This content outlines a six-step playbook for achieving rapid social media growth, aiming for zero to one million followers in six months by focusing on strategic content positioning and execution.
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In this video, I'm going to break down
how to speedrun social media. I'm
talking zero to a million followers in
just 6 months. Now, I've studied every
single creator that's come even close to
this type of growth. And it turns out,
not only is this possible, but they all
run the exact same playbook to do it.
So, I'm going to break down the whole
thing. This is the full formula for how
to speedrun social media. If you want to
go from zero to a million followers as
fast as possible, these are the six
things you have to do in your
positioning and your content strategy to
make it happen. Now, I know this works
because content is all I do all day
long. I have a million followers. I've
done billions of views. And I've
literally helped hundreds of
entrepreneurs and creators rev up their
personal brands using these tactics. So,
if you're trying to grow faster, you're
going to want to pay attention. All
right. Now, first of all, if you want to
grow this big this fast, these three
things are going to have to happen. One,
you're going to have to go from zero to
owning your own lane in a niche pretty
quickly. Two, you're going to have to
get a ton of views in that niche. And
three, you're going to have to convert a
lot of those views into followers at a
much higher rate than normal. But
mechanically, these are the only three
things that have to happen in order for
you to go from 0 to a million followers.
So, the six tactics I'm about to walk
through will give you an unfair
advantage at accomplishing those three
things. Building a cult-like personal
brand, revving up the views
significantly, and increasing the view
to follower conversion path. All right,
let's start with number one. I call this
bingeability. The people that grow the
fastest are able to build connective
tissue between their videos. Meaning,
when a viewer watches one, they feel
like they need to binge and watch 10
more in the same session. Now, this is
really important because if somebody
watches four to five of your videos back
to back, they are 10 times more likely
to follow. And the reason for this can
be explained by my content minutes
framework. To get someone to take an
action, you need them to consume a
certain number of minutes of your
content. To get a follow, in most
niches, this only requires four to five
content minutes consumed. So, basically,
you're in a race to get that viewer to
watch five of your videos so you can
earn the follow before they get bored
and lose interest. Now, the best way to
drive one of those binge sessions is to
create a series where the viewer
actively wants to go from one video to
the next. In other words, you force that
connective tissue. And this works
because the human brain was designed to
complete puzzles. If you tell someone
there's five steps and you give them the
first three, they're going to want to
know what number four and five are. So
when you have a series like this is day
seven of 10, people want to go back and
watch all the previous episodes and that
creates the bingeability to get them to
that follower conversion moment. Now
there are two types of series that you
can make. A hard series is one with a
finite number of episodes that is
literally stated by the creator. And
this is what Khloe should did really
well. Her series was 30 lessons before
30. She literally went from 0 to a
million followers in like 4 months. And
almost all of the growth was on the back
of this 30-day series. Now, these
numbered series are super useful because
they give a set number of episodes for
the viewer to look at. And if you get
dropped into a good episode, typically
you're going to want to scroll back and
watch all the previous ones. Now, a soft
series is something like what my friend
Maxim did. He goes by by Maximize on
Instagram. He doesn't actually number
the videos like Kloe or even name them
under a series, but every one of his
first 100 videos felt like it was an
episode from the same thematic grouping.
He would aim his phone at his laptop,
press the space bar, show you an
interview with some famous person, and
then zoom into it and take you on the
ride. You could get lost in his profile
for 20 to 30 videos in a row if you
really like this way that he presented
information. My friend Orin is the same
way. He's kind of in the middle between
Khloe and Maxim with his series Product
versus Brand. It's not numbered like
Khloe's, but every single one of Orin's
episodes starts the same way. Are you
buying for the product or are you buying
for the brand? And then he breaks down a
category. Again, if you see one of
Orin's product versus brand videos and
you like it, you're going to want to go
to his profile and see if there are
other ones like it because it feels like
this episodic series. And that turns one
view into eight views, which gets you
over that content threshold and drives
the follow. The truth is, most of the
big creators, if they haven't done a
hard series, almost all of them are
structuring their videos into episodic
themes or pillars. So, your goal, if
you're trying to grow super fast, is to
come up with a unique series concept for
your niche. And it can be numbered or
not. Numbering obviously helps give the
viewer a set number to look at, but it
can also be a treadmill that you might
want to get off of. So, if you do it
numbered, do it 7, 10, 25, 30, some set
number, either weeks or months, that you
can have all the videos relate to one
another and come out daily. The goal is
that they need to match theme, vibe, and
topic bucket. Now, when you're trying to
develop what a series could be for your
niche, you want to try to frame them
around a painoint, a desire loop, or
some storytelling arc that you're
interested in. For example, Khloe's
series was 30 lessons by 30, which
basically frames the 30 most important
things she learned before turning 30.
