← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Brendan Kane - Generated 100M+ Followers for Clients | The Secret Algorithm Hack Nobody Talks About
01:18:33
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
Success story is a Square partner. Now, your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible cortado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding, expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Squares powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to dos and they unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgo/success to learn more, that's square.com go/success square. Meet you there.
- [00:58]
Brendan Cain
In today's world, it's really difficult to break through. You're talking about a world where there's 5 billion people on social media. When I started in 2005, there was less than 40 million people on social media. The amount of competition for attention is.
- [01:11]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
Pretty fierce in a world drowning in digital noise. One strategist found the formula to break through it all. Meet Brendan Cain, the pioneering force who engineered the first influencer campaign on YouTube. In 2007, he steered more than $200 million in marketing for brands like MTV, Paramount and global celebrities like Taylor Swift. Swift and Rihanna.
- [01:30]
Brendan Cain
We see everything go viral. Taxes, finance, nutrition, real estate. It doesn't matter this subject matter, it's more about the story that you're telling. One of the biggest mistakes people make, they're doing too much. They may have a meme card text on the top, they'll have captions on the bottom and then you'll be talking. If the viewer, the subconscious, doesn't understand which one I need to focus on, and thus it's going to move on.
- [01:51]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
His hook point method has unlocked over 60 billion views and helped generate 100 million plus followers. Followers across every platform. And in 30 days, he proved the power of his own strategy by gaining a million followers with no tricks, just strategy.
- [02:05]
Brendan Cain
You need to connect with the way that you're going to be telling stories. If it doesn't resonate with you, you're just going to burn yourself out or you're just going to quit after the first few times. The algorithms which control reach and distribution of content, they care about just one thing. That is holding people's attention. The longer people spend on these platforms, the more ads they conserve, the more profit they generate.
- [02:35]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
So one of my favorite quotes that you say, it's a very simple quote and I think it's probably to the majority of people listening, controversial, even though I know for you it's going to be something that is, it seems so obvious any subject matter can go viral. You said this many times. You've proven it out. Explain. Let's explain why for most people listening and watching, that's such a difficult idea to understand.
- [03:05]
Brendan Cain
I think it's because there's a lot of frustrated content creators, business owners that have tried to tackle social media or tackle any type of marketing, and it just really hasn't connected. And like, I feel their pain. Like, listen, I've been doing this for 20 years and like, if your content, like, like I, it's just like putting your heart, soul, you know, resources, energy, time into content or strategy. And it doesn't work. Like, I've been there, I know how that feels. So I think that that's where a lot of it comes from is you've, you've tried everything, but it just doesn't seem to work. And in today's world, it's really difficult to break through. I mean, you're talking about a world where there's 5 billion people on social media. When I started in 22,005, there's less than 40 million people on social media. Now we're talking about 5 billion. So the, the amount of competition for attention is pretty fierce. So a lot of that comes from just trying something and it just not resonating and breaking through. But as you, you know, mentioned in the quote, like we've worked in every industry or sector, we see everything go viral. Taxes go viral, finance goes viral, nutrition goes viral, real estate. It doesn't matter the subject matter, it's just, it's more about the story that you're telling around the subject matter that dictates whether it succeeds or fails.
- [04:27]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
When you think about replicating virality, which is really what you do for a living and that's, you know, what you've done successfully across literally every category you've worked with. When did you first realize that there was a little bit of a formula to go viral and it wasn't just.
- [04:40]
Brendan Cain
Chance, I think that. And I don't know the exact date, but to me. So I started my career in the, in the film industry making movies. And before going in the film industry, I went to film school. So I wanted to Be a movie producer. And when you go to film school, no matter what you want to do, whether you want to be an actor, a director, a screenwriter, or for me, a producer, they make you learn every discipline of making a movie. So I had to take acting classes, I had to take screenwriting classes, I had to learn how to light sets, I had to learn how to direct and edit. And the reason is there's all these small nuances that make up whether you tell a successful story or it flops. So when I started my career in the film industry, I worked for Academy Award winning producers and even them, like with like very veteran storytellers. If one small thing was off, let's just say they cast the wrong person, there was a conflict between the actor and the director, or between actors, or the cinematographer and director didn't get, get along or the dialogue was just off. One of these small things would just destroy the performance of the movie. And I'm sure a lot of people watching this like you've seen a bad movie, but you can't just put your finger on like why that is. So it's, it's pure storytelling. And the light bulb went off for me was. And I think most people forget or don't even see this, but social media is just a pure storytelling platform and the best storytellers win. And again, like in film, the same thing applies to social media. There's all these small little nuances that dictate whether the story that you're telling on social media is successful or not. So like the one thing that has kind of solidified that light bulb is we spend a ton of our time. We spend over 10,000 hours researching content on social media. And what we're looking for is like what we call formats. And these are like storytelling structures or blueprints. So like any movie of the past 100 years has used the same format, the three act structure. Now in social media, it doesn't use the three act structure, but there's hundreds of these. So that's where you start seeing the patterns of the people that are successful and successful on a repeated basis. They're finding their format, they're finding their structure and they're mastering the nuances within it. If you think about like Steven Spielberg, one of the best directors of our time, every movie he creates is using the three act structure. Now each movie feels distinctly different, like Jurassic park vs. ET or Jaws vs. Indiana Jones, but he has spent his career mastering the nuances within that format, within that structure to become a master storyteller. So it was just starting off my early career studying stories and. And now, you know, well into my career in social media. It just goes back to the same thing, is just studying stories and understanding the elements that equate to success and also, just as important, detract from success.
- [07:36]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
You know, this is interesting because, first of all, not a lot of content creators went through the education that you went through. So I understand how you can see the parallels between sort of how media has always been successful and how to translate content. Not the exact framework that makes a movie successful. Maybe there is some crossover, I don't know. I'm sure there's a little bit. But not the exact framework, but the patterns, right? There's. You can understand and identify the patterns in the content. You can replicate those. But it's interesting because I would have assumed that CMOs of big brands who have been in the game for a long enough period of time should have had some sort of understanding of what makes good media, what makes a good commercial, what makes a good hook. But I don't see very many CMOs of big brands take any experience and apply it well to social, like, outside of, like, I'm thinking Duolingo, Ryanair, Wendy's on Twitter. Like, there's a handful of brands that I can remember that they kill it, but 99.9% of brands don't. So what happened? Did, like, CMOs just throw out the rule book and they no longer applied any of their training to social media? Like, why does the majority of social media media suck?
- [08:49]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that, you know, when you talk about, like, brands in specific, there's. There's kind of two waves to it. Like, the first wave that I saw is it was just purely taking traditional assets and putting it on social media. So it's like taking a TV ad and putting on social media and expecting it to work. Or like, if it's an image, like a print ad and putting it on social media to work, then a majority of the brand started to wake up and say, no, we actually need to create, you know, original content specific for this platform. But the challenge in the second phase is that they're leveraging creative models and creative practices that were designed before social media. So they're. They're not doing it within the realm of social media. And the same thing goes with, like, a filmmaker. Like, filmmakers are design or creating content for that format for that audience that's sitting down in a movie theater. They've already made the decision. They bought the Ticket, they drove to the theater, they're sitting in the seat, they're going to sit there and watch it. And it also stays, you know, holds true at home. Now people can switch a little bit easier, but in, in the art of social media, literally you have billions of content to choose from. Like, literally, with a click, you can move on to the next one. Literally within a second, you move on to the next piece of content. So the creative models that they're using were designed for these other mediums, television and print and radio and things of that nature. Not understanding that you need to tweak the nuances of how to tell a story specific to these platforms. Because if you think about commercials that were created before social media and that creative process and model, you basically have the audience locked in. Like you had them locked in until TiVo came around and then Netflix and things of that nature. So it's more about the approach to creating content and just making these slight adjustments in terms of how people consume content, how to retain audiences and things of that nature.
