20:08Maria Wendt · Listicle
How I Gained 400K Instagram Followers in 22 Months
Seven blunt operating rules behind a 400,000-follower, 22-month Instagram growth run — starting with getting paid to post.
April 3rd 2025The argument in one line.
Going viral reliably is not a hook or a hashtag, it's producing content that is objectively remarkable for your specific audience at roughly 100 times your normal view count, then repeating the pattern you find in your own top performers.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A creator with some posting history who wants a repeatable process for triggering reach instead of hoping for one lucky viral hit.
- Someone building a personal brand on Instagram Reels who wants a concrete method for auditing their own top five videos for hidden patterns.
- A coach or service-based creator outside the typical marketing/business niche who wants proof this framework transfers to unrelated industries.
- Anyone who has gone viral once, gotten skeptics or trolls in the comments, and wants a plan for handling both without losing followers.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for tactics specific to TikTok, YouTube long-form, or paid ads — this is Instagram Reels-centric.
- You have zero existing content and want to skip straight to production tricks — several sections explicitly tell brand-new accounts to skip ahead.
The full version, fast.
The video argues that going viral is a repeatable system, not luck: define 'viral for you' as roughly 100 times your normal view count, audit your own top five posts for shared patterns (format, caption style, setting), then build content that is genuinely remarkable rather than merely well-hooked. The single biggest mistake is pulling inspiration only from your own industry, which guarantees generic content; borrowing ideas from unrelated niches is what makes a creator stand out. Practical execution comes down to asking 'what would make this 5% more visually engaging' rather than chasing a 10x jump, using cheap fixes like the color blue, better lighting, and visual completion hooks. Once it works, separate trolls (ignore) from skeptics (win over with escalating proof).
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00:00 – 01:50
01 · Intro & Proof
Promises a repeatable framework, not hype, and opens with four students in unrelated industries who each went viral using it.
01:50 – 05:30
02 · Viral vs. Viral-For-You
Draws the difference between a one-off random spike and a repeatable 'viral for you' spike defined as roughly 100x your normal views, adjusted down as the account grows.
05:30 – 09:30
03 · Audit Your Top Five
Instructs viewers with existing content to pull their five highest-performing videos as the starting point; brand-new accounts should skip this step.
09:30 – 14:00
04 · Live Reel Audit (Screen-Share)
Screen-shares her own top five reels and lists commonalities: POV framing, social proof, matching caption style, face on camera, filmed inside her house.
14:00 – 19:10
05 · The Remarkable Thesis
States that every viral post shares one trait — it's objectively remarkable — and uses her 60-page free guide and income-proof reels as examples.
19:10 – 26:20
06 · ChatGPT Idea Prompt
Demonstrates a specific ChatGPT prompt for generating 20 'advanced and unique' remarkable content ideas pulled from unrelated industries.
26:20 – 30:40
07 · Steal From Other Industries
Names the single biggest mistake creators make — sourcing inspiration only from their own niche — and shows a POV reel format borrowed from unrelated trends.
30:40 – 33:40
08 · The 5% Question
Reframes the goal from a scary 100x jump to the smaller, repeatable question: what would make this one piece 5% more visually engaging?
33:40 – 38:30
09 · Practical 5% Tips
Covers cheap, concrete execution fixes: the color blue, bright over muted colors, a $29 ring-light-and-pillowcase lighting rig, and completion-based visual hooks.
38:30 – 43:20
10 · Trolls vs. Skeptics
Separates trolls (ignore) from skeptics (win over with escalating proof), including her own income-claim pushback and a story about looks-based troll comments.
43:20 – 47:40
11 · Templates Pitch
Pitches her paid 55-template 'Viral Instagram Content Treasure Chest' pack with student results, framed as an optional shortcut around the free framework just taught.
47:40 – 48:34
12 · Sign-off
Closes with the description link and a direct thank-you to viewers who stayed to the end.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A single viral reel that never repeats isn't monetizable — the real goal is 'viral for you,' a repeatable spike roughly 100 times your normal view count.
- As an account grows, the multiplier should shrink; a creator with 250,000 followers should recalibrate toward 10-20x rather than 100x.
