The Steal Club - You are allowed to steal ideas

Hey everyone!

If you are new here, The Steal club is a newsletter where we learn how the best creators use content to grow their audience and businesses. 

And how you can do the same by stealing their tactics, tips, and strategies

Let's dive in!

Time to read: 4 min 20 seconds (Nice)

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Before I tried out this creator thing, I worked for 4+ years in a few advertising agencies.

There, I spent most of my time close to the creative bunch: copywriters, art directors, designers...

Advertisers pitch dozens of ideas every day. These people are idea-generation machines.

One day, I asked one of these copywriters how he came up with so many ideas.

I was caught off guard by his response: "I just steal them"

"Wait, what? What do you mean you steal them?"

"Don't get me wrong", he said. "I don't copy-paste ideas. I remix them. I analyze what worked in the past and in other campaigns, and mix that with my own experience of what works and what doesn't."

"The result is an idea-Frankenstein, a new idea. And it works every time."

I was blown away. This guy had just told me he steals ideas...and gets paid for it!?

And then it struck me: There are no original ideas.

Sometimes it's more obvious, sometimes it's not. 

But every text, design, visual, video... is just a remix of other ideas.

That's a very liberating thought for creators.

If you embrace the idea that originality is nonexistent, then the pressure to create disappears.

A new world of possibilities opens.

Suddenly, the rest of the world stops being competition and starts being inspiration.

A tweet, a book or a Youtube video is a source of new ideas.

Take those ideas, feed on them, and apply them to your own content.

But first, you need to embrace the thief within, as that copywriter did.

That's why I write the Steal Club.

To help creators realize that there are no original ideas. That we are allowed to steal and get inspired to create.

Creators, let's keep on stealing! ✊

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In the spirit of following this week’s topic of no idea being original, this is how I put it in practice.

I recycle my content. All the time.

The thought that as creators we need to be original 100% of the time is ludicrous.

First, there is no such thing as an original idea (see essay above for my thoughts on this).

Second, you created valuable content once. It brought value back then, why not now?

There are a few things that allow me to do this:

• I have a huge backlog (been creating almost daily for 2 years)
• I’m a data nerd
• I’m not afraid of people “finding out”, because 99% of the time they don’t. And when they do, they don’t care 😅

Here’s how I do it:

1. Find ideas worth recycling

For Twitter, you can use Twitter analytics, tools like Tweet Hunter or Twitter’s advanced search.

For Instagram or LinkedIn just look at the in-app analytics.

I usually go back at least 6 months on my own content.

After that, I filter the content based on how many likes or impressions it received.

Or maybe the one you feel deserves more attention so you can give it another chance.

2. Repurpose them

Here’s where it gets interesting. Once you have chosen what piece to recycle, you need to do one or more of the following:

→ Restructure the content (Example: make it shorter. Or longer)

→ Add visuals or make a video.

→ Rewrite it.

→ Change the tone

→ Or simply copy-paste and repost

3. Repost them

An example, with my own this very same week:

What did I do?

In this case, simply copy-pasted the tweet to prove my point.

• Original tweet: 51k impressions, 1.142 profile clicks, 24 RTs, 432 likes
• Recycled tweet: 30k impressions, 928 profile clicks, 19 RTs, 385 likes
• Results (combined): 81k impressions, 2070 profile clicks, 43 RTs likes, 817 likes

The best creators do this ALL the time. Simply run the advanced search and you’ll see 😉

And I don’t only do it on Twitter.

Check this Instagram example below. Same visual you’ve seen in the essay above. This one was posted on February 20 and got 126 likes:

Then, July 1st. Same content, slight graphic changes. 

But 2000 extra likes 👇

With these results, how can I not be a convinced content recycler? ♻️

One of my favorite newsletters for creators is CreatorBread where Treyton gives money tips & business strategies‍ for creators & freelancers.

Investing, tax tips, business breakdowns, interviews, Q&A’s, and more. Delivered once a week, every Saturday morning.

PS: Btw, Treyton interviewed me for one of his latest issues. Check it here!

It’s not necessary for content recycling to take place only on one platform. 

You can crosspost to different platforms. And you can do it with a simple screenshot.

It used to be a bit more hidden in the past, but now creators do it shamelessly (me included 🙆‍♂️)

For example, this is how I grew my Instagram account to 12k followers:

I knew my visuals were good for the platform, but I didn’t have enough to keep a consistent schedule.

So what did I do? I screenshotted my top tweets and posted them when I didn’t have visuals to post.

Looks cool, no?

Apparently, this is also huge on LinkedIn. Top LinkedIn creators like Justin Welsh are even turning Twitter Threads into LinkedIn carrousels.

Found Via Jay Clouse’s Creative Companion newsletter

As I’m planning to give LinkedIn a try as a platform, Give me a follow on LinkedIn if you want to see this tactic in action in the following months.

Before we leave remember, screenshot once, publish twice. 🤷‍♂️

• (THREAD) Want to monetize your expertise? These 6 questions will help you figure it out.
• (THREAD) Steal this 8-part framework to build landing pages that convert
• (RESOURCE) Get your brand in front of a highly trusted audience with Swapstack newsletter sponsorships. Learn more.

And this is it!

If you made it here, I’m going to tell you a secret. This week, 100% of my content will be recycled, just to prove my point. See you next week with the results!

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See you next week!

Alex Llull

Thief Master, The Steal Club

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