There's a way to get so many followers on social media, it actually feels like cheating. And it's not about talent, luck, or having a fancy camera. It comes down to 10 simple principles that you can implement in your content today. I know this because I've built Dan Martell's personal brand from under a 100 k followers, over 10,000,000 across all platforms, and my personal brand from zero to over 50 k. And we do over 200,000,000
views a month, so I know exactly what actually works. So without further explanation,
these are the 10 principles of content creation. So principle number one, become someone worth following. If you want people to actually follow you on social media, you have to distill down why people should follow you in the first place. What do you help people with? And the whole point of being somebody that's followed is to actually be a leader, because a leader has followers. Right? A leader is worth following. If you're not a leader in real life, you're never gonna actually get anybody to follow you. Now bears the question. Right? How do I actually become a leader on social media? Which brings us to principle number two, do cool shit and talk about it. In today's age, you can point out a fake guru in a field of other people. Right? They don't have the credentials. They've never done something interesting. They talk about shit that they've never done. And all the advice that they say is generic and doesn't actually get you results. How do you actually mitigate against that? How do you actually become a thought leader that isn't full of shit? Well, you do cool shit, and then you talk about it. For example, Dan Martell, who I work for, before even posting a single piece of content, he had built and exited three software companies. He is an expert in the space. And guess what? He didn't start making content about general business advice until he'd mastered, one, the software niche, and then, two, the coaching niche, and then the investor niche. Once he mastered all three, only then after he developed decades of expertise did he start making content for the general audience. Most people skip to the second part, which is build a personal brand. Most people literally open their phone and start posting content before they've ever done anything interesting. And I understand it because it's sexy, it's interesting, and you wanna learn how to do it. And I'm not opposed to building the skill of speaking to your camera, for example. For me, I've been filming myself on my iPhone since I was 13 years old. The key is is before you actually go out and teach people how to do something, you have to first have mastered it in real life. And a lot of people skip to giving people advice when they haven't even followed that advice in the first place. And that is the biggest mistake I see most content creators make in today's age. If you're watching this and you haven't had any life experience, the key here is to become a documenter.
Right? Not an educator.
And how you do this is you still do cool shit and talk about it, but you do cool shit in experiments. Right? You do cool shit in looking at what other people are doing. And you see a lot of people building their personal brand around this, where they do case studies and documentaries
and breakdowns of other people's life experience. And that's totally fine if you wanna get started. But if I had to pick one, right, to build a prolific personal brand in the next, you know, five, ten, fifteen years, it would be to one, start as a documenter and start talking about what other people did. And then go on this journey of doing impressive and cool shit yourself. And then on the other side of that, start talking about what you've done. For example, I'm on this arc right now. I've been building Dan Martell's personal brand for the past eight years, getting him from a 100 k to over 10,000,000 followers across all platforms. That's gonna keep going. Now I'm on this mission of growing my personal brand on Instagram from zero to a 100 k followers across all platforms to prove you don't need any fancy gear equipment to get views on social media. And that is the life experience that I'm focused on getting so that once I get to that point where I have a 100,000 followers on Instagram and I did it with just my iPhone, that's another cool thing that I did that then I will talk about in my content. But doing cool shit isn't enough, which brings us to principle number three, give your best shit away. I've been seeing this trend on social media for the past, you know, six months that people are saying that gatekeeping is back because AI is around. And it can now take, you know, all my content on Instagram, make an AI brain that people can then ask questions to and get, you know, insane results. To me, that's extremely exciting.
Why? Because I know on the other side of people getting value from my brain, from my content even more, they're gonna be even more likely to want to comment in on my stuff, like my stuff, or eventually buy, you know, anything that I sell, which I don't sell anything, comma, yet. And some people would say, like, hey. Gatekeep your best frameworks. Right? Keep them behind closed doors because some people will steal them, repackage them, sell them on the back end. And that's totally fair. The problem with that is is that if you just share the surface level stuff, if you just share some of the stuff that you know and you keep all your best stuff behind closed doors, people will not see you as an authority opposed to someone who's sharing all their best stuff. And the the idea with building a personal brand on social media in today's age, which was different ten years ago, is now information's a commodity. Right? It's all all the information online is literally just a commodity. Anyone can regurgitate the same advice because of ChadGBT and Clock. Now, what makes it different? What makes it you? What makes it unique? What It's your personal experience, your unique perspectives around the problem, and your contrarian takes. Right? And the more you can share that in the market, the more people will actually be able to implement those
in their content and business, get results in advance,
