Imagine yourself in a crowded marketplace, trying somehow to attract attention. How would you do it?
You could entertain the audience by showing something funny, unusual, or interesting. I immediately picture someone on a pedestal or stage putting on a show, with a huge crowd gathering around them.
Or you could provide real value. I picture a religious follower standing on a pedestal, sharing life wisdom through the lens of religion or worship of some deity. For many people, this represents value – they gather around, listen, agree, and appreciate these life principles.
This person isn’t selling anything directly. Well, they’re selling loyalty to their church or their religion’s brand. That’s their product. But the essence doesn’t change – it’s a free way to attract an audience, a tool that allows them to gather attention without cost.
People gather around and start listening attentively.
The reality is, no matter what personal brand or business you’re building, you need an audience. It’s the missing element most aspiring entrepreneurs overlook. According to research from Conductor, brands that provide valuable content are 131% more likely to convert prospects into customers compared to those that don’t. And yet, most creators focus on platform tactics rather than understanding the psychological drivers behind content consumption.
There are three categories of content that people consume: entertainment, educational, and motivational/inspirational. Any content that spreads online falls into one of these three categories.
By understanding these categories, you can position yourself and your brand to attract the right audience that eventually buys from you.
Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail At Building An Audience
Most aspiring entrepreneurs make the same critical mistake: they don’t understand how content categories drive different psychological responses. Instead, they scatter their efforts across platforms without a coherent strategy for engaging their target audience’s mind and emotions.
Each of these categories can be successful on its own. If you create content in just one category, it can thrive independently. This applies to someone like MrBeast – purely entertainment content. There’s no educational subtext or motivational angle. It’s an entertainment show, period. Or any gaming streamer – that’s also entertainment content designed for one purpose: entertaining the user.
Then there’s educational content. This content aims to teach something, to present new information that expands your knowledge, abilities, and skills in a particular area. It’s content after which you develop new neural connections that you can apply in life.
Many people mistakenly consider popular science channels as educational, channels that talk about science, for example, I really love channels like ScienceClick or The History of the Universe that talk about how our universe works, about cosmology, about the latest scientific discoveries and everything related to it.
At first glance, it seems like educational content, but in my opinion, it’s purely entertainment because, well, I won’t learn anything new by watching these videos. They may provide some educational tools or information that can be considered educational, but mostly we watch such channels for entertainment. It’s not something that I, as a scientific researcher, would watch and then go make notes based on what was said in that video.
Okay, maybe there’s some doubt about ScienceClick because it digs fairly deeply into the theoretical part and explains in detail how formulas or certain phenomena work. Fine, maybe that channel can be considered somewhat educational, but the others are purely entertainment.
This in no way diminishes the importance of these channels and doesn’t make them better or worse. There’s no concept that one type of content is good and another is bad. No, these are all equivalent categories, and the question is only which category you choose to develop your business and personal brand.
And finally, inspirational or motivational content – a good example here is Tony Robbins or channels with short motivational videos.
Importance of categorizing
Understanding and combining these three categories might be possible for someone, but it’s quite difficult, and again, these are three different goals that audiences come for. If I expect entertainment on MrBeast’s channel, I probably won’t understand a new video where he explains educational content. And vice versa.
So the content category should be more or less consistent.
This failure to understand content psychology leads to predictable outcomes: low engagement, minimal sharing, and worst of all – no sales. As one study in the Journal of Marketing found, content aligned with audience psychology was 30% more likely to be remembered than misaligned content. Your personal brand can’t afford to be forgettable in today’s attention economy.
According to researcher Jonah Berger’s analysis of viral content, pieces that evoke high-arousal emotions like amusement or awe are significantly more likely to be shared than those eliciting low-arousal feelings. This explains why entertainment content spreads faster, but doesn’t necessarily convert to sales as effectively as educational content.
Usage of content categories
Why do you need to know these categories? Again, to understand which one is closer to you when creating your personal brand.
In my view, entertainment content stands apart, because motivational and educational content are fairly tightly intertwined and complement each other very well. That is, if I provide useful information – I hope I’m providing useful information in this article – I can also inspire at the same time. I try to do that, inspire people to apply the information by giving examples from life, my own examples, or choosing words that will push you toward concrete action applying this knowledge.
Because some time ago I didn’t know about these content categories, but now that I do know about them, I look through this lens at all content and immediately categorize it.
I understand when to apply different types of content. For example, if I want to switch my brain off work right now, I’ll probably choose entertainment content to change the context.