This is a massive total addressable
market, but also a very clear pain
point. Anyone in their 20s trying to
improve their life might resonate with
these lessons. That's one of the reasons
why this series worked so well. The
content was obviously great, but there
were so many people that could see any
of the episodes, relate to it, and then
want to jump in and see the rest. Here's
another example. This is the 100day Film
School from TMS Productions. Now to me
it is wild to commit for 100 days in a
row but this series absolutely crushed
for them and it works because it clearly
communicates that anybody trying to
learn filmm and close that painoint is
going to get a daily course for 100 days
dripped for free. And here's one more
series just so you have tons of
examples. This guy Yanni we've talked
about before on the channel built a
series storytelling daybyday as he
rehabbed a vintage bowling alley. Now
this is more on the entertainment side
but this one crushes from a storytelling
perspective. It gets people to buy in
and support and then that ground swell
of attention helped him and his
business. Now, before I end this point,
one last thing to warn you about on
series. It can be extremely easy to get
into an overthinking spiral about trying
to frantically figure out what series
you're going to do before you post and
that be the reason why you don't get
started. So, you want to avoid that at
all costs. Here is an exercise you can
run to help you figure out what series
would make sense for your niche. Think
about the biggest pain points or
interest areas in your space. And then
ask yourself, is there a bucket of
things that could be split up into
individual episodes? Or a question that
could be answered over and over in
similar but different ways? For example,
if you're a food creator that tries
sandwiches, could you do 20 sandwiches
in 20 days where you go around to
different restaurants and every episode
looks the same? Or if you're an
accounting creator, could you do 10 days
to lower your taxes? And in this case,
each day of the series is kind of
building on itself until you've saved a
certain amount of money. Or if you're a
Vibe Code creator, could you do a series
where you take popular software and
rebuild one every episode and show how
much cheaper and easier it was for you
to build than the expensive version?
Once you start thinking in these terms,
it'll be a lot easier to come up with
compelling series. Honestly, you'll be
overwhelmed with ideas and really have
to parse through to make sure you pick
the right one. Also, one last warning.
Typically, when people commit to posting
every day for a certain period, they
almost always get burnt out. So, if you
don't think you're going to be able to
commit and fulfill that obligation,
don't do a hard series where the
episodes correspond to every single day.
Just do a soft series. Because if you're
speedrunning and you're trying to grow
this fast, this quickly, you cannot post
filler videos that just fill the feed.
Every single rep needs to be an
intentional improvement on the previous.
So, if you don't think you're going to
be able to stick to the daily posting,
that's fine. Just do a soft series and
post that way. If you want help figuring
out what series to make, the easiest way
is to just study the top creators on
Instagram and Tik Tok and figure out
what worked for them. You're obviously
not going to copy their series exactly,
but just seeing the structure, even
orange product versus verse brand, A
versus B, it can be really helpful to
see that and then think about how
something similar but different could
apply for your niche. To do this and see
what works for the best creators, go to
sandcastle.ai AI and build a watch list
of your favorite creators and then pull
them up in the videos tab sorting by
most views. This will give you all their
videos in one place in one feed and you
can start to see the trends pretty
quickly. So for me, you can see I built
a watch list with 23 of the top
marketing creators in the world. And so
if I want to see what videos are working
best, I look at this cohort view. Then I
can go to the channel filter and
individually pick one channel out of
those 23 and look just at those videos.
When you do it like this, one channel at
a time, immediately it starts to pop out
what series performed the best because
when you sort by most views, all the
best performers bubble to the top. This
is what I use to get inspiration for
figuring out what's trending or what's
working from the top creators. Super
helpful. All right, let's move to step
two. If you want to grow faster than
everyone else, you need to have unique
visual positioning. I call this a
signature visual style. Your visual
format and the visuals you use have to
be unique and different from what people
normally see. This doesn't mean they
have to be cinematic, but they have to
jump off the page and force the scroll
to stop because they're so different
from what people typically see in the
category. Now, I know hearing that can
trigger anxiety and frustration in
people if you're not good with editing
or motion graphics or visual design. But
don't worry because I'm not either and I
was able to figure out my signature
visual format. So, I'm going to show you
how to go about that even if you're not
good with visuals. But the reality is
social media is a visual slot machine.
So if you want to grow faster than
everyone else, you need to be unique
when it comes to your visual packaging.
You have to have an answer for this.
Now, personally, I think of myself as
someone with above average taste, but
below average ability to actually
fulfill creatively to make that taste.
So, I can't actually make the visuals
with my own hands, but I could see good
verse bad and distinguish it. If that
sounds like you and you're sitting there
and you're not sure how you're going to
close the visual gap, let me explain
exactly how I think about it and what
will work for you. Your signature visual
style is made up of four components.
your look, your set, your shot framing,
and then the editing, which is like a
catch-all bucket for motion graphics,
typography, colors, and really
everything else you can do. Let's go
through each one of these quickly, talk
about what it looks like, and then I'm
going to show you a couple examples of
really good signature visual formats,
signature visual styles, and break down
how they did them across those four
buckets. Again, cracking this will make
you grow so much faster. If you figure
this out before you start posting,
you're going to be golden. Okay, the
first part in the visuals is the look.
And this is made up of literally how you
look as well as how you dress, like what
you wear. Now, if you're just really
hot, you might not need to do anything
else. And sadly, that's just the way it
is. Look at Alex Earl. She's super hot.