- Every reel that goes viral shares one trait: it is objectively remarkable, not merely well-hooked or well-hashtagged.
- Reviewing your own top five highest-performing videos and listing their commonalities reveals a personal leverage-point formula no outside guide can hand you.
- The single biggest mistake creators make is pulling video inspiration only from their own industry, which produces the same tired content everyone else in that niche already makes.
- Asking 'what would make this 5% more visually engaging' is a lower-anxiety substitute for chasing a 100x jump in views on every single post.
- The color blue is documented in decades-old advertising literature as a color that performs better on camera, independent of platform or era.
- A $29 ring light with a pillowcase draped over it for diffusion was the entire lighting setup behind a studio-quality look.
- Visual hooks work by exploiting the brain's need to see a task finished — buttoning a shirt, cracking a seltzer can, or putting in an earring mid-sentence all trigger the same completion-seeking attention.
- Trolls should be ignored entirely, but skeptics can be converted into loyal followers by answering their specific objection with escalating proof: screenshots, then video walkthroughs, then bank statements, then tax filings.
- Comments should never be deleted, even hostile ones — leaving them up lets the commenter's own behavior look bad without a response.
- Prompting an AI for 'advanced and unique' reel ideas 'from industries not related to' your niche produces markedly less generic output than a plain brainstorm request.
Virality is a repeatable audit-and-remarkable-content system, not a lucky hook.
WHAT TO LEARN
Reliable reach comes from defining your own viral threshold, studying your own top performers for patterns, and deliberately building remarkable content sourced from outside your niche.
02Viral vs. Viral-For-You
- Chasing a single massive viral spike is a trap: one 15-million-view fluke that never repeats builds no audience and makes no money.
- Calculate your own viral threshold as roughly 100 times your typical view count, not an arbitrary huge number.
- Recalibrate the multiplier down as your account grows — a creator with hundreds of thousands of followers should aim for 10-20x, not 100x.
03Audit Your Top Five
- If you already have posted content, pull your five highest-performing videos before trying anything new.
- New accounts with no posting history should skip the audit step entirely and move straight to building remarkable content.
- Even a small margin, such as 250 views versus a 200-view average, still counts as a top performer worth studying at a small-account stage.
04Live Reel Audit (Screen-Share)
- List the concrete commonalities across your top five videos: format, caption style, wardrobe, and setting, not just topic.
- Two visually similar reels used the same POV framing and both went viral, showing format repetition can be a leverage point, not a weakness.
- The one common thread across an otherwise varied top five was social proof: each video demonstrated an accomplishment rather than just giving advice.
05The Remarkable Thesis
- The one trait shared by every viral post, regardless of niche, is that it's genuinely remarkable, not just well-captioned or well-hashtagged.
- A 60-page free guide worked because it was disproportionately valuable for something given away at no cost — the remarkableness was in the imbalance.
- Stating a concrete, verifiable business result functions as built-in social proof that makes content remarkable.
06ChatGPT Idea Prompt
- A generic 'give me viral reel ideas' prompt produces generic output; specifying 'advanced,' 'unique,' and 'not typical' materially changes what a language model returns.
- Explicitly asking for inspiration from industries unrelated to your own forces a model to surface ideas outside your echo chamber.
- Longer, more constrained prompts reliably out-perform short ones for creative brainstorming — treat the prompt itself as a draft to iterate on.
07Steal From Other Industries
- The single biggest mistake creators make is sourcing inspiration only from their own industry, which guarantees the same content everyone else in that niche already makes.
- A reel format borrowed from a totally unrelated trend can be re-skinned for any niche and still outperform in-niche norms.
- If cross-industry inspiration is the only tactic adopted from this framework, it alone is often enough to make content stand out.
08The 5% Question
- Replace 'how do I 10x my views' with 'what would make this one piece 5% more visually engaging' — a smaller, repeatable question that doesn't trigger overwhelm.
- Treating every single post as though it needs to be your best-ever piece is a documented path to burnout, not consistency.
- Compounding many small 5% improvements, not one heroic reinvention, is what produces a repeatable growth curve over time.
09Practical 5% Tips
- The color blue has been documented as visually higher-performing since at least 1950s print-advertising literature — it isn't a platform-specific algorithm quirk.