If I have time to listen to a podcast, for instance, if I’m driving somewhere and my hands are busy with the steering wheel, but my ears are free, I can make it so that an educational podcast is attached to them.
Or if times are tough and something unclear and chaotic is happening in my head, and I need to somehow fix it in the moment, I can turn on motivational content, some Tony Robbins video, which, in fact, is very well constructed in this regard and very quickly breaks up negative thoughts and sets the right tone.
Each category spreads differently
So, understanding this categorization, you can build your positioning, your brand that you’re going to build, and you need to understand what content you’ll be distributing.
Educational content, although it could be called the most useful from a human development perspective, no matter how much you’d like to present it, has the lowest spreadability because, frankly speaking, few people want to learn anything. As a rule, with age, a person becomes increasingly rigid, and the brain increasingly wants to maintain the status quo and not change what already exists.
But what it definitely wants is entertainment. Entertainment will never be taken away from a person. In all times, any show, before there was internet, television, or any such things, gladiator shows, theater, and so on, always gathered masses of people in squares or in the Colosseum. It was always a center of attraction.
So entertainment is something that unites us, something that’s very easy for a person to agree to. This is something they rarely refuse.
And this is the most massive category, which is why we see among top YouTubers people like MrBeast or PewDiePie who make entertainment content, because most people in the world are quite easily attracted to entertainment.
Accordingly, this is the most easily digestible content, and it’s easiest to spread, easiest to attract eyeballs to it, so you need to be aware of this.
Motivational content is somewhere in the middle, and it quite easily attracts an audience because it’s relevant for almost every person, but just not everyone consciously realizes they need a dose of motivation. Everyone has their own goals and, accordingly, their own engines that make them get up in the mornings or, conversely, lie in bed as long as possible. In this case, you don’t want any motivation; you don’t need it at all.
But if you understand that you need to do something in your life, then you’ll likely find a way to consume inspiring content.
And finally, the educational category is the most difficult in terms of attracting eyeballs because people usually need to be forced to learn. We’ve had this since childhood. We can’t just go to school or university of our own free will. Well, some probably can, for whom it’s a real pleasure, but such people are a minority. As a rule, for most of us, it’s something we have to force ourselves to do.
And here motivation is, let’s say, the threat of your future existence, and various methods come into play: that you’ll be homeless on the street, unable to earn money, unable to get a job, end up on the street, in prison, or somewhere else. In general, no rosy prospect awaits you. This is a pretty serious motivator for many to finish school, university, get an education, and that’s how it is.
But until you understand that this whole thing is aimed exclusively at making you a cog in the general mechanism of some other system, until you realize that you yourself can be a builder of these systems and thereby escape from the matrix of the predisposed scenario.
The Three Content Categories: Understanding Psychological Drivers
So, we have three content categories that essentially answer the question of how to build your personal brand or your business brand. Again, it comes down to one of three categories: you need to either educate your potential client, entertain them, or inspire them.
From this grow the following business models that you can implement once you have an audience, and typically, a product that suits an audience built on a particular type of content is easier to sell.
Let’s go back a bit to what a business consists of, i.e., what are its components.
There must be an audience, which we’re breaking down right now – attracting eyeballs, attracting people’s attention, i.e., gathering people.
There must be a product that satisfies some need for your audience.
There must be distribution of this product, which can and does happen through the channel through which you distribute content. It’s quite a logical story.
And finally, a brand, which is built thanks to content.
That is, these three constituent elements with content (audience, distribution, and brand), which we just categorized, are covered. We need to figure out the product – what to sell.
And here this categorization comes into play again.
If you make entertainment content, then the product that will best suit your audience is also some kind of mass product, i.e., something that can be commoditized, for example, because it fits better with this audience. This is such a mass audience; it doesn’t have any specific goal. This audience is very broad, and accordingly, the suitable product here is precisely one that suits a broad audience.
Entertainment Content: The Attention
Entertainment content is designed to capture attention and amuse or delight an audience. Psychologically, it triggers positive emotions – humor, joy, excitement – creating an immediate mood lift and enjoyment. This emotional payoff makes viewers more inclined to like, share, and remember the content.
As one study found, ads that made people laugh were 30% more likely to be remembered than serious ones. When we laugh together, we feel connected. People are more focused and engaged when they laugh, and a well-timed joke can create rapport between a creator and their audience.