- [10:45]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
What's the most important thing to unlearn? And let's, let's give examples of a small business and how they should start unlearning and redoing and revamping, but also maybe give some advice to the decision maker. In a very large corporation, if they watch your content, they love everything that you're saying, but they're like, I feel like my hands are tied. I can't do anything at all. Where do I start? Who do I speak to? What's the point, proof point that I have to put in front of my boss? Because getting them to buy into the idea and for the company to buy into the idea of our social sucks. Let's do better. That's the first barrier that you have to come across. You have to sort of get over.
- [11:23]
Brendan Cain
Yeah. So the, the first place to start in unlearning from previous experience is don't start with ideas. This is where everybody starts, is they're just like throwing ideas at the wall. They're creating content calendars of like, just ideas off the top of their head. Or they're chasing trends. You know, they're just, oh, there's a trend. Let's come up with an idea for that trend. The reason that doesn't work is there is no proven structure that you're inserting that into. So it's kind of like going back to making movies is if Steven Spielberg just came up with ideas and was just reinventing the way he told those stories each time instead of using the three act structure that's been used for 100 years, it would fall flat. So the first place to start is to say we're going to stop just coming up with ideas first. We're going to switch our mindset of just passive social media consumption to active consumption from an expert creator standpoint. And what we're going to start doing is start looking for the patterns. So the way that you look for the patterns is we, we created something at my company, Hook Point, the Hook Point Format Finder. So basically what you do is you see a viral video and you're like, hey, this viral video is kind of draws parallels to like a message that we could do or a structure that we could use. So what we do is we click on the creator's profile and we see have they used that same structure, that same format at least five or ten times. If they haven't, it's likely a trend or it's just some original thing that they are not going to be able to reproduce. And you keep doing that process over and over again until you find a format that has been used at least five to ten times successfully that you can insert your message into. So let me just kind of define like format and give some examples so that we can solidify it. So like a format is, is basically a blueprint. It's, it's a structure that has repeatable success that you can insert your message, your brand, your content into. So for example, just, and I'm just gonna give ones that most people have seen, they're not meant to be suggestions, but one that pretty much everybody's probably seen as man on the street is you approach a random stranger on the street and you interact with them. So I have a friend and we've done some work with him, Alex Stemp, who is a photographer and he approaches random strangers on the street, offers them a professional photo shoot, and the story unfolds. He's built an audience of 20 million people doing that. There's another really popular account now called the school of hard Knocks, which will go up and interview people. How did you make your first million dollars? Um, it's used for fitness. There's a guy body by Mark that he approaches fit people on the street and he says, hey, you look really fit. What did you do to get into shape? Um, so just to note that when we look at a format, it can be used for any type of subject matter. It's just the container. The interesting thing about a lot of formats is they were created before social media even existed. The man on the street format was invented in 1954 for late night television. So that's one example. Another example is called two characters, One light bulb, where it's the same person and they play two different characters. So like, Erica Kohlberg does this for legal things like what happens when your flight gets canceled, what happens when your AirPods break. Mark Tilbury teaches finance, uses that format a lot. You see a lot of people doing it that one. I don't know who invented it, but if you remember the first Austin Powers movie, that was before social media. You had Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, and they were going back and like doing very poignant conversations about society and politics and culture and things of that nature. So a lot of these formats have been used for decades. So the first step that we have to do is stop with ideas, start looking for formats, understanding which format is the right fit for you, and then study every element of that format. So what we do, we created a process that's called Gold, Silver and Bronze. It's like a proprietary process that we created to really decode why content goes viral at a very high level. What we'll do is let's just take man on the Street. We'll say we want to analyze. Why is the school of Hard Knocks so successful? Because we're thinking about doing a Man on the street format. So we'll open up a spreadsheet. We'll put like 5 or 10 of the high performers in that format. It's like 5 million views plus. Then we'll take 5 to 10 of the average performers and 5 to 10 of the low performers, which is like a few hundred thousand views or less. And what we're doing is we're cross analyzing, like what is happening in those high performers that's not showing up in those low performers and typically has nothing to do with the content, but more the context. So it could be things like pacing, facial expressions in that format. Reactions of the people are very important. It could be the environment that you should in. Captions, title cards, hooks. If it's YouTube, thumbnails. So the big unlearning starts with we're not just trying to create a content calendar. We're not just trying to find the next trend, we're not just trying to find the next idea. But we have to get to the roots of storytelling, and the roots of storytelling on social media is through formats.
- [16:27]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
You said that any kind of business can go viral. What about boring businesses? Because not everyone. You mentioned a few different styles of content. The man on the street, you know, two characters, one light bulb. There's some very boring businesses out there. Like, I'm trying to think of, like, the most boring one.
- [16:46]
Brendan Cain
Taxes.
- [16:47]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Taxes are pretty damn boring.
- [16:49]
Brendan Cain
Finance can be boring.
- [16:50]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Finance is usually pretty boring. Real estate's pretty boring. Is there, Is there any advice for people that have super boring businesses? Or is it the same process of studying what's viral and finding a way to take whatever boring business you own and then put it into that content style?
- [17:07]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, absolutely. So in the work that we do, we leverage what's called the generalist principle, which means how do we speak to our core audience, the audience that drives our business, but also at the same time, make our content interesting, digestible, and exciting for the average person. The person doesn't care or doesn't want, may not buy our products or services. And the question may be, well, why is that? Well, the algorithms which control reach and distribution of content, they care about just one thing, and that is holding people's attention. The longer people spend on these platforms, the more ads they can serve, the more profit they generate. Now because they have so much content to choose from, with billions and billions of pieces of content, there's like, over. Across all social platforms, there's a billion pieces of content posted every day. So they have so much choice. They want to find content that they could see to the most people and hold their attention for as long as possible. So our goal is, if we believe we have a boring business, is how do we still speak to our core audience, but make it accessible to our wider possible audience? So I'll give you examples of the industries you talked about. So we talk about taxes. There's a great YouTube channel called Clear Value Tax. They went viral during COVID because they were doing videos about stimulus checks. Like, and it's just a guy sitting behind a desk. But what he did is he. He tied onto really relevant, culturally relevant events that are happening in the news cycle that impacts their ability to make money. So during COVID everybody was super curious about, like, am I going to get a stimulus check? Because people were worrying about money and things of that nature. He generated millions and millions of views with that. We have, like, we have a client, Chris Cobb, that went viral with car insurance, and he uses a format that's called a visual metaphor that breaks down using, like, toy cars and characters, like, talking through the process of how insurance works. So that's one example. You talk about real estate. There's a perfect example with a real estate agent, Ryan Serhant, who is a Luxury real estate agent in Manhattan that represents properties that are valued at 15 to $250 million. So, and this is an example of how it actually translates into business. So he's playing the generalist principle by creating videos like, let me take you in a two over $7 million closet. Let me take you in a two over $250 million ranch. Now, what format was that before social media? The lifestyles of the rich and famous. So he's leveraging that. That format because he knows millions and millions of people want to see what a $7 million closet looks like. And because he generates tens of millions of views a month. If less than 1% of that audience is his core ideal target, he is killing his competition because that is so many more people than the. The competition are doing. And he's even said that he's sold a $30 million penthouse from a YouTube video. So what we have to look at is like, how do we make it interesting and accessible to anybody? So, like, an exercise that people could do is like, ask a grandmother. Ask a loved one that has no interest in your subject matter and, like, test hooks on them. You know, just study. You can even use ChatGPT as, like, just, how do I make. How do I make insurance, you know, more accessible? Like, we talked about Erica Kohlberg earlier, that is a lawyer. You know, she's a lawyer, and she breaks down the fine print, which is super unsexy, but the fine print of what happens when your Nike shoes rip. What type of warranties do you have? There's even a YouTube account called Legal Eagle that has millions of subscribers, and he'll break down, like, you know, the honey scam that's going on and things of that nature. So it's just. It's just thinking through a different lens of not just creating a niche piece of content for a niche audience.
