So the reality that we wanna come to here is
any business product or service can go viral. Don't let that hold you back.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the privilege of having with us in studio today none other than the ultimate viral scientist himself, a three time international best selling author of 1,000,000 followers, Hook Point, and the guide to going viral, Brendan Kane. He's gracing us with his presence, and he's gonna share a presentation
that will assist you in taking your content and helping it go viral. So without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Brendan Kane. Thank
you, Myron. Appreciate it.
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here today, and we're gonna be diving into
the five biggest lies in social media and how they are holding you back
from achieving the success
that you deserve and that you're looking for.
So
just to kind of give some context, over the past
twenty years, I've dedicated my entire career to one thing and one thing only,
and that is understanding how and why things break through.
What gains attention?
What fails to gain attention?
Essentially,
what goes viral and why?
To the point that I have founded a company called Hookpoint where we have spent over ten thousand hours of research on the subject matter. And no, it's not ten thousand hours just because Malcolm Gladwell said it was ten thousand hours. Our team has actually logged that many.
Truly understanding
what this world is about, how we can stand out at the highest levels.
Over the past two decades, I've had the pleasure of working with clients such as Yahoo, Mindvalley, Paramount,
Vice,
Taylor Swift, IKEA. Yes, going from rock stars to furniture.
Pretty much worked in every single industry. And as Myron mentioned, I have three books, 1,000,000 followers, hook point, and the guide to going viral. And the reason I mentioned that is if you've read that in my books or checked them out, they all have the same dedication.
And that dedication is I firmly believe that there's people all over the world just like you that have the power to transform the world in a positive way through your message, through your product, through your services,
but you just need that helping hand. You need the right insights,
that your voice is being suppressed for any number of reasons.
And my mission here today and to all of you is to deliver as much value so that you can break through and have your voice being heard.
So I I would like to start here,
and I want you to imagine that you are given a treasure map.
Okay? And on this treasure map,
there
are no instructions,
and you are given no compass,
and you have no idea where you're going. However,
you know there is gold out there, but you're aimlessly
wandering around just digging holes at random trying to find that gold, and you're just hoping to strike it rich. Now the interesting thing is social media,
most people are treating it the exact same way.
They just keep digging holes in the form of creating content, creating content, creating content,
hoping to strike it rich because we see those people with millions of followers. We see those people with tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views, but you just don't have that clear blueprint. You don't have that clear map, and we're gonna dig into to what that is today.
So I like to kind of do this because I think it's really important. Like,
what is
social media?
Like, I wanna level set and start here because to me,
social media is actually, it's more than a platform.
It's a revolution
in communication. Now why do I say that? If we think back before social media twenty years ago,
well, how did we reach the masses?
You need to you need to go through a television station, a radio station, a newspaper, a magazine. You need to have a publicist. You need to have big budgets or connections.
It wasn't available to everyone.
But today,
social media has truly democratized
communication.
Any one of us
with one of these and a great story
can reach millions and millions of people,
which was never
previously there.
So now I wanna talk about,
like, what is going viral?
So because that's that word that that term is thrown out a lot.
To me, going viral is just capturing attention.
Are you capturing the tension that you're looking for, that you're hoping for?
Now some people will say, well, Brendan, how many views is going viral?
Well, it's the number of views that you need to have in order to have the impact
that you're looking for.
For some people, 10,000 views will hit their goals. You know, whether it's, you know, building their brand, getting their message out there, selling their products or services. Other people, they want a million views or they want tens of millions of views, hundreds of millions of views. The most important thing is,
are you getting the attention
that you're seeking,
and is that attention
translating into your business goals and objectives?
I am never gonna say in with all the clients we work with work with at Hookpoint is it's never about going viral for the sake of going viral. This should always be tangibly
tied to the goals and objectives that you have for your business.
Now one of the biggest determining factors in what causes content to get attention or or or reach your views is the algorithms. They control the distribution of content. They control whether it's a thousand views
or 10,000,000 views on your content. Now I'm gonna define
what algorithms are and why they do this in in just a little bit, but I wanted to set the bar here is, like, going viral in everything that we're covering today is just not about
just getting as many views as possible. We wanna translate that into our goals and objectives. Now
as I mentioned, I started in the space in 2005.
There's Myspace was the predominant
player, 25,000,000
users, and Facebook was at was at 6,000,000.