Take MrBeast as an example, which I mentioned earlier. His products are chocolate and a chain of burger restaurants, i.e., Beast Burger, which is fast food. Fast food is also very common among the masses, so the decision regarding these types of products seems very logical, understandable, and well-aligned with the brand.
Entertainment content often has high “spreadability” – it’s highly shareable. Funny memes, skits, or relatable amusements frequently go viral because they evoke strong emotions that compel sharing. According to Jonah Berger’s research,
“Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral.”
People share entertaining content as a form of social currency – it makes them look witty or fun when they pass it along. Wendy’s fast-food chain gained massive brand exposure through its entertainingly “sassy” Twitter posts, which vastly boosted engagement.
However, while entertainment content often generates immediate, broad engagement – lots of views, likes, comments – this engagement may remain at a casual level rather than deep discourse. Still, the volume can be substantial: humorous posts can drastically increase commenting as people tag friends.
A Frontiers study found that well-crafted humor significantly boosts consumer engagement intentions (likes, shares). Nearly 80% of college-age individuals remember advertisements that are humorous – an enormous uplift in recall that correlates with higher engagement.
Entertainment content humanizes a personal brand and builds likability. By making the audience laugh or feel joy, you come across as relatable. As marketing experts note, entertaining content can “quickly transform a ‘company’ into a ‘group of people just like me,’” crucial for building trust. Gary V puts it this way:
“Whatever experience people are seeking on their preferred platforms, that’s what marketers should attempt to replicate.”
In practice, many personal brands use entertaining posts to keep their audience’s attention between heavier or more serious content. Maya Angelou’s famous dictum applies perfectly here:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Making your audience feel happy or amused can leave a lasting positive association with you.
Motivational Content: The Emotion
Motivational or inspirational content aims at uplifting the audience’s spirits, encouraging them to pursue goals, and resonating with their values and aspirations. This content type is inherently emotional – it often triggers feelings of awe, hope, encouragement, or determination.
Psychologically, inspiring content taps into what positive psychologists call elevation or inspiration, a state that makes people feel connected to something larger and motivated to act on their better impulses. Research has shown tangible effects: college students who shared inspiring content on Facebook reported feeling more love and compassion over time, and exposure to inspiring videos has been linked to increases in daily experiences of gratitude and vitality.
Of all content types, motivational content likely creates the deepest emotional engagement. It speaks to core human values and emotions – success, happiness, overcoming challenges, personal growth. Followers often respond to motivational posts with personal reflections, stories, or heartfelt reactions.
Neurologically, inspiring narratives can trigger the brain’s reward circuits and even oxytocin release (associated with empathy and bonding), especially when stories of human triumph or kindness are involved. Simon Sinek emphasizes starting with the “why” –
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it”
– because communicating purpose and belief resonates deeply.
Motivational content often leverages narratives which can cause viewers to identify with the protagonists and feel “If they can do it, maybe I can too.” This can be incredibly engaging – sometimes even life-changing – for the audience. However, measuring actual behavior change from motivational content is difficult.
As Zig Ziglar famously quipped,
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
This quote highlights that motivation needs to be continually reinforced – standalone content might spark something, but maintaining momentum is an ongoing process.
Motivational content can be highly shareable, particularly if it strikes a universal chord or a timely theme. Quotes, affirmations, and inspirational stories work well on Instagram, and LinkedIn. As noted in a Buffer article,
“Inspiration is contagious… when something you publish resonates with so many people so quickly that they can’t help but pass it on.”
High-arousal positive emotions like awe are strong drivers of virality, and many inspirational pieces aim to evoke awe. Additionally, motivational content often has a broad appeal across demographics – messages about hope, success, or self-belief are not niche.
In Jonah Berger’s analysis, pieces evoking awe (an inspirational emotion) were among the most emailed articles, even more than purely practical pieces. Another interesting stat: a psychological study found that when teens compare themselves to similar peers on Instagram, it can lead to inspiration and positive feelings – highlighting that seeing relatable motivational content can inspire viewers rather than incite envy.
Motivational content aligns a personal brand with core values and purpose. By consistently putting out motivational messages, a brand signals that it stands for more than a product – it stands for inspiring and uplifting others. This can strongly differentiate a personal brand.
For instance, Tony Robbins’ entire brand is about empowerment and “personal power” – his content reinforce the promise that you have the power to change your life. As one branding commentary noted, “Tony Robbins has an extremely defined and clear brand. He values people by providing motivation, determination, and perseverance-related content.”
