How To Make Viral Videos That Grow A Brand : From People Who Have Done It

So something you guys could go into a bit about how you kind of structure virality that right now we're following, like, the more is better approach. It's not. No, it's not. Brooke knows, like, the. Just do more. Just do another video show. Just do more podcasts, Just do more of this and that.

You seem to have the chillest life ever.

And so I was telling her I tried to build it that way.

Yeah. And everything you do seems.

Well, it seems planned out and effective.

Yeah.

So I'm. I could use a dose of. Of how you. How you're doing that more intentionally.

My life and my videos.

Well, specifically, the bit like the nut I'm trying to crack is the result of the content spread.

So.

I would say that meditation helps.

In the morning.

I read a lot. And then what I do is I'll get, like, kind of like ideas and I'll put them into an evernote. I probably have 350 video ideas. And so if I'm lacking, I force myself to write every single morning. So that's part of it, right? Every morning for about 30 minutes to an hour to put ideas down. Because it just kind of keeps Jerry Seinfeld, they used to say the Seinfeld calendar, where every morning he'd write jokes even if they were terrible. And then he cross it off on his list because it just kind of keeps the creativeness going. But whenever I'll look through my list and I'll go, okay, this one hits me today. And I'll talk about this then. I always plan my video with the beginning and the ending and nothing else besides that. So the beginning has to be a strong beginning. So literally, if you look at. I don't have my journal with me, it says strong beginning, memorable ending. That's how I do every single one of them. So what's my strong beginning? So, like, the video that did 80 million views, you were just watching, you have to stop them from scrolling. So the first three seconds have to be hardcore. In case you didn't know, one day you're gonna die and I'm gonna show you why the job that you hate is a waste of your life. People are like, what the hell is. But, like, it stops people scrolling, right? And so that's the scroll stop. The second one was the one I was telling you about earlier today, which.

Is.

I started off by saying, in case you didn't. So the first one, that one had 80 million views. This one's at 50 million. I said.

I have some bad, bad news from you. You're being brainwashed. And then I talk about how.

Literally people are being brainwashed by the media and they think it's more negative, but then I show them how it's more positive and all that. So I started it off.

What's that one?

That's the next.

One you were just watching. It should be next to it. But. But if you go back to the beginning, the beginning was of that one was, I have some bad, bad news from you being brainwashed. So people are going, wait, what? The way that I ended that video, which I told you earlier, is you people always want resolve. Like, if you've ever seen a movie that doesn't have a good ending, you hate the movie. And you still get those feelings of hate whenever you think about it. Like, there's a movie I was telling people about earlier called the Mist, and I've never seen it, but everyone who's seen it talks about how much they hate it because it was a good movie. The ending didn't end the way that they wanted to, and they didn't get that good feel good feeling of resolve. And I try to end all of mine with resolve. So the one that starts off with got bad, bad news for you. You're being brainwashed. Goes into talking about statistics, about how great the world actually is, how incredible it is, and then I end with it. The memorable ending is to get people to feel the resolve and then also want to share it with people. Is.

What I say in the end is if you continue to eat what the media feeds you, you're gonna have to deal with the sickness that comes in your mind from it. And so it makes people be like, oh, I'm control. Because I talk about controlling your own brainwash. And then so what I do is I say, all right, that's the beginning. That's the ending. I want to see this as like a miniature movie where there's got to be some sort of climax where I'm feeling something inside that I don't want. Like, something's what's gonna happen. I don't know what's gonna happen. And they get that where it's like, I try to take them. Like, if you were to visualize it, start ending, I see it like this, and it goes up and then it starts to go down. And then there's a resolve. So they get all the feel good feelings you would in a movie with the way it starts. There's some sort of, you know, climax. Something happens, but then it resolves at the end. It makes them feel good. And then they share. So, like when I play.

All of.

Them, I've never spent any money on Facebook.

Yeah, all. Every video of mine is organic. So if you look at it, it literally says money on it might lower it, to be honest with you.

It might.

What?

It might lower my engagement?

I don't know. I've heard that putting money on Facebook.

Can lower the engagement.

Yeah, I've heard so many weird things.

Yeah. I don't know if it's. If it's true or not, but thing.

Is, your profit is a lot higher than authentic. Yeah. What's that?

Hell yeah.