And the interesting thing about social media way back then
is
you just had to connect with people. You people would friend you, people would follow you, subscribe to you,
and you would post and people would see it. Like, how magical is that? How simple is it? Like, you quote, you post something, and people see it. Like, I think a lot of us here wish that that was the case today. So what what actually changed? Well, a lot of things changed.
In 2010,
social media had grown from,
you know, roughly thirty, forty million users to 970,000,000.
And then 2015, at 2,200,000,000.
At 2020,
3,960,000,000.
And today, we're at over 5,200,000,000
people using these platforms. Again, I started here when there was nothing.
Thirty, forty million. It was it was different. So so what changed because of this? Well,
you probably have all heard the algorithms.
Well, the algorithms were invented
because so many people were joining these platforms and posting on these these these
new social media channels.
So
the algorithms were invented to do one thing, and that was to prioritize
what content you get seeded. So if we imagine if any one of us
opens up our favorite app on this thing, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
YouTube, no matter what your favorite app is, there's probably a 150,000
pieces of content
it could seed to you based upon the accounts that you follow, the content you've engaged with. Now, obviously,
it can't seed you a 150,000
pieces of content because it would be super overwhelming.
You close the app and leave. So these algorithms are there
to prioritize what are the first five pieces of content you're gonna see, the next 10,
The next 15?
Now what these algorithms are looking for, and no, it's not trying to suppress your reach so that you can boost your post. I know this for two reasons. One, I've managed over $200,000,000
in ad spend,
and the people that spend the most where the most money is made is off of major corporations and brands that spend billions and billions of dollars a year.
In addition,
you wouldn't have influencers like a mister beast or that teenage influencer down the street with millions of followers scaling and growing.
It would just be reserved for people with the biggest budgets. And we know the most successful people on social media are typically the ones that don't start out with the biggest budgets, the biggest teams, the biggest equipment.
So these algorithms
are there
to prioritize the best content. Why?
Because we are the fuel that runs them. This is not like Netflix
or Disney where they're investing billions and billions of dollars in original content. They rely on us. We are the fuel that runs these platforms. However,
these platforms, the algorithms have one goal, and like any business, is to make money.
So how do they make money? Well, they serve ads.
So the content that keeps people on the platforms longer means they can serve more ads. So when the algorithms are prioritizing content, they're prioritizing content that grabs and holds attention
longer than other content.
So as you can imagine,
as the algorithms take shape, then we went from simply post and people see your content to post and maybe people will see your content or you're probably lucky if they see your content. Well, that created a lot of frustration
with content creators and businesses where they started to try and hack the algorithms,
try and find tricks and things like that without, again, trying to understand what these algorithms prioritize.
These algorithms are there
to partner with us.
They want to see us succeed because we are the fuel that runs them, but we have to prove that we're good content creators amongst those under other 150,000
pieces of content to prove that we can actually
grab and hold attention over other content.
So
after doing ten thousand hours of research
at my company Hookpoint,
we came to this very simple insight
and that is
storytelling
plus retention equals success.
So what does that mean? I mean, if we think about
think about a the last movie you saw. You saw a trailer. You're super inspired. I wanna go see this amazing movie. Well, what happens when you sit down to watch that movie?
Well, you wanna see what happens at the end.
So what does that do? It holds your attention. Or if you think about anybody that has young kids, you start to start a bedtime story.
What does the kid want? They want to hear the end of the story.
So storytelling
effective storytelling
allows us to build that retention,
which is what the algorithms want to keep people engaged with content longer so they can serve more ads, and that equates to success.
So
social media is not about fighting algorithms. It's about partnering
with the algorithms, becoming a better storyteller.
And that is, like, one of the the the simplest pieces of advice I could give you today is
ignore the algorithms,
ignore the the the hacks,
the the tips, the tricks,
just learn how to become a better storyteller, and through that, you will have success.
So I'm gonna break down now the five biggest social media lies and how they are
blocking your visibility,
your voice,
and success.
So let's start with one. Lie number one. And that is virality
is just pure luck.
Now
have you ever, like, created a lot of content,
put a lot of time, energy, resources, money into either a single piece of content or a lot, and it just you you're like, this thing is amazing. This is amazing content. And then you post it, and it's just like,
what happened? Like,
what did I just do? Like, I wasted all that time. Oh, if that's you, I feel your pain. I I listen. I've been there. I've been doing this for twenty years.
And the reality is I know how painful that can be,
but there is a science to this.
And I promise you, anyone
can learn this science.
And as I have alluded to, that science is rooted
in storytelling.
