One of the biggest mistakes that cause 99% of people to fail with social media is one just having a passive experience with social media. Meaning they're just consuming content. You're just endlessly scrolling and not really kind of understanding like what's going on and they don't even know what a format is. [Music] We are here today in studio with none other than my good friend viral scientist. The ultimate viral scientist is what I like to call him. He may not go by that himself, but that's what I call him. Uh he's been on my channel multiple times. He always brings insights that are absolutely mind-blowing and remarkable. And if you're serious, not just curious, about taking your content to another level and having more of your content go viral, you're in the right place at the right time. Help me welcome to the stage none other than three-time bestselling author Brendan Kaine. Brendan, [Applause] welcome. For those of you who've never seen Brendan before, he is the bestselling, international bestselling author of the book 1 Million Followers, the book Hookpoint, and the book The Guide to Going Viral. All of which I have read, all of which are phenomenal and can impact your bottom line, your business, and your personal brand. Brendan, glad to have you here today, brother. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. So, we're going to talk about how to make videos go viral. You probably know a thing or two about that. I spent uh the better part of two decades studying it. So, that's okay. Just that statement alone is worth the price of admission. You spent the better part of two decades studying how to make content go viral. Can you tell us the genesis? like where like how did you get started being that guy who got 1 million followers in 30 days on Facebook and that guy who created the concept of Hookpoint and that guy who wrote the viral uh the guide to going viral. How did you become the per the go-to de facto number one expert in the world on how to make videos go viral? So I think it it goes way back to when I was a child because I I I think at a very early age I was motivated and fascinated by how do you actually stand out? How do you grab attention? So as a young kid at like six or seven I would take my toys and go knock on neighbors doors to try and sell my toys to make money. Now at six or seven you don't really know stuff that people ignore you and things of that nature. And then, you know, as you get older, especially in high school, like bullying is a real thing. So, I would get bullied as a kid and then I would figure out, well, how do I actually become friends with the bullies or the most popular people or even the scariest people at a school so that you don't get bullied anymore? And there's this like experimentation of like how do you actually grab their attention? And you like my whole second book, Hook Points about that. And I didn't realize it at the time, but in high school, I was like testing these hooks. I was like, what do I have to say? What do I have to do? what do I have to offer? How do I position things? And then uh I, you know, I as a young kid just fell in love with movies. Like you know that question you asked young kids like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Like my answer would change every time I watched a movie. So if I watched a movie about a firefighter, I want to be a firefighter. And if it was about a detective, I want to be a detective. So by the time I grew older, I was like, I want to actually make movies. I'm super passionate about it. So I went to film school and studied movies. But then when you show up in Los Angeles, like everybody, you start at the bottom. You make coffees, copies, deliveries, and things of that nature. And you know, when you know when you're at that level, you obviously want to connect with studio executives, producers, directors, and ask and actors. And when they ask you, well, why did you come to LA? And I would tell them, well, I want to produce movies. You can see everybody's eyes glazed over cuz you're just it's not as bad as being an actor, but it's still like you're one of a million. So I had to take that step back um and this was around 2005 and see like well how can I stand out then? Uh like 21. Okay. Yeah. So and so this was um so I was working in a studio and I had to take a step back cuz I had to figure out well what was my hook like how can I actually stand out at the highest level and I noticed every time we finished a film there would be a sense of anxiety that would come over the studio. Why? Cuz we invested tens of millions of dollars into a single piece of content. one piece of content. Can you imagine what it is to invest that much into one? And then you're committing tens of millions of dollars more to market this content. But it's different than any other industry or sector out there. You don't have years or decades to build a brand. You literally have months for hundreds of millions of people around the world to know about this single piece of content. So, wow. I noticed cuz when I went to college, I just experimented a little bit of creating a few internet companies because I I quickly re realized in film school they teach you nothing about business and I thought being a producer you need to to learn something about it. So when I was you know running from set to set to set uh in the movie industry I started consuming content on MySpace on YouTube and nobody really knew what these platforms like at the time MySpace was the predominant player. There was 25 million people on the platform. Facebook had 6 million and YouTube had 8 million. Wow. So, it's a far cry from where it's at today. Um, and I just kind of saw these and there was no such thing as an influencer. There was no such thing as a YouTuber or any of those. They were just literally people in their bedroom with web cameras creating content reaching millions of people. And I was like, well, there's got to be something here because none of the studios were paying attention to it. So, I went to the head of the studio. It was um for a movie called Crank with Jason Stathithm. It was around 2006. Uh and it was a action movie, but it had like a $12 million budget, which seems like a lot of money, but typically for a studio, it's like 100 million plus. So, I went to the head of the studio and I just said, "Listen, there's all these people on this platform called YouTube that are reaching millions of people. I want to engage them and and have them interact with the stars of the movie and interview them and have put them in their movies. And the head of the studio is like, "No, what are you talking about? Like, what is this thing YouTube?" He didn't even get it. And I was like, "Well, it's not going to cost you any money." And the potential is reaching millions of people for free. And he's like, "Okay, I'll give it." He's like, "Okay, sign me up for that one." So, I just made a list of the top uh the top YouTubers. And again, they weren't YouTubers at the time. And I just DM' them. and I said, "Do you want to interview a movie star?" And I got like five of the biggest ones at the time to do it for free. Crazy. This was a 2006, so it was the first ever influencer campaign on YouTube. And it was a massive success. Um, so from making coffee copies and deliveries, I