. I've got four of them, and they have taken years to grow. But you know what I'm finding? I'm finding that now I'm getting in my stride and that the consistency of continuing to show up over time was the biggest determiner of my growth ever. So get out and get creating and stay consistent because it's really important. Number nine, avoid common mistakes. Over editing and overthinking are some of the top reasons creators quit early. I know some people that have channels that are so OCD that they just don't get things out. I am sorry, but that is the worst thing you can do for your channel. Don't overthink it. Don't sound robotic and don't wait for perfection. It's not gonna be there. This video, I'm having my team edit and I'm telling them, keep it minimal. Doing some titles on the screen, some pop-ups. That's it. Don't go overboard, don't go crazy because I have done the same thing. But if you get OCD with your videos and go, I'm sorry, but this logo needs to be here, it needs to be this, it needs to be this. No one is going to pay attention to that. They just don't. And what people do pay attention to is your consistency, is your content, is your storytelling. So tell great stories. Give people value in what you're presenting to them and keep going. Now, your only goal. This one is really, really important. Your only goal is to create and focus on reps. Most creators need dozens to hundreds of videos before they start gaining traction. I can swear by this. For my daughter's channel, for my wife's channel, for my channels, we created a bunch of videos. And then one day you just turn around and it takes off. Most creators need those reps to get there. Now, there are some people that launch and immediately, oh, look at what I just did. It's that great. Those people might have a name behind them. They might have a media group behind them, they might have stuff behind them that you don't know about. And so for you and what you're creating right now, get out and start creating reps. Focus on the reps, learn from each video and keep going. Your mindset around long-term growth needs to be this consistency. Keep showing up. And every single time that you make a video, get a little bit better. And if you can do that at the end of the day, you're gonna notice a couple things. Number one, you're gonna be really happy with the growth that you're accomplishing. And number two, you're gonna start moving in the direction that you want to be going. Might not be perfect, but you're moving in the direction because of a beautiful day. And I look forward to seeing some of you guys in our live Zoom. And if you want more information about that, reach out and I'll share the link. And guys, I'm happy to be your content professor. I'll see you guys soon. Have a beautiful day, and I'll talk to you next. I'll talk to you next time. And I leave that in, editors. Leave in that mistake because you know what? It's me. And we're gonna post it with the mistake. I'll see you next time. Bye.