It's also a lot higher.

Yeah, that's the great.

Yeah, it was 100% organic, so.

But that's the way that I see it. Structuring 1. So for people that are like out there, that are like, you know, I don't have a good camera and they're all sitting there like, I just have my iPhone. I say there's four parts to it. So CT helps with part number four the most, which is. I mean, you do all of them, but part number four is one of the most important parts. So, like, number one is content. Your video can, like, the quality can suck. You guys saw with that video. I literally lowered the quality on purpose to make it look like shit so that therefore I could put it up there and people wouldn't feel like it was manufactured to be a viral video. So like. Yeah, so that's the first thing. Like content has to be good at what you're saying. The second thing is the quality. Oh, no. The second thing is the consistency. Facebook rewards consistency. So if you're consistently putting it out there, then they'll consistently start giving your stuff to more people. They also have a loyalty, just so in case you guys didn't know, they will show. And I have proof of this now because of the platform that I'm able to get on is they show loyalty of people watching. So it shows. This is how many. This is what percentage of people see 3% or 3 seconds of your stuff from 3 seconds to 1 minute, this is your drop off. And if you have a big drop off right there, then they're gonna show your stuff to less people. So, like what we thought was part of the algorithm is 100% part of the algorithm. But if you can get people to stay to one minute, they usually finish the entire video. And that's when my ads, you know, an ad pops up through Facebook is that one minute. And so, so it's watch time. Just like YouTube, it's watch time. But it's. They see how many people. Yeah, the watch time. But their factor is what they call the loyalty between three seconds and one minute.

Okay.

So if they can stay to one minute, they're gonna boost your engagement so more people see it.

And so the first thing is, is the content, how good the actual content is. The second thing is the consistency. The third thing is the quality of it, which should be. Is it shot in 4k? Does that really matter? It is.

It doesn't matter a whole lot. But then the fourth thing is distribution, which is the hardest part for people. So you can have a great video, but if you can have those three things. But sometimes it won't go viral anyways. So that's why you need like distribution. And that's where most people put money into Facebook ads. But. But I think what CT does that's so amazing is that he then goes and pays for slots on pages and those people share it. And it looks organic to Facebook because it's people coming in from watching it on a shared page. So distribution's super huge. It's the fourth part, but most people miss that part.

Well, also engagement.

Yeah, engagement has to be. I'm saying as far as making the video itself.

Right, definitely.

But then engagement, selfishly, I'm really curious how you extract the story. Like how you go in and find.

Generally I typically do it in more of an interview process because a lot of times I'm trying to extract someone's powerful story, whether that's from a specific event or tell me about how you felt during this thing. We ask a series of questions. Sometimes it's 45 minutes and then we just condense that down into a full edited, multi shot video that's as compelling as possible. And then we use a mix of B roll and then we use additionally some engagement loops. So one of the, you know, basically grav their first attend the government. Their attention within the first three seconds is definitely the most powerful because it stops them. But most people don't actually listen to sound. So we use the subtitles. So we, you know, get, get it transcribed. We put the actual set.

People don't listen with sound.

Right.

So 80%.

80%.

80.

I read 83.

Yeah, it's. It's growing. It was 60% like a year and a half ago. So it's more and more people are just not wanting to use audio. But there are. People are also watching it work.

Yeah, yeah.

Or wherever. Or like they're like, if they can watch it without words, they will. That's the point.

Yeah.

So adding subtitles. Right. So most people are just not. Especially if you give them the option, if it's no audio and no subtitles, they're gonna leave. I mean, it's just there means nothing to them. So we do a couple of things. We play with that. So a lot of times we'll emphasize words so we don't animate the words or we'll use those words because we know they're reading it. Then we mix in with their. Usually, you know, once it's transcribed, we go and try to find B roll clips. Usually from like some with digital rights. Yeah, exact video blocks is a good one. And we just use. We use B roll. That will help illustrate the idea as well. So the idea is that you're just constantly watching something because, look, a two, you know, two to three minute video, just talking head with nothing, you just kind of get bored. And so when you're able to add ways to further illustrate the idea, one of them was like the this is America video that went viral for Jamie Wheal. We did that video and really just started as he was talking about the actual music video. We were using B roll from the video, but then we were using. He would make a reference to like Dolly Parton and we would show a clip of Dolly Parton. And we were just illustrating that idea in a way that was keeping it compelling. But then the other thing that we do is we add a progress bar. So, you know, over the. Behind the words there'll be like a little black bar so it's easier to read the subtitles anyway. But then we use a little progress. Progress bar. You'll, you know, Gary Vee's also done this quite a bit, but then I've seen some other ones that are basically, it'll ask a question to like, right. Where, you know, for yours, you used. You used kind of the meme style videos. What we call them is where it looks like the video in the middle, but it looks like a meme above and below it. Right. So if yours was the. What was the how, why quit your job? What was the title?