obviously forced my way up the the chain to start creating the the the first social media divisions of these movie studios. But that that translational fascination as I was growing older of like how do you stand out? How do you gain attention? Just crossed over to social media because it's one of the biggest platforms and nobody knew at the time, but it is the biggest platform and it is the biggest fight and competitive nature for attention. It really is survival of the fittest on these platforms for who can really garner and hold that attention. Wow. So, so tell me, so you told us about this movie crank. So, did the work that you did on social media platforms getting those influencers to interview those movie stars, did it help the movie like succeed? Yeah, so the budget the budget was 12 million. I think the movie gross just at the box office like 44 45 million, but that was and at the time most revenue from movies actually came from DVD sales. Now that's not anymore. It's like streaming revenue. So, it was very profitable for the size of the movie. Wow. Yeah. Cuz it was like almost what? 4x. almost 4x revenue. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah. And it was so successful that they green lit a second a sequel to the movie off of it. Wow, that's powerful. Like that's that's what's up. Y'all think about that. Isn't that great? So So So Brendan, we're this gives that just gave me chills. We're talking to the guy who created promoting movies on YouTube. That's mind-blowing any It's mind-blowing to me. May it may not feel that mind-blowing to you. Well, I mean it's crazy to think about what influencer marketing is today cuz nobody took it serious. It wasn't even a thing at that point. It didn't even exist. But you got this idea thought we put this with that then maybe we'll have something. Wow. And so it had like a chemical reaction. Yeah. I mean from there then I I didn't stop. I actually created the first influencer technology platform on top of MySpace cuz I saw that like if you remember back MySpace it was all about customizing your profile and like you can like change your backgrounds and put your favorite products and posters and movie trailers but my cuz at this time there was no such thing as Facebook ads there was no such thing as YouTube ads these things didn't exist so they like MySpace and these others were relying on third party banner ads which is like like 1/100th of what these platforms make today. But they were missing the point. There was what was essentially the first, you know, peer-to-peer marketing through social media, but people telling friends, um, I like this product. I endorse this product, but nobody was monetizing it. So, I just built a technology layer that could monetize that inner that consumer to consumer interaction. The challenge was this was like 2007208 and again influencers didn't exist at that time. So even though the performance was, you know, 10x what other advertising was doing, it it would the market just wasn't mature yet. It's not the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. Gotcha. Gotcha. So for people watching this there now, now it exists. So because the concept of an influencer exists and because like it's common for any brand of any kind, movie, uh product, opportunity, whatever to use social media platforms to grow because it's popular now. Does that make it easier or does that make it harder? Definitely makes it harder. It makes it harder. So, so and what we can go through is is 99% of people that are trying to reach, you know, achieve certain goals of social media are failing and they're failing because of a few different factors. Uh I think that the the biggest one is if we look at the the shift of where I started in 2005. So, we're talking 25 million people on MySpace, you know, 6 million on Facebook, 8 million on YouTube. Then we jump 2010 um where we hit our first billion users. 2015 we're you know at you know 2.5 to three billion. 2020 we're at 4 billion and today we're at 5 billion people on YouTube. Uh no across all these platforms across all social media. Okay. Billion 5 billion people from you know 40 40 million. So that's the the there's a massive shift from where it started to where it's at now. And and what is that shift? Well, that shift is uh that competitive nature for attention because there's so many people creating content. So along the way there's been certain thresholds that dictated certain things and one of the biggest shifts was the invention of the social media algorithms. Now what was the purpose of the algorithm? Well, as more people got onto the platform, the more ad or the more content was being produced. is if any one of us opened up our favorite app right now. It doesn't matter what it is, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, um YouTube, there's literally about 150,000 pieces of content it could see to you based upon all the content that you've engaged with and the people that you subscribe to or follow. Mhm. Now, obviously, it can't seed you 150,000 pieces of content. It has to prioritize what is the content that I'm going to likelihood to keep them on the platform longer so we can serve more ads. So when that shift happened, it was no longer free wins cuz if you think back even like the first 5 to 8 years, social media was pretty simple. You get somebody to connect with you, whether it was, you know, a follow, a subscriber, a friend, you post something and people see it. Mhm. But as there's more content coming onto these platforms, these algorithms have to prioritize like which content am I going to see to this person that's going to keep them on the platform longer. Mhm. So as more people became on the platform, more ads were served or more content was served, it became more cutthroat. So if we think about 150,000 pieces of content, your one piece of content is competing with 150,000 choices that the algorithm can see to it. Wow. Like that is the level of competition now. And that's 150,000. How often? Like every day? Every time you're No, every time you open the app. I mean, there's mindblowing. There's there's between all social media channels, there's about a billion pieces of content that are uploaded every single day. So, it's it's that it's that level of competition. Now, one of the the the things and there's a lot of frustration with content creators, especially ones that started early on because before it was a lot easier. If you just post and you post a lot, you get more visibility and you succeed. But as there's more competition and the algorithm became stricter and stricter and stricter, it was, you know, again, it's survival of the fittest. One of the frustrating things that the creators will say, "Well, my my account's shadowbanned." 