So
growing up, I was captivated by movies. I was so captivated in movies. I loved it as a young kid that I decided to go to film school to study films. I wanted to be a movie producer. Now the interesting thing about going to film school is that even though I wanted to be a producer,
they still made me take acting classes.
They still made me learn how to light sets. They made me write screenplays. They made me direct things.
Why?
Because there's all these small nuances
that make up successful movies. Now when I started my career, I worked for Academy award winning producers. And the amazing thing is even seeing people that have reached the pinnacle,
they could have everything. They could have a great director,
a great script, a great idea, but if one small element was off in making that movie, the whole thing would fall apart.
Maybe the actors didn't have chemistry.
Maybe the the director and the actor didn't have chemistry. Maybe the cinematographer
just failed in the lighting or they got the wrong locations.
Just one small element, I'm sure a lot of you have probably seen, you know, really bad movies,
and then you kind of can pinpoint, well, that's something was off with it. So there's all these little nuances
that cause a movie to be successful
or unsuccessful.
And the reality is the same thing applies to social media.
It's no different.
Like,
these platforms are purely storytelling
platforms. This is not social media is not about hope.
It's not about luck. There is a repeatable process
to it.
So I wanna break down an important simple truth about social media,
and I'm sure a lot of you have heard trends.
Probably a lot of people say chase the trends, create trends, trends are success, but the reality is trends are fleeting
and stories are not. And
we have proven this again with doing ten thousand hours
of research into what we call storytelling
formats,
structures that have repeatable success. Now at this point, we've analyzed over 300 of these formats.
So a format is it's basically a blueprint.
It's it's a proven structure
to have repeatable success over and over over again. And I want you to think about that blueprint or structure as something that you can insert your message or your content into. So it's it's very flexible in that nature.
Movies for the past hundred years have all followed the same format. And if you think about any movie that you see, they all feel distinctly different. You know, horror, action, sci fi, drama,
comedies,
they feel different, but they all use the same format. And directors can be super creative within that specific
format.
So we're gonna I'm gonna actually show you a few examples
in a minute.
But in terms of in terms of
another kind of analogy of thinking of of trends versus formats, If we think about learning a musical instrument, the trend route would say, week one, let's learn the piano. Week two, let's learn the drums. Week three, let's learn the guitar.
Week four, it's the violin. You keep switching the goalposts, and you never become a master of anyone.
Versus, like, the format approach,
it would be, you know, let's master the piano. Let's sit down for years in doing that. So that's the power of formats versus trends. Now people think that social media is constantly shifting and changing and that you always have to be
on top in innovating and things of that nature. But the reality is a lot of these formats have been used for decades,
have been used for a long period of time.
So I wanna just start putting this into practical,
like, experience and actually, like, showing you examples because it's one thing for me to talk about these things, and it's another thing to actually show it in real life and to prove it. So
we have an amazing guy, and I'm a break down this case story of Tanner Leatherstein,
a client of ours. And at age 11, he fell in love with making leather goods. He created his first leather jacket
and just loved the process, loved the art of it.
To the point when he grew older, he founded his own leather goods company called Pagai. Now
as we'll see, when he came to us, he was struggling with social media. Like, his content wasn't breaking through,
and he was really focusing on ads and trends. He had no format. He had no storytelling skills.
So we helped him design a format. So first, I'm gonna show you an example of what he was doing before,
and then we're gonna show an actual format, a storytelling format and structure of what it looks like when you kind of use this. So this first video,
um, is 32,000
views.
So as you can see, there's no real story. He's just trying to sell
his products and services.
So in Tanner coming with us coming to us, we helped them design
a format that matched his business, matched his expertise and passion,
and it's called, is it worth it? And you'll just see it's pretty self explanatory.
He takes
expensive a
leather good deconstruction on screen and tells you whether it's worth the money that you paid for it.
Coach leather bags. Are they worth it? I went to the Coach store yesterday,
and this was the bag I love the most. Sales associate told me this was made out of glow tan leather, and the inside was suede.
But I have my doubts. And as you can see, this is all fabric, not suede.
In my opinion, about six feet of leather to put this bag together, about $5 a foot, $30 for the leather, Insanely good brass accessories. They used a lot of them. With the fabric, I give it another $30,
so $60 in materials. And in my estimate, $70 should be enough to put this bag together. In total, $1.30 for the materials and labor. I paid $4.50. Doesn't sound like a bad deal. I love the leather, the feel and look of it. I hate that I was told inside was suede and it's fabric, and they used PU leather for the story patch inside. I wish it was real leather.