She has a good personality. Her set is
basically just a random room. She has
almost no visual differentiation in the
shot. Literally just straight on eye
level. And she does no editing. And yet,
she grew millions of followers in a few
months. And her brand deals, every time
she makes a post, she makes six figures.
That's real fandom, real money from
brands. Now, obviously, if you're
sitting there, unless you're going to do
plastic surgery, you can't change how
you look, but you can change how you
dress and what you wear to kind of fit
the look that you want. And that will
definitely help elevate your character
branding based on the type of niche
you're playing in. But that's only one
of the four factors. So, let's move on.
The second piece in the visual
positioning is your set. And this is the
background of wherever you're shooting.
This can literally be a studio like what
I have that you set, it's fixed, or in
the world, you go in environments and
shoot. It could also be if you're using
green screen and you kind of create
cinematic or visually interesting sets
that aren't really there. Anything like
that applies in the set. Now, set design
is super underrated and one of the
easiest ways to visually pop on the feed
without having to do a ton of work on
every rep. My friend Mark has used set
design better than almost any new
podcast I've ever seen. And the reason
why his clips pop so hard on social
media is because visually when you see
his sets, it just looks different than
anything you've seen. Okay. Third is
your shot framing. And this is the
angle, frame, and distance that you are
away from the camera. Now, most people,
like Alex Earl, for example, just shoot
frame on, eye level, standard, and keep
the camera locked off there. That's what
I do. I don't change this shot at all.
It's one camera. But there's no rules
against changing this. You can go out
and shoot a ton of different angles and
shots to add visual differentiation, and
this will help build a signature style
different from what everyone sees. This
guy, Musa, was famous for this fisheye
lens shot with the camera in the corner
of his bedroom. He made like 2 million
bucks before he was 19. Take that for
what it will, but he kind of pioneered
that look and all he had to do is change
the angle and perspective that he was
shooting in. If you want a free resource
that shows you a lot of different shot
angles just to give you a reference,
there's a site called eye candy.com.
It's spelled a little weird, so just
look in the description. You could also
use Higsfield, higfield.ai AI with the
Nano Banana Pro, the brand new AI image
model from Google. And you could put one
screenshot of you in there and then ask
it to give you 10 other angles and tell
you where to put the camera and what
focal length to use to get those angles.
And it will do it automatically. It's
pretty crazy. So, you can basically
simulate your own shot library
automatically with AI. Now, fourth in
the signature visual format is the
catch-all bucket for editing. And this
really is what most people think of when
I say signature visual style. They think
of the B-roll, the colors, the motion
graphics, the animation, the typography,
like all the stuff you can do to the
shot. Now, there is an endless amount of
stuff you can do here. And again, I
really don't know how to edit. I had to
teach myself the very basics, but I'm
not good at it. I don't know how to use
After Effects, so I just hired an editor
as soon as I could to handle building
the cinematic world for me. Now, I know
not everybody can afford editors in the
beginning. I totally get that. But if
you want to hire the same editors that I
use, both for long form that everything
you see, they built that world without
me giving them any direction and short
form that's gotten me billions of views
on tech. If you want to hire those same
editors, I have a link in the
description below. I'll connect you
directly. But if you can't afford
editors or you don't want to work with
them for whatever reason, here's what I
would do. I would go to Sandcastles and
I would go to the projects tab and
create a folder called visual styles.
The projects in Sandcastle are just
different ways you can organize videos.
Then I would save one video from each of
my favorite creators that I like the
visual look of into that folder. And so
literally all you have to do is just go
to the videos tab, go to the channel
filter, pull up their channel, you see
all their videos, sort them by most
views or outlier score to get like the
best ones at the top. Click into one,
click save to projects, and then save it
into your visual database. After doing
this, you'll have a visual styles
library of all the visual styles you've
collected. You can add to this over time
so it's all in one place and not all
over the place in like an Apple note.
And so the reason this is helpful is
because when you're trying to build a
visual style, you can click in, watch
the video, and then analyze what they've
done across the four aspects that I just
talked about. I'm going to go through
two examples right now to show you how I
would do this. But this is the exercise
you can run through. You kind of scroll
for 2 hours, assemble them all in one
place, and then you can kind of analyze,
okay, how did they approach the look?
How did they approach the set? How did
they approach angles? How did they
approach editing? Which of those things
can I take and use as inspiration for my
visual format? Also, if you want to be
really different, and I think Orin's
probably the best at this, you can look
at other mediums, not social media, but
even not even digital, you could look at
vintage western magazines would have
amazing imagery and layouts that you do
not see typically on social media. So,
if you just take a photo of those, load
them into Nanabanana Pro, it'll build
you a whole brand library and a bunch of
other images based on that one picture.