- [20:51]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
So when somebody's thinking about creating content and they. And they look at some of the examples that you mentioned, all these people are huge personalities, too. Like, Ryan Serhant is a huge personality. So I don't want somebody to think that they have to be huge personalities, because I've even thought about this with, like, my podcast. I. I've seen how fast School of Hard Knocks has grown. And I've. And. And Simon Squibb does the man on the street interview as well. And I've thought, like, I should probably just do that. But, like, that's stressful to me. It's very stressful to walk up to a random stranger on the street and interview Them. It's like you get in your own head about it. So what's the strategy for somebody? And I don't even consider myself super introverted, but there's a lot of people that are me or even more introverted when it comes to social. What's the strategies that people should think about if they're more introverted, if they don't want to be running around like Ryan Sirhant? Are there ways for the person who is a little bit more. Has a little bit more anxiety about showing up on social to still be as successful as some of these creators?
- [21:52]
Brendan Cain
Absolutely. So just know that if you are looking at like a Man on the Street, Simon Squibb or School of Hard Knocks, and you're like, that gives me anxiety to do it, don't do it. There are hundreds of different ways, hundreds of different types of storytelling formats that you can leverage to be successful. So the way that I kind of coach people through, like, how do you choose the best direction, the best way to tell your stories? Choose your format, Your blueprint for success is, number one, start with what are the resources you have available to you? Like if you just have an iPhone, there are ways you can be successful with just an iPhone. You don't need to have necessarily a team or fancy equipment or any of those things. The second is what feels authentic and exciting to you. You need to connect with the way that you're going to be telling stories. If it doesn't resonate with you, just knock it out. Because what's going to happen is you're just going to burn yourself out or you're just going to quit after the first few times. It should be an enjoyable process. It should match your personality. It should be authentic. So you look somebody, like you said, Simon Squibb, you know, who has a massive personality and just loves engaging with all those people. And you can compare it to a content creator, Hunter Prosper, which does man on the street, but he's never on camera and he's just basically asking people emotionally charged questions about their life. Like, what was your first heartbreak? You know, what was your, you know, first date? Like, things like that. Or you can look at like Dan Ko, which a lot of his short form content were animation, you know, animation things. He's not even showing up there. So the thing that I would say is just because you see something working doesn't mean you have to do it. You can keep searching for something that works, that matches who you are in what you want to do in terms of your message, your content, and how you want to represent yourself in the world.
- [23:44]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
HubSpot is a success Story partner. Now think about listening to this podcast. Right now you're probably multitasking. You're probably catching 70 to 80% of what we're talking about. But let's flip that and imagine you're only catching 20%. That'd be crazy, right? It's really not a good use of your time if you only remember 20%.
- [24:00]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Of what we're talking about. But most businesses, most entrepreneurs are only.
- [24:04]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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- [24:17]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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- [24:21]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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- [24:26]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
To get 10 answers.
- [24:27]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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- [25:34]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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- [26:30]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
One more style of content that I see work. It seems well, but I'm curious about your opinion on it is reaction style content. So I've seen what. Who's the guy? Jordan? Is it Jordan the Stallion? Is that the guy? Yeah. So he finds a viral video and then clips it at the front. Then he switches to himself. It seems to have worked out for him. Is that a. Is that a good strategy for an introvert that doesn't? Or is that a lazy strategy? Does that build the same amount of trust with the audience as if you create the content yourself?
- [27:00]
Brendan Cain
So the answer is yes, it can do that. But 99% of people will fail with that format or any format because they skip the step of actually analyzing the format. So let's just say Jordan Stallion. Most people will look at it and be like, oh man, he's just reacting to content. I can do that. And then they tried. It doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because they haven't studied, like, what are the things that contribute to the unsuccessful people using it or the uns, even with him, the unsuccessful videos versus the successful ones. Because there's a lot of nuance in that. Like we've done reaction based content and one of the big things I'll tell you is it depends on the clip. You have to source the right clips in addition to like, what is the pacing, what is the editing, what are the first three seconds set up? Like, all these small elements contribute to it. So I'm not going to say it's. It's definitely not lazy because, like, to get good at it, it takes a lot of work. And there's another YouTuber, Dr. Mike, that blew up with this. It was real Dr. Reacts to Grey's Anatomy. Real doctor reacts to the good doctor. And it's a great format to leverage your expertise and respond to it. But it's not as easy as just like, oh, I'm just going to sit in front of a camera and react.
- [28:11]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
To something we're going deep into like the actual content. But the hardest thing for people to do is to stop people from scrolling on social media because if they don't stop the scroll right, then they're not going to watch the rest of the content. So what's the strategy to get somebody to stop scrolling? Is it a ridiculous hook in the first second? Like, how much time do we have? Is it a cover images? What is it that stops you from scrolling?
- [28:34]
Brendan Cain
So a lot of this happens on the subconscious level. So you're making decisions subconsciously about what you're going to walk before it gets to your conscious mind. So oftentimes you're scrolling past something not from a conscious basis, but from a subconscious basis. So one of the biggest mistakes people make with that is they're doing too much. So they don't have a clear visual hierarchy. So they may have a meme card text on the top, they'll have captions on the bottom and then you'll be talking. So there's three different things happening at the same time. And if, if the viewer doesn't understand, the subconscious doesn't understand which one I need to focus on. It feels like it's being left behind and thus it's going to move on. So that's one major mistake people make. The other big mistake and thing that you have to focus on is making sure that you're positioning what you're going to say as something unique and different. Because if people feel like that they've heard it before, even if you have a completely unique perspective on it, like we can just talk about like finances or meditation or business coaching, whatever subject matter, it's been covered billions of times. If you type into Google, there's billions of results that come up. So you just got to make sure that in those first few seconds they realize that it's going to be a unique story or unique spin on it. Because if they think they've heard it before, they're going to move on, they're going to scroll past. And that's where really solid hooks come in to set an expectation that you should stay to the end or even kind of seeding that there is going to be a final payoff. There is going to be something that's worthwhile at the end of that video.
