Make YOUR Business Go Viral

I get asked this question a lot from people who are coaches who think what they do is pretty boring. How can. What kind of format can they use so that there are more people looking at their content?

Well, there's so many formats out there, and I'll go through a few. Like, man on the street is a simple one that can be used for any industry or sector. I'll give another example called visual metaphors. So there's a woman that's a clinical psychologist named Dr. Julie Smith, and she breaks down like, PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks, and she basically just uses visual metaphors. So she'll have like one of her most viral videos is a waste paper basket on the desk that's overflowing with papers. And she talks about trauma processing of like taking each paper out, folding it neatly on the desk until it's a stack, a clean stack, and putting it back into there. We have another client that used it, Chris Cobb, that uses it for car insurance, of explaining how car insurance works through. Through kind of like little toy cars and action figures and things of that nature. So that one again can be used for any type of industry. We talked about Walking listicles with Robert Croke that can be used for any industry, of just walking around the block and going through three tips. Talked about two characters, one light bulb. But it's kind of more about how you take that core content and contextualize it for anybody that's interested. So, like, I'll give you another example. Like tax accountants. Like, that's a pretty dry subject matter. So there's a. There's an account clear value tax. And it went viral during COVID because they were covering videos. And like, if you watch his videos, it's like the most bland background. He's sitting behind a desk. There's not a fancy camera or anything like that. And he was breaking down, like, when are you going to get your stimulus checks? Like, what are the updates? And it would get millions of views. Or another one. A dentist. Like, how do you make a dentist interesting? Well, we were working with a dentist out of Utah, Dr. Jordan Davis. And again, previously, he was just doing like commercials and things. And nobody wants to see a commercial. So we did a kind of like a react format. But he would like, break down celebrity veneer teeth. So he like, he would do a breakdown of Emily Blunt and like go the progression of her veneers and tell you, like, how he would do it better. And that video got 21 million views. So it, it brings people in. Or another client of ours, Regina Roth, A hairstylist. She just did this like amazing short reveal like, of, of this woman's hair and her reaction to it. And that generated 17 million views and she was booked out a full year in advance from, from one video. So it's, it's really about kind of finding that format and that context that can make it interesting and accessible to anyone.

You've given us a lot to process and to think about how are we going to get our first million views?

BRENDAN so again, going back to the five step process, the biggest mindset shift that you can make is just understand that this thing called formats exist. And as you start consuming content, start looking for viral videos and, and click on the creator that created it and see if they've used that same format, the same structure at least five or 10 times. And keep doing that over and over again until you find a format that you are really excited about that you can get behind. And one of the big pieces of advice I can get is most people are looking for apples to apples comparisons. Like, I am only going to look, I'm a nutritionist, I'm only going to look at examples of nutritionist, or I'm a real estate, I'm only going to look at examples of real estate. Some of the biggest breakthroughs is breaking the mold of your industry and looking at creators using formats in different industries and applying it to you. Because remember, with these formats, it's not about the content, it's about the context. It's how you insert your message and deliver it in there. So as you're going through these formats, just be open to other industries, other sectors and just find the one that really drives your passion. And once you find one, and I'm not saying you have to do the full analysis that we do because we spend like 15 hours dissecting a format. Just at least look at a high performer versus a low performer and see if you can spot the differences before you start creating. And if you do that, if you follow that process, you are well on your way to your first million views.

I just want to take a moment to caution people, if you're in the real estate industry, don't copy other real estate professionals because you'll just be seen as a copycat. Nobody wants that. I'm going to butcher the quote. I think it's Picasso who said something like the secret to originality is your ability to hide your sources. So when you go outside, when you are influenced by, like if you're in cinema, be inspired by, by music or be inspired by plays. Not other directors directing the same genre of film that you are, because you'll just be the poor person's version of that. Just want to warn you all.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Cool.

Now what do I need to do to go viral? Now I'm going to ask you some questions.

Okay, let's do it. All right.

I want to do man on the Street. What would work for me? Because now I have Drigo here, and we can go on the street.

And do you want to do man on the Street? Because I can just tell you I tested it and I didn't like it. Humor me.

Let's pretend I really want to be man on the Street. What can we do that's more interactive? I'll tell you why. Okay. Earlier you have to go back to that part you talked about looking at your resources, and on the other side of resources are your constraints. Right. Like, what tools do you have? What time do you have? Work within that. That's a great place to be a springboard for creativity. But your resources could be, like, what skills do you have? I feel like I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. I'm a pretend standup comic, and I want to see what I can do in real time.