- Bright, saturated colors outperform muted or neutral tones on social feeds; an all-beige or all-gray aesthetic blends into the scroll instead of interrupting it.
- Lighting quality can be solved for under $30: a basic ring light with a pillowcase draped over it as a diffuser produced a studio-looking result.
- A visual hook works by triggering the brain's need to see an in-progress action finished — cracking a can, buttoning a shirt, applying lip gloss all hold attention through to completion.
10Trolls vs. Skeptics
- Separate trolls, who attack regardless of facts and should be fully ignored, from skeptics, who have a specific, answerable objection and can be won over.
- Skeptics of an income claim were converted by escalating levels of proof — screenshots, then video walkthroughs, then bank statements, then tax filings — not by arguing.
- Never delete a hostile comment; leaving it visible lets the commenter's own tone do the discrediting without a reply.
- A one-line, reusable, empathetic response prepared in advance for the most common objection saves relitigating the same argument in every comment section.
11Templates Pitch
- A pre-built content-format library removes 'what do I even post' as a decision point, and it transferred to unrelated niches like rodeo recruiting, gut health, and relationship coaching.
- One case-study result went from a 100-200 like average to 1,500 likes on a single post after following a supplied template rather than improvising a format.
- A structured content-planning system is presented as an optional shortcut around the earlier free framework, not a replacement for it.
Terms worth knowing.
- Viral for you (FVY)
- A personal viral threshold, roughly 100 times a creator's normal view count, as opposed to a one-off massive-view post that never repeats.
- Leverage points
- The commonalities found across a creator's own top five highest-performing videos that reveal what specifically triggers algorithmic reach for that account.
- Remarkable
- Content objectively striking or attention-worthy enough that the target audience would stop scrolling to watch it in full, rather than merely well-captioned or well-timed.
- Visual hook
- A short on-screen action, such as buttoning a shirt or cracking open a can, that exploits the brain's drive to watch a started task through to completion.
Things they pointed at.
20:20toolChatGPT
Lines you could clip.
14:15
“Every time I have gone viral, it is because I created something very remarkable.”
26:30
“The biggest mistake content creators make is they only pull video inspiration from their industries.”
33:41
“The color blue in Reels does better.”
38:33
“Trolls should be ignored. Skeptics can be won over.”
Word for word.
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00:00Okay. Let me show you let me show you how to go viral. Um, I know this is not gonna be one of those over edited, super fast paced, stimulating videos, but I go viral all the time, and I teach my students to go viral all the time, and I've got three pages of notes and it's all very valuable straight to the point stuff.
00:20So just so you feel really clear that I know what I'm talking about and you feel like this is gonna be worth your time, this is the tutorial to go viral. Here's four of my students, and I picked students who are in non business industries, non Instagram industries, like totally random industries, um, and they all have gone viral.
00:40So you can see here, like, Lindsay helps rodeo athletes get recruited, and I taught her to get a reel with over a million views. And, um, Kylie is a relationship coach, and she got 2,000,000 views on that one. Candace got a million views on her reel, and it was literally on, like, digestive health.
00:57And then coach Bernice is, like, a, um, career coach, basically. And so, again, these are just four that I put together. It happens all the time.
01:05I've had self defense, um, like, women in self defense students go viral and parenting coaches go viral. Like, my students go viral.
01:13And I usually like, I've never I've taught them, like, sort of individually, but I've never sat down and actually taught someone, like, in a tutorial like this how to go viral. And so what I did is I took it literally took me, like, two hours to write this all out for you, but it's the manual, the guide for going viral.
01:33And so, um, I'm just gonna take it section by section, and my advice to you is watch this whole thing in its entirety so you understand how to go viral. Um, when you're done with this video, you'll have a very holistic understanding of, like, what it takes to go viral, and then you can start actually implementing everything.
01:50So watch the whole thing. Especially towards the end. There's a lot of resources that I wanna give you and show you, um, at the very end of this video to just help take the information and make it very easy to actually implement.
02:02Okay. So first things first, um, we wanted to find viral versus viral for you or f v y, viral for you.
02:13Um, I think people aim for the wrong thing.