- [30:12]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
But it's never about baiting somebody into the content. So is you have to like the hook has to sync up with what they're getting.
- [30:19]
Brendan Cain
Yeah. Clickbait, clickbait. Really doesn't work that much anymore. I think all of us are professional content consumers and we can really tell if something is, isn't going to match up, if it, if it feels too clickbaity. In addition, the algorithms are really paying attention to, yes, they're paying attention to how many people stop, but they're paying attention to how people, how people, how long people stay. So that first wave of audience that gets it, even if you kind of trick them into it, you'll see that massive drop off in the retention when they realize it's not going to pay off. And thus you're going to, you're going to stick, you're not going to stick around.
- [30:58]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Does shadow banning exist? Because I hear this a lot. I'm shadow banned. I'm in all these, I'm in all these group chats and they're like all these business leaders and whatnot. And some guy said, you know, I hit 256,000 followers on TikTok, incredible success. And I haven't been able to grow TikTok since. I must be shadowbanned. Does shadow banning exist? Is the algorithm against everyone? Or is it true that like most people's content, or at one point their content worked and then audience preferences changed and that's why they're no longer getting the reach they used to.
- [31:34]
Brendan Cain
99.9% of the time you're not being shadow banned. So that, that's just the simple truth. Are the algorithms out to get you? No, because if you think about it, we are the fuel that runs these platforms. This isn't like Netflix or Disney where they invest billions of dollars a year in original content. They rely on content creators like you, me, the people watching this to keep fueling this engine. Because if we all stop creating content tomorrow, they would have no business. So the number one thing is they want to see us succeed. Now, in rare circumstances, if you're, you know, spreading like very like harmful information, yes, they will shadow ban you or kick you off the account, but 99.9% of the businesses, it's not the case. Now the other thing I hear is they're suppressing my reach on purpose to get me to pay to boost my post for it. Well, if that's the case, well, how did Mr. Beast, a 13 year old in North Carolina, starting in his bedroom, become the most subscribed person on YouTube. Like all these people, you know, in, you know, some of these influencers, like Erica Kohlberg or Mark Tilbury or Dr. Mike or Graham Stephan, like even Joe Rogan like these people, they would be just favoring like Coca Cola and Apple and all these people that have the biggest budgets in the world to drive that audience. So the big thing to. To just relate to people is just like, it just comes down to the best storytellers win. And that previously there was less content, less content creators. Today there's more. So it's just more competitive for that attention in that success.
- [33:08]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
When you look at, you know, people like that that seem to seem to grow despite the competition, in my opinion, that's who you should at least learn a little bit from, because they're doing something that helps them grow. Now, when there's this many people on social, is that like a fair?
- [33:25]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, I would. I would definitely say that. Also, the other thing is cutting out people that are having success because of external factors. So you think about. And this isn't a new brand, but just think about Apple. They have like 30 million subscribers on. On YouTube. Like, they have. They spend over a billion dollars a year on advertising. Like, that's fueling that relationship. Or you think about actors like the Rock, who's one of the most follow people on Instagram. Like, is that generated organically? No. Now, I think the Rock does amazing job with content, but every movie he's in, they're spending a hundred million dollars promoting it. He's on every billboard, television station, magazine cover, things of that nature. So, yes, I think paying attention to people that are having success recently, but also are having success because of social media, not because of external factors. Now, we did some work with Stephen Bartlett's team, and they're, I mean, they are masters at understanding stories. Like, they get super deep into the research of things about the person, how to create that emotional connection, how to create emotional vulnerability, how to create trailers out of those clips and really drive it along. In addition, like, if they have a bad. A bad podcast, they're not going to post it. Like, and he's up front with the guests about it. Like, there needs to be some quality to. To build that relationship with the audience.
- [34:43]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Do you find that most people think their content's better than it is?
- [34:47]
Brendan Cain
Yes. And what I will say is, it's not that your content is bad. It's the way that you're delivering and packaging the content. So let me just give you an analogy. Is like, how many movies are there about World War II?
- [35:01]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
A lot.
- [35:02]
Brendan Cain
A ton. A ton. Now, there's clear ones that are amazing, and then there's clear ones that are just horrible, that are unwatchable. So it's not about the content about World War II that's bad. It's the story that's being told through it. And that's the same thing. And you can, you know, maybe people don't watch a lot of World War II movies. Let's talk about aliens. Like, there's a, a ton of movies about aliens or ghosts.
- [35:25]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
So first of all, everyone's seen Save a Private Ryan. Everyone's seen Alien, an Alien versus They've all seen these.
- [35:31]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, but there's. But again, it's like there's great movies and there's horrible movies. It's not about the content, and that's what I tell people. It's typically not about you. It's not that you're bad. It's not that your content's bad. It's just the context of how you're delivering it that's just not connecting. And if you just start making those tweaks and learning those things, that's where success can come from. Because I never will work with people and tell them to do something that has nothing to do with what they, what their business is, has nothing to do with them as an individual. I'm never going to do that. Tell them to do things they don't believe in. Like, you can be authentic to yourself and continue down the path in terms of your expertise, your. What you're trying to achieve. It's just the way that you go about it and deliver it that dictates success.
- [36:20]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
So what do you focus on when you have no budget, no resources, you're just getting started.
- [36:25]
Brendan Cain
So we just look for a format that matches where the person is. So to give you an example, we worked with a hand, doctor, Dr. Aaron Nance. Zero social media experience, zero followers, zero views. Didn't want to hire a big team. And we helped her find a format that matched her personality and the information that she wanted to share, which is called Little Misdiagnosed. And that's her TikTok channel name. But basically you will see it if you go to her TikTok channel. She's holding her phone, she's sitting in a corner and she's telling stories, like emotional stories about what happens in the ER room, what happens when people get misdiagnosed, what people happens with their health struggles. And through that she shares advice and things of that nature. Again, zero views, zero social media followers. Just an iPhone and she amassed an audience of 750,000 people. She has 31 videos with over a million views. Through that, she got a book deal with HarperCollins, a podcast deal in a reality TV show. So just with her cam or with her phone that she was able to do that. Now there's a lot of those formats out there. If you want to talk about podcast is maybe you start with a Zoom podcast. Maybe you start with man on the street and that form of podcast. Just start with the resources you have. Just make sure that you're actually studying the success of it. Like a recent podcast. It's not so recent, but it's more recent than others. Is the all in podcast, like, that's zoom. You know, they're just. They have a.
- [37:49]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
There's no production.
- [37:50]
Brendan Cain
Yeah. And they have. But the thing is, they have amazing chemistry. They create an experience with it. So you have to study and understand those elements. So it's. It's definitely not about how big your team is, how much equipment that you have, but it's more about your ability to tell a story. People with iPhones all around the world tell amazing stories and reach millions and millions of people.
- [38:12]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
When you think about looking at. So step one is start and study and get the data, and then you create some content, and you're trying to figure out, okay, am I on the right path? I don't expect the first piece of content that most people create that's in this new format to just knock it out of the park. If it does, great, but what are the things they should look for? What are the metrics? Let's talk about Instagram, because that's really where most people focus. Not many people focus on podcasts. People want to kill it on Instagram. Is it shares? Is it likes? Is it comments? Is it What. What's the thing that's sort of the positive signal that this is moving in the right direction?