So you can kinda see the difference between just doing an ad versus this structure, this is it worth it, 32,000 views versus 10,000,000 views.
But
this is the remarkable thing. Now Tanner really struggled. Like, he didn't even feel comfortable being on camera before we helped him find this format. So with this single format, this is it worth it format,
he has 94
views or videos with over 1,000,000 views, 16 surpassing 4,000,000,
and he went from 2,000 followers to an audience of 2,300,000.
Now
this was just a leather goods guy. Like, the people in the fashion industry are scared of him. They're like, what is he gonna is he gonna break down my products?
He even got invited to Paris Fashion Week to, like, parties with, like, celebrities like Kendall Jenner and stuff because they want to kinda build this relationship. Now
Tanner, an amazing guy, has a lot of authenticity to him, so he will not
take products for exchange for for for money or things of that nature.
So now some of you may be thinking, well, Brendan, I wanna build a business. This is great. He's getting viral viral and stuff. Well, how does this translate into monetary gain?
Well, the reality is he saw that video.
He's not saying buy my products or services. Go to my website.
He is getting people to know, like, and trust him to the point where people naturally want to take that next step.
So previously,
he was spending money on Google pay per click ads, generating about 10,000 visitors a month but paying for every click.
Once he started this, it jumped to a 100,000 visitors a month organically.
His most expensive products, the ones that are thousands of dollars that that handcrafted
leather goods, he can't even keep them on the shelf.
Why? Because people trust him. You can see like his passion comes through.
He's proving he knows leather,
Like, he's being truthful and honest with it, and that's where people gravitate towards those relationships. So
going viral
is not luck.
It is storytelling.
And and just I want you to remember, storytelling
plus retention
equals success because we're playing in to what the algorithms want. We are the fuel that runs them, and we are trying to partner with the algorithms, not try and beat them or hack them.
So what are the actionable
strategies that we can take away here?
Well,
the first thing is just understanding that these storytelling formats exist,
that they are out there in the world
because most people are just passively
consuming content and they don't see that there's clear patterns, there's clear structures
to how things work. And we're gonna again I'm gonna show you a few more formats in a little bit so you can get more examples of it, but just start looking for it and understanding that exists.
Then you wanna choose the one that fit fit best fits your message. So we've done an analysis in over 300. There are plenty to choose from. You wanna choose the one that excites you, that feels authentic to who you are.
And then you want to analyze
that. Don't just look at a video and just be like, oh, it's got millions of views. Try and understand why in the same way that I went to film school, like break it down. What makes it successful?
So I wanna do a little fun little quiz with you guys here in the audience and whoever's tuning in, you can participate as well.
But I'm gonna break down I'm gonna play two videos,
and you're gonna guess which one performed better, and then I'm gonna break down why.
So let's start with the first one.
K. So that's the first one.
I don't wanna egg. You guys can't cheat. You can't you can't tell the answer before you watch two videos. You gotta give it a chance. Okay? Okay.
So here's the second one.
Okay.
So which one performed better? Raise your hand if you think it's number one.
Number two?
Okay.
Some of you guys cheated though. Okay.
So for for the for the next ones, try to at least give it a chance. Okay.
So
you guys are right. So the first video is by Pantene. It got 3,500 views. And the second video is by Regina Roth, who's actually a client of Hookpoint. They got 17,000,000
views.
So so what is the the the difference here? Well,
if we think about
and we have these four things on the screen, they're they're called performance drivers.
So these are like nuances and storytelling that contribute to the success or detract from the success
of the video content. So if we look at this, we have the first one is contrast.
So when we think about that first video, the Pantene video, there's no visible difference between seeing the before and after. So it really completely minimizes the impact
versus
with Regina's,
there is a stark
visual contrast that is happening. There is a clear before and after after that enables the viewer to appreciate
the transformation that is happening. The next one is pacing.
The underperformer, the transformation is is very minor. It fails to pay off for the viewer versus the high performer.
It builds
anticipation.
It amplifies the emotional impact. And again, a lot of these things can happen on the subconscious level because we're you know, this is obviously these are short videos. So oftentimes, our subconscious
is registering these things before we do and causes us to scroll or to keep watching.
The next one is the reactions. Like, the first one, the model, it feels staged. It feels like she's just acting
versus
Regina's, it feels genuine. Like, the emotions feel genuine and it builds that connection.