and then see you as an authority. So that the next time you share any piece of advice, they then listen to you even more. I literally tell people, take my framework, steal them, teach them to your team, teach them to your clients, teach them to your social media. Why? Because I care more about people winning than me getting the credit. And on the other side of you building that goodwill in the market, giving all your best playbooks away, people will then point to you as the expert, as the godfather, as a goat, as a person that helped them on that journey. And I'm playing for the next ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty years. I'm not playing for the next year. And if you're playing short term games, you will only win short term prizes. So literally take your best frameworks today. Take the best stuff that you know and give it away. Make three, four, five videos online and post them and watch the amount of inbound clients that you're gonna get in your inbox just because you shared your best stuff. Which now begs the question. Right? If you post out all your best stuff and people copy you, and now information is a commodity, how do you actually stand out in a crowd of people? Which brings us to principle number four. People don't follow you for information. They follow you for identity. If you make a short form video or a long form video, and anybody else could have said that same information repackaged, then you're not gonna build a prolific personal brand. At the end of the day, people follow identity, who you are, your personality. Right? What you stand for, the things that you do that are different than everybody else. And if I give away all my best playbooks, at least I can still hold on to who I am, and I can keep sharing stories about the things that I've done, so that when everybody copies me, I'm still able to build a prolific personal brand. So this is how you actually build your identity around your personal brand. Number one is the stories that you've gone through. So make sure to tell them. Number two is what are your contrarian takes? What do you actually stand against in the market? And then number three,
Lean on the stuff that makes you unique. Make sure that your content feels authentic so that the difference between you looking down the lens and talking to your friend is minimal. Well, look, if you're telling stories, it's not just about what you did, it's about what you're going to do, which brings us to principle number five, people follow transformation,
not talent. I'm not impressed with the person that was born a genius. Right? And I can't replicate that. And so I'm not gonna follow people on social media that have always been smart, that have always been famous, that have always been rich, right, that have been trust fund babies. What I'm interested in the rags to riches stories. There's a person that wasn't confident on camera and then became confident eventually. Right? And what I wanna do as much as possible on my content and what you wanna do in your content is
share your transformation.
Share your journey. Share what you've gone through. As an example, if we go back to the story about, you know, going on this mission of getting to a 100 k followers with just my iPhone on Instagram
to prove you don't need any fancy equipment to get views on social media, I'm sharing my transformation in real time. Right? I'm showing my transformation,
momentum. And trust me, I understand how hard it is to call your shot in public. But on the other side of you calling your shot publicly, on the other side of you sharing your transformation, what you went through in the past and the transformation that you're going on in the future,
the more people will rally behind you. The more people will support you. The more people will think about things to help you. Right? The amount of DMs that I've gotten in the last six months of people introducing me to other people because they know about my mission, of people, you know, liking sharing. Even other people getting inspired and going on this mission themselves. Right? Because I'm sharing the mission in real time. If I just went on this journey of posting content for, you know, a hundred days or, you know, a hundred twenty days and I didn't tell anyone,
then I wouldn't have had an impact on other people. So if you wanna influence people, if you wanna get more followers, if you wanna become a better leader on social media, what you have to do is share your transformation,
not just your talent. But your transformation is not gonna be interesting to anyone if you don't package it correctly, which brings us to principle number six, the stranger test. Every single video that you make within the first three seconds
has to appeal to a stranger. Has to be interesting without context. Right? Has to be something that somebody understands
without knowing who you are. Mister Beast YouTube strategist, Patty Galloway, calls it CC and fit. Right? You wanna make sure that every single video that you make has core,
casual,
and new audience fit. What does that mean? It means that that video resonates with your core audience, the people that know, like, and trust you a lot. Your casual audience, the people that kinda know who you are, maybe follow you, but don't necessarily resonate with you at its core. And then your new audience, the people that have never seen your face before. An example of that is, you know, we've made this video for Dan Martel tons of times that got over 3,000,000 views every single time. And the concept of the video goes,
meetings are the biggest time waster in any company. The topic of meetings has really good CC and fit. Right? Core casual and new audience fit. Why?
Because my core audience resonates with that topic. They're business owners that run a lot of meetings that think that, you know, maybe meetings are a waste of time. The casual audience, the people that work at companies understand the concept of how some meetings are a waste of time and the new audience as well. The key is is that we start that video with a problem that resonates with our core casual new audience. Right? Meetings are the biggest time waster in any company. And then we end that video with a very actual tactical piece of advice that resonates with our core audience. Right? For example, that video,
at the end of the short, Dan says, instead of having a lot of meetings, what you should do instead, wink, wink, you've seen me do this in this video a lot, is have really clear KPIs,
owners, and a scorecard that people report on, so that you don't have to lean on a bunch of meetings to get shit done. But even if you package all your videos super wide, you're still not gonna get the reach that you want, which brings us to principle number seven, which is make it personal,
not performative. You've probably noticed that all the best content creators in today's world, when they address their audience, they say you.
