Video Content Lessons from Ben Kaluza at TubeFest 2025

If TubeFest 2025 in Birmingham taught us anything, it’s that great video content doesn’t happen by accident.

One of the standout speakers, Ben Kaluza — full-time creator and all-round data nerd (his words, not ours) — shared a brutally honest, no-frills system for how businesses and marketers should research, create, and refine their video content across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

At Brandlective, we’re big believers that content should be driven by insight, not guesswork. Ben’s talk was packed with practical advice for anyone serious about growing their audience — and avoiding the heartbreak of videos that land with a thud.

Here’s what Ben had to say — and what your business should be doing next if you want to thrive in the world of short-form video.

The Harsh Reality: Good Ideas Aren’t Enough

Ben kicked off with a painful truth: just because you think an idea is valuable, doesn’t mean your audience agrees.

He learned the hard way that posting whatever he thought was useful simply didn’t work. It wasn’t until he started deconstructing top-performing videos across different creators — and focusing only on what audiences actually responded to — that he saw real growth.

Lesson for businesses: Forget about what you think should go viral. Instead, study what is going viral — and adapt.

The Gold Standard for Researching Winning Content

Ben shared a brilliant (and refreshingly simple) process for finding winning ideas:

Pick a handful of creators in your niche.
Rank their videos by performance — views, likes, comments.
Cross-compare: find topics that consistently perform well across multiple creators.
Prioritise ideas that work across the board — not just one lucky fluke.

He calls this the “Gold Standard” method because it’s based on solid evidence, not vibes and wishful thinking.

Pro Tip: Focus on outlier videos — content that performs way above a creator’s average. Especially look at smaller creators: if someone with 1,000 followers pulls 200,000 views, you’re looking at a seriously powerful idea.

How to Generate Unlimited Video Ideas (Without Losing Your Mind)

Ever sat in front of your laptop thinking, “What the hell am I supposed to post this week?”?

Ben’s system prevents that.

Here’s the quick version:

Start broad: List your big categories (e.g., “Content Marketing”, “SEO”, “Brand Strategy”).
Break them into subcategories: Get specific (e.g., “SEO for e-commerce”, “B2B brand positioning”).
Turn subcategories into search terms: Use these to explore platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
Find viral and outlier content based on these search terms.
Repurpose formats: Lists, how-tos, personal stories, case studies — you can spin dozens of videos from each subtopic.

Brandlective Tip: This system turns your niche expertise into hundreds of video ideas — no desperate brainstorming sessions required.

Build a Simple Idea Bank (No Fancy Apps Needed)

You don’t need a complicated Notion board or half a dozen “productivity” apps (although if you love a colour-coded Trello board, crack on).

Ben’s advice? Keep it messy but effective:

Use a basic Kanban board (even a spreadsheet will do).
Track your top 5 video ideas that you’re excited to create right now.
Review the list daily — swap in better ideas if they come up.

The goal is to stay dynamic. If an idea no longer excites you, bin it. Your passion (or lack of it) will show on camera.

Build Two Creator Lists

Idea Generators: Creators who churn out lots of content in your space. Great for spotting viral topics fast.
Inspiration Creators: Higher-end creators whose style or editing you aspire to. Great for levelling up your production value over time.

Why bother? Because you’ll have a steady stream of proven ideas and the creative inspiration to execute them better.

Set Up Research-Only Accounts

Ben recommends creating separate TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts purely for research.

Only follow creators in your niche.
Train the algorithm to feed you non-stop inspiration (and none of your mate’s dog videos).
Set aside dedicated “research hours” each week.

This stops you falling into the doomscrolling rabbit hole (no judgement — we’ve all been there).

Quick Tips for Platforms

Each platform behaves a bit differently, and Ben shared some nuggets for navigating them:

TikTok: Best for finding viral ideas fast. Use filters and search terms creatively.
Instagram: Less reliable for research, but great for spotting aesthetic trends.
YouTube: Use vidIQ or tools like OneofTen to filter and find high-potential videos easily.
LinkedIn: Video is still wildly underused. Big opportunity for B2B brands — but don’t expect TikTok-style chaos.

Fun fact: LinkedIn even started quietly boosting videos to test their new feature. If you’re in B2B, get in early.

What Matters (and What Doesn’t)

Ben was refreshingly blunt about what actually matters in video content creation:

✅ Finding great ideas.
✅ Writing strong hooks and scripts.
✅ Good on-camera presence.
✅ Fast, efficient editing.
✅ Relentless experimentation.

And what doesn’t matter much?

❌ Posting times.
❌ Hashtags.
❌ Over-analysing SEO on TikTok.
❌ Obsessing over tiny engagement tricks.

Brandlective Tip: Focus 90% of your effort on making better videos, not on gaming the algorithm. Quality wins — boring but true.

Dealing with Video Flops (Because They Will Happen)

Even with all this preparation, sometimes your “surefire banger” will crash and burn. Ben’s advice?

Allow yourself a day to sulk (wine, cake, passive-aggressive texts — whatever works).
Analyse why it failed: Was it the hook? The delivery? The title?
Rework it if needed: Sometimes a stronger hook can revive a good idea.
Move on quickly: Obsessing over one flop will kill your momentum faster than anything else.

As Ben put it: “The only way to fail permanently is to give up.”