It brings the viewers in. And then the authenticity of it. Again, the Pantene video, it just feels like it's on a stage, a soundstage
shot with fancy cameras, models, things of that nature versus
with Regina,
there's a relatable moment that creates, you know, deep audience connection.
Now the interesting thing about this, just to show you the power, is
before Regina started using the hook point model, she was stuck at, like, $3,000 a month as a hairstylist in in Florida,
and this single video
booked her out one year in advance. Wow.
And her revenue jumped to 16,000 a month with one video. So
that's the power of it. And do you see her saying sign up for my hair salon? You see, you know, book here?
See, that's the thing. It's it's building that relationship
with the audience. So what is lie number two?
Well, that's you need big budgets and large teams.
Like, we just saw that. Like, oftentimes, overproduction
can work against you. Why? Because we're professional content consumers. We consume so much content in this day and age with social media and Netflix and things of that nature. There are subconscious that's so smart within a split second if something feels too over polished,
we're like, this is an ad. Even if it's not an ad, it can feel that way.
So that's where sometimes that production value can work against you. I'm not going to say all the times, but I just want to a lot of people hold themselves back from success because they got they say, well, I need to wait till I have enough budget to hire a team or I need fancy equipment or things of that nature.
So I want to show another example of us. Again, I don't want to just tell you these things. I want to to show these things in practical environments. So another case story is with doctor Jordan Davis, and he initially wanted to be a rock star until he met his wife and was like, no, you need to get a real job. And he became one of the top dentists in Utah and has a has a beautiful family. But like Tanner,
he was thinking that commercials,
fancy camera,
editing, and things of that nature are the way to success. So let's walk look at, again, what a lot of people are doing on social media to drive success
is creating things like this. So let's watch this first video.
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that music used in in many different commercials.
I mean, it's it just screams
commercials. So if we and even if we look here, you you can see, like, the fancy cameras in the background, the the edits, the fancy camera angles, and things like that.
But again,
with working with a dentist, again, like a dentist, you you think that, like, how are you gonna make that work? Well, there's a format for everybody.
So we helped them design this format, and I'll just kind of share. It's pretty self explanatory.
Like, he's using his expertise to break down celebrity teeth and things of that nature. So let's just watch this one.
So, again, it's a pretty simple format. He's breaking down celebrity teeth and how he would approach it to match the person's personality being authentic. But if you look at the setup here,
like, literally,
like, he's just sitting in a desk, in a chair. He you can even see the microphone there. Like, you could shoot that on your iPhone.
It's not super fancy,
not high value
production.
And then if we look at the results
So
if we look at the results here oh, I don't know why it's doing that. I don't get why these celebrities get
So it's
21,000,000
views
to 1,400
views. Wow.
So 21,000,000
views, and he stripped out the fancy camera. He stripped out, you know, the whole team. He had a microphone plugged here.
So
the the reason I kinda wanted to show you that example is
is you literally can reach millions of people
with
a phone
as long as you have a great story.
Now you may feel that
success is for celebrities, famous budgets, cameras, but literally, do have the tools with you. And there's creators from every background, every part of the world that are driving success with great storytelling.
So
the simple truth here is
hooking attention and telling a great story beats overproduced big budget content
every
single time,
full stop. So what are the the actual strategies that we can take away?
Again, we wanna find that format that fits your resources. We wanna focus on storytelling,
not advertisements.
Again, as we talked about this with Regina, with Tanner,
you don't need to sell in your content.
You just build that relationship and prioritize emotional connection
over polished production.
Okay. So again, no cheating here. We're gonna do another quiz before we move on to line number three.
But
I want to ask
which video went viral? There's three videos on three different subject matters.
We have terrariums,
car insurance,
and warranties.
Any answers? Which one do you guys think? Warranties?
Terrariums. Terrariums? Terrariums. Terrariums. Terrariums. Terrariums.
Thanks. I think we're all all across the board,
and it's a trick question. All three.
So we got my friend Ben Newell with Terrariums with 68,000,000
views. Chris Cobb, a client of ours, 5,400,000 views, and Erica Kolberg with 75,000,000
views. So let's watch these like, let's look at these three. How did they actually do this?
So Ben
basically tells these stories in these micro environments that he builds around terrariums. He's built an audience of 2,900,000
people that tune in to to do his he is the leading expert in the world in terrariums because of social media at this point.
So let's look at another one, car insurance. Super
boring, not really sexy, but Chris Cobb
uses a format called visual metaphors.