Why your job's a waste of your life.

Right. That's on the video as you see it, before you even start talking.

The title bars.

Title bars. Yeah. So we've had that. We've also. We'll use that for the first 5, 10 seconds, then it'll fade away. And then we'll start using other things like questions. And it'll say like, you know, we'll ask a question It'll make a statement and it'll show a countdown of that timer. So you just naturally keeps asking questions. We call these engagement loops. And I've seen we've been trying this in various different ways. It's like, what's the way to keep this person from not wanting to leave? And that's by open, you know, opening questions, having a progress bar. All of these things will do that. And then the other one would just probably be that we try to also in some way ask them to, you know, if you have, like you said, leaving certain things out, but knowing that they'll probably want to have an answer to this is that we tell them down in the comments, which is usually where you can drop a link to something as well. But we do the engagement. But then additionally after that.

We'Ve developed like a manufactured virality product which is utilizing all of the algorithms just for creating the video. Getting that right. But the additional piece that we do is we pay Facebook. We tip them, I like to call it, is that we give them a little bit of money to. Because if you give Facebook too much money, they'll spend it. And so we give them. We'll start out with like a dollar or two dollars, and we'll just use Facebook's boost feature and just do, you know, paid to your own audience. And Facebook will go find your loyal fans and try to split that dollar over whatever period of time per day or whatever that you want to set it to, and they'll literally show it to your best fans. And those people are the ones that are going to like, comment, share the most. So it's like we like to do that. And then we combine, additionally go on the ads platform. We create custom audiences outside of that, you know, from whatever email list you have or whatever. We try to then show it to those people. And then additionally we have our distribution partners. So when you combine all of the distribution, your custom audiences plus your actual Facebook fan page, and you do it in just the right amount of budget, also at the right amount of time, so from the time that you launch it, within the first 24 to 48 hours, we try to get all of this executed. And you can find typically that if it meets all the requirements and it's a good story and it's short and keeps our attention, it's gonna go viral.

It's easy, right?

I would also say the other piece is pretty probably no ask. I mean, yeah, people just, they get to the whole thing and then they feel like you try to sell them at the End. They just will leave. And. Yeah. So you. If you do no ask in that first video, it. It will do well. It will do well.

Yeah.

I thought you were gonna go into, like, story arc.

Oh, well, story arc is another one.

So you're. You're also. I would say you're probably a lot like me. You don't smoke big, like, feely guy. You're more like, probably.

I'm totally feely.

Are you?

Yeah.

I feel like your analytics will always be.

Well, so. So this probably default mode, but, like, my core. I'm totally feel.

So then you can. You can write stories if you really want to tap.

Oh, yeah.

See, mine's.

I'm.

I'm more in my head most of the time, and so it's harder for me to get there.

Here's the, like, the. The selfish reason for the ask is like, I'm in rediscovery mode of, like, my story, my message, the people that I want to serve. And so as I'm curious is when you're asking questions or crafting that story arc, I'm trying to use that as a filter for, like, okay, where does that resonate in terms of, like, stories that happened in my life, and which one of those feel like something that leads me closer to that direction?

Right. So for me, it's asking a lot of specific questions. That's talking about, what's the time that you failed? What are the times that you've been scared the most? Because when someone's expressing vulnerability, it's powerful. You know, when I'm talking about going through a challenge that I've absolutely faced, and you can emphasize that, and you can. People can feel human. That creates connection. And so in, you know, the story arc that you're talking about, it's, you know, being able to. I like to get as many ups and downs. And so you talk about the meaningful or the powerful opening. Right. And then the meaningful ending is always holding.

There's the strong beginning.

I was trying to reuse your jargon.