99.9% of the time, your account is not shadowbanned. The reality is is your content is not grabbing and holding attention longer than the other 150,000 pieces of content it could see to you. Or the other thing to say is, "Oh, the algorithms are out there to get me to suppress reach on purpose, to pay to get me to pay for boosting posts." There's two reasons I can definitively tell you that's not true. Number one, I've managed over $200 million of advertising spend over the course of my career. They don't make money off of people boosting $20 on a post. They make they make money off the brands and corporations that are literally spending billions and billions of dollars a year. On top of that, if that was the case, Mr. Beast would never exist. That teenage influencer that you see down the street with millions of followers would never exist. Only people like Coca-Cola or Apple or these people would have all of the success. So there's a lot of frustration and myths and lies that people are being told or telling themselves that's really preventing and holding them back from success. So So and it seems like and I I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but it seems like personal brands like Mr. Beast, like Casey Neistat, like Veritassi, personal brands are outperforming those big brands even though they're not spending money on ads. 100%. You want to know why? Yeah. No, I don't want to. Let me Y'all don't want to know why, dude. So, so there's been kind of an evolution and I again doing this for 2005. I started a Fortune 500 world and I've seen this the first evolution of brands and corporations is let's just repurpose our assets that we created for television and put it on social media and expect it to perform when in reality they're completely different dynamics and behaviors of those. Then the wave that we're in right now is okay, I realize I can't just take a traditional creative asset and put it on social media. Even though there are some brands that still do it, um the mindset today majority is I'm going to use the same creative model and the same creative process that was designed pre-social media to create creative assets and try and apply it to social media. And again, the dynamics of storytelling in these platforms is fundamentally different. There's different nuances to how we need to grab, hold attention, tell a story through through these platforms. So that's why you see creators like you mentioned Casey Neistad or Mr. Beast or Mark Robber or Veritassium. Uh they have grown through these platforms. They didn't learn creative before social media. They learned creative on social media and social media follows a creative model to success. So a lot of people think like virality or success on social media is just pure luck when there is an actual science to it. There is a formula to it and that formula can be replicated. I know this because the past 6 years we've built our own creative model and it's generated over 60 billion views, 100 million followers and a billion in revenue for the people that have used it. And it's used in any industry or sector. It doesn't matter because it's the foundational storytelling elements. If you master that, you will have success. And that's where brands and corporations get lost is they're stuck in the past of how they produce content. Wow. So, so when you say a particular storytelling format, what is the particular storytelling format or are there several? Great question. So, let's just define what a format is and then we can go through some examples. So, a format is uh a wellressearched repeatable structure or blueprint. Um that's that's proven success time and time again. So, just think about it as like a container or structure that you can put your message, product or service in. Now, before we get to social media examples, let's think about one that everybody will know, which is movies. For the past 100 years, almost every movie follows the same format, which is a threeact structure. Why do they follow that format? Yes. Why? Because it works. Because it works. Why? And re reinvent the wheel when something works. So what do directors do is they spend their career mastering that format and the nuances within it. Now, some people will say, "Well, Brendan, that sounds great, but I'm here on social media to be authentic. I'm here to be original in formats. They sound interesting, but I think it's going to restrict my creativity." But if we think about movies like Steven Spielberg, one of the best storytellers of all time, you have ET versus Jaws, distinctly different. Indiana Jones versus Saving Private Ryan, distinctly different. You have Lincoln versus Schindler Schindler's List. Like these stories all feel authentic. They feel original. But what he's doing is he's spending his entire career mastering all the nuances of how to tell a story. Are you saying that all of those movies follow the three-act structure? So, can you tell me what the three-act structure is? Yeah. So, basically, there is an inciting incident. So you'll you'll see that in the first few minutes something will happen to the character like their world is like flipped upside down and then they're trying to you know figure out like what what does this mean for me? What direction do I take? Like if you think about Jaws, what happens in the first few minutes? This Jaws, this shark attacks this woman, you know, and then what happens is um I think it's Sheriff Brody, you know, uncovers this thing and then he's on this journey of like what's actually happening? And then, you know, you hit plot point one, which sets them on the journey of like, well, how am I going to actually fix this? And there there's all these events. there's this wave of events that keep happening, things, you know, people getting attacked, then coming to a realization, people getting attacked, coming to this realization, and then it leads to the, you know, the the third act, which is the the climax of the movie of like they're getting to the point where they're out in the water and they're actually going to, you know, kill this shark. So, it's a it's a structured formulaic way of telling that story. Now, if we think about social media, like to your question, um, how many are there? Like, well, our team's done 10,000 hours of research at this point. Um, and this isn't like a Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 10,000 hours. We've actually logged 10,000 hours of research, and at this point, we've analyzed over 300 formats, but we're adding more. Um, within 2 months, we'll be at 500. So, just to say that there are a lot of options out there. So, let's just kind of go through some Go ahead. Before you go there, though, cuz you gave me the first one is the inciting of some kind of incident. Then the there's plot point one, plot point two, and then there's a climax. Plot point one is the inciting incident. Plot point two. Inciting incident is the first thing. So, in Jaws, it's when that first shark attack happens in that first minute. There's an issue here. Like, this town is going to be set up the three threeact structure. Yes. It it sets the journey of the entire story that that's going to happen. And then act number one is plot plot point one is plot point one is the main character goes on a journey. So he so he's thrust into this thing of like the the first the entire first act. In the first act he's like what is the problem? Like it's uncovering like how big is this problem? And then it comes to a head where it's just like like we need to kill this thing. So then he assembles the team, they get onto a boat and then is this still part of the first act? Um, so when they get on the boat, it's it's past the first up until the get they get on the boat, it's the first act. Then they get on the boat and that goes from the first act through to the end of the second act and then the climax