They don't say you guys. They don't say, hey, everyone. They don't say you all. They say, you. Why do they say you? Because it singles out a single viewer. And as soon as you say, you all, you guys, you disconnect with the people on the other side of the lens. It then feels like a performance. Right? It doesn't feel as personal as it feels right now. And as my friend Ronnie likes to say, right, there's two types of content. The content that speaks to everyone, and the content that speaks to one person. And what you wanna do is speak to one person. Right? Not everyone. You wanna speak to a single person on the other side of that lens because guess what? If you think about how somebody experiences your content, they're on their couch alone scrolling on their phone, or they're on their computer alone most of the time watching a YouTube video. They're not in a group of friends all looking at the same phone. If you want your videos to perform better on social media, if you want more followers, if you want more views, use language that singles out one person, not a room of people. So now that you understand how to single out people, how do you actually make people feel your energy? Which brings us to principle number eight, conviction beats charisma. You don't have to be the most charismatic person to get views and followers on social media. I know this from, you know, myself. Don't I think I'm the most charismatic person at all. Right? I'm pretty bland and super stoic in most of my content. But the reason why I get so many views and followers is because I understand how to be convicted. Try to as much as possible. I know this might be hard for some of you guys. Talk to the camera in a similar fashion as you would talk to a friend. Right? Just like you would talk to a friend. Lower your energy. You don't have to scream. You don't have to rush it. You don't have to talk fast. You don't have to say anything in some cases. You can literally just stop.
And then keep going after that. Because that's the beauty of shooting content, is that it's not that fucking deep. And you don't have to be the most charismatic person. You don't have to scream at the camera like mister Beast. All you have to be is someone that's convicted and confident in what they're sharing. So now you're confident on camera, how do you actually build a cult like following? Which brings us to principle number nine, familiarity is a weapon. There's a reason why Dan Martell wears a blue shirt all the time, and I'll tell you in a second.
But before we get into that, this concept landed the most for me when I bought a Jeep. I thought Jeeps were rare. Right? Especially in a place where I live, not a lot of people had Jeeps from my perspective. And as soon as I bought a Jeep,
then I activated this thing in my brain called the reticular activating system, which is basically something that looks for common patterns.
And
what happened is I started seeing Jeeps everywhere. And I started searching
on Google, like, why the fuck is there so many Jeeps in my city? And I realized that there was always Jeeps in my city. I never noticed them because I never was looking for them. I never had a Jeep. And my so brain recognized the pattern, and then I saw that pattern across the city. The same thing happens in your content. There's a reason why Dan Martel wears a blue shirt. He wears a blue shirt to pair the blue shirt with his identity. Right? And so the next time that you're scanning a row of thumbnails, right, on social media, that becomes a visual hook because we've paired that blue shirt with Dan Martell time and time. Again, familiarity is a weapon because the first time that they click on a video with the guy with a blue shirt that, you know, might be called Dan Martell and they get value, the next time that they see that same blue shirt, they're gonna click on that video. So as much as possible, the reason why I wear this shirt in every single piece of content,
I build familiarity with my audience. Right? I try to create I try to create patterns in their brain that their subconscious is then looking for. Right? And so if there's a style that you shoot that you wanna double down on, if there's a way that you speak that you wanna double down on, if there's a hairstyle that you want to experiment with, try to as much as possible build familiarity
in your content, and people will come back for more because their brain is looking for it. As an example, we created an image of Dan that was so dialed. His brand was so dialed. The familiarity was built so well that at Halloween last year, my whole team dressed as Dan. You don't have a personal brand until somebody can dress as you at Halloween. But none of these principles will ever work for you if you don't do this last one, which brings us to principle number 10,
volume negates luck. At the end of the day, social media is a reps game. It is continuously showing up every single day and posting content. You're not gonna build a prolific personal brand off of 10 posts, 20 posts, 30 posts. You have to be posting consistently every day for you to actually learn from your algorithm and actually get results. For example, Dan has been posting on social media since 2014.
Over twelve years of consistently showing up every single week on YouTube when we started off, and then every single day when we started on Instagram for them to randomly become an overnight success three years ago. Right? Where all of a sudden his content went parabolic, and all of sudden we started getting tons of followers. That shit doesn't happen overnight. You have to commit to an amount of volume
that guarantees success.
Right? That guarantees success over a long period of time. If I post a reel every single day for ten years,
do I think I'm not gonna get views?
No. Because I would be honestly, if if I posted reels every single day for ten years and I didn't get any views, I would be really upset.
Yeah. I'd probably quit. But
it it do an amount of volume that negates the amount of luck that you need. You don't need to be lucky if you just show up every day. And luck will be created. Luck will be attracted to you. Luck will literally show up in your inbox when you post every day, when you show up every day, because something happens when you post content every single day. What I've noticed for myself is top of mind is the ultimate top of funnel. Showing up on everybody's page and feed, even if it's 10 people, 20 people, 50 people, a 100 people, a 150 people, a thousand people, makes them want to help me even more. Keeps me top of mind in their brain. Makes them reach out over text, SMS, DMs, and gives me more opportunity on the back end. And so if you're thinking, if you're sitting on your hands and you wanna build a personal brand today, trust me, you're gonna want to get on this trend because in the next two years, when AI comes in and I'm gonna be in an AI avatar, we'll see. I'm still real if I pinch myself. I'm still here. Um, but in two years, might not be. That world is a scary world where the barrier to entry is gonna be super low and everyone and their mom is gonna be creating content. So start now before it's too late. And if you want my custom YouTube template that I built to make these YouTube videos for both Dan Martell and myself, just find me on Instagram, sam dot gaudet, and message me the word YouTube, and I'll send it over to you.