It's pretty wild. Now, let's look at two
different signature visual styles, and
I'm going to explain across the four
categories what exactly they're doing
and why they stack together so well to
cut through the feet. Now, all these
people, the two that I'm going to walk
through and then all the other ones I'll
list, they're all attractive. So, I'm
not going to comment on like their body
composition, but I will say the way they
dress really does matter cuz they dress
differently for different types of
viewers and it works super well. Okay,
first we have Khloe. I mentioned her
already. She crushed. She grew super
fast. Now, if you watch this video on
the screen, I'm going to break down
these four pieces. The first was the
look. So, I want to comment on how she's
dressing. She's both dressing almost
like a costume to complement the
character. So, like this video, she's a
painter. She's kind of dressing like
this trendy painter, but she's also
switching into outfits that map to like
a classy working professional girl in
her late 20s, which is kind of who she's
trying to attract. So, it it perfectly
signals exactly what personal brand
visually that she wants to communicate.
Now, for her set, she uses a combination
of inworld shots, but they're all shot
in the same way. They're kind of
cinematic. I wouldn't say crazy on the
like movie level quality, but they're
more cinematic than just like a standard
iPhone shot. And they're all shot in the
same way. Light and airy and like
realistic. So, they all have the same
vibe. Now, on the shot framing, this
third bucket, this is one of the places
where she really shines. She takes a ton
of shots at different angles. You see
the ones zoomed in of her hands on the
computer. She's got front on. She's got
changing angles as she turns. This makes
a huge difference in keeping the
dynamism of the video high as she's
telling the story. And then fourth, on
the editing side, what she does is
actually pretty minimal because she
spends so much time on buckets two and
three, actually getting the shots in the
world at different angles. All she has
to do is quick cut between those and it
handles a lot of the motion and visual
change that you would want. She does do
two things in the edit that I think are
really signature to her. One, she uses
fonts in a really great way. She spaces
them out and lays them out based on the
composition of the frame. And then she
uses a couple different fonts to kind of
like tastefully signal to her brand. So
that's one thing. The other thing,
occasionally throughout the video,
usually once at the beginning in the
hook and then once throughout, she uses
like a magical seeming animation. So
with the paintbrush one, she like draws
with the paintbrush and kind of animates
the stroke. That's just like a tiny
little signature detail, but she only
has to do a couple of them and it
creates this like magical high quality
feeling for her. So these four aspects,
the way she's kind of dressing in
costume as a classy professional, the
way she's taking in world shots that are
all light and airy and like on brand,
the way she's varying the shots, and
then her editing, the typography, and
those little magic moments, those four
things stacked together to create what
is now kind of considered the Khloe Sha
style. And once she had that dialed, it
took a while for her to experiment with
it, but once she had that dialed, she
never had to think about visual strategy
again. All right, let's take another
example in a completely different niche.
This is JB Copeland. You may have seen
him on Instagram. This guy's huge, 1.8
million followers, and his visual style
is actually way easier to execute than
Khloe's. Each of his videos probably
only take him like 15, 20 minutes total
to make, but it's obviously working, so
we should break it down. Now, on the
looks front, again, not going to comment
on his looks. He's an attractive cat.
But on the clothes side, he always
dresses in something really cool
looking. Like, he's on trend. The colors
pop. His outfit is fitted. Like, it it
looks good. and he's trying to attract
this like both kind of young
aspirational male audience that's
sensitive and trying to figure them out
but also appeal to women. So he has like
a huge tam with the way he looks. Now
his set design bucket number two is
really where he shines. This is his
differentiation. He was kind of the
first creator to have this like
cinematic look with the gallery wall
behind. And because the way he's
lighting it with his like warm ambient
lighting, it creates this like safe and
cozy environment. But that could just be
a room in his house or maybe it's a set
studio but he built it one time. every
incremental video, he doesn't have to
touch it. He can be in the same set
because it transfers like the emotion
and the safety of his niche. It works
super super well. So, that's really
where he shines is is bucket number two
with the set. Now, bucket number three
on the shot framing, he doesn't really
do anything. He has one shot. It's
locked off at the eye level. You know,
he's editing. This is more the editing
bucket, but like jump cutting in and
out, but he's not changing the shot at
all. Super simple. No work there. And
then on the editing front, he really
does almost nothing, but there's two
things I want to comment on. They're not
really visual, but they kind of fall
into the editing bucket. For one, he
edits super slow pace-wise. So, his
music, which is the second piece, is
mood matching his tenor in his voice.
So, he's trying to be very calm and very
like therapeutic and say, "Listen, it's
not a problem the way you're doing these
things, right? He's at a very slow
cadence. The music matches that cadence,
but also he's editing with space to
create that flow so it feels
comfortable. This inherently is a
difference compared to all the crazy
retention editing on the feed. So, it's
not visual, but like he is doing those
two things in the edit. The typography
is pretty standard. He's not doing any
flashbangs or anything else. So, if you
really audit this guy's style, what he's
wearing helps. The way he looks helps.
But the big thing is his set design is
so dialed that it just pops right off
the feed. The point is, these are two
very different approaches at building
your signature visual style. But both
when Khloe and JB figured them out and
it worked, they knew they didn't have to
spend a ton of time reinventing the
visual strategy every single time. And
that's why it's so critical to nail
this. Those separated them from the
niche immediately. And you could tell
based on the traction. Now, I have a lot
more examples of signature visual styles
across a bunch of different categories.