is and the second act, what's it like? If the first one is, okay, what is the problem? What's the second act? It's they're on the boat and they're trying to find the shark, figuring out what's they're on their mission to solve the problem. Yes. Okay. And then the third is the climax of like, is this thing going to kill us? Is the problem going to solve us or are we going to solve it? Okay, got it. Wow. Okay, that's really cool. And you Okay. Are you saying in social media videos the three-act structure of telling a story is the same? Is it different? I It doesn't I'm not saying there's formats out there that don't do it, but I wouldn't apply the three-act structure to social media. Gotcha. you would not apply in the preact structure to social media because you'd apply a totally different format such as so there's lots of them but let's just start at the simplest one that probably everybody's seen is man on the street which you were in a super viral video I think is is like 130 million views so that's on the school of hard knocks so man on the street is you approach a random stranger on the street and a story unfolds um so you're in school of hard knocks and what they do is random They approach people on the street and ask them about like their success, their business success, business tips. But I have a friend and a client, Alex Stemp, that's used it for photography and amass an audience of 20 million people where he approaches random stranger to the street, offers them a professional photo shoot and you see that story unfold. Um, you see it in real estate like Caleb Simpson does like home tours, approaches people and be like, "Hey, how much do you pay for rent in New York? Let me take you on a tour." So that is an example of a format. It's a storytelling format where you're engaging with somebody and uh the story unfolds of that that level of engagement. Now again the big thing with formats is they can be used like a single format can be used in any industry. So people get caught up in looking for like an applesto apples comparison like again you were in school of hard knocks but then which is business but that same format is then used for like there's a fitness channel body by body by mark which approaches people on the street and says well you look fit what is your exercise or Caleb Simpson that uses it real estate or Alex Stemp that uses it for um photography. I've seen guys go up and say just start talking to people and say hey do you mind if I play you a song on the guitar? Same thing man on the street. So like again it's if you go back to movies that 3x structure it's used for sci-fi it's used for horror it's used for drama it's used for for action. So when we look at formats we're paying less to the message and content in it and more about the context of how to deliver it within that. So another one um that you've probably seen is called two characters one light bulb. So it's where it's the same person plays two different characters. Erica Coberg. Erikica Coberg. So, she breaks down like um she's an airline passenger. Her flight gets cancelled and she's interacting with the the the gate attendant about what her kind of contractual rights are or like AirPods like if AirPods get break she plays the the Apple representative and the smart consumer and they're basically breaking down a misconception. Mark Tilbury uses that as well. Um so that's another one. Another format is visual metaphor. So Dr. Julie Smith is a clinical psychologist and she breaks down things like PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks by using visual metaphors like a waste paper basket that's overflowing with paper. She's um unpacking like how trauma therapy works where she takes each pe each piece of paper out and neatly folds them and put them back so it's the basket's not overflowing. So there are hundreds and hundreds of these formats. So, one of the biggest mistakes that cause 99% of people to fail with social media is one, just having a passive experience with social media, meaning they're just consuming content. You're just endlessly scrolling and not really kind of understanding like what's going on and they don't even know what a format is. M but if you can make that mindset shift today from I'm not going to be a passive consumer of content. I'm going to adopt the expert creator mindset and I'm going to be looking for these things that are called formats. So how do we actually find a format? So we at Hookpoint we created a hookpoint format finder. So basically at a high level, what you do is if you see a viral video in your feed that has millions of views and it looks interesting to you, the next step is to click the creator's profile and then see, have they used that same format at least five or 10 times consistently to break through? Because if they just used it once, it's likely a trend or it's not something that that's really a format or a structure. M. So once you've kind of, you know, seen, so trends can make videos go viral as well as formats, but that's it's a hit or miss. So it's a great question. Um, there's a the massive difference between trends and formats. So trends are fleeting. That's what a trend is. It's like you think about one of the biggest trends back in the day, ice bucket challenge. Does anybody still use that consistently? No. Why? Cuz it's fleeting. So when you look at a format, formats can be used for decades. People are always talking about social media shifting. It's changing. I need to change all the time. I need to switch things up. No, you don't. Alex Stemp used the man on the street for 5 years. I don't even know. The school of hard knocks guys have been doing it for like 3 years. Like these formats last for a long period of time as long as you execute it at a a very high level. So, one of the interesting things is, you know, again, we're a big student of storytelling. So, Man on the Street, people think that's a social media format. It was invented in 1954 for late night television. Wow. And then you've seen even like, you know, Jay Leno back in the day, he would have Jaywalkers. You know, Jimmy Kimmel will have it. John Rivers. Rivers had You get so rich. It was proven. Two characters, one light bulb. I'm not sure who invented it, but you know who did it before social media? No. Mike Myers and Austin Powers. Remember Dr. Evil and Austin Powers? Two characters, one light bulb. Breaking that down. So, the fast Dr. Evil and who? And Austin Powers. Okay, I'm going to have to check it. I've never heard of. And the thing is like the two characters, one light bulb is all about aha moments. And he would have very poignant aha moments between these two characters. Um, very subtle. But the reality is there are clear patterns to storytelling. And if you learn that, you will become a master of it versus a trend. If you keep switching the goalpost, like how are you going to become a master? It's like if we decided we're going to learn a musical instrument, there's two paths we can take. The trend route, the format route. The trend route says week one, we're going to learn the guitar. Week two, we're just going to switch to the piano. Week three, we're going to switch to the violin. And week four, we're going to switch to the drums. Versus, how do most people master musical instrument? Well, they follow the format. It's like we're going to stick with a piano and we're going to learn it for a year or two and that's how you get good at something. Right? So that's really the big difference is there's so much talk about trends, but the reality is trends don't sit uh set you up for long-term success because it doesn't allow you to become a masterful storyteller. Wow. Is there a difference in formats for short form versus formats for long form? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So there's and there's even difference in formats from platform to platform. Okay. So, there's certain formats that will work on on on certain platforms than others. Like even though Tik Tok and Instagram reels feels the same, they're they're different. And like Tik Tok's a little bit more raw, you know, where Instagram and even YouTube shorts, it's a little bit more polished. So, it's not to say that you can't make tweaks to it, but there are difference in formats from short form to long form and from platform to platform. So, good. So that's kind of like the first step in in overcoming this this failure is understanding shifting shifting our mindset from from passive to active understanding what a format is and then the second step to overcome this is uh selecting the right format. So there's two exercises I give people two questions. Number one, what resources do you have available to you? This is a big misconception. People think that they need to have a big team, that they need to have fancy equipment and fancy cameras. But what I say is don't stretch beyond your means. Just start with the resources that you have. We've literally worked with clients with zero followers, zero views, no social media experience, and just an iPhone, and they have success. Like we took a hand doctor, had no idea on social media, had no account, a hand doctor, a hand doctor, and we just created a a um storytelling format on TikTok called Little Misdiagnosed. That's the name of her channel where she would go through her experiences of the ER, like the stories that she is uh experienced, what it means to be diagnosed, giving tips and things through her experiences. This woman literally talking into her iPhone, no camera equipment, no lighting equipment, went from zero followers to 750,000 followers. She has over 34 videos with over 1 million views. She got a book deal, um a podcast deal, and a reality TV show deal. Wow. So that's why I just say start with the resources that you have. As you scale up, then you can make that determination. But often times people tell this lie to themselves to hold themselves back from success. I need to wait till I have a team. I need to wait till I have equipment or things of that of that nature. Then the second question you you need to really consider is what format excites me? Like what is going to excite me and inspire me to wake up every morning and want to do this? Because as we mentioned, there are hundreds and hundreds of these formats out there. You don't just need to pick the first one and be like, "Ah, well, it's working, but I don't really like it, but I'm going to do it anyways." Because that will fail. Like that will ultimately that inauthenticity will will show show through. So, we need to really understand what resources and choose a format based upon that and then what really motivates you cuz that passion does come through. Wow. So, I've noticed for me, and I've been like really consistent on YouTube over the last 3 years, and it's it's like we literally started focusing on being consistent on YouTube with producing good content um April 1st, 2022. This is now April 2025. We recently just um passed 1 million subscribers on YouTube. And one of the things I've noticed, we've probably had 10, maybe 15 videos that have gotten over a million views in that time period. Um, long form videos that have gotten over a million views. We only have one short form video that has over a million views. So, our long form format, we have three cuz I did the analysis. I have three. Yeah. Well, we're going to go through some of your Okay. So, so I I have some that I didn't even know that we had. So, I've only found the one. Um, but so but we've had a lot more even though we have more short shorts out there than we do long form. We have we've had more like impact from our long form than our short form. And I was wondering if you would if you know why. So I I do know why. Okay. Wow. And it's and it's I'm in the hot seat. It's not what you think. I don't even know what I don't even know what to think. Explain to people your backstory. What were you doing before you were creating YouTube content? You were No. Oh, I was in ministry. I was a speaker and I Yeah, but you were doing what? Two two sermons a week. Oh, as a pastor, I was doing two to three sermons a week for decades. And what did you have to do? You had to come up with original content each time. Every time. Yeah. So, what is the format that you do up here? It's I have to come up with original content two times a week. So, how you did it for decades? I did it for decades. So, that's why this format feels so easy to me. Wow. It feels natural. It fits you. you're doing an educational lesson format, which is essentially what pastors do is they're teaching lessons in a long form format and you have decades of experience. Now, if you would have tried before social media, I was doing it like Yeah. Now, if you would have tried to do like a a YouTube series where it's more teleprompter driven or more like listical or things of that nature, it probably wouldn't really fit. But you you intuitively in your years of being a master educator, master communicator, you found your match to that. Now there's certain things that you can do to optimize it to take it to the next level, but you have that foundation. Gotcha. And so basically I just turned the camera on on something I was already like used to doing, good at doing, and like doing. Yeah. And that is the important thing of like finding the right format for you because again you know there's hundreds of these formats out there like you know for 99% of people I would never recommend what you do because they don't have your background they don't have your experience. So that's where it's just being really honest with yourself before you get into it. Like I'll give you an example like to be fully transparent is you know we've done you know 10 research products projects on man on the street. I tried to do it myself. I didn't like it. It was not my personality. Like I don't want to be running around a city for two or three hours approaching random strangers on a street and interacting with them. I admire the people that could do it because like the content you can get out of it is but that's just not my personality. You know me. I'm pretty lowkey. I'm not that's just not my Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. I can't see you doing that. No. Um so again it's just it's really finding that that match there. Um, so that's really the second step is how do you how do you find the right format for you? And then the third one is the most important and this is what 99% of people don't do is they'll look at man on the street. They'll look at you. They'll look at visual metaphors. They'll look at two characters on one light bulb and they'll