Motivational content also tends to encourage a community feeling around the brand. Followers often rally around shared positive ideals. This fosters brand loyalty because the audience isn’t just consuming passively; they are internalizing the brand’s inspirational message and possibly supporting each other.
Educational Content: The Trust
Educational content focuses on teaching or informing the audience – providing how-tos, insights, facts, or explanations that deliver concrete value. Unlike entertainment’s emotional appeal, educational content appeals to the rational and intellectual side of audiences.
If we talk about educational or inspirational products, about an inspirational audience or an educational one, they can be very closely connected to each other. Here’s an example of Tony Robbins.
His products are motivational – motivational courses, books, various trainings, and everything related to that, everything around motivation, around pushing yourself to become better and do something with your life. They complement each other very well in his content.
Here everything is interconnected because if you read his books or listen to his podcasts, or go to his event, it all intertwines strongly with each other and contains all three elements on one hand.
That is, he provides some information, and you learn new information about how our body works, how psychological aspects, emotional aspects are connected with our motivation, and with the fact that we have the energy to do something, how we can influence this – that’s the educational part.
There’s also the motivational part with examples, with his emotional delivery, with the techniques used in his content, whether it’s video, live meetings, or something else, or books that inspire you to do something with your life.
And of course, there’s an entertainment element because all his content is very easily digestible, and that’s not by accident, because he has honed the mastery of delivering this content throughout his career and knows how to present it so that it’s interesting to watch, lively, fun, engaging.
And actually, the feeling that you’re not watching some boring educational show, but watching a real entertainment show, it’s absolutely different feelings.
And, well, I’m not exactly a fan of Tony Robbins, but I really love what he does. I’ve been to his events, so maybe I’m a bit biased when talking about him, but nevertheless, this is a very good example of such a successful super-brand that brings him millions of dollars.
Psychologically, educational content triggers interest, curiosity, and a sense of competence or empowerment from learning something new. Consuming educational material can trigger the brain’s reward system – people feel satisfied when they gain new knowledge or skills. This fulfills an innate psychological need for mastery and understanding.
While educational content may not always spark the quick virality that entertainment does, it often generates stronger long-term engagement. Consumers seeking knowledge will spend more time on an in-depth article or tutorial video, and they are likely to bookmark, save, or revisit valuable content.
Educational posts frequently have high dwell time (people read or watch longer) and can prompt repeat visits. People do share educational pieces – especially if they have practical utility (e.g., a life hack or guide). Berger’s principle of “Practical Value” in virality research shows that useful information is highly shareable because people like to help others by sharing tips.
However, the spreadability of educational content may be more selective – it tends to be shared in targeted ways (to specific people who would care) rather than going broadly viral to everyone. One study found that only 7% of word-of-mouth happens online; people often share educational info offline or one-to-one, recommending articles to friends who asked about that topic.
The biggest benefit of creating educational content is establishing your personal brand as an authority or expert in a niche. By teaching others, you demonstrate expertise. Over time, this builds credibility and trust with the audience – they come to see you as a go-to source of reliable information or skills.
Providing genuine value through information creates goodwill; it’s a form of helping the audience, which invokes reciprocity. As Jay Baer puts it:
“If you sell something, you make a customer today; if you help someone, you make a customer for life.”
Research confirms the trust impact: In a 2022 study by Conductor, 83.6% of consumers chose the brand that provided them with educational content when faced with multiple brand options.
Educational content also aligns the brand with specific values: generosity, expertise, and reliability. By freely sharing knowledge, a personal brand conveys “I’m confident in my expertise and I care about your success.” This strengthens brand positioning.
Product that follows content
Finally, when you create an educational content, the most logical product is an educational product, right? That’s what flows from the content itself.
There’s certain information that you deliver in small portions. It’s clear that content these days, at least, can’t be delivered in one big portion all at once.
Even in education, it’s structured so that lectures are divided into specific times, and they’re broken down by calendar, into semesters, or in school also into lessons, quarters.
And accordingly, we consume them in pieces. We eat an elephant in pieces. We don’t sit down and learn the entire physics textbook in one sitting, because people perfectly understand that to remember, which is a strange goal of any education, at once is simply physically impossible.
Our organism is built differently; it’s much easier to feed this information to it in parts, separate pieces, and to understand them separately.
Roughly the same thing happens online, that is, separate pieces of information are presented, chewed up, put in the mouth, and then digested.
And then you can apply them separately, as direct working mechanisms, or connect different elements that are interconnected.
And for you, the picture then comes together like a puzzle. That is, first you have one piece, then you acquire another piece, and then you can connect them until you have a complete picture.