Adrien Purr, if you ever seen him, he
has a great one. Carl Shakur, one of the
sickest like cinematic traveling creator
styles. Roberto, my homie, RPN, the best
in tech. He's got the best cinematic
style in tech. Gakuen, I hope I'm
pronouncing that right. Or Gakuen in the
film making space, he's amazing. Ava in
the personal brand, social media growth
space, amazing. And my friends Alex
Garcia and Orin, also really great
marketing and branding. All of them have
different unique ways they stack those
four pieces. And it doesn't just have to
be cinematic, right? Ava style is not
really cinematic, but it's very
signature. Immediately, you know it's
her and that sticks out on the feed.
It's very memorable. So, these are a lot
of examples you can go study, but
typically any creator you remember,
they're going to have the signature
visual format dialed. All right, just to
recap where we're at before we move on.
I'm walking through the six core things
you must do in your content positioning
and strategy if you're trying to grow
faster. In this case, from 0 to a
million followers. So far, we've covered
two huge ones. The first one was
building that connective tissue, that
bingeability with a core series. And
then number two, what we just went
through was building your signature
visual style. Both of these will help
you cut through and stand out on the
feed much quicker, which will make
people want to binge your content and
follow faster. Now, before we keep
going, if you like the way I'm breaking
this down, this is kind of just like how
I do it. I've got a free community for
entrepreneurs that are trying to get
better at content. It's called Wavy
World. We have 65 free trainings just
like this, 38,000 entrepreneurs that are
all in there working together in small
groups trying to help each other. So, if
you want a peer group and you also want
to just elevate on either social media
or YouTube, you should definitely join.
It's completely free. Got a link in the
description if you want to join. All
right, step three in the six-step
playbook is called building your unique
edge. We talked about the visual piece,
which is very important, but perhaps
even more important is the actual
substance that you say in the video. If
you want to grow super fast, you have to
figure out how to carve your own lane in
the niche. And the best way to do that
is by actually having interesting things
to say or by saying them in an
interesting new way. Okay, so what does
all that actually mean? If you want to
be interesting or valuable, you really
have two options. You either say
something people haven't heard before,
that's new information, or you say
something they have heard before, but
you say it in a new way. That's new
delivery. You have to have at least one
of the two, new information or new
delivery, or you just will never cut
through. For example, that guy JB
Copeland, he grew super fast, but he was
pretty much sharing basic mindset
therapy style tips. Anyone could have
looked that up. Those could have been
oneliners off poems or fortune cookies
or whatever. Anyone could have found
that. But his difference was his
delivery style and his vibe. He slowed
everything way down almost uncomfortably
so for someone on the feed that's used
to all the retention editing and that is
what signaled some difference to people
who are interested in that category.
That is how he cut through same messages
broadly different delivery. Now these
six pieces that I'm talking about in
this video they all stack on each other.
So if all he did was like therapy
oneliners slowly that's not enough. But
when you combine that with his unique
signature visual format and the way that
he kind of like bucketed that as a
series, all of a sudden those things
start stacking together to create this
unique cult-like personal brand. So the
reality for this third part, building a
unique edge is this. If you don't
actually have something unique to say or
you can't come up with a unique way to
say it, you're not going to cut through.
And this really is the main reason why
people don't grow. Now, I've got two
separate personal brands that I'm one of
the top in the categories for Tekken AI
and content marketing. Both times I
share new stuff and I found a way to
share it in a new way. This is how I was
able to grow faster than almost everyone
else. So, tactically, when you're making
each video, you need to ask yourself, am
I saying something unique? Or if I'm not
saying something unique, am I at least
saying it in a unique way or not? Now,
the unique way you do it on the delivery
could be the way you cut the B-roll, the
examples you use, the metaphors you say,
the way you pair the visuals with the
words, the delivery speed. There's lots
of new ways to do it, but you have to
have a perspective on how you're going
to deliver differently that's cutting
through in the niche you're in.
Essentially, you have to have an X
factor, and if you don't have that,
you'll never have the unique edge. All
right, so far we've covered building a
series, signature visual format, and
developing your unique edge. Now, step
four is going to get a lot more
tactical. And this is all about the
hook. The people that grow the fastest
have their hooks dialed to level 12.
There's just no way around it. Now, I've
made a million videos on hooks in the
past. If you want to go as deep as
possible, I've got a full 2-hour course
linked below if you want. I've got a ton
of other videos for free on YouTube. You
can go down the rabbit hole if you want.
There are three things all the best
people do in the hooks. You have to have
this if you want to go from zero to a
million. The first is the visual hook.
And this kind of extends into the
signature visual format. If you have
that solved like JB Copelan, that acts
as your visual hook. But if you don't
have that solved, you have to have the
visual hook solved. It has to act like a
stun gun that stops the scroll visually.
There's no way around it. You have to
have that. The second and third points
are speed to value and speed to
relatability. Speed to value just means
that the point at which the value is
mentioned is before the average person
scrolls. In short form land, you've got
about 2.5 seconds to signal value. That
doesn't mean all the value has to be
transferred in 2.5 seconds, but you've
got to insinuate or create curiosity
that something interesting is coming in
the first 2 seconds or you've lost them.