- [38:48]
Brendan Cain
I would say that the number. The first place to start is just the number of views, because that will d. That will just demonstrate are the algorithms seeing what they want to see to syndicate it to more and more people. And typically, 9 out of 10 times engagement is going to follow views, unless you're using paid ads, which is. It's a little bit different. But the. The views, what they tell you is that you're able to stop the scroll and you're holding attention long enough. Now, I'm not talking about 10,000 views. I'm talking at least a few hundred thousand views and beyond. Now, if you have followed the process that I've outlined, which is for shifting from a passive to active mindset, understand that there's clear patterns. There's these storyteller formats out there that have repeatable success. You've taken the time to align with the format that matches you and then you study that format, the successful use cases versus the unsuccessful use cases. Then what you can do, if you have an unperform, underperforming video, you just take a reference of like a high performer using that same format and you put your content on one side of the screen, the high perform on the other side of the screen and you play them side by side and don't even pay attention to the content. People are oftentimes looking for apples to apples comparison, like people saying the exact same thing as me. Don't do that because it's highly unlikely that you're going to find that correlation. But when you play them side by side, and if you're truly honest with yourself, truly honest with yourself and open, you will start seeing the differences in the execution. So that could be things like, you know, the pacing, the facial expressions, the reactions, like the camera angles, the lighting, captions, hooks, title cards. But this simple exercise of taking a high performer with a specific storytelling format and yours with an underperformer and playing them side by side, you will see it. And the same thing works for podcasts. If you're creating a podcast, play it side by side with a Stephen Bartlett, a Lex Friedman, a Joe Rogan, an all in podcast, and pay attention to what is the experience that they're creating. What are they doing differently? Why does it feel different than what I'm doing, that you will learn so much through that process. If you're open to it, you consistently do it and you're honest with yourself.
- [41:08]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
And I think the other thing that I think people and I want you to speak on this because I suffer from this, as do probably most creators. They look at content that's performing and they can't understand why it's performing. I'll give you an example. I have no idea why Lex Friedman's podcast is so popular. I like him, but I can't sit through a three, four hour podcast and I don't find him exceptionally charismatic. But something about that draws people in. So if I don't understand it, it's hard for me to replicate it because I don't have conviction that I can do it well. And I also don't understand if I put that much energy and time and convince somebody to sit down with me for four hours and wear a suit with like a little tiny tie, I don't understand how that's going to drive the results.
- [41:51]
Brendan Cain
So there's a few things just in terms of Lex Freeman and he followed Joe Rogan's model. So one of the things that they do is they leverage clips and strong hooks around clips to get people introduced to the podcast and then it sparks interest for people to go into the long form. However, what those clips are also doing is it's building relationship with the audience. You know, when we talked about getting people to know like and trust you, if they know like and trust you, they ultimately want to consume more of your content. And there's a compounding effect. So you start on a small level. And even Steven Bartlett does this with his kind of like movie trailer esque, you know, you know, trailers on Instagram or TikTok that push into the long form is you're finding that spark, that reason that people should pay attention. So you think about even like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video or Disney plus. How many options do we have in terms of TV shows? It's, it's crazy. So what drives our initial interest? It's either the trailer or a friend telling us about it. And then once we've garnered that trust or that excitement, we're willing to sit and binge watch an entire show or watch a three or four hour podcast. But if you want to get into kind of like the difference, even just start with like clips, like watch a clip of like Lex Freeman. I'm talking like more the YouTube clips just to get the experience that he's doing versus what another podcaster is doing. And you will see and it's going to be very subtle. It's going to be subtle. I'm not going to be like there's going to be this glaring red flag that says, oh, this is different. But if you really study it, like even Lex, he is very dry in some ways, but he is a master at like pulling things out of people, like building that connection with the person, making you feel like you are in the room with him. And that is the same with Joe Rogan. You get lost in kind of these conversations, these experiences that they create through the screen. And I think that's where a lot of podcasts are lost. Like I spent two years working with Katie Couric when she moved to Yahoo. And there's just like so much nuance that goes into, you know, the, the interview type format on social media versus kind of the television experience.
- [44:08]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
I can't remember where I heard this, but somebody, I can't remember where who told me this, but somebody said you can either make content entertaining or educational, but you can't do both. Do you believe that to be true?
- [44:22]
Brendan Cain
I completely disagree. I'll just give you examples. You look at Veritasium. I think they have like 20 million subscribers about science. It's entertaining and educational. You look at Mark Rober, the former NASA engineer. Like, his is like super educational. It's like, can I make a. A pool out of jello? Which sounds like stupid, but like he gets into the science of like, how you actually do it. He, he and he. And he creates toys. It's so amazing. He created a toy company that helps kids understand engineering. So I definitely believe it can be educational and entertainment value at the same time.
- [44:57]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Over and over again.
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Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
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- [47:48]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Do you think that everything should entertaining and educational? Great. But do you also how do you how do you figure out how to tie your content into someone's emotion? So I can entertain them briefly for 30 seconds, I can teach them something new. But the next layer will be to make them feel emotionally connected with the content. And maybe in long form I find that to be a little bit easier because I can get into some deeper topics. But how do I figure out how to get emotionally connected to the audience in a 30 to 45 second clip so that they don't want to go anywhere else for content, they just want to come to me repeatedly again and again and again.
- [48:34]
Brendan Cain
So it's a great question. And the first thing to kind of point out is only 30% of the population views content and communicates through emotions. So we use a lot of behavioral psychology in the work that we do. So there's six different ways that people perceive and engage in content. This is coming from a data set of over 2 million profiles, communication assessment profiles. So the largest is emotion. It's 30% of the population so they're going to connect with you based upon how that clip emotionally makes you feel. The second largest subset of the population is fact based, it's 25%. So them, it's not about how it makes them feel, it's about data, information, timeframes. Does this make sense? 20% is fun based. They want just stimulation, they want to know it's going to be exciting, it's going to be engaging, it's going to take them on a wild ride. 10% is value based. So it's more about do I value this person's opinions, do I trust them? Other 10% is reflection based on. So they just, they basically just sit back and reflect. Like the best example, I don't know if you saw Oppenheimer with Albert Einstein, what is he doing during that movie? He's just staring out at a lake. And that's what Albert Einstein's personality was. He came up with his best theories by just reflecting on the world around him. And then the smallest subset of the population is action based.5%. So they don't think, they don't feel, they just go like Tom Cruise. This is his personality type. They're, they're fueled by incidents. So if you watch Mission Impossible, he's not talking about his feelings, he's not talking about opinions or logic. He is jumping off the side of buildings, hanging off the side of planes. So when we think about like how do we want to connect with people? Yes, emotion is the largest, but you don't need to go overboard. So I'll kind of give you an example as I did work with Keller Williams and the real estate and we did a deep analysis of how people sell homes and almost all of the marketing material is just fact based. It's like this house has five bedrooms on an acre of land, has a pool and has a nice backyard. So that's just 25% of the population. But how would I contextualize that single piece of content, the house in these six different ways? Well, I would still start with logic. I said this house has five bedrooms on an acre land, four bathrooms, a pool in the backyard. But can you imagine yourself sitting around this amazing fireplace on Christmas Eve? Like how is that going to feel when you're sitting with your kids opening presents? And I really believe that this is a great house for you because it's in the best school district and that pool in the backyard. You are going to have the craziest and funnest parties and all your friends are going to be super jealous. But I think you should act now because this is the best house on the market. So what I did is I take that same content and then just wrapped it in those different ways. So you don't necessarily have to go overboard in a certain direction. Now obviously there are certain, if you're talking about podcasts or any type of content, there's certain formats or ways that you can kind of manufacture it. Like I mentioned Hunter Prosper in the beginning. Like his format is all emotionally driven. Like asking people, what was your biggest heartbreak? What was your first love? What was your biggest disappointment? Those questions are going to automatically evoke that emotional connection. So there's certain things that you can look for in terms of like clips and things of that nature where you're again, manufacturing what do you want the effect of the viewer to have. And if you know that ahead of time, it makes it so much easier to kind of back into it. So if you're doing a podcast and you're kind of just doing research on it is like, just think about like, okay, what are some emotional responses I can get from this person? Or what are some topics that can have an emotionally charged connection with the audience?