02:17When they try to go viral, they just try to go viral. I think what you need to do is actually, I know what you need to do, is go viral for you. So, um, let me see if I can grab a pen and just like illustrate the difference here.
02:30Okay? We'll do this on the back of this on the back of this, um, on this post it. Okay?
02:35So when you're going see if I can put this on my face.
02:39When you're going viral in general, this is what your account looks like. All of a sudden, you have this big random spike.
02:47Right? We don't want a big random spike like this. I would much rather you have something like this where you go like that, and I was, like, focusing on that, but you can kinda see where it's, like, it's gradual spikes that are very consistent with growth.
03:08Um, meaning, if you're interested in going viral to gain an audience and make money, which most people are, one random reel that gets 15,000,000 views and is never repeated isn't very helpful, isn't very monetizable, isn't very useful.
03:28It is so much better to learn how to consistently have reels that do much better than your average or viral for you.
03:38Because when you know how to make reels go viral for you, it's very repeatable, and you can actually use it, um, to do things with aka monetize. So what I wanna do in this, I don't know how to teach you how to go randomly viral and have a cute cat video that gets 15,000,000 views.
03:58I don't know how to do that. That's not very predictable. What I do know how to do is I do know how to teach you how to consistently have reels that pop off or do so much better than your average reel views.
04:11That's what I wanna show you how to do in this video. So if you're expecting to have, like, one reel that goes super viral and you can never repeat it, that's not very helpful for anything. It's much better if we know how to trigger the algorithm to consistently spike your view count.
04:26So for example, excuse me, for example, if I usually get 50,000 views per reel, knowing how to get a million views per reel is going viral for me, right, versus, like, 15,000,000 or 30,000,000 is just a viral reel, I'm much more interested in teaching you how to go viral for you.
04:48So the obvious next question then is what is viral for you? K.
04:55So what's viral for Maria, who has 250,000 followers on Instagram as of the time of filming this, it'll probably be much more tomorrow and much more the next day, um, because that's how it goes when you know how to consistently go viral.
05:09What's viral for me is going to be very different than what's viral for you. And so I thought a lot about this question. Right?
05:16Because it's very relative person to person. And so easy napkin math, don't hold me to this, but easy napkin math is 100 times what you normally get on a reel.
05:30And so I wrote down here, if you usually get 30 if you usually get 300 views on a reel, getting 30,000 views would be going viral for you.
05:45So I think that so basically 100 x. So for you right now as you're listening to this, think about what on average are my reels getting.
05:55If they're getting 200 views per reel, then a 20,000 reel would be viral for you, and your goal would be to make reels that consistently get more than 20,000 or more views, um, as your spikes.
06:10Right? Um, so here's one note that I will say if you are a bigger account. Right?
06:15Like for me, the 100 x viral free you rule, right, so, like, a 100 times the views you normally get, I think it can decrease as you get more views and get more followers.
06:25So right now, a 100 x for me would be 5,000,000 views on a reel versus 1,000,000 views in a reel.
06:34I'm still very happy with my 1,000,000 views because it's not like, that's not a bad thing. But maybe, you know, on the flip side, I should be aiming higher and I should be aiming for 5,000,000 views.
06:44Right? Like, with 250,000 followers, it's not unrealistic to a 100 x my views and say, I need to be making reels.
06:53They get 5,000,000 views as my speak as my peak. So who knows? Right?
06:58Like, I'm I can only speak to what I do know how to do, and I consistently know how to get views in the $1,000,000 per 1,000,000 views per real range.
07:09Tongue twister. So right now at this stage, what you wanna do is write down or just in your head if you're, you know, maybe you're driving your car or something and you're you shouldn't be writing. But think about for yourself right now, okay, my target I'm gonna start implementing what Marie's got.
07:23Three pages of stuff for me to actually go viral for me, but my target for going viral is 100 times what I currently get. So obviously then, the next question is, where do I actually start?
07:38How do I actually start that process of going viral for me? Now if you're watching this and you don't have any content made yet, you're brand new to having an Instagram account, you haven't really made any reels yet, you're new to all of this, skip this step.