And this basically means you need to be
hitting your first value signal by the
second sentence or the viewer's going to
churn. Now, this matters because if a
viewer doesn't stick on the first video,
they're not going to finish it. If they
don't finish it, they're not going to
binge. If they don't binge, they're not
going to follow. So, that first video
and the first hook of the first video is
actually very critical at kickstarting
this whole flywheel. Now, your goal in
the hook, people don't talk about this,
so if you hear this again, it came from
me. The goal in the hook is to get two
hits of dopamine before they bounce. The
first hit is going to come from the
visual hook. When you first see the
visual, you're getting a hit of
dopamine. If it's compelling, the second
hit of dopamine is going to come from
your teasing of the value. If you can
get two hits of dopamine to fire in
someone's brain before they churn,
they'll stick. Now, the other point
about speed is speed to relatability.
One of the easiest hacks to get someone
to stick on a video is to build common
ground by showing them something they
already recognize by default. And this
could be a celebrity, it could be a
logo, it could be a brand, it could be
mentioning a name that they recognize,
something to build common ground
immediately because when the brain
notices something it's seen before, it
feels safe and comfortable. It's less
confused and therefore less anxious. It
almost like drops the guard of the brain
and lets the person watch for longer.
Now, the easiest way to do this speed
relatability is called cult hopping. And
I've talked about this before in a
couple other videos. Cole hopping is
intentionally using a celebrity or
brand. Like I mentioned, not forcing it
in where the script becomes more
confusing, but if you have a visual
describing the thing you're talking
about, use the celebrities face instead
of a rando's face and it will add that
relatability. A lot of Maxim's early
videos, the reason they crush, other
than like the great editing and
storytelling, was that he did interviews
with famous people. He was using those
interviews. And so when you saw the
famous person's face, ASAP Rocky, David
Gogggins, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon,
these famous interviews, you recognized
the face and immediately you're like, I
know who that is. And that that second
stun held you long enough to start
watching. The overall point of the hook
section is this. The people that really
grow the fastest, they have compressed
all the fluff and all the waste out of
the hook. They visually popped and
stunned the viewer and then they've
given two hits of dopamine, ideally with
some relatability in the first three
seconds. That helps get somebody to
watch the first video which kickstarts
the binge flywheel. All right, let's
move to step five. So far, we've covered
series, signature visual format, unique
edge, and hooks. Now, we're talking
about storytelling. And when I say
storytelling, I mean the way that you
sequence the points of your story in the
flow of the script or in the flow of the
video so the viewer can maximally
understand. Now, there's a lot of nuance
here. What I like to do is try to come
up with different types or buckets that
things fall into. So, I've identified
that there's 12 or 13 core storytelling
types that you see for short form video.
And those types are breakdown, case
study, problem solution, simple tip,
quick tutorial, full tutorial, listical,
ranking or rating, scenario, personal
update storytelling, day in the life
storytelling, or just general narrative
driven storytelling. Those are kind of
like the 12 buckets or archetypes of
different stories that you typically see
for short form video. Now, each of those
has kind of a rough script structure
that you can follow to execute. But the
key thing here is not to say there's one
that fits best for every niche. That's
not the answer. The key thing here is to
make sure you pick a storytelling
structure that best accentuates the
things you're great at. So, if you're
great at coming up with really creative,
like outside the box takes, then you
want to pick a storytelling structure
that gives you room to do that. Maybe
that's a scenario where you're like
pontificating on what you would do if
you were X or it's a breakdown where you
can kind of expand on your take at the
end. If you're super charismatic, but
you're not maybe great with visuals,
then you want to use something that's a
lot more low-fi that requires less
visuals. And that might be something
like a personal update or day in the
life, but like lowfi delivery. If your
information is more common, but you're
really really sick with editing and
visuals, then you want to pick a
storytelling style that can accentuate
the visual. So something like this
narrative-driven visual storytelling
might be the best arc. So the thing is
I've harped on in the past that you want
to make sure you pick the right
storytelling format that sequences your
points for maximum clarity. And that is
true, but also the best people that grow
zero to a million followers, they
accentuate their strengths and they hide
their weaknesses. Now, I will say in
this current era, end of 25, early 26,
the one storytelling framework that
seems to be working the best, that it's
the most popular for right now is this
narrative driven, visual, personal
storytelling archetype. And you can see
some of these examples here. Khloe Shu
does it. Carl Shakur has done it in the
past. This guy Kent went super viral for
doing it. It's not breakdowns. It's not
tutorials. It's this narrative style
where people are telling personal
stories, but then visualizing them
cinematically. If you want to grow as
fast as possible right now and you had
to pick one and you had like completely
even ability and even gifts across all
the buckets, this is the style that I
would try to hop on and ride. However,
it's very important to note you should
only execute a storytelling structure or
a visual format attempt if you have the
ability to make that video at a high
quality. If you can't edit or make great
visuals and you don't have an editor and
you don't have a way to close the gap,
don't try to make formats that require
amazing visuals. That's just a losing
proposition. Also, the meta for what
works best in storytelling changes all
the time every three to six months. So,
it was case studies before and before
that it was tips and before that it was
listicles. Now, it's this personal
storytelling. So, if you're trying to
chase the hot trend, this might not even
be the key meta in 6 months. So, really,
you want to pick the storytelling
structure and visual format that best
accentuates your ability that you
actually like making. That's the key.
