The Playbook | The 2-Click Hack For Saving Content Ideas

Hello friend.

Welcome to The Playbook, a weekly letter designed to give you a competitive edge in content marketing.

Each week, I break down top 1% content and creator economy trends to help grow your business faster.

I also share the behind-the-scenes of building a content business with all my wins/failures.

If you’re new here, I’m Gianluca and I run Storyforma, a content studio in LA. You can always unsubscribe by clicking here.

How I Built A Content Idea Vault With Automation

You know the deal—you see a cool short form video, save it for inspo, and then it gets lost in the chaos of your saved folder.

The better way? A spreadsheet or database. I call it the Idea Vault. But let’s be real—manually adding videos to a spreadsheet takes forever, and nobody’s got time for that.

Luckily, we live in the age of no-code automation. After messing around with Make and Apple Shortcuts, I built a simple system that saves reels and scrapes all their data in just two clicks.

Here’s how it works:

1. I find an Instagram Reel I like.

2. I hit the share icon and pick “Share to.”

3. I select my shortcut.

Boom. Done.

From there, my robots do their thing. The video gets added to an Airtable database with all its details—creator name, caption, transcript, followers, likes, comments, duration, video URL, and more nerd stuff.

Now, instead of a messy saved folder, I’ve got a clean, organized system that’s ready whenever I need content ideas. It’s an absolute game changer. Here’s what it looks like.

See those two green lines on the left? Those indicate the video is an outlier, having a ratio views/followers >1. To set this up, I added a formula column that calculates the ratio and automatically applies a green label when the result is greater than 1. Now, at a glance, I can see which videos are overperforming.

I took this one step further and built another automation that scrapes all recent videos from specific creators. All I do is type in the username, select the platform (Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube), and click a checkbox. A few minutes later, my database is fully loaded with the creator’s content and all the data I need—views, followers, likes, captions, you name it. (Here’s an example)

And here’s the best part: I’ve added another automation that takes the video’s transcript and “templatizes” it in a Google Doc for a new video.

With these automations, I’ve turned hours of manual work into just a few clicks. It’s fast, efficient, and makes content creation so much easier.

Update - My Client Acquisition Campaign

I’ve been running a new client acquisition campaign for my agency on Instagram (see previous issue), and these were the results after ~ 7 days:

⏭︎ What I’m Doing Next

The cost per message is higher than where I want it to be, so I stopped the

ads and made new creatives (this is the new b-roll ad). This is part of the game with ads–it can take some testing to find a winning creative.

How To Generate Unlimited Content Ideas Without Copying

Most creators (me included 🙋🏼‍♂️) get stuck copying what others in their niche are doing. Fitness creators copy fitness creators, finance creators copy finance creators—it’s an endless echo chamber. That’s why so much content feels the same.

The solution? Look outside your niche. HeyDominik shares a great example of a finance creator who took inspiration from cooking videos and used a recipe-style format to explain budgeting step-by-step. Same topic, but it felt fresh and unique. I plan to use this strategy in combination with my Idea Vault.

Here’s the system to make this work:

1. On-Niche + Off-Niche Research: Study what’s trending in your industry, but also look at unrelated ones. Fitness creators can borrow from travel or DIY. Take what works and adapt it to your audience.

2. SCAMPER Method: Take one idea and spin it into 10+ pieces of content:

   • Change the format (talking-head video → voiceover).

   • Combine topics (e.g., “Morning routines for productivity”).

   • Flip the script (instead of “3 Ways to Grow Your Followers“ → 3 Ways to Lose Followers Fast”).

3. Track Everything: Use a spreadsheet or Notion to log ideas, trends, and angles. This keeps things organized and helps you stay consistent.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel for every post. With this system, you’ll always have ideas and can spend more time creating content that stands out instead of blending in.

The Personal Trainer Making $200k/mo at 24

Sean Casey is proof that you don’t need flashy production or a massive team to build a multimillion-dollar brand—you just need smart strategies and relentless consistency. He runs several successful businesses, including recipe books, a fitness training app, and social media coaching.

His secret is that he’s able to consistently get millions of views AND engagement. Here are some of the tactics he uses:

• Strong hooks: He starts his videos with attention-grabbers like “Here’s how much sugar is in a chocolate bar” with a focus on visuals:

• Aha moments: His content surprises people, like showing two apples have more sugar than a chocolate bar. These moments make his videos memorable and shareable.

• Mixing fitness and recipes: Fitness content has a smaller audience, but everyone eats. Adding recipes gets more people interested and keeps them coming back.