We did a lot of research on man on the Street. I think we've done 10 research projects. One thing specifically for you that I'll just point out that I think will be really helpful is understanding the difference of who the star of the man on the street is. So if you look at Simon Squibb, he is the star of man on the Street. But if you look at, like, School of Hard Knocks, and I love what they've done, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking them in any way, but he's not the star of it. So if you're trying to build a personal brand around man on the street, like in School of Hard Knocks, he's just asking the other person questions. He's not the authority leader. The other person's the authority leader. Versus the way that you're. I'm thinking you want to approach is you want to be the authority leader. So you have to set up the interaction from that standpoint. So let's just say that you're scrolling through TikTok or Instagram Reels and you see a video that has 10 million views. Well, you want to click on that creator's profile and go, have they used that same structure at least five or 10 times? Because they haven't. It's not a blueprint for success. It's either a trend or maybe they got lucky. So we really want to make that shift from passive to active to understand that there's this thing called formats. Because most people, as they're creating content, what do they do is they're just jumping to idea to idea to idea. They're not looking for like what is the blueprint. So, for example, I started my career in the movie industry. Now the interesting thing about the movie industry, almost every movie over the past 100 years has used the same format and that is the three act structure. They don't deviate from it. Why? Because it works. Now in social media, there's hundreds of these formats at hook point. We've spent 10,000 hours to date. We have about 300 formats in our library. We hope to have about 500 by the end of the year. And I just say that because there are so many options out there. So that first step in terms of that blueprint is just making that shift to understand there are these things called blueprints and then going through and identifying them.

So what you're saying is, and this is a Jim Rohn quote, success leaves clues. When you see something that works, go and figure it out. Don't just be passively consuming, be an active learner. Look at their profile, see if they've used this multiple times and see what the commonality is between what they're doing and figure out what the format is. And you to date have discovered over 300 formats and hopefully by the end of the year, 200 more that you're going to figure out, right?

Yeah. And you know what the fascinating thing is about some of these formats? People think that social media is like this new innovative thing, that it's so original. But if you look at some of the top formats and top creators, they're using storytelling structures that were invented pre social media. So let's like go through a few man on the Street. A lot of people use man on the Street. We have like Alex Stump that uses it for photography. We have School of Hard Knocks that uses it for business advice. We have Body by Mark that uses it for fitness. It's used in all these different sectors. The man on the street format was invented in 1954 in the first season of the Tonight show and has been around ever since. Another one that's popular is called Two Characters, One Light Bulb where it's the same person that plays two different characters. So we have like Erica Kohlberg that uses it to break down what happens when your flight gets delayed or your airpods break or Mark Tilbury does it for finance. If we think back to 1997 in Austin Powers, he was doing Austin Powers and Dr. Evil and doing this banter back and forth. You think about Mr. Beast. You know, he does these challenge videos. Well, you go back to 1995 when they had the Road rules challenges on MTV or in 2000 where Mark Burnett introduced Survivor. So you have all of these examples of, of storytelling formats working pre social media. So that's where it just shows you again that it's not about these tips or tricks or hacks. It's just how do we become a masterful storyteller. And that's why you see some of these structures play out over decades. Why? Because they work.

I think it's pretty obvious the benefit of figuring out a format versus going from one type of content to the next to the next idea. What is the compelling reason why anybody should want to figure out what a format is?

Because it gives you a blueprint for success. Now I know some people and we hear this from clients and some people may be thinking this Brendon, it sounds interesting. I know formats are successful, but I want to be authentic. I want to be original. So they think that formats restrict creativity when in reality they unlock creativity. So what do I mean? Again, starting my career in the film industry, I went to film school and you have to study, you know, the top filmmakers in the world. So if you think about like one of the best storytellers of our generation, Steven Spielberg, so he's used this single format to tell stories like ET Versus Jurassic Park, Jaws versus Indiana Jones, Lincoln versus Saban Pryorion. Like they're so distinctly different when we sit down. The experience that we have with allows us a massive amount of creativity. But what he did, and most film directors do is they spend decades mastering the nuances of how to master that specific type of format. So what a format does is like you were mentioning success leads, clues. What it does is it gives you a structure to become a master of something. So the another analogy I can give you is a lot of people talk about trends, you know, and trends, you know, why I advise against them is they're fleeting. Like if you think about one of the biggest trends back in the day, the ice bucket challenge, you know, nobody uses that today. So your switching from trend to trend to trend. So let's just say as an analogy, we wanted to learn a musical instrument and there's two paths we could take. The trend route or the format route. So the trend route would say week one, we're going to start with a piano. Week two, we're going to move to the violin. Week three, we're going to move to the guitar. Week four, we're going to move to the drums. Like, how are you going to master any musical instrument if you're changing the goalpost each time versus a format says, well, let's spend six months learning the piano, and let's master all the nuances of it so that our creativity can flow within it. So that format gives you a tremendous amount of creativity, but it also gives you a foundation for success. We don't want to reinvent the wheel. We want to master the nuances within the wheel to become an expert storyteller.