A little note from Alex: This article is for anyone with a talk recording sitting on YouTube, TEDx speaker or not.

What most TEDx speakers won’t tell you is that deep down, they feel a quiet sense of shame about their talk.

Sometimes it’s because of a niggling feeling that they didn’t do themselves justice on the day. But more often than not, it’s down to factors that were completely out of their control. I share this because…

Let me explain…

😬 Shame Factor 1: The Production Quality

When we land the talk, we picture ourselves standing on the TED stage and get carried away by how good it’s going to make us look.

Big mistake! TED ≠ TEDx

Prepare for an amateur set, dodgy lighting, crackly audio and a low budget production and you’ll be setting yourself up for reality (or if you’re lucky a pleasant surprise).

[It’s easy to forget that TEDx is a volunteer initiative].

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📉 Shame Factor 2: The View Count

All the talks you’ve watched have had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views. Yours got 527 (and my god, did you work hard for them).

It hardly screams credibility.

So you come to a stark realisation: My talk wasn’t as good as I thought. 

—

In both cases, the result is the same, you stop sharing it.

And I can’t help but think… what a waste.

Not only because by doing so you’re guaranteeing your idea doesn’t get out there, but also because ultimately, the decision is driven by ego.

Ego that is protecting you from perceived embarrassment whilst simultaneously sabotaging the very reason you gave the talk in the first place - to share an idea that could genuinely help people.

I’ve personally worked on 100’s of TEDx talks over the course of the last 10 years.

Some of them are now considered as some of the most successful of all time and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, is’s that there is no correlation between the quality of a talk and its view count.

But perhaps more surprisingly, many of the talks I’ve worked on that have gone on to have the biggest impact have had the smallest number of views.

Who is watching the talk is far more important than how many are.

YouTube: A Reality Check 📺

I’ve deep dived into TED’s YouTube statistics (correct on 8th June 2025).

Let me share some numbers that will completely reframe how you think about your talk’s “performance.”

The last time a TED talk broke into their 20 most viewed was seven years ago. Top 40 most viewed? Four years ago.

In fact, just three of the top 100 most watched TED talks are <3 years old.
That number goes down to 2 in the TEDx rankings.

In other words, the system is rigged and the only people benefitting from it are the TED greats (Brené, Ken, Simon et al.).

[I should note, this isn’t TED or TEDx’s fault].

YouTube today is a completely different beast.

The days of relying on YouTube only to get your idea out there are long gone.

So it's no surprise to see a number of forward thinking thought leaders taking back control of their amplification strategy.

The results I've witnessed have been profound.

Talks that have been sat in the graveyard for years, now generating 10's of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of views.

And today, I want to share the strategy (and a tool) with you to help you do the same.

The TEDx Resurrection Strategy 📈

1. Get access to the MP4 version of your talk 🍿
   Reach out to your TEDx organiser or the production team to request a copy of your talk. Some will be happy to share the file with you; especially if you’re linking back to the original video each time you do.
   

2. Transcribe your talk 🗣️
   A free app like Apple Notes will do the job nicely.

3. Head to the newly added Talk Snipper GPT in your Toolkit 🎁

   Share your transcript and it will identify 3-5 highly-sharable clips from your talks and podcasts to help you amplify your ideas at scale.
   
   You’ll get titles, hooks, quotes, and timestamps, ready to edit and post.
   

4. Create the clips ✂️ 
   Use any basic video editing software to extract these segments.
   

5. Share the video on LinkedIn 🗣️
   Remember, it’s not just about posting the videos; it’s about how you frame them.
    
   ❌ ‘Look at me, I’ve delivered a TEDx talk.’ (Self Promotion)
   ✅ ‘[This problem] isn’t getting talked about enough. Here’s why…’ (Thought Leadership)
   
   P.s. With the LinkedIn algorithm gods’ favouring video at the moment, there has never been a better time to do this!

One final thought…

This isn’t about vanity metrics; this is about creating change.

That’s what we’re in the thought leadership game to do, so the process I’ve shared here, is something you should be doing with all the talks you give.

The greater the exposure your audience has to your ideas, the faster the change you create

Go get ‘em!

Alex