How To Go Viral Without Getting Lucky

So the reality that we want to 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, three time international best selling author of 1 million followers, hook point and the guide to going viral, Brendan Cain. 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, we give it up for Brendan Cain.

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 20 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 Hook Point where we have spent over 10,000 hours of research on the subject matter. And no, it's not 10,000 hours just because Malcolm Gladwell said it was 10,000 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 few 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 million followers. Hook Point and the Guide to Going Viral. And the reason I mention that is if you've read any of 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 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 going to dig into 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 want to 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, 20 years ago, well, how did we reach the masses? 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 want to talk about what is going viral, because that word, 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 going to say with all the clients we work with at hook point, 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 reach or views is the algorithm. They control the distribution of content. They control whether it's 1000 views or 10 million views on your content. Now, I'm going to define what algorithms are and why they do this in just a little bit. But I wanted to set the bar here. Is like, going viral. And everything that we're covering today is just not about just getting as many views as possible. We want to translate that into our goals and objectives. Now, as I mentioned, I started in the space in 2005. MySpace was the predominant player, 25 million users, and Facebook was at 6 million. And the interesting thing about social media way back then is you just had to connect with people. 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 coat, you post something and people see it. I think a lot of us wish that that was the case today. So what actually changed? Well, a lot of things changed. In 2010, social media had grown from.

Roughly 30, 40 million users to 970 million. And then 2015, we're at 2.2 billion, at 20, 20, 3.96 billion. And today we're at over 5.2 billion billion people using these platforms. Again, I started here when there was nothing. 30, 40 million. It was different. 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 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 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 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 million 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 Mr. 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 and 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 other 150,000 pieces of content to prove that we can actually grab and hold attention over other content.

So after doing 10,000 hours of research at my company, Hook Point, 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 the last movie you saw. You saw a trailer, you were super inspired. I want to go see this amazing movie. Well, what happens when you sit down to watch that movie? Well, you want to 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 simplest pieces of Advice I could give you today is ignore the algorithms, ignore the hacks, the tips, the tricks. Just learn how to become a better storyteller. And through that you will have success. So I'm going to 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 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're like, this thing is amazing. This is amazing content. And then you post it and it's just like, what happened? What did I just do? Like I wasted all that time. Oh, if that's you, I feel your pain. Listen, I've been there, I've been doing this for 20 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 by 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 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 really bad movies and then you kind of can pinpoint well that 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 want to 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 10,000 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 a proven structure to have repeatable success over and 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 very flexible in that nature. Movies for the past 100 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 going to. I'm going to actually show you a few examples in a minute. But in terms of another kind of analogy of thinking 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 goalpost and you never become a master of anyone. Versus, like, the format approach, it would be, 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 want to just start putting this into practical experience and actually 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, we have an amazing guy. And I'm breaking 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 Paguy. 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 going to show you an example of what he was doing before. And then we're going to show an actual format, a storytelling format and structure of what it looks like when you kind of use this. So this first video 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 to us, we helped him design a format that matched his business match, his expertise and passion. And it's called is it worth it? And you'll see it's pretty self explanatory. He takes expensive leather. Good. Deconstructs it 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 loved the most. Sales associate told me this was made out of glo tan leather and the inside was suede. But I have my dots. 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 five dollar a foot. Thirty dollars 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, about $70 should be enough to put this back together. In total, 130 for the materials and labor. I paid 450. Doesn't sound like a bed 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 kind of see the difference between just doing an ad versus this structure. This is it worth it. 32,000 views versus 10 million views. But this is the remarkable thing. Now Tanner really struggled. Like he didn't even feel comfortable being on camera before we help them find this format. So with this single format, this is it worth it format, he has 94 views or videos with over 1 million views. 16 surpassing 4 million. And he went from 2000 followers to an audience of 2.3 million. 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 kind of 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 want to build a business. This is great. He's getting viral and stuff. Well, how does this translate into monetary gain? Well, the reality is, you 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 100,000 visitors a month organically. His most expensive products, the ones that are thousands of dollars 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 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 going to. Again, I'm going to 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 want to choose the one that best fits your message. So we've done analysis on over 300. There are plenty to choose from. You want to 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 want to 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 going to break down. I'm going to play two videos, and you're going to guess which one performed better, and then I'm going to break down why. So let's start with the first one.