My bad.

Numbers.

Sometimes.

Yeah. Is that. Yeah, it's really. It's really starting out with something that creates that hook of, like, you ask, you're saying, I'm gonna show you something. And now they realize they're stuck until they get the answer, because they just. Psychology just doesn't want that answer to not be met. And so in the middle of there, to me, I like to get as much emotional ups and downs. For him, he likes to definitely use data. For me, it's about when we interview someone for 45 minutes. And I'm trying to dumb that down, dumb it down, but compress that down to a good 4 minute version. I try to keep as many, remove all the ums, odds, the pauses. But I try to build it in a way that I'm gonna tell you this. And then kind of slow build up and then go up and hit something really powerful and then kind of go back down, up as many of those in that arc that we can get. Because if it's just an up, whatever and done, almost boring people like the up and the down, they like roller coasters sometimes. And in the essence of that, when you have grabbed someone's attention and then you've grabbed them and created some sparked an emotion, that connection has been made. They just generally, as long as you also finish it out, answer their question and they don't even ask them for something. They connect, they trust you. It's a great first impression. And typically they will. They're much more, they're much more willing to share and help share, engage with you as a person.

Like, that was the exact reason why I told you that one email should be a video. Because that email gave me all the feels like when I read it. Because I still remember he sent an email out and I was like, it was the email about, you know, now that you have a daughter, you missed the times when you used to be single. But, you know, she never left. Yeah, was an email that came to me is also as I got it in an email when I was. I was in Venice, Italy.

My girlfriend literally Brooke reposted it as a podcast.

So, so it's like, like, literally the thing what happened was I remember my girlfriend was taking a shower. We were in Venice, Italy, and I was reading this and I was like, holy shit. I felt this way. And so like, you've already done it, you know how to do it. And that was it. Like, you went through the ups and downs of like the feeling of, oh man, now that I'm older, I miss the times that I used to party, but all I wanted to be was a millionaire. Like all of those things. Now that my, you know, my daughter's here when I, you know, if she was ever taken, I sometimes just want a quiet night or to be single again, whatever it was. But if she's ever taken away from me, all I would want is a crying baby. It's like those are like, I'm like getting the feels right now thinking about.

She'S saying my world.

Yes.

See?

And so literally, it's like, you Already know how to do it. You just have to allow yourself to get in that headspace. And that's why I do it every morning, is because I have to put myself there.

I'm doing like business content because I think that's like what my people.

But the truth is they don't. I think what they want is. They want to. They want the human connection.

Yeah.

Is what they want. And then they'll buy from.

You're so right. You're so right.

Yeah.

Like you already. You just need to stop talking about the business stuff and start talking about the struggles of life, the struggles of being an entrepreneur, what you've been through, what your life has been like. And just here's the thing that's harder.

The hardest thing for people.

Vulnerability.

I swear to God, this guy's basically like me. We do the same exact. It's so crazy because literally the one thing that I wrote down was that I have to be authentic and 100% vulnerable. When I started my podcast, and so literally, I've never edited my podcast except for put a bumper in the beginning or the end. I've knocked stuff over, I've sneezed all of these things because number one, it's hard to put out a lot of episodes, like we both do. I don't want to edit it. And number two, I thought to myself, I remember when my dad first died, he died on a third, and I went back to school on Monday, didn't tell anybody about it. I didn't want anybody to know. I was 15 years old. And no 15 year old boy talks about emotions or ever feels them.

Right?

And so literally I was terrible at that. Now, I can honestly say this to you guys because I've said this enough and I've gotten past it, but I'm so comfortable with vulnerability now, but I never was before. And so when I started my podcast, I was like, I'm going to tell everybody the worst parts of my life. And now that's what gets you the message of Rob. I didn't have an alcoholic father, but my mother was, you know, she used to mentally abuse me. Da, da, da. Like, so they hear my story that's not even close to the same stories theirs, but they feel that connection of. Because what do we all want to be? We all just want to be understood, right? We all just want to feel like we're understood and feel like people love us. And so when they hear a story from somebody else that's authentic and vulnerable, then they can go, oh, me too, right? And like In Bernays Brown, like, we all think that if we're vulnerable, that it's gonna make us seem weak. But in reality, people look at us and they're like, that person's so courageous. I wish that I could do that too. I think it can be done wrong, too. I mean, I think genuinely it can be faked for sure.