Like, for example, my previous article was aimed at this missing element in business, which is distribution. And the next piece of the puzzle is this current article, which talks about how to attract audience. Well, more precisely, it’s clear that through content, but how to structure this content is the question here.
I’m talking about categorizing this content, about what types exist. The picture is already being filled in.
There are many more elements here that I’ll be adding in the future, but the meaning doesn’t change.
That is, my task is to create a complete picture from such separate pieces. And each such separate piece is a content element. It’s a separate content unit.
And I can already elaborate on it in detail in all my channels, forming an understanding of this particular area of knowledge.
Thus, I try to make educational content, which, in my opinion, is the most difficult among the listed categories in terms of distribution, but, on the other hand, the most rewarding if everything works out, if you manage to attract attention, if you manage to retain the audience.
And besides educational products, which logically follow from this, there’s also the possibility of other products, such as services.
That is, it’s clear that when a person is aware of some problem that they can solve, which, rather, they need to solve, they can solve it themselves, or they can pay someone for its solution.
So, any service product has a place here.
Next, it could be a consulting product. That is, I can also talk about this one-on-one. Again, if someone doesn’t want to consume all the content, but they see value in it, this can be done in the form of consultations.
Or a product that allows you to do this yourself, for example, some guide or, for example, a tool. Some software that will help you close one or another task that you face.
Leveraging Content Psychology
Each content type – entertainment, educational, and motivational – engages audience psychology in different ways, and each supports brand-building in unique, complementary fashions:
Entertainment content grabs attention through emotional delight and laughter, creating immediate positive feelings towards the brand and encouraging mass sharing. It works on the psychology of joy and social bonding – people love to share a laugh (triggering dopamine and social connection). This content humanizes the brand and widens reach, which is great for awareness and approachability. Key brand benefit: it makes the audience like you, remember you, and want to engage with you because you make them feel good.
Educational content provides intellectual and practical value, fulfilling the audience’s desire to learn and solve problems. It engages the psychology of curiosity and competence – people feel rewarded when they gain knowledge (a sense of mastery). This content builds trust and authority: by teaching, you demonstrate expertise and generosity. The audience not only pays attention; they depend on you for insights. Key brand benefit: it makes the audience trust you and see you as a leader or expert, which is crucial for converting followers into clients or advocates.
Motivational content touches the heart and soul of the audience, connecting with their aspirations and emotions. It leverages the psychology of inspiration and hope – the audience experiences uplift, empowerment, and often a sense of personal connection or gratitude towards the content creator. This type of content is what turns a casual follower into a fan who feels that the brand genuinely cares about their well-being and success. Key brand benefit: it makes the audience believe in you (and with you) – they align with your “why” and often become part of a community around that shared inspiration.
Importantly, these three categories are not mutually exclusive. The strongest personal brand strategies often intersect them: an entertaining presentation of educational material (edutainment) can double the impact, or an inspirational story that teaches a lesson hits both motivational and educational notes. For example, a well-told success story in a blog can inspire (motivate) readers while also informing (educating) them on how it was achieved, all delivered in a captivating (entertaining) narrative.
As one framework puts it, “the four purposes of content are to entertain, educate, inspire, or convince” – and a single piece of content can cover multiple purposes. Personal brands should consider content mixes that play to each strength. Marketing statistics even suggest a balance: one common guideline is that only ~20% of your content should be overtly promotional, and the rest divided among educational, inspirational, and entertaining “pillars” to keep the audience hooked and bonded.
Define your category
In closing, understanding the psychological underpinnings of these content types allows a personal brand to strategically cater to the audience’s head and heart:
Use Entertainment to attract attention and create positive affinity (lure them in with a smile or surprise).
Use Education to deliver substantive value (give them something that genuinely helps, and they’ll reward you with trust).
Use Motivation to forge an emotional bond and encourage action (lift them up, align with their dreams, and they’ll likely credit you in their success story).
When executed with authenticity and consistency, this triad of content builds a well-rounded personal brand persona – one that is likable, credible, and inspirational. By entertaining, educating, and inspiring in combination, you make your audience feel happy, empowered with knowledge, and motivated to improve – a powerful formula for converting an audience into a devoted community and a personal brand into a lasting legacy.
As an online entrepreneur, understanding these content categories has a holistic chain reaction: getting likes and followers, building a sustainable business foundation that attracts the right audience, establishes your authority, and creates meaningful connections that translate into sales.