07:56Because what this next step I'm gonna do is teach you how to audit your current content to know how to, like, leverage your current content to go viral. You can just skip this step and go on to the next one, um, because if you haven't made any content yet, this is not gonna apply to you.
08:12But if you have made content, what you're gonna wanna do is go back, and we're gonna do this together.
08:20Okay? Start with the five videos that got the most views. K?
08:25Even if it's only, like, a slight margin. So let's say you have a really small account and you're getting, like, on average, 200 views per reel. And you go back and you look at your top five videos, and your top five videos have 250 views instead of 200 views.
08:43So if you're just getting started, your margin might be really slight. It might be the difference between, like, 800 views on average and you had one or two pop off that got 1,500 views. Right?
08:52It doesn't matter. Part of learning how to consistently go viral is to find what I call your leverage points, and that's what we're gonna do together. Essentially, what we're gonna do is start writing down the commonalities between those top five reels that popped off.
09:10And what we're trying to do is understand, like, why did they pop off? So we're gonna do this together with some of mine. I I put together some of my bigger reels, um, and I we're together, we're gonna look at like why they popped off and there's lessons that you can learn from my reels that you can just start implementing right now for your reels.
09:28So let me pull them up here. Okay.
09:32So what I'm gonna do is just start opening these up and we're gonna look at them together. So we did these in order of, I believe I had an assistant put this together for me and I think she did it in oldest of like, oldest to newest.
09:46Um, so there's the first one.
09:52Um, we're gonna know everything. We're gonna know the caption. We're gonna note the text.
09:57Then we're gonna do, k.
10:06So we're gonna start looking at the commonalities between we'll we'll do my top five.
10:18So we'll pull up two more and then we'll look at these and I'll start listing out the common things that I see. Again, are all you can see here.
10:28These you can see the the viewer the view count here. So they're in the 2,000,000 to $1,000,000 range. I have never cracked 5,000,000.
10:36So if you've had a reel that got more than 2,000,000 plus views, you did more than I did.
10:42Okay. So these are my top five. Couple things that come up for me right away, couple commonalities.
10:50One, um, there's two of them that have the POV perspective.
10:56So POV, you just found blank, You took good notes, and it worked. These reels are almost exactly the same, and they both went viral.
11:06So I used again, it's pitching different things, but essentially, it's saying the same thing. Right?
11:12In one case, it's a PDF. In another case, it's a YouTube video. But these are both POV talking about how to go viral.
11:22It's and the I'll give you I'll give you a hint right now. Every single one of these reels, the biggest commonality is the social proof.
11:32Meaning, I've accomplished something amazing, and I'm talking about it.
11:38I've created something remarkable and I'm talking about it. It's social proof. Maria is someone who knows what she's talking about.
11:46So for you, and again, this isn't this is for Maria and Maria's industry, But what we're trying to do is look at all of these bird's eye and find the find the commonalities. So this one and this one are very similar.
12:02They're Instagram monetization topics, obviously talking about different things.
12:12The caption in this one and the and the little thing I noticed is, like, the here's how on these two. Right?
12:19Like, with the little arrow.
12:24So you can see here this one has that little, like, here's how, and then it's a really fat caption, and then same thing here. So that's similar.
12:33Every one of these has footage of my face. That's an obvious one. Um, I noticed that what's very interesting is that four out of the five are, like, inside my house, and and three of the five are inside my house.
12:47Four of the five are inside in general, and only one is outside on the beach, which is interesting because normally I always think my outside reels do better, but that's actually not holding up.
12:58So what you would do is this, you just like go look at your top five and you start to figure out the patterns. Why did these reels do so well? Um, you can see here, here's another one that I have pinned to the top, um, that also did really well, and it's, um, it's along the similar line.
13:15So that one would have come up here. So that's what you're gonna do. That's step three.
13:24Yeah. And I actually even let me switch back to my face because there's just some stuff here that I that I wrote down preemptively wanting to share this with you. Let's see.
13:31Let's go back here. Turn off my circle. Um, so here's what I wrote.
13:36Um, start writing down the commonalities between the videos. Let's get the focus back on me. So annoying.
13:44I like focuses on the heads in the background.