Okay, so that's the first one. I don't want to. You guys can't cheat. You can't tell the answer before you watch two videos. You got to 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 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 Hook point that got 17 million views. So what is the difference here? Well, if we think about and we have these four things on the screen, they're called performance drivers. These are nuances in storytelling that contribute to the success or detract from the success of the video content. If we look at this, we have. The first one is contrast. 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 that 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 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, and 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 Florida. And this single video booked her out one year in advance and her revenue jumped to 16,000amonth with one video.

So that's the power of it. And do you see her saying, sign up for my hair salon. You see book here. See that's the thing. It's building that relationship with the audience. So what is lie number two? Well, that's, you need big budgets and large teams. We just saw that oftentimes overproduction can work against you. Why? Because we're professional content consumers. We consume so much content at this day and age with social media and Netflix and things of that nature that our subconscious is 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 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 this. Again, I don't want to just tell you these things. I want to show these things in practical environments. So another case story is with Dr. Joden Davis and he initially wanted to be a rock star until he met his wife and is 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 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 commercial. So if we, and even if we look here, you can see like the fancy cameras in the background, 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 going to 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.

Sa.

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. 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.

Just don't get why these celebrities get bad veneers. So if we look at the results here, I don't know why it's doing this. Don't get why these celebrities get. So it's 21 million views to 1400 views. So 21 million views. And he stripped out the fancy camera. He stripped out, you know, the whole team. He had a microphone plugged here. So the reason I kind of wanted to show you that example 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, you 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 actual strategies that we can take away? Again, we want to find that format that fits your resources. We want to 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 going to 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.

Okay, I think we're all across the board, and it's a trick question. All three.

So we got my friend Ben Newell with terrariums with 68 million views. Chris Cobb, a client of ours, 5.4 million views, and Erica Kohlberg with 75 million views. So let's watch these. Like, let's look at these three. How did they actually do.

So Ben basically tells these stories in these micro environments that he builds around terrariums. He's built an audience of 2.9 million people that tune in 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 60 seconds. So here we have Job who just got a new hot rod. 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 a fixed Marcus car. How do I 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 Market's car and go fix your own. And John is super relieved because he did not have $10 to fix his car. And you may be wondering, how does the insurance company afford this? Well, they have thousands of johns who put money into a dark every single month and they're not getting in accidents. But the insurance company is smart. They say, 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 going to charge him more or even worse, they may drop his covers if you like the content.

So 5.4 million views with car insurance. Now this is another example of a format called visual metaphors where you're using metaphors to explain a complex or abstract subject matter. So let's watch the last one. Erica Kohlberg. 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 years ago. There's nothing we can do since. Since it's been over 60 days. She has no idea. I know. Watch this. I'm not talking about the 60 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 that I don't have to. That's why I follow her.

So 75 million views on warranties, and she's built an audience of 15 million people. So this is the lie that I hear a lot of times. 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 things going viral, warranties going viral. So how do we actually apply this? So it's called the generalist principle. That's what we call it at hook point. And it is all about how we can ensure that 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 niche, but we want to 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 retains attention at scale. In addition, as we've talked about, you're competing against 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 want to break things down simply. We want to use clear and easy to understand language, not just language that people understand. And if you guys remember before, when we were breaking down some of Myron's thumbnails, like the difference between 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 million closet. This is an actual video, and this is coming from a creator, Ryan Sirhant. And he proves that this translates to commerce. He sells properties that are 15 to $250 million 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 million 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 90% 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.

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 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 want to show another example of a 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 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. The 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 want to quit drinking? Hit me up. I'll do it with you. Peace.

So this video generated 61 million views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Just think of the impact that that has. So the reality that we want to 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. 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. How many views do you think that this channel generated in the past year? A is 10,000 views, B is 100,000 views, C is 1 million views, or D is 10 million views. What do you guys think?