And again, an easy way to take the
storytelling formats that your favorite
creators are doing and use them as
templates is in Sandcastles. We have a
feature called the vault. Anytime you
scroll through a video, you can click
and save the style to the vault. The
style will extract the full transcript
and basically create a preset template
of that story. Both the writing style
and the way the story is structured all
into one that lives in your vault so
that when you write scripts using sand
castles, you can oneclick apply that as
a layer on your scripts. Super helpful.
Obviously, you have to do the work to go
through and find the best examples that
work for you and your niche. But once
you find them, you have a one-click
style preset. All right, we've arrived
at step six, and this is posting
frequency, timing, and mindset. So, I'll
be super direct here. If you're trying
to go from 0 to 1 million followers in 6
months, that is 180 days. You're going
to want as many of those days to be
videos that get posted as possible. I
would post at least one video a day,
every single day, at the exact same time
for 7 days a week to give yourself the
best chance. Posting at the same time
has nothing to do with the algorithm.
It's more just to help keep you
accountable so you have a schedule that
you don't miss. Now, here's how I would
structure it. The first four to five
videos I would post would be great
attempts, but really just designed to
warm up the algorithm. I'd make sure
it's on target with my niche, so the
algorithm starts to understand what
types of videos my channel posts. Then,
after those first four to five warm-ups,
I would start with a batch of 10 on my
hero series. Whatever my best series
was, I would make 10 videos, one per
day, so you could iterate. Don't make
them in a batch before you actually look
and improve your skills. Make them one.
look at it. Two, look at it. Three, look
at it. And use that as a way to iterate.
So, I'd start with 10. I'd post all 10.
Then, I would try to figure out which of
those 10 drove the most followers for my
channel. And the way to do this on
Instagram, you can probably do it on Tik
Tok as well. Go to profile, go to
professional dashboard, go to content,
go to switch date filter. You can leave
it at 30 days when you have less than 30
posts, but after that, you can switch
it. And then go to sort by highest
follows. This will show you how many
followers each video drove. Here, we're
going from zero to a million followers.
So, if that's what you want, sort by
this metric and see which video did the
best. If you have one that outperformed
everything, study that intently and try
to take what you did on that one that
you did differently from the others and
apply that moving forward. If your
videos are not working off the bat,
chances are you are messing up one or
more of the other five things I
mentioned here. Either you don't have a
series, which means your idea filtering
is not good. You don't have a signature
visual format, so your visuals are not
popping off the feed. you don't have a
unique edge. So, what you're saying is
not interesting or you're not saying it
in an interesting way. Your hooks are
not dialed. So, they're not actually
hooking or your storytelling format is
not good. It's not clear to understand
what you're saying and it's not
compelling. One of those five, if not
all of those five, is the reason why
your videos are not working. I would do
this three times for 10 days each. So,
it's 30 days. After my first month, I
have three batches to look at. If after
30 days, none of them have broken out,
the reason why is probably one of two
things. the stuff you're saying is not
that interesting or the hooks are not
hooking. You can solve the visual format
a little bit later. As long as you have
an attempt at that, that would be good.
If you're just doing selfie shots,
obviously that's a problem. But
typically, it's going to be on the meat
of what you're saying, the substance or
the hook. Those are the reasons why it's
not working. Now, in order to get this
to work, 0 to million followers in 6
months, you need three things to happen.
One is what I call ignition via a super
share. I'm going to explain what that
means. Two is high bingeability. And
three is a very high comment rate of
ontarget comments. Let me explain each
one of those so you know what to look
for in the data. If you execute on all
five of these things and you're actually
dialed in and good, all you need to kick
off the flywheel from zero is one viral
breakout. I call this the igniter.
Typically, it's going to take five to 10
videos, regardless of how good you are,
to get that igniter to hit. World class
people, it'll still take four or five
videos. Once that igniter does hit,
you're going to rip past 5,000
followers, which will get you past the
minimum viable credibility line. Anyone
who's interested will follow. They won't
think you're too small. And then you're
going to scale compounding from there.
To help speed up that ignition process,
all you really need is one big account
to share your video on their stories.
Obviously, they can't have a BS account.
It has to be legit people. Or to reshare
on their feed. I call this a super
share. A share from a nobody is worth
one. A super share from a huge account
is worth a thousand. When you get a
super share, you get 20 to 50,000 new
eyes that see that video. You also get
the cosign from that person. That might
be all you need to go off to the races.