This is how car insurance works in sixty seconds. So here we have John who just got a new hot ride, and that's when the insurance company comes in and says, hey, John. Nice car, but have you thought about what would happen if you get in an accident? And he's like, no. They said, well, John, if you pay us $1 a month, it's called a premium, we'll cover your car. He's like, okay. That's a no brainer. So John speeds off. He's having a good time. On the highway, he's texting and driving. God, please don't do that because he actually gets to the fender bender with his friend Marcus. And John is freaking out because he's thinking, how to fix Marcus' car? How to fix my own car? And that's when the insurance company says, John, you've been paying the $1 premium.
So here you go. Here's $10.
Go fix Marcus' car and go fix your own. And John is super relieved because
he did not have $2 to fix his car. And you may be wondering,
how does the insurance company afford this? Well, they have thousands of jobs who put money into a jar every single month, and they're not giving you accidents.
But the insurance company is smart. They're saying, John, I'm glad you're safe,
but I'm sorry to give you the bad news.
You're a risky driver. You're costing us too much. So instead of $1 in premium,
I'm gonna have to charge you two every single month. And that's how car insurance works. John is paying a little bit to cover a lot, but because John is more risky now, the insurance company is gonna charge him more. But even worse, they may drop his coverage. If you like the
So 5,400,000
views with car insurance. Now this is another example of a format called visual metaphors
where you're using metaphors to explain
a, you know, complex or abstract subject matter.
So let's watch the last one, Erika Kolberg. This is called two characters one light bulb where the same person plays two different characters and breaks down a subject matter or debunks a common myth. My shoe has a tear. Can I get a new pair? You bought that almost two two years ago, there's nothing we can do since it's been over sixty days. She has no idea, know, watch this. I'm not talking about the sixty day return policy, I've actually read your terms and I know that as long as it's been less than two years since the manufacture date found here, it's covered under the warranty. And Nike will either give me a brand new pair or a gift card for the same value. Oh, fine. We don't carry that one anymore, so here's your $100 gift card. Who taught you this? Erica did. She's a lawyer and reads the fine prints, but I don't have to. That's why I follow her.
So 75,000,000
views on warranties,
and she's built an audience of 15,000,000
people. So
this is the lie that I hear a lot of times. It's lie number three, and that is, you know what? I'm not succeeding because my business, it's not sexy enough. It's not interesting enough. I'm not a celebrity.
But the reality is
you can succeed. Now I feel your pain and the frustration if you see other people in other industries, you're like, how are they succeeding? And I'm not.
But I guarantee there are people just like you all over the world that are succeeding with great stories.
Again, we just looked at a guy talking about terrariums.
Terrariums of all thing going viral. Warranties
going viral.
So how do we actually apply this?
So it's it's called
the Generals Principle. That's why we call it hook point. And it's
it is all about
how
we can ensure
that our content is very clear, engaging, and widely accessible
to breakthrough. So we
definitely want to create content that speaks to the people that buy our products and services
that is in a very specific, you know, niche, but we wanna break through. How do we make it also interesting
to the wider possible audience? Why?
Because the algorithms only care about content that holds and and retains attention at scale.
In addition,
as we've talked about, you're competing against a 150,000
other pieces of content.
So even though
you create a piece of content that's targeted specifically
to your audience,
it's still competing against all that other content that's not your direct competition.
So with the generalist principle, it's all about making it accessible against your core customer but to a wider possible audience. So in order to do this,
we wanna break things down simply. We want to use clear and easy to understand language,
not just, you know, language that people understand. And if you guys remember before when we were breaking down some of Myron's thumbnails, like the difference between, like, language that everybody knows versus a subset and what it does to performance.
Storytelling, obviously, relatable stories with emotions
and, again, broad appeal connecting through universal
themes and challenges. So as we look at this, the actual strategies is,
for example, finding a universal angle is, you know, going from I'm a real estate agent to let me take you on a tour of a $7,000,000 closet. This is an actual video, and this is coming from a a creator Ryan Serhant.
And he proves that this translates to commerce.
He sells properties that are 15 to $250,000,000
in Manhattan, New York. Super niche, super small audience.
But because he generates tens of millions of views using the generalist principle,
he will sell a $30,000,000 property off a YouTube video because he needs less than 1% to be his core target audience.
And that less than 1% beats out all of his competition because they're not generating tens of millions of views a month.
The next is turn specifics into relatable stories.
Again, going from the benefits
of proper dental hygiene to ninety percent of people are ruining their teeth without realizing it.
Then using analogies and unexpected comparisons.