Yeah.

And I think you have to figure.

Out who you're talking to and what you're teaching them. I think that will help a lot.

Yeah, I agree.

That'll help give it some direction.

I also kind of feel like it's the new. It's the new drama, you know, I feel like authenticity, vulnerability is almost becoming. It can give me more likes and engagement. Right. So I do feel that there's.

Yeah.

It's almost, in some ways, can feel manufactured as well.

What's that? Yeah, well, it's because, you know, you go to all these conferences, everyone's like, you got to be authentic. You got to be vulnerable. And so people are trying to now do that. And it's. It's a balance.

Well, there's also like, vulnerability assumes that you're telling, like, a deep and dark story. Vulnerability is just like trueness. It was like, oh, it's like. It's the openness to getting hurt is that it's true. It's removing the walls. It's not necessarily just sharing all your dirty laundry.

Right.

For sure. Right. And then. And then, you know, you're not really getting the true, authentic version of that person because they're not literally going around doing that all the time.

They're just not trying to be.

And so it's like, actually there's a time and a place for those things.

Things.

But I think that really, authenticity really just means that. I mean, no one. You were always putting out a version.

Of everyone in this video you mentioned about me. Like, I wasn't sharing any sob story about me. It's just like a truth about my life cry.

But it has to make people be like, I felt that way.

Yeah.

You know.

I felt that way before. It makes them feel understood. I'm not the only one, you know.

How did you feel right after you.

Great. How did you feel when it was released?

Great.

And then how would you feel when people gave you the feedback? Great.

Like, even the haters.

Right? Great.

Yeah. There's like. There was that felt bulletproof at the end. In fact, the one thing I didn't like about it was that there was B roll added.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, it takes away from, like, the.

Of it.

Yeah.

That was the only thing I didn't like.

Felt a little bit too infection. You wanted it more raw, right? You feel like it's more raw when it's just you and there's no. It felt more, like, produced and you less produced, which maybe it would have done better. Who knows? You don't know. There's a lot of videos that have gone far.

That's true.

That one video that I have has absolutely no B roll. And it's like, maybe some people just like, everything's so plastic and manufactured now with Instagram and everything being so fake that some people are. Everyone's starving for authenticity. And not bullshit authenticity, but, like, actual authenticity, where maybe an unedited video will do better than other videos, you know? And so it's like, B roll is great. I use it almost all of my videos, but I think that's. Maybe I should take notes. My own stuff. My most viral video has no B roll, so maybe I should do less.

Of it, you know? Meaning, like, if you're telling a story that's about. I don't think you need to tell that story with you. But if you're trying to specifically tell an idea, showing the numbers on the screen and stats and facts and things like you're doing, that was the most important part. The fact. If you didn't have that paper, what would that been like? You know, you had something to. That's what the visual storytelling. To me, there isn't. There's definitely an essence of that. And that's the visual piece for you that was. There was your emotion. Was your delivery of that message was more important than showing people.

Yeah, my. My personal takeaway from hearing the two of you talk is think about it a little bit and then stop thinking so damn much.

Yeah, it's true.

It's like, be intentional and then stop thinking about it so much or stop thinking about it so much and then think about how to position it.

Do you keep a journal, like, each day?

Yeah, I keep a personal journal.

I'm sure you can find stuff in there where you can try to put yourself back in that.

Hey, come on.

In that mode of what you're thinking and feeling, if you're really wanting to make a story.

Thanks for that, guys. I think Brooke is right, too.

I haven't really clarified who my message is for since I've kind of transitioned.

Well, I mean, you have to think about it. Like, entrepreneurs are stronger lands. So, like, you have mostly entrepreneurs that follow you, I'm sure. So instead of talking about business. Why don't you talk about the struggles of being an entrepreneur or struggles you've been through? They might be 10 million views, but if you get to your core audience and you're authentic, they automatically just trust you more anyways because they're like, oh, this is a real guy. So you might get 100,000 views instead of 10 million and it's exponentially better than what you have done or what you normally get. But you're actually connecting with the people on deeper level, which is what really matters to those customers.

Cool.

I mean, capitalism.com to me is for slots.

I need a phrase that has less syllables.