- [52:19]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
You know, it's so funny because as you're walking me through that Keller Williams example, the way that you said, you know, imagine your family sitting around the fireplace enjoying crisp and this is how a good agent would sell a home. That's how, that's how they sell. They make you feel like it's a home before it's even yours. Now why would you apply a different strategy if on social you wouldn't. You do the exact same thing. You still tie that emotion into it. Why would you just lead with facts when you can actually wrap it into a story that resonates and to your point. So not every style of content has to speak to every style. Every kind of person. That's, that's really, that's, it's impossible really to speak to all those different categories of people. So you have to figure out which one you want or which are a few that you want to tap into.
- [53:08]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, typically we say focus on feelings, facts and fun because that's 75% of.
- [53:12]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
The population feeling facts and fun.
- [53:13]
Brendan Cain
So you're typically going to hit it like. Another example is I worked with Taylor Swift early on in her career and one of the. So she is the reason for her success. It's nobody else. Like, people have helped her along the way. But the reason that she so successful is she understood that one to one relationship with social media. She understood that social media is not a one to many platform. It's a one to one platform because people are consuming social media by themselves, on their phones, in their bed, and in the Uber, the bus, whatever. But as she scaled, because initially she tried to, you know, communicate with as many fans as possible, respond to comments, sign autographs and things of that nature. But as she scaled, it became more and more difficult. So what did she start doing? She would go to a fan's bridal shower, she would show up with Christmas presents on a doorstep and they would film the experience. And what she was subtly doing is saying, I care about all my fans. I love you all. I wish I could be with every single one of you, but this is just showing that I care. Now that's she's not saying that it's all done subtly and the fans just love her for it. That's why she has such die hard fans is because they truly believe that they care that she cares about them as an individual.
- [54:25]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
I saw Gary Vee spoke about this a lot. He spoke about when he was just starting out, he would stay up till 2, 3 in the morning responding to people on Twitter who would comment under his tweets. And I think that, I think that a lot of people have lost that. They look at social media as like a megaphone and they don't realize that there's real people on the other side of the screen.
- [54:44]
Brendan Cain
Yeah. And I think the biggest shift is, is the way that you communicate. It's shifting it from hey everybody to I want to tell you a story, like I want to connect with you as the individual, not hey, I want to connect with a million people. It's just looking at it from that perspective and approaching it as if you were creating, creating a video for a friend or creating a video for a single person. That's where a lot of that connection is built, that trust in that relationship.
- [55:14]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
When a business owner starts to create a whole bunch of content on social because again, most of the people you work with, they're, they're figuring out, how do I create a social audience for like a commercial objective? That's the goal, right? Not just to amass a whole bunch of fans. So I think that they understand that their social sucks and it could probably be done a little bit better and they could probably apply some of these ideas, but I don't think they have a clear line between creating the content and building an audience. And then how does this help me with my revenue or sales? And the fear is, okay, how much money do I Have to invest in this strategy before I see revenue on the other side. And I'm almost positive that's 100% conversations that you have. Because if you could say with absolute certainty, well, yeah, you put X amount of dollars in and you do it for three months or six months and then you're going to see X amount of dollars on the other side of it. It's a very easy sale. So how do you, how do you set the business owner up? Or what's the idea that you tell them so that they understand when they start doing this, this is going to happen. You're going to get so many fans, so many of those fans are going to turn into customers. Then eventually it's going to help your revenue. What's that path look like?
- [56:24]
Brendan Cain
So the first distinction is are we trying to make a sale or we trying to build an audience that will scale your brand and your company to the highest possible levels? If you're just trying to make a sale, and I'm not faulting people for it, just do paid ads, it's a lot easier now. There's nuances to it, but again that is a short term fix. Like because you're ultimately going to lose out to competition that are building an audience. Like building an audience is building people that know like and trust. You will basically buy anything that you want and you're not going to have to pay for ads or marketing because they are just exposed to you, want to support you along the way. So again, if we want to make a sale, just focus on paid ads. If you want to build an audience and really reach the highest potential of your brand and your company, you have to realize that your social media profile is not your website and your organic posts are not ads. People do not log onto social media to watch ads. They want to create a connection with people. Now as I've said is like the whole goal with organic is not about selling. It's getting people to know like and trust you. So let me give you a prime example of this in action. I'll actually give you a few because I just really want to solidify this point because it's a great question that most people miss. So we had a leather craftsman that sell leather goods. Amazing guy. Fell in love with creating leather goods. At the age of six. He created his first leather jacket. So when he grew up he wanted to create like leather handbags and purses and wallets. So when he came to us, he was stuck at 2000 followers, wasn't breaking through. Why? Because he was just Creating ads like through his organic content. So we helped him create a format that's called is it worth it? Where he'll basically take very expensive handbags, like a Chanel handbag deconstructed on screen, that's like thousands of dollars and tell you whether it's worth the money that you paid for it. So with this single format, he is not talking about his products. He's not, he doesn't have call to action. He exploded. He's over 2.3 million followers across his social media channels. He has over 94 videos with a million views. So, well, how does that translate into business? He is getting so much exposure, he's earning so much trust with the audience because he's building this connection that ultimately people want to buy from him because he's expressing his expertise. So he just has a link in his bio that you can click on it to find out more information about his products. And previously he was spending money on pay per click ads like playing the paid model. He's only generating 10,000 visitors a month. Once this took off, it jumped to 100,000 visitors. And his most expensive products, the ones that were custom handmade, thousands of dollars. He can't keep them on the shelf. So another example is a dentist. Again, another like unsexy subject matter. Again, he came to us, Dr. Jordan Davis out of Utah, and he was creating commercials and it wasn't breaking through, it wasn't resonating. So he helped them design a format that is him breaking down celebrity teeth. Like how would he would fix like celebrity veneers? Like he has one with Emily Blunt has 21 million views again through the format. He exploded. He's not selling his dental practice or any of that stuff that he's opening more dental practices Then a hairstylist, Regina Roth in Florida, you know, she's struggling to make $3,000 a month. She had one viral video that was a reveal of a client, generated 17 million views. She's booked out a year in advance from one video with 17 million views and it went from 3,000 to 6,16,000 in revenue per month. Again, there's no calls to action. It's not buy my products, buy my service now. And I know it's a bit difficult because it's, you know, as a business owner, you like, you need to generate revenue, you need to keep the lights on. So I don't say like, don't do those other things from like a short term win perspective. But if you're getting serious about building an audience, like you need to Give it time to build that relationship. Like, like. The other analogy I could give you is, like, how long? Like, you just. Let's just say that we meet somebody today for the first time. How long would it take before you ask them to loan you some money? It's not going to happen in the first day.