The example, imagine if all the bread in the world suddenly doubled in price overnight.
This is how inflation works.
And then
one of the most important things is as content creators,
we're often thinking just about our goals. What do we want to achieve with our content?
But when reality, we need to we really need to reshift that focus and change our mindset to what is the effect
that we want to have on the viewer?
What is that experience that we want them to have when we create that piece of content?
Because without it, you get lost in that connection with the other people on the other side of the screen.
So I wanna show
another example of
case story here with Corey Warren
who is a recovering addict,
and he's from Lansing, Michigan, and he's really passionate about helping people that are struggling from addiction.
So, again, addiction, not a super sexy
subject matter, But as you'll see with this, he is also like Chris Cobb using the visual metaphor format. And this is again important
in that formats can be used for different industries. We're going for from car insurance
to talking about addiction
in the exact same storytelling format. So let's watch this video real quick.
This is what nobody wants to talk about
with alcohol.
My
name is Corey. I'm an alcoholic.
And for the longest time,
I thought that alcohol was my problem.
I thought that if I could just put the alcohol down,
everything would be okay.
What I realized
is that alcohol is not my problem.
Alcohol is my solution.
When I had a bad day,
alcohol was my solution. My wife and I were fighting,
alcohol was my solution.
If I couldn't pay my bills, alcohol was my solution.
See, alcohol was never the problem. The problem was I didn't know how to handle my life.
So once I put the alcohol down and all that alcohol got up out of my cup,
I could finally start to focus on me.
And once I started focusing on the problem,
I no longer needed the alcohol.
You wanna quit drinking? Hit me up. I'll do it with you. Peace. So this video generated 61,000,000
views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Nice. Wow.
Just think of the impact that that has. Wow.
The reality
that we wanna come to here is
any business product or service can go viral. Don't let that hold you back.
We've walked through several examples from addiction to car insurance to terrariums
to warranties.
You can have success no matter what industry or sector you're in if you find the right format, the right story that you're looking for.
So another little quiz here.
There
is an educational YouTube channel
that explores
science engineering and innovative problem solving,
but they only post on average
once a month.
So how many views
do you think that this channel generated in the past year?
A is 10,000 views, b is a 100,000 views,
c is 1,000,000 views,
or d is 10,000,000 views? What do you guys think? C.
B c d? Okay.
Let's see. The answer is 300,000,000
views.
And this is from Mark Rober.
And
he is another creator that proves that, you know, success
isn't just about a sexy subject matter. He's talking about engineering. He's a former NASA engineer.
And he proves
that success isn't about posting frequently, it's about posting strategically.
So lie number four,
more posts
lead to more success. Now I hear this all the time that frequency is the key to success.
Now that's just simply not true. Now frequency can play a role once you've mastered the things that we're talking about today in terms of storytelling in formats.
And maybe ten, fifteen years ago, these platforms would reward reward frequency when there was less content on the platforms. But when these algorithms have you know, there's over a billion pieces of content posted across social media channels. When you have that much content,
why would they just reward a creator for posting more
when their sole goal is to keep people on the platforms longer?
They wouldn't. You just think about it from the standpoint of Netflix.
When you think about
that that frustrating thing is you get into a Netflix series, you watch the first season, and they cancel it. You're like, man, why did they do that? Well, they did it because people weren't watching it. They weren't either they they started and didn't finish the end or they just want didn't watch it at all. They have to be cutthroat about it the same way that the albums are.
So the simple truth here is that quality
meets quantity
every single time. So what do I mean by that? Well,
we're all audience members. We create content. We
don't pay attention to the amount of content.
We pay attention to the content that really resonates with us. Like, what was the last show that you guys decided to watch? Did you decide based upon the number of episodes that it had? The length time? The run time?
No. You saw a trailer and you're like, that looks cool. I wanna watch that. Or maybe you had a friend recommend it to you. Like, we care about the quality,
not about the quantity.
So that's where mastering storytelling, mastering formats
drives growth. And then once you've done that, then you can choose to increase the frequency, but you wanna crawl before you run. So what are the actual strategies here?
I have a little bit of a rubric that we can we can follow here of of
creating quality every time. So before posting, ask yourself, does this post solve a problem for my audience?
Does it tell a compelling story?
Does it hold attention from start to finish?
So those are things that you can just take away and start asking yourself
as you're creating content.
