Something everybody likes:
Spending minimal time and effort and getting excellent results.
Over the last two weeks I did this with my videos.
I got 7 million views across TikTok and Instagram Reels, grew my following, increased email subs to my newsletter, and increased my recognition (because I deliberately put my face in everything).
What I did
I got great subject matter from two sources.
The first was Google’s conversational AI, Bard.
Previously, I made this high-performing TikTok (below) where I narrated the “How To Start a Movement” video from 13 years ago.
@build_in_public How to start a movement. #successstory #startuptips #marketingtips #entrepreneurship ♬ A Day in My Life - Soft boy
Bard took the video I sent, searched YouTube for similar videos, and recommended them.
A few minutes into the first recommended video, I heard a hilarious marketing fail from Fiji Water.
I made this video about it.
@build_in_public We drink bottled water because of the marketing and convenience. But this is a hilarious story of how Fiji's marketing shed light on the fact that bottled water is, in many ways, worse than tap. #marketingfail #marketingstory #advertising #business101 ♬ MONACO - Bad Bunny
It went viral.
I put it onto Instagram Reels with this trick.
It went viral again.
Great.
Bard’s next recommended video – Steve Jobs talking about the Got Milk campaign.
Just like the first one, I heard some excellent subject matter a few minutes into the video. I turned that into a TikTok. It went viral.
@build_in_public Looking at the "Got Milk?" campaign through the eyes of Steve Jobs. "Got Milk doesn't even talk about the product. Matter of fact, it focuses on the absence of the product." -Jobs #copywriting #advertising #marketing #stevejobs ♬ Cry by Cigarettes After ___ - Your Audio Girl🎧💕
Conversational AI isn’t my only source for great content
I’m a fan of Shaan Puri’s newsletter, Small Boy.
Every Tuesday, he shares the five most entertaining tweets he sees (usually about marketing and business) and a sentence or two of his commentary.
A trick for identifying high-performing subject matter
Here’s an easy way to identify high-performing subject matter.
Look at the view count to follower ratio. If a piece of content has a lot of views compared to how many followers the person has, then it’s viral subject matter.
In this case, Shaan shared:
– One tweet with 3.5 million views for only 34,100 followers.
– One tweet with 20.1 million views for 201,500 followers.
Ratios check out.
I made videos on both.
I spent 10 minutes on each of the two videos.
They both went viral on TikTok.
@build_in_public This guy's dentist is in Texas but his receptionist is in the Philippines. Is this the future of outsourcing? Will we see this more often over the coming years? Is this a good idea? A bad idea? What do you think? #outsourcing #smallbusinessowner #staffing #Entrepreneur ♬ Vintage - Cōrt
They both went viral on Instagram.
And they’re some of my best-performing YouTube Shorts.
Content telephone
Basically, what happened is:
Two posts on TwitterX went viral.
Shaan shared these posts in his newsletter with a few sentences of commentary.
This led to me sharing the same posts with a few sentences of my own commentary.
People started resharing my videos and doing their own commentary on my videos.
Or with Bard… I asked Bard to give me content similar to one video that did well.
It took more previously well-performing videos and gave those to me.
I made videos about them. They performed well again.
All of this enforced my brand to millions of qualified viewers (marketing and business viewers).
What you can do
Pretty simple.
Find the people sharing the best content in your niche.
Newsletters, Instagram accounts, TikTok accounts, and TwitterX accounts are the places to look.
When these accounts have something that gets way more views than typical for how many followers the account has, make content about it.
Original content is excellent, too, but this is an effective trick for subject matter when you’re not feeling the juice.
Even the most viral content hasn’t been seen by everybody
Remember, there are still people out there who haven’t seen Gangnam Style.
I’ve met tons of people who don’t know who MrBeast is.
T-Series is the most subscribed YouTube channel, with 256 million followers and 243 billion views. I hadn’t heard of them or seen any of their videos until a few weeks ago.
It’s a big world we live in.
Get subject matter with an outsized ratio.
Share it yourself.
Enjoy the growth.