B, C, D? Okay, let's see. The answer is 300 million views. And this is from Mark Rober, and he is another creator that proves that 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 and formats. And maybe 10, 15 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, and you're like, man, why did they do that? Well, they did it because people weren't watching it. They weren't. Either they started and didn't finish the end, or they just didn't watch it at all. They have to be cutthroat about it the same way that the algorithms 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 runtime? No. You saw a trailer and like, that looks cool. I want to watch that. Or maybe you had a friend recommended 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 want to crawl before you run. So what are the actionable strategies here? I have a little bit of a rubric that we can follow here 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 want to talk a little bit about the IKEA effect before we move on to line number five. Now, I actually got brought out to speak to IKEA's creative global team in Sweden. And a fascinating thing about IKEA is there's actually a thing is called IKEA hotels, and they put me up in one. It's all IKEA furniture stuff. It's pretty cool. But it got me, as I was saying, the training, the team over there, it made me think. It's kind of interesting.

IKEA is all about.

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 75, 90 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 pull off a table and assemble it. Like 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, the right blueprint. And that same applies to social media. So another example of this, just to show it in practical terms, is a case story of Dr. Aaron Nance that would buy 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, the right blueprint. And that same applies to social media. So another example of this, just to show it in practical terms, is a case story of Dr. Aaron Nance. Now, when she she's 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 and it's the name of her channel on TikTok, little misdiagnosed. And she's a really amazing woman. So at 7, 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? As we'll see, she's creating content on a 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 and it's the name of her channel on TikTok. Little misdiagnosed, an iPhone herself with a storytelling format. So let's just kind of dive into this. This video has over 9.5 million 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 as we'll see she's creating content on an iPhone herself with a storytelling format. So let's just kind of dive into this. This video has over 9.5 million 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 who are being bitten by dogs, but I have never.

Do you guys want to know the end of the story?

Well, that's proof of a good story. You want to hear the ending. So you'll have to go to her channel and look at it.

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 want to know the end of the story? So again, just to prove here, like she had.

Well, that's proof of a good story. You want to hear the ending, so you'll have to go to her channel and look at it.

But zero social media experience creating content on her iPhone. But as you guys all said, she's doing an amazing job telling a story. She has 31 videos with over 1 million views with this format. 8 surpassing 3 million, 4 surpassing 5 million. She went from 0 followers to 750,000. She got a book deal coming out with HarperCollins next month. She got. So again, just to prove here, she had zero social media experience creating content on her iPhone. But as you guys all said, she was doing an amazing job telling a story. She has 31 videos with over 1 million views with this format. 8 surpassing 3 million, 4 surpassing 5 million. She went from 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, one million followers that I really haven't told anywhere. And It's I had zero followers to 750,000. She got a book deal. It's coming out with HarperCollins next month. She got 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, 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. One million followers 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 going to fail? Like, I had never written a book before. Who am I to write a book Like I thought, you know, I'm going to fail with this, that I don't have the experience. It's not going to 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 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. You know, I'm going to fail with this, that I don't have the experience, it's not going to 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 bring me down that path. So the simple truth that I just really want you to take, and luckily I did because the book was so successful, it allowed me to get another publishing deal and another one way. 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. So the simple truth that I just really want you to take away is an effective system and guide are more, 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, who are using these lies to hold back, when in reality success comes from taking action. You can't and don't wait now, take action, because a lot of people 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 you need a sexy industry or celebrity status, or that you need to constant be posting or have some insider knowledge to succeed, just remember that these are all lies. 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 you need a sexy industry or celebrity status, or that you need to constant post, be posting or have some insider knowledge that are holding you back, the key here is storytelling to simplify to succeed. Just remember that these are all lies. If you focus on storytelling, you will have the success that you look for. So as a big thank you, if you guys want to get access to my recent book for free, the guide's going viral, you can just screenshot that QR code. But I want to appreciate, I appreciate everybody staying here until the end and listening to this. I really appreciate it and thank you and I really look forward to seeing 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 want to get access to my recent book for free, the guide's going viral, you can just screenshot that QR code. But I want to appreciate, I appreciate everybody your content in my feed and having success. So thank you again staying here until the end and listening to this. I really appreciate and thank you and I really look forward to seeing you truly appreciate it.

Your content in my feed and having success. So thank you again, truly appreciate it.