• Relatable and real: He shares personal stories, jokes about his past, and shows he’s not trying to be perfect. It makes him likable and easy to connect with.

• Visually clean: Simple setups, good lighting, and clear visuals make his videos easy to watch and more engaging.

• Carousel posts: On Instagram, he uses carousels to share tips and stories for people who don’t want to sit through a video.

• Consistency and trust: Sean shows up every day with valuable content and rarely asks for anything in return. When he does, his audience listens.

• Preview hooks: He films the end result first (like a meal prep) and shows it at the start to tease what’s coming, keeping viewers engaged.

How Daniel Dalen Is Secretly Building a $4.3M/year Skool community

Daniel Dal is quietly building something massive.

You’ve probably seen his entrepreneurial content blowing up on YouTube, but here’s what most people don’t know: he’s funnelling all that attention into a free community on Skool, and he’s setting it up to monetize big.

Here’s the play:

1. Traffic - Daniel’s content is everywhere—YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Shorts. He vlogs weekly, repurposes everything, and keeps it visually clean with consistent branding. The mix of high-quality production, personal stories, and aspirational visuals (working in Hong Kong skyscrapers, flying first class) makes his content stand out.

2. Leads - He’s funnelling his audience into a free Skool community that’s already at 9,000+ members. His CTAs are simple—join the community, connect with other entrepreneurs, and access resources like playlists or tools.

3. Engagement - Inside the community, it’s all about collaboration. Active members get recognized with points, prizes, and opportunities (like having their YouTube videos featured). He’s also delegated leadership to qualified members, who run niche-specific calls on topics like sales or SaaS.

4. Monetization (Coming Soon) - This is the big move. Daniel hasn’t monetized yet, but here’s the likely play: a $5K+ high-ticket offer for an “inner circle.” It’s exclusive, more intimate (small group calls, access to him or his team), and taps into the hardcore audience he’s been building.

Here’s how this could turn into a $4.3M/year machine:

• High-Ticket Offer: If just 1% of his 9,000+ community members buy a $5,000 program, that’s $450,000 per launch.

• Quarterly Launches: Launching this offer 4 times a year would bring in $1.8M annually.

• Upsells and Partnerships: By adding upsells (like additional programs or tools), affiliate deals, and collaborations, he could easily scale to $4.3M/year.

Trends & Outliers I Spotted

Other videos I’ve dug this week

Low status vs high status marketing: Most brands toss up product shoots, chop them up, and run ads. It works—but no one brags about buying from an Instagram ad. What people want is to feel cool. Create content that taps into the aesthetics and values your audience identifies with. Limit stock or discount codes to make your product feel exclusive.

The era of the woke rebrand is over: After the Black Lives Matter movement, brands started pushing progressive messaging to stay relevant. But over time, the disconnect became obvious: performative activism paired with exploitative business practices. “Woke” became a vibe—a symbol of that empty, corporate dissonance. Now, brands can’t just say the right things. They have to do the right things. True purpose doesn’t create profit—it sacrifices it. With woke branding gone, it’s time for brands to show substance.

5 free websites for content creation: Napkin.ai (Turns text into custom infographics in seconds. Paste your script, get visuals), Adobe Podcast (Transforms bad audio into crisp, professional sound instantly), ManyChat (Automates DMs when someone comments on your post), IQHashtags (Checks your hashtag set for any banned tags. Metabannedhashtags is better, but it’s paid), ViralFinder (Sorts a competitor’s content by most to least viral. You get three free searches, so use them wisely).

The Simple Framework to Sell Anything: highlight the mistake, the pain it causes, and where it’s ultimately leading. Then, offer a solution that’s easy to implement, with both immediate and long-term benefits. Dickie Bush uses the example of an e-commerce brand is offering 10% off as their main hook.

• You’d point out the mistake: “I noticed your 10% discount offer likely has a low opt-in rate.”

• Then, show the negative result: “You’re driving traffic from TikTok, but visitors leave without buying—and you’re not capturing their info.”

• Next, explain the ultimate issue: “This makes your marketing dollars hard to justify because you’re essentially running a brand awareness campaign, not driving conversions.”

• Finally, offer a better solution: “Instead, swap that discount for a 5-day email course that educates visitors on your product. You’ll start capturing leads, nurturing them, and ultimately see better ROI and conversions.” It’s simple, actionable, and shows them exactly why it’s a no-brainer.

I appreciate you reading. If you found this useful, drop a reply with your favorite part.

I read all your emails.