say, "I see what he's doing. He's just turning on the camera and he's just talking." But they don't analyze like what is the difference between the ones that get millions of views and the ones that get tens of thousands of views. So again, going back to my career um or starting in film school is like what do you do in film school? Like you sit down, you you you watch classic movies, you you you break them down, you talk about you learn how to write a screenplay and things of that nature. So at Hookpoint we developed a proprietary system to decode virality through a format and it's called gold, silver, bronze. And basically what we'll do is we'll take a a format. There's another one that's super simple that everybody can look at. I don't know if you know Robert Croak. He's the founder of Silly Bands, but he uses a format called walking listicles. Oh yeah. Familiar with walking list? Yeah. He walks around the block with an iPhone. Super simple in terms of production. And then he's like, "Well, do you want to be the first millionaire in your family? Here's three tips." And he's breaking down like three tips based upon his experience of walking around the block. So most people will look at that or they'll look at you or they'll look at man on the street and be like, "Oh, I know what they're doing and he's got millions of views. I'm just going to do that." But if you don't sit there and take 5 to 10 of the most successful ones, which we call the gold um the gold standard, 5 to 10 of the average, which is the silver, and 5 to 10 of the underperformers, and look at the difference like what is happening between those high performers and the underperformers. And these are contextual things. These are like what's happening in the pacing, what's happening in the hook, what's happening in the thumbnail, the title, the facial expressions, the body cues. Like there's a question before we started like what is the optimal length? Like they were saying well myron's killing it with long form but we can look at a 45minute video that you did that generated you know a million views and a 45minut video that did 40,000 views. So we know the length isn't the performance driver. You need to knock out those things that don't show up. Like some people may say like let's say somebody's wearing a red hat or you're wearing a red shirt and they say well you're wearing a red shirt that means it's going to go viral. But if we cross analyze between a high performer and a low performer and both of them you're wearing a red shirt. Then we can knock that out. And that's the important part of the process of like what are the things that you do differently or that the creator does differently in the high performer versus the low performer. And I pulled some videos that we can walk through and some thumbnails and we can kind of walk through if we can pull up um the Instagram ones now if that's okay just to kind of just do a little exercise. So what we're going to do is I pulled Instagram videos of me or of me. Yeah. So So we're going to start we're going to start with a low performer and then we're going to watch a a high performer and we don't need to watch the whole video. It's just like 20 30 seconds enough. So this first video has 11,000 views on Instagram. So, let's watch this one and pay attention as we cross um analyze these to have this transformation. I'm going to step into my new awareness. Most likely you can click the video itself to have this transformation. I'm going to step into my new All right, let's just refresh one more time and just try and hit the unmute button as quick as possible. But I really want you to pay attention to the first five or 10 seconds of this. set an intention to have this transformation. I'm going to step into my new awareness. I'm going to make the new thing that I became aware of. I'm going to make that my experience a reality. Now, I know people say you create your own reality, but you can't. But what you can create is you can create your own experience. Okay? So, let's stop it there. So, what what happened in the first few seconds is setting an intention. So, let's watch a one a high performer. And this one has 2.6 million views. Instead of kicking our children out when they're 18, they come to work with us in our family business. And then we when they get married, we give them a house so they don't have a mortgage and a family business so they don't have to find a job. And then we teach them an So what happened? What was the difference between the two in those first few seconds? In the hook, I think I don't know, man. I don't know. They I I was talking I think I I I think I think they captured me like really at the beginning of a of a thought or what you would call a hook in the second one, but the other one was just kind of setting up a thought is what it seemed like to me. Okay, can we refresh this one again and and just watch it one more time? Instead of kicking our children out when they're 18, they come to work with us in our family business. Okay, stop there. Imagine kicking your kids out. children out at the age of 18, right? That's a really big one. That's a really strong hook. On top of it, what you're talking about is there's a massive perspective shift because you're going against the grain of what most people do. Now, go back to the underperformer. You set an intention to have this transformation. I'm going to Okay. So, what does that mean? Awareness. I don't know cuz it it it edited the my editor edited something out so I don't even know what exactly that's what's happening with the viewer, right? They don't know what's If I don't know what I said there, how are you going to know what I said there? But exactly there's not there's not like a reason to stick around. Like again, we're talking about the first few seconds. Like if we're not setting an expectation and not being like you need to watch this video because it's something different that you've never heard before. like setting intention. We've probably heard that a million times, right? Talking about shifting the dynamic of not kicking our kids out of the age of 18, but setting up a business for them and and then giving them a house instead of them having to have a mortgage. You're talking about a whole bunch of stuff that people have never even thought about. In the same instance, you're providing unique and different value across the board in both of those in the subject you're covering. But it's the context of how it shows up that dictates whether the viewer thinks this is worth my time because it's not something I've heard before, so I'm going to stick around. In addition, it's breaking the pattern. Like cuz we're endlessly scrolling. We have to find a way to break that that pattern. So let's if we can go to the the let's do this one more time if you guys want to do it. A different video or same ones? No, two two different videos. So this first one has 20,000 views. There's a lounger offer. What does that mean? You have to you have to stop using insider lingo on the outside world. You have to stop using technob. You have to stop talking to people. I hope Okay, that's enough. So, simplify your offer is is the is the hook here. Now, let's look at this one. This one has 5.9 million views. Paycheck. You deposit it into the home equity line of credit to