So I wanna talk a little bit about the IKEA effect before we move on to lie lie number five. Now I actually got brought out to speak to IKEA's creative global team in Sweden. The fascinating thing about IKEA is there's actually a thing that's called IKEA hotels,
and they put me up in one it's all IKEA furniture and stuff. It's pretty cool. But it got me as I was training the team
over there, it's it's it made me think. It's kind of interesting.
Like,
I IKEA is all about you can go into
you can go into a store, you can pull a table off the shelf, it's typically in a box, and they have instructions and tools so you can put it together yourself.
And I thought, well, what was it like before IKEA? So IKEA was created in 1943.
They started the instructions in 1956.
But what was it like seventy five, ninety years ago? Like, you had to go out into the woods and chop things down and saw it and sand it and things of that nature.
But if you think about what IKEA has done
is they changed everything. They made us professional furniture builders.
Like,
I can't build anything for my life, and I can go in there at IKEA and and pull off a table and and assemble it. Like, if they turned everyday people into professional furniture builders. So that's where we get into the final lie, lie number five. You need experience.
No. You actually just need a system that works.
Again,
to go to IKEA, we don't need to be professional builders.
We can actually put it together because
success is not necessarily all about experience. It's about having the right guide or the right blueprint,
and that same applies to social media.
So another example
of this,
just to show in practical terms,
is a case story of doctor Erin Nance. Now when she she's a a really amazing woman. So at seven, she broke her arm, went to the emergency room, and ever since she wanted to be a surgeon, that was her dream.
And when she came to us, she had zero followers, zero views, no experience, and no idea where to begin. On top of that, she's a hand doctor. I mean, how do you create content around a hand doctor?
So again, I sound like a broken record, but it comes from mastering a single format. So we helped her create a format, it's the name of her channel on TikTok, little misdiagnosed.
And as we'll see,
she's creating content on an iPhone herself
with a storytelling format. So let's let's just kind of dive into this. This video has over 9,500,000
views.
There are some sounds in medicine that
once you hear them,
cannot be unheard.
This is the story of a 27 year old male screaming for help from his mother and how he ended up in that place. So I'm the junior on call for ortho,
and I'm already in the ER seeing a bunch of consults,
and I hear someone
screaming.
Now I take care of people who are in car accidents,
who are in burns, who are being bitten by dogs, but I have never.
Do you guys wanna know the end of the story? Well,
that's proof of a good story. You wanna hear the ending.
So you'll have to go to her channel and look at it. But
so so, again,
just to prove here, like, she had zero social media experience
creating content in her iPhone. But as you guys all said, she's doing an amazing job telling a story.
She has 31 videos with over 1,000,000 views with this format, eight surpassing 3,000,000,
four surpassing 5,000,000. She went from zero followers
to 750,000.
She got a book deal that's coming out with Harper Collins next month. She got a reality TV show deal and a podcast deal,
all through the power of storytelling.
Now as I wrap up, I just wanted to give a little bit of backstory about my first book, 1,000,000 followers,
that I that I really haven't told anywhere. And it's
I had this vision to do this book, but there was a lot of doubt
in creating it. It's like, am I gonna fail? Like, I had never written a book before. Who am I to write a book? Like, I thought, you know, I I'm gonna fail with this. That that I don't have the experience. It's not gonna resonate.
And I had all these beliefs holding me back.
So I decided to go to an expert
and somebody that has written 20 books
to help me shape the ideas, give me the confidence, and structure it. I had the right guide even though I'd never written a book, I had a guide to break bring me down that path and luckily, I did because the book was so successful. It allowed me to get another publishing deal and another one.
So the simple truth that I just really want you to take away is there an effective system and guide are more crucial
than effective
experience.
So the actual strategies that we can wrap up with is
follow a proven blueprint,
learn from those who have proven it,
and don't wait now. Take action.
Because a lot of people are using these lies to hold back when in reality success
comes from taking action.
You can't succeed unless you take that next step. So if you've ever felt that social media success and virality is only for the lucky,
that you need big budgets and large teams,
that that you need a sexy industry or celebrity status,
or that you need to constant post, be posting, or have some insider knowledge
to succeed, just remember that these are all lies
that are holding you back.
The key here is storytelling.
Just simplify it. If you focus on storytelling,
you will have the success that you look for. So as a big thank you, if you guys wanna get access to
my recent book for free, the guide's going viral,
you can just screenshot that QR code. But I wanna appreciate appreciate everybody staying here until the end and listening to this. I I really appreciate it, and thank you.
And I really look forward to seeing your content in my feed and having success. So thank you again. Truly appreciate it.