13:49Start writing down the commonalities between the videos, and then here's here's what I think you need to know if you wanna go viral for you. Every time I have gone viral, it is because I created something very remarkable.
14:05Like, at its core, you only go viral if you're doing something exceptional, something remarkable. Every time, if you look at anything that goes viral, it's for one reason or another, it stands out and it's remarkable in the truest sense of the word remarkable, like something to pay attention to.
14:22Like, I'll just ask, you know, like Siri. Hey, Siri. What's the definition of remarkable?
14:30Worthy of attention, striking. Right?
14:33So, like, a reel that goes viral is because it's remarkable because it's worthy of your attention. And so, um, every time I've gone viral, it's like the the spoiler alert for you. Every time I've gone viral, it's because I created something that was very remarkable.
14:46All five of those were remarkable. Sometimes the remarkable thing was a freebie that was so good they had to have it.
14:53That was the one with the 60 page freebie guide. Sometimes the remarkable thing was my own business success that I referenced. Right?
15:01The, like, how I make a million dollars every ten weeks. By the way, you ever don't believe how much money I make, you can just go to my income proofs. They're on my website.
15:08Um, I make right now, currently, at the time of filming this, $400,000 every single month, um, and it's just been it's, again, remarkable. So sometimes the remarkable thing was my own business success that I referenced.
15:21Sometimes the remarkable thing was how much FOMO, fear of missing out, I was able to create with one sentence. Um, at the end of the day, though, everything is remarkable, and that's why it went viral.
15:38And so that is the, like, summary.
15:45And so the the rest of this video is gonna be teaching you how to make remarkable content, how to make remarkable reels because at the end of the day, if you want to go viral, it has to be remarkable or won't.
15:58And that's like, it's obvious, obviously, but when you pull back and you look at the bird's eye view, it's like, well, that's why it went viral. It's because it stands out.
16:05If my reels aren't standing out, of course, they're not going viral. Of course, they're not getting views. So then the question becomes, what would be so remarkable that your people, who are the people that you want to be watching your reels, what would be so remarkable your people would stop in their tracks to watch it.
16:27They would have to watch it. And so I find, in my opinion, the answer to that question is hard to execute.
16:36It's hard to make remarkable content. It's hard to achieve remarkable things. Right?
16:42But it's far more reliable. I guarantee you will go viral if you have remarkable achievements. People, when they wanna go viral, what they want is, like, what's the hashtag or what's the hook.
16:58Right? But in my experience, it doesn't work that way, and it doesn't work that way reliably. Remember at the very beginning of this video, I said we don't want you to have one dog video that gets 15,000,000 views and you you know, you never can repeat it again or we don't want one thing you did to go viral.
17:16We want you to understand how to consistently trigger the algorithm to send you lots of views and send you lots of followers so you can make lots of money. That's our goal. And so we do that by doing the hard things most people are not willing to do.
17:31Most people are not willing to do the work to create remarkable achievements, which then become remarkable reels, which stop people in their tracks. It's not easy.
17:39So for example, I'll give you a great example. One of my viral reels you saw is a 60 page guide to how I got a 100,000 Instagram followers.
17:48I mean this thing is freaking beefy. It's double printed, so it says a 120 pages, but like the entire guide is 60 pages.
17:56It's not to sit here and write, and mind you like, if you look at the text, it's like wall to wall text. Okay? So, like, this is, um, freaking incredible, but it's not easy to create a 60 page guide to getting a 100,000 followers.
18:11Right? First of all, getting a 100,000 followers is remarkable in its own right. A 60 page wall to wall text guide to doing that that isn't bullshit and is, like, real actual I'm, like, looking at it, but these are, like, real tutorials.
18:25Like, if you look at the table of contents on this, it's my magical three by nine formula. That's a good one. How to go from a 100 views to a thousand views per reel in nine days.
18:34How I always know how to go viral. That's kinda a little bit of what I'm talking about here. Um, how to get don't do this if you want your reels to go viral.
18:41How to grow if you don't wanna make reels. Like, again, this is a really good freebie, and it's not easy to make it.
18:51And it's even more remarkable that I give it away for free, but it's remarkable and that's why I went viral. And so, by the way, I feel like I need to clarify, the answer to you going viral is not to make a 60 page guide.