pay down your mortgage. You then write all of the checks for your bills out of the home equity line of credit. You use money from your home equity line of credit. So that's good. So what's anybody have ideas of what the difference is here? When they say something, repeat what they said. So So he's saying that they're not wearing a jacket. He wasn't wearing a jacket. Yeah. But the thingual, but the thing is is you can point to other videos where he is wearing a jacket. So that's not the thing. So, but both both of the high performing ones were immediate paradigm shifts. Okay. Thought versus action. Thought versus action. Mass appeal. Mass appeal. So again, what is happening here is a few things. One, the the high performer is again it's a massive perspective shift. But in addition, how many people own homes? Millions. Versus how many people have an offer? So you're talking to a larger audience. Well, it's not that it's not to say that you can't talk about offers cuz I know that's a big thing that you help people with, but you're leading with language that 95% of the people don't connect with. Gotcha. So, it's again you're again the the the high performer here is doing an amazing job of again, as you said, perspective shift, but also you're tapping into something that a lot of people have. they have mortgage home loans and they're like you're teaching them a something that they've never heard about about mortgage home loans with the offer again you're teaching them something unique but the way it's framed and set up is 95% of the people don't know it. So one of the things that we help clients with uh in terms of going viral is called the generalist principle. How do we take our expertise still target our core target audience and connect with them but make it accessible and interesting to a wider possible audience. That is where virality comes from. Now, some people will say, "Well, Brendan, I just want to talk to my niche audience. I don't care. I just want to sell products or services." The challenge is is what we talked about with the algorithms. They only care about how can I find content that I could see to millions and millions of people and grab and hold their attention for as long as possible. Now, if we're just doing the niche play, you're not even guaranteed that you're going to reach that that niche audience because remember that core customer you're trying to reach, there's 150,000 other pieces of content that they could seed to it. Now, you think about like an example the moment it's uploaded. Yeah. So, you think about um like Ryan Sarant, the real estate agent. What is he sells like 15 million to $250 million properties in Manhattan, New York. Like, you couldn't get more niche in terms of the people that engage with him. But he plays the generalist principle by doing videos like, "Let me take you on a tour of a $7 million closet. Let me take you on a tour of a $250 million homes." Again, what is the format that predates that? The lifestyles of the rich and famous. So, you see these repeating things, but he knows he generates tens of millions of views a month because he leverages this. And he knows if it less than 1%, a fraction of 1% is his core target audience, he beats out every other luxury real estate agent in his market. He's even sold a $30 million property from YouTube. And then there's there's like a private jet company on Tik Tok and Instagram Jets where their format is they they play on um they play like crazy calls from clients with their requests and things of that nature. It generates millions and millions of views. However, you know, it doesn't need to be all of it. is like I would rather be generating millions and millions of views and only 5% is that than getting 80% of my core target with a,000 views because you're still going to be a bigger number. It's just going to be a bigger number. Um so now let's if we can pull up the um YouTube thumbnails. I just want to kind of we I think we we've gotten to a place where we understand or do you want to do one more short form? What what I want to do whatever you want to let's pull up let's pull up the thumbnails. Let's I I I hopefully y'all got it. I got it. So, so again, these are if we were doing this analysis for Myron, we wouldn't just do this one video by one video, like we would create a spreadsheet of 5 to 10 of the top performers and cross analyze 5 to 10 for for low performers. Typically, when we break down a format, like one of our researchers will spend like 13 to 15 hours like going through at a very kind of nuanced level. So, we just kind of scratched the surface, but I I just want to kind of show like I want to start training people's mindset to look at content so good differently. Yeah, man. You got me to look at it differently. And this is my third interview with you. So, can we pull up the the thumbnail? The first set of thumbnails. You're talking about those thumbnails cuz they're right behind you on the whiteboard, too. If you want to go, you can go over they Oh, show the vibe board as the background. Again, I wanted to like I wanted to do this exercise because most people are not going to be in your belt where you have a lot of success. So, I wanted to show a lot of times what we want to do is compare to other content creators. And again, we're just looking at a fraction of the story here because a lot of this is in the storytelling as well. But like thumbnails and headlines are kind of like an idea understanding like the difference in hooks. So, your video is a systematic approach to creating and sustaining lasting wealth. And the thumbnail is get fast, build wealth slow. Get rich fast, build wealth slow. Get rich fast build versus what Alex Fromosi is. If I wanted to become a millionaire in 2024, this is what I do. Full blueprint and then he just has a full guide. So what is the difference between these two? Does anybody have It looks as if he's giving you the information right as you're looking at the thumbnail, which intrigues you to to check out and see if any of that information is valid towards you. So, giving the information up front. People are probably searching if I want to become billionaire 2024. People are searching for it. I'm saying the same thing as the short for my videos. Uh the pace at which they could self-qualify and say, "I need this. I don't know if I need that just yet." Self-qualifying. Let's see. Get rich fast all the time. Get rich fast. You see get rich fast all the time. It feels like I'm definitely going to get what I'm looking for because he already has it on the screen. I'm definitely going to get what I'm looking for. Well, the interesting thing is both are doing the same thing and saying the same thing. Now, obviously you have your own spin on it. Sure. But he's putting it in this the perspective of being very specific. If I wanted to become a millionaire in 2024, now this was one year ago. So like first off, how many people are thinking to themselves, I want to become a millionaire in 2024 versus I want a systematic approach to creating and sustaining lasting wealth. Gotcha. And then the other thing, the full blueprint. This is what I do, the full blueprint. And in the thumbnail, there is a full guide here. So, you know, you're going to get a systematic guide, like a step-by-step guide on what to do if