- [60:31]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
No. If we're friends and years later, when shit's not going so well for me.
- [60:35]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
Yeah, exactly.
- [60:36]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
It's not right away.
- [60:37]
Brendan Cain
Exactly. And it's the same thing as you're building a relationship with your audience. Like, you look at Mr. Beast like his company is now said to be valued at $5 billion. His company, Feastables, which is the fastest selling chocolate bar in the world, is estimated to do 500 million in revenue this year. Why? Because he spent years building this massive relationship with people all over the world that just want to support him because they like him. They like the content and what he does, not because he's trying to sell it to them.
- [61:06]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
When you think about. When you think about paid, not for conversions, but paid as a strategy to help sort of augment the content you're already putting out. Because every platform has boost or promote or run ads towards, like, content. Is that ever part of someone's strategy? Should they put money towards driving traffic to a post? Does that help build an audience? I mean, even on YouTube now they have a little promote button where you. I've tried it. It doesn't work very well. I see. Like the listener retention is shit when you do that. Does anything actually work in terms of paid or is it always going to be just a pure organic play?
- [61:48]
Brendan Cain
So I would say, if we're talking about organic content, I would say paid comes into play. If you have a piece of content that's already proven to work and it's plateaued and you want to push it to that next level. If you're trying to drive paid to sell something, just run dark ads and you can retarget the audience that consumes. So I would focus more on, like, how do I pull my retention up? How do I make my content as good as possible? Because you're not going to fix it with paid. Paid is not going to make it. You know, running paid ads is not going to fix your ability to become a better, better storyteller. So that's, that's the way that I would look at it.
- [62:26]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
No, that's smart. And when you think about all the different creators out there that people look at as an example of good content, this is something that I want you to speak on because it's, it's real. And I think that it's a minefield out there in terms of creators who actually create good content and then creators who fake a lot of their engagement and a lot of their reach. So as a business owner, I'm trying to find examples of good content. What's the signal that somebody has built a real good audience versus like garbage fake engagement.
- [62:58]
Brendan Cain
So I think that there's a few things that you can look at number like basically the number of followers. It's getting difficult. Like if you're excelling past like 3,4 million people of an audience. But then you could just look at the correlation of views to engagement on content that will tell you but also is just, you can watch the content yourself and tell like, is it a good story? Like, are you connecting with it? If there's something that feels off to it, it may not be fake, it may not be any of those things. Just move on to the next one. Like, because you want to. If you're going to go and find lessons to learn formats to, to create like you want to feel that connection, be like, wow, this person is really onto something. And oftentimes that goes beyond the numbers. Obviously the numbers are in a barometer of like success. But if the content's not resonating with you, then you know, I would just kind of move on to something else.
- [63:53]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
What's. You've looked at so many different kinds of formats. You mentioned a few here. What's one of the ones that still sort of fascinates you or that you get most excited about? What is a certain style of content that you think like, wow, this is like a game changer, so to speak. Is there anyone in particular stands out in your head?
- [64:11]
Brendan Cain
I think long form YouTube is a game changer for a brand once they've kind of mastered storytelling. Because if you think about long form versus short form, you're building a longer relationship. 10, 20, 30 minutes with an audience versus, you know, short form. But it's again, again it's, it's super interesting. The game changing ones are ones that were invented before social media. So man on the street, 1954, late night television, you know, two characters, one light bulb. Austin Bowers, you know, Ryan Sirhant, you know, luxury, the, the lifestyles of rich and famous. Like that's what fascinates me is the correlation between history of storytelling and what works today. Like there's always, well, it ties into.
- [64:55]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Human psychology and human psychology is forever. Yes, it's never changing.
- [64:58]
Brendan Cain
And storytelling has been Been around since the caveman, like you know, drawing stories on, on, on cave walls.
- [65:04]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
But do you think that if somebody's just starting out out of all the different types of content and we can. We didn't even talk about non video content like Twitter substack, like newsletter. All you did say start where you're comfortable, but say somebody's like, okay, I can do any of it. Where should they start? Short form, long form, written. What's the.
- [65:25]
Brendan Cain
I mean, long form is going to pay the most dividends, but it's the hardest to execute. I would just make sure that you at least understand the principles of storytelling through these platforms. And I always recommend starting with short form because you can get your feet under you. But if you feel like you have the confidence and the knowledge and you've spent the time researching it, then yeah, try and go for, for long form YouTube videos. But like, again, if you want to write, you can write. Like, I also have been part of businesses that are successful off social media. Like you don't necessarily need social media now. Social media gives you an edge and you can scale things a lot bigger and faster. But again, I'm not trying to push anybody into any specific direction.
- [66:06]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
I think it. Listen, at the end of the day, like I was going to ask you, but I know the answer, like I was going to ask you, is it quantity or quality? But it's always quality. And I think that that idea of not just putting out content for content's sake, but being more purposeful with it, that's really one of the most important ideas.
- [66:24]
Brendan Cain
And learning.
- [66:25]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Take away. Yeah. And learning and learning and like have those feedback loops. I feel like people just put out content just to put out content.
- [66:33]
Brendan Cain
Well, they do. It's. And one of the big mistakes that they do is batch producing content. If you think about like, let's just say that we're a chef and we have a new recipe for baking cakes and we bake all 10 cakes at the same time and we fold and they're all in the oven and we pull out that first baked cake and it's too dry. Well, what do you do? Like you've got nine other in the oven where you're just gonna have to throw them out and start it back over. Versus like, let's say that we're gonna create the perfect pasta dish and we're just gonna perfect that sauce and we just keep, you know, adding in ingredients, tasting, adding in ingredients and tasting, adding like that is the analogy because like people batch produce, they put the first Video out and it doesn't work well, what do you do with the other nine? You're just. It's human behavior. You spent the time, so you're going to put it up there. And it doesn't create that opportunity for learning with each one. As in the same thing with, like, tasting with the pasta sauce is like, just take one step at a time, learn one step at a time. And then as you learn and have success and you understand how and why things work, then you can move to more frequency and pushing out more content.
- [67:37]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Out of all the clients you've worked with, this is an unfair question, because people ask me this question about, you know, who's my favorite podcast guest? And I always tell them to F off because I can't answer that. But think about sort of the biggest journey that one of your clients has been on. I want you to walk through that story, your favorite story of zero expertise, zero social media presence, to where have they gone after working with you?
