I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas

_{Day 247/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

Your content doesn't suck because it's wrong.

It sucks because it could've been written by anyone.

Here's what I mean:

Generic advice: "Start your blog with a strong hook to capture attention."

Advice with individuality: "I was drafting the 5th re-write of an article on the 6am train into work when I realized: if I can't hook someone in the first sentence, they're gone. Not 'less engaged.' Gone. Back to their inbox. Forever."

See the difference?

One's information.
The other's a person.

The I in VIBE: Individuality

When we built the I score, we had to answer: "How do we detect if a human actually did the work?"

Turns out, from the research, there's a pattern.

The easiest tell isn't fancy vocabulary or unique sentence structure.

It's your senses.

What you were thinking.
What you could feel, see, hear, smell.

Your own experience makes something undeniably human.

The test

Go grab the last thing you published.

Read the first paragraph out loud.

Now ask: "Could this have come from anyone?"

If yes, you're missing the I.

Here's how to fix it:

Before (no individuality): "Email marketing requires consistent testing to improve open rates."

After (with individuality): "I sent 40,000 emails by accident at 2am. My hands were shaking when I saw the send count. But the data was incredible: subject lines with exact timeframes ('14 days') beat vague urgency ('soon') by 12%. I still check my send count three times now."

What changed?

• The 2am detail (time)

• Hands shaking (feeling)

• The send count visual (seeing)

• The lasting behavior change (proof you were there)

You can't fake that.
AI can't generate that.
No one else can steal that.

Why this matters right now

Base advice doesn't mean anything anymore.

"Use data to inform your content strategy."
"Create buyer personas."
"Optimize for search intent."

Cool. Everyone knows this.

What they don't know: What you learned when you actually did it.

The spreadsheet that made you realize your personas were bullshit.
The keyword you ranked for by accident that changed your whole strategy.
The client call where someone said the thing that rewired your brain.

That's the I.

Your move

Next time you write something, add one sensory detail.

What did you see? What were you thinking? What surprised you?

That's it.

That's the difference between content and content someone actually remembers.

VIBE Score measures this. It'll tell you when you're being generic. When you're hedging. When you need to add more you.

Wave 2 drops in a week. (Actually shaking to see it so soon, I have so much work to do).
The I score comes with it.

See you tomorrow.

✌️ Tim "Neddy’s Dad" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

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