you want to become a millionaire in 2024 versus yours is like get rich fast, build wealth slow. Like, first off, like at a glance, if if we have like 1 to 2 seconds, like you have to think about like what is that mean to me? So, you know, even just an exercise for you guys, like I you could start just changing thumbnails um and headlines. So let's look at uh another one and another thing to the search part. Most YouTube traffic doesn't come from search. Most of it's coming from suggested videos. So if you're looking at YouTube, it'll have your suggested videos. Most traffic is coming from that. So can we go to the next set of thumbnails? So what about while he while we're changing while we're changing that, let me ask you this question. What about going back and changing the thumbnail and title of videos that are already performing? Okay. Will that impact the the views in a real way if you go do that or not really? Yes, it 100% will. Okay. I always recommend constantly, you know, testing thumbnails and and headline variations if videos plateau. Okay. Cuz it's not cuz you did the video like it's not the the heavy lifting is creating the content. It's not switching out thumbnails and headlines. How often would you recommend that somebody change out thumbnails? And as often as you can, as often as you can, like every day, as often as you can, like once a month, I would I would say every week if you can. Like you can get you can get commoditized talent like Upwork or designers for low cost and just train them like really good thumbnail designers are expensive, but you can just train them like to to to do that. But the more that you do it, the more kind of benefit that you're going to get from your content. Cuz sometimes it's just the hook in in the the thumbnail and headline and it's not really video is already being showed to people and if it starts gets new traction, they'll start showing it to more people. Yeah. So, there's two core metrics that drive virality on YouTube. It's the click-through percentage on the thumbnail and headline and then the retention. So, your first job is can you get somebody to click? And if you can get somebody to click, can you get them to hold attention? I don't think your issue is getting holding people's attention because you're one of the world's best communicators. I think it's just reframing some of the thumbnails and headlines to drive drive that success. Hm. So, let's look at this other set. So, we have um I just got a great idea. You keep talking. I'm So, so the first thumbnail to send Ariel to the first thumbnail that we see is what's the state of your financial estate? And I'll actually walk up to this if I can. Yeah. Cool. Um so, let's just look at again there's there's two there's two dynamics here. So, these play off of each other. So, there's obviously the headline. What is the state of your financial estate? And then you've got the thumbnail dream uh dreamhouse or house of cards. So this has 46,000 views versus hard work doesn't build wealth from zero to millions. So So what is the difference that we see here? Oh um yes it does. Cuz that's what I've been taught my whole life. Hard work does that is how you get wealth. Okay. So I'm conflicted. It's like it's attaching contrarian conflicted. Yeah. I was told that hard work builds wealth. So it's breaking the pattern. It's it's actually subverting your expectations. Again, there are, you know, from zero to millions. How many videos do you think that there's of people talking about making millions of dollars? Hundreds of thousands if not millions of those videos. But what he's doing is he's subverting the expectations. He's breaking it down by flipping it on its head. Hard work doesn't build wealth. and then from zero to millions. Most people are at closer to the zero. So they're likely even if they're not at zero, they're not at at millions and they want to do it versus what is the state of your financial estate? Do most people know what a financial estate is? Most people don't have a financial estate. Yeah. And then dream house or house of cards. Again, it's it's takes us too long to figure out what that actually means. M so because we're breaking the pattern here between these between these two. You're seeing 1 million views versus 46,000 views in performance. So it's not that he has to change his content here. It's just we have to change the way that it's contextualized, the way it's showing up that to get this from 46,000 to a million views. So that's where I talk a lot um about that often times the issue is not in the the content itself, it's the way that we're delivering that. Now again with this we're just talking about the thumbnail and headline. The the actual content, you know, has to really perform. But this is the reason that 99% of people are failing to reach their goals with social media. One, they have a passive mindset when they're consuming content. So that means they don't understand what a format is. They're not looking for formats. Step two, they're not selecting the right format if they know what one is because they're stretching beyond their means. They're choosing something that's inauthentic that that doesn't really excite them. And step three, the most important part, they're not analyzing their content or other people's content to understand, you know, what is the difference in storytelling between a high performer and a low performer. And again, like I just did these these short little exercises. Like it goes much deeper, but just to kind of like start shifting the mindset again, like our team spent 10,000 hours only doing this, but I want to kind of just shift the mindset of like to start thinking differently about creating content. Wow. That was a long form and short form master class. I don't know if y'all realize that or not. Um, like so last time you were here, you gave everybody a copy of your guide to going viral book on one of the other videos. Is it okay if I give them that URL so they can get you? Yeah. So they if they just go to hookpoint.com/mmyron, they can get I thought it was/golden. Yeah, we switched it this time. So it's/myron/mirin. Yeah. And I'll give the link and maybe they can put it below in the the show notes. But yeah, hookpoint.com/myronin. Thank you. Cool. I appreciate it. Give it up for Brendan, y'all. What a great what a great conversation. Like I literally like like I do this every week. This is what I do. I like this is my going this is what going to work looks like for me. Coming to studio, shooting videos. I do this usually twice a week. Um and you have really just helped me understand how to do what I do better. Even though this is my third conversation with you, it felt like the first conversation with you. So, I want to thank you. Um, I'm sure our studio audience wants to thank you and the people on YouTube, thank you for being so diligent at studying this stuff out and being so clear at communicating it. Thank you one more time, brother. Appreciate it. So, guys, thanks for watching this interview with Brendan and myself. Uh, really appreciate y'all watching. If you will do what he talked about in this video, it may not may turn you into Mr. Beast, but your videos will definitely do better. Thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next video. Peace out, Cub Scouts.