19:06I don't want you to think that's the takeaway. The takeaway is to answer the question, what would be so remarkable my people my people that I want to attract would stop in their tracks and watch it?
19:18So that's what I want you to do. Right now, I want you to stop and think, what would be so remarkable that my followers or the people that I wanna be followers would stop in their tracks to watch?
19:31And that that question is gonna take you to some very interesting mental places. So, you know, if you make parenting content, what would be so remarkable?
19:40Like, what reel or hook or visual would be so remarkable parents would have to stop in their tracks to watch it? And by the way, if you need help with this, you can actually get ideas from chat GPT.
19:53I have a I have a prompt for you. I'm gonna show you how to do this because in case you are like, have no freaking clue, Maria, I have a prompt for you.
20:02K? Let's pull up chat GPT. Okay.
20:06Here's the prompt. I and I I make content on, and then you insert your niche.
20:13Right? So I'll just put, like, business and social media growth.
20:18That's what I do, teach people how to grow on Instagram and make money. Um, I want idea, this is what you would put into ChatGPT by the way, for viral reels, but where I put in business and social media growth, you put in like what you make content on it in case that wasn't clear. I okay.
20:33Then this is, like, where the chat prompt matters. I am looking for ideas that are very unique and show stopping again, like, we're telling chatty people what would be so remarkable, um, I would say, like, content creators and business owners would stop in their tracks, excuse my spelling, to watch my reels.
21:07This is, again, an important prompt. Give me 20 unique and advanced. Always ask GATHYPT to give you advanced ideas.
21:17Do not give me basic or typical ideas.
21:24Pull inspiration. I'm spoiling a hint, by the way, for later.
21:29From industries not related to business and social media growth.
21:38So you're telling ChatGPT, do not give me real ideas that are like every other business and social media growth. Okay.
21:45Alright. So let's put this prompt in here. The by the way, typically, the longer the ChatGPT prompt is, the better results you get.
21:58Yeah. These are super interesting.
22:06Some of these are good. Some of these are not good. I like this one, for example.
22:10Film a serene underwater scene with calming music, then overlay captions like this is how your business feels with automated income streams. Okay. So this is really interesting because this is not what you would immediately think.
22:22But right away, what I love about this so different than what you usually see.
22:30So right now when I read this, my mind is saying, okay. We need the viewer to feel the peace and calm that I do feel with all the automated income that I because I make a lot of passive income.
22:45And so for me, that feeling of peace and serenity is incredible and it's hard to convey with words, and so for me this automatically some of these are are shit and that's kind of the thing with ChatGPT is like some of these ideas are bullshit, but some of these are really good.
23:03The other thing that you can do is put this prompt in and test it both ways, take out the last bit, and see what else comes up.
23:13And, again, tweaking one thing about the prompt completely changes the things that you get.
23:20So I personally again, it takes again, this is where the remarkable comes in. It takes, uh, effort to not do the expected, but the remarkable thing is the thing that stops people in their tracks, has them expecting one thing and then getting another, and those are the rails that go viral for me.
23:43So I highly recommend you use TatchGPT. Again, lots of great ideas.
23:51Yeah. I mean, these are really good myth busting advice. These are good basic ones.
23:56Um, they're not as remarkable as some of the other ones, um, but they're still good. Like, sometimes it's not a bad thing to do more basic things.
24:05So if you are stuck and you can't think of what would be remarkable, what would stop them in their tracks, ChatGBT is your best friend with that stuff. Um, okay.
24:15So I spoiled the next one a little bit, but I do wanna elaborate on it because I think it's really important. This is the biggest mistake content creators make. When they're trying to go viral, when they're looking for inspiration, you must find video inspiration in other industries.
24:31Video inspiration, meaning inspiration for your videos, like the actual videos that you take, the ideas themselves, the words you use, the biggest mistake content creators make is they only pull video inspiration from their industries.
24:50And the problem with that is all you do is create content that is the same tired, boring content that everyone else is making.
25:04Every viral reel that I have ever made was inspired by a fashion reel or by a parenting reel or by a cooking reel. I almost never pull content ideas from my own industry because I know that it's not gonna serve me, and that is why one of the biggest compliments that I get on my on my content, by the way, is how refreshing it is, how transparent it is, how unique it is.