And this works because followers tend to
follow more followers. group thing
starts to kick in and people see the
cosign of oh if they followed I should
follow and then it's a runaway train. So
what this means that you need to get
from zero to 5k followers as soon as
possible below that line below 5K it
signals that you're a beginner account
and if somebody stumbled on it that the
value has not been validated. Once you
get past that line you're good. Often
times the way to get that igniter to
happen is through bingeability. And we
talked about this already. The goal is
to have one video lead to 10 in the same
session. The only way to have that
happen is to have 10 good ones on the
feed. Now, there's no way to measure
bingeability other than just looking at
if you see the same names come up in the
notifications on likes or in the
comments, but once you start seeing
this, you'll recognize something good is
about to happen. The other metric that's
a great signal is highinterest, high
intent comments. If you start to see a
lot of comments come in and they're not
trash, they're actually interested
viewers that are on target, that's a
good sign as well. So, in summary, this
really is the playbook. If you're trying
to go from zero to a million followers
on social media on Instagram, on
LinkedIn, on Tik Tok, this is the exact
thing I would do using short form video.
First, I'm coming up with a core
thematic series that works well to
target a painoint in my niche. And I'm
doing this because it gives me guard
rails on how to pick ideas that I can
link together to create that
bingeability. Second, I'm building a
signature visual format as early as I
can so that the visuals jump off the
page. The easiest way to do this with
the lowest lift is to take on the set.
If you're not hot and you don't have a
certain look that's working on its own,
build a set. If you got to go out in the
world and shoot a bunch of crazy shots
or do a bunch of crazy edits, it's hard
for beginners to do that. Anyone can
build a set that looks interesting or
use a green screen. So, that's the
easiest way to close the gap on that.
Three, I'm going to design my unique
edge positioning. And all that means is
I'm going to think what does the niche
have and what does the niche missing. Do
I know stuff in the niche that other
people don't know? If so, I'm hammering
that. If I don't know anything different
because the niche is crowded and
saturated, I'm just going to ask myself,
how could I present this information
differently? Could I use different
examples? Could I use different
delivery? Could I use different
metaphors? Could I borrow something from
another category that they're doing well
that my niche hasn't seen? Some unique
angle to own the positioning, own a
lane. You have to figure that out. All
three of those things I'm doing before I
make my first video. Now, the fourth
thing is the hook. Every single video I
make, starting, I'm going to make sure
the hook visuals are extremely dialed.
I'm going to watch the video in silence
and see the hook. If it doesn't hook me
relative to the feed, I'm going to redo
it. That has to be dialed. Two, the
speed to value has to be extremely high.
So, I'm going to cut all fluff in the
script. Three, if I can, I'm going to
use celebrities or relevant brands that
people know to increase the speed to
relatability. Can't always do that one
in a clean way. But speed to value and
hook visuals you for sure can optimize.
Five, I'm going to pick a storytelling
structure that matches with my visual
format that accentuates my abilities.
And all that means is if I'm good with
the visuals, I'm going to pick a
storytelling format where the visuals
will work. If I'm not good with the
visuals, I'm going to pick a
storytelling format where I can kind of
be myself via the spoken word or text.
I'm going to figure out what I'm good
at, figure out where my unique lane is
and try to pick a storytelling format
that best matches that. And then lastly,
I'm going to post daily and I'm going to
analyze in 10 video chunks. I'm going to
be militant about the data. The way you
go from zero to a million is by looking
at what was the one out of 10 that
performed better than everything else,
extracting the best pieces and using it
for your next 10. If you can do that,
the graph goes like this. If you don't
do that, the graph goes like this. And I
realize I did that opposite. You get the
point. The reality is 99.9% of people
will not achieve this zero to a million.
They just won't. And that's because A,
they're not going to put in the work
before to figure out the series, the
visual positioning, and kind of like the
unique edge. and B the harder part, they
just won't have the discipline to post
this many times in a row and look at the
data to iterate. That's just the
reality. But if you do have the
discipline to do those two things, this
would be the playbook to do it. Now, for
all the haters in my comments being
like, "Yo, bro, if this is the playbook,
why haven't you used the playbook to go
from zero to a million?" For all those
people in the comments, cuz I know
they'll be there. On my own channels, I
did not grow this fast. And that's
because all the things I just gave you
basically a university level course for
free. I had to learn month by [music]
month to acrue all that knowledge. So I
wasn't able cuz in the 6 months I was
trying to figure out why was my stuff
not working. If I started now I could
definitely go from 0 to a million in the
right niche. I don't really want to but
maybe I should just to prove that I can
do it. We'll stay tuned on that. All
right guys that is all I've got for this
video. As promised that was the playbook
to go from zero to a million. If you
don't have a huge niche, you probably
won't get to a million. But those those
mechanics will grow you way faster. Even
if you go from 15K to 200K in a small
niche where with a lucrative offer in
the back end, that will be insane. So,
those are universal principles that can
apply for faster growth for anyone. As
always, I'm trying to make videos that
are different in this space that really
break things down in a simple way. If
you like the way I talk about this and
you're a business owner, I recommend
joining Wavy World. It's completely
free. 38,000 other people, 65 other
trainings like this across YouTube and
short form, algorithms, ideas, editing,
like everything you need. It's all
broken down in this way. I got a link in
the description if you want to join
that. And if you don't, it's all good.
All right, we will see you guys on the
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