- [68:03]
Brendan Cain
Yeah, I would say Tanner Leatherstein was made. Now, he wasn't at zero. He was at, like 2000. But he is a perfect example because he didn't feel comfortable on camera. Like, he's like, I. I don't know if I really want to be on camera. And even if you watch his videos today, he's not like a Gary V or a Simon Squibb where he jumps off the screen. But with that, again, we, we worked with him to find an avenue that matched his passion. Like we were talking about earlier. Like, your passion, your authenticity, your connection to the material is super important. And when the is it worth it for him format came up of taking a, you know, $1,000 Chanel handbag, deconstructing on screen and telling you each little element, like, this is good. This isn't good. This is overpriced. This is not overpriced. You could see the passion going through the screen. Not because he's over inflated in terms of his personality, but just sharing that expertise and insight. And again, if you watch the videos now, it's not like a Gary Vee type thing, but that massive connection that he built with the audience to scaling to 2.3 million people around the world is amazing. And the most amazing thing is the fashion industry is scared of him. Like, they even, they even invited him to Paris Fashion Week, like, in parties with, like, Kendall Jenners and things like that, because they don't. They're scared that he's gonna, like, break down his bags and stuff. Like, and the amazing thing about him is he will not take any product deals. Like to page, do, post. If you want him to break down the product, he makes you sign an agreement saying that you're gonna accept whatever video. And then he also says, you cannot give me the product for free. I'm going to buy the product and I'm going to do it as a secret shopper, so you won't know it's me. So it's just that level of authenticity, that connection of a leather craftsman, like somebody super passionate, but not necessarily like a sexy subject matter, could build a connection, build that much influence by just really being himself and finding that vehicle to express his genius.
- [70:11]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Last, last thought on. On that particular case study, because that I think is your most popular YouTube video ever, if I'm not mistaken, where you broke that down and you broke. If somebody sort of goes down the rabbit hole and they research you and they find that video, they're going to watch that video and they're going to see you discuss. I think there's five.
- [70:28]
Brendan Cain
Five steps.
- [70:29]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Five steps.
- [70:30]
Brendan Cain
The first step is taking a shift, a mindset shift, from just endlessly scrolling to an expert creator mindset, understanding that there is such thing as a storytelling format, which again, is a blueprint for repeatable success. It's a structure that has proven to work time and time again that you can insert your message and product into. So once you've made that mindset shift, you can move to step two, which is selecting and then analyzing your format. So you want to select the right format for you. What is the resources that you have? Even if you have an iPhone, there's formats for you. So you don't need to go beyond your resources. Number two, which format works best for you? What feels great. We talked, both of us, man, on the street. Not really our kind of deal. So it needs to fit authentically. And again, we've done 10,000 hours of research, analyzed over 300 different formats, so there are plenty to choose from. Number three is once you have the the. Or number two, once you have the format, then you have to analyze it. So as I mentioned before, we have gold, silver, bronze. Our analysis process, you cross analyze the high performers in that format versus the low performers and look at what are the elements that drive success in the high performers versus low performers. So these things can be facial expressions, reactions, captions, title cards. There's like over 21 that we kind of use to analyze content. Once you've done that, number three is coming up with ideas, ideation. So format is the vehicle that makes it super easy to come up with ideas like the is it worth it format with Tanner Leathersting breaking down high price leather goods like Chanel handbags, Prada handbags. It makes it super easy. So like, you know, the first video Chanel, the second video is Prada. The third week is Louis Vuitton. Like it makes it so much easier to create high performing ideas because it's a vehicle for it. And then number four is you produce one video at a time. Because you want to produce one video at a time so that you learn with each one. And then five is you analyze the performance. And again with this model, if it doesn't perform, we have the hook point mirror test where you take the low performer, your video against a high performer and you analyze them against each other to see what the difference is.
- [72:47]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Last question. What happens if you're creating a type of content? Because this isn't. This is something that I notice with my content. The content that I create that performs the best is not the content that's actually accomplishing the objective that I want my content to accomplish. So I'll give you a very. My. My clips from my podcast, that's what I want to perform. And they do okay, but they do not do as well as the little graphic images that are hyper shareable. They're a little tweet sort of, you know, square images. So I'm going through a process of, okay, so then how do I. I don't want to stop the thing that drives the most engagement on my page on Instagram, but I also want to make the podcast clips the priority because that's really my business. So in that case, would you keep the content that's going viral and test the other at the same time and then just optimize slowly?
- [73:44]
Brendan Cain
If it's. If it's serving a purpose and it's driving success for you, don't stop it. Yeah, you can keep going with it. But the thing that I would say is in terms of refining the clips is again, is if you have high performers, you can just do the cross analysis of your own high performance. There's low performers. Or just look at other people, look at Stephen Bartlett, look at somebody else that's doing clips on Instagram or YouTube shorts and just do that analysis. But no, you don't. If something is working for you, why stop it? You don't need to stop it. But don't be complacent with that. If there's larger kind of opportunities to scale.
- [74:16]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Smart. Any last words of wisdom? Things that I didn't ask you about with content social that you think you want to leave the audience with.
- [74:23]
Brendan Cain
I would just say, like, if you've struggled with success and like you've put your time, energy and resources into something and it doesn't work, I feel your pain. But I'm just here to tell you it's not luck and you can succeed even though there's so much competition. Everything that we've Talked about today, 99% of people creating content are not following it. So even though it's a severely competitive marketplace, don't get frustrated. Because the beautiful thing is all of the answers are out there. Like, we have billions of data points available to us for absolutely free. Nobody is charging us for it. You can go and do the homework and study and just focus on one thing. Draw everything out and just focus on how to become a better storyteller. Don't worry about algorithm changes or shifts or any of that stuff. Just become the best storyteller you can and you will succeed.
- [75:11]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Amazing. Where can people connect with you? Where do you want to send them?
- [75:15]
Brendan Cain
If they want to learn more about our process and our company, they can go to hookpoint.com if they want to get access to my third book, the guide to Going Viral, which dives deep into this methodology, they can get it for free by going to hookpoint.com forward/clary. I respond to DMS on Instagram, LinkedIn, but those are some places amazing.
- [75:37]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
I always ask one question that ended out and this has been like a very tactical podcast, so I appreciate it. But one thing, I mean, you've built an incredible career, a massive amount of success. If you were going to sort of pass on one lesson that you've learned over your whole career, it doesn't have to even be social media related. Just one lesson that you'd want to pass on to your kids after sort of achieving, you know, I would say you're in the 0.001% of agency, owner of thought leader and social media, and you've built an entire career around that. What would be the lesson for career life that you'd want to pass on to your children?
- [76:14]
Brendan Cain
I would say it's. It's patience and persistence. Like just be patient, patient with the process. As long as you are constantly learning, constantly trying to strive for new answers, not getting overly deflated with failures, you know, failures, you do need to sit with it for some period of time and like really feel it. But like it's just keep pushing yourself, keep trying to be the best person you can be, trying to kind of learn as much as possible and be patient with that process. You know, you will see some people over the course of your life that hit it really quick. You will see some that will take decades to hit it. But definitively, and I'm sure, you know, a lot of people is like, you can spot the people that are going to be successful. You may not be able to put the pulse on when they will be successful and when it hits. But it's all about that mindset of just being patient, constantly learning, constantly pushing yourself and just being persistent with that process that will ultimately lead to the success that you're looking for. And that applies in personal life, it applies to social media, applies to anything that you do. But that's really the key that I would say.
- [77:32]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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- [79:13]
Podcast Co-host / Interviewer
Now.
- [79:13]
Podcast Host (Sponsor Announcer)
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