About the Episode

‍Eugenio Castro has worked with numerous creators and entrepreneurs, including Sam Parr, David Perell, Colin and Samir, Nik Sharma, Ramon Berrios, Blaine Bolus, and Justin Mares.

In this episode of “Uploading…,” he distills his wealth of experience down to a potent strategy, emphasizing efficiency, credibility, and the transformative power of research, which you can leverage to elevate your own content to new heights.

Today, we'll cover:
- Eugenio Castro's perspectives on the necessity of credibility and trust in the field of research
- The pivotal role of research in developing content and making informed decisions
- How research content can be repurposed to reach a wider audience and increase impact
- How research can streamline workflow and increase efficiency in the creative process
- Ways to monetize research content in the digital age

2 IDEAS FROM THE PODCAST

Idea #1: Create a mental model of who you’re researching

When researching someone, you need to create a mental model of both your client’s needs and who the person you’re looking into is. A practical way of doing this is to go from the general to the specific information.

Simply gather information from interviews on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google articles, etc. Afterward, use tools like Perplexity, Google, or ChatGPT to get information you might’ve missed.

Start reading headlines and subheadlines, and use that to get a very good idea of who the person is. While you do that, take notes of what is essential and what you believe will be important.

Once that’s done, you can specify the document for the specific needs. And be ruthless in cutting any irrelevant information.

For example, if you’re doing research for a finance podcast, anything that isn’t related to the financial state of the subject is not important to your research.

Play Segment (9:04-11:25)

Idea #2: How to repurpose your research

It’s no secret that we’re big believers in repurposing content, so the question arises, how can you get more out of that research?

Eugenio says that because of the nature of the document, and the conciseness of the brief, you can turn it into basically any type of content you need. But it’s best suited for things like:

• An article.
• A Twitter (or X) thread.
• Content for a newsletter.

Using the bullet points with their citations, you can take it in any direction you need and create an omnichannel strategy, where every piece can fit together nicely into a web of content that refers to– and advertises the rest of– itself.

Play Segment (21:41-23:20)

1 Key Learning: What you take out is more important than what you leave in

A very important thing to keep in mind as you near the end of your research process is that the briefness of your document is oftentimes more important than making it longer.

Remember, it’s called a research brief, not a research long.

Play Segment (11:37-12:16)

Episode Timestamps‍

03:37 How research supports content creation
06:35 Building trust and increasing reach as a researcher
08:59 Eugenio Castro’s research process
10:28 Condensing research notes based on the client's objectives
14:48 Three ways to use research to monetize content
18:15 How research informs content strategy
21:34 Repurposing research to create more content
25:11 The difference between good and bad research
30:09 The importance of research for impactful content creation

The Role of Research in Content Creation: "And I think any person or company that has a media machine, the moment that that media machine starts generating content about something that is not just about the company or the person, like their stories and their value props, but they want to talk about something external to them. That's when research comes in, because research helps capture what that is factually, precisely." — Eugenio Castro [00:02:22 → 00:02:45]

The Power of a Personal Brand on Social Media: "I used to have, like, an artwork as an image, and he said I should put my face on it. And, yeah, so I'm sample arts researcher, and from there, from sending that name on my bio. I mean, I get like weekly DM's people wanting to work with me." — Eugenio Castro [00:05:21 → 00:05:36]

Researching Digital Personalities: "You put them on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, and then you gather all the relevant interviews, all the relevant links from those platforms, put them on a Google Doc, and then you enter that subject's name on a tool like Perplexity or Google." — Eugenio Castro [00:09:43 → 00:10:00]

Crafting Content with Purpose: "Because again, if you just stop at that or do something very generic, it's got to be of no value. So you need to repurpose it to something very, very specific." — Eugenio Castro [00:10:40 → 00:10:48]

Effective Communication in Research: "You want a very high signal and very low, like serial noise. And counterintuitively, my clients pay me for what I leave out of the document, not so much for what I put in, because again, they didn't go to Perplexity, they didn't go to Google, but they have to sift through the noise, so they just want to get the signal." — Eugenio Castro [00:11:44 → 00:12:04]

Trends in Monetizing Research: "How you monetize research is by putting it behind a paywall and saying, this is what you get with what you pay, and then having that on the other side." — Eugenio Castro [00:15:45 → 00:15:55]

Content Creation Strategy: "What research, like a good research assistant or a good Jamie ensures that you'll sort of talk about the best things possible and you don't repeat things that have already been asked or talked about." — Eugenio Castro [00:19:21 → 00:19:36]