25:31It's very different than the average business and social media content. Um, and it's because it's super different from everyone else.
25:40And I have a note here I wanna show you. I don't remember which reel I'm referencing, but in here I say loose example, and I wanna show you the example. So let me pull this up.
25:52Because if I put this in my notes as wanting to show it to you, it's for a reason. So let me pull this up.
26:05Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
26:07Yeah. Yeah. So my PO this is a good one.
26:09My where my POVs were inspired by. Okay? So this isn't the exact that's why it says a loose example because this wasn't the exact example.
26:17But my POVs, you know, like how we we pull up all of these reels and it was like, POV, you just found a YouTube video that's showing everyone how to go viral, they were inspired by reels like this. POV, you can't stop watching secret lives of Mormon wives.
26:32Like, again, by the way, um, I don't like to recommend that show, but it's very interesting.
26:38If you've watched it, you know. And so, like, again, you can if we we go back to this one, like, you can see now this video was made before Secret Lives and More and Wives came out, but it was it's the same idea, it's the same style, um, I'm sure it was about a different TV show or something like that.
26:57It has nothing to do with business, has nothing to do with social media growth, has nothing to do with my industry, and that's why it did so well. It got like 2,000,000 views or something like that.
27:08One or 2,000,000. And so as you, seriously, just like as you scroll Instagram, as you go to reels, as you just like swipe through, find the ones that are not related to your industry, like, again, has nothing to do with my industry, but like how can you take that and make it work for your industry?
27:26I'm always looking for inspiration from other industries. And I think that that alone, if that's the only thing you take from this video, that if that's it, if the only thing that you do to go viral is pull inspiration from content that isn't your niche, you will automatically stand out in your niche because everyone else is making the same entire content.
27:47Okay.
27:52Now, let's take a minute because I've I've dumped a lot of information on you, and I want to help you breathe and feel that this is manageable and sort of like ramp our way up to going viral.
28:06And a really good way to doing this is to ask ourselves not how to go zero to a 100, not how do we go from 200 views to 20,000 views because that puts a lot of pressure on yourself. Right?
28:18If you've been consistently getting 200 views and I'm saying, oh, go make reels that get you 20,000 views, the the honest reaction most people would have if they're normal is to be like, okay.
28:30Well, now I'm overwhelmed and I'm gonna make no reels because this whole thing is so paralyzingly overwhelming. I'm not gonna make any reels at all. And so I get that because I'm the exact same way, like, in my own way, and so what I have found to be really helpful is to ask myself, not how do I get, you know, 5,000,000 views, I ask myself, what would make this 5% more visually engaging?
28:56So I'm gonna repeat the question. What would make this 5% visually more engaging?
29:05And so we don't wanna try to make every reel the best reel known to mankind.
29:12I know maybe some creators or some gurus would say, every reel has to be your best and beat your last performance, and, um, honestly, that's a great recipe for burnout in my opinion. I think what you need to ask yourself is what would make this 5% more visually engaging? So we're not gonna make every reel our very best reel, but there are some small easy things that we can do to make it a bit better.
29:38So I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a hint. Okay?
29:42This is something very bizarre that I've taught my students, but do you wanna know why I have the back of my wall like this and specifically why the back of my wall is blue?
29:56It's because the color blue in Reels does better. And let me tell you, I thought I invented that rule.
30:03Like, I thought I came across the rule of blue, if you wanna call it that, and how it does so much better in videos. I thought I, like, made that up.
30:12Then I was reading an old book on advertising from the fifties, and the freaking author of the advertising book said, by the way, be sure to include the color blue a lot because it does better. So here I am just re stumbling on an ancient advertising truth, which is the color blue performs better.
30:27For whatever reason, humans like to look at the color blue. We like blue. Maybe it's because we're 70% water.
30:34I don't know. We just like to look at blue. So a really easy practical thing you can do is in your reels, have the color blue.
30:41Like, that could be your 5% thing better. It's like, wear a blue shirt. I'm not saying you need to go paint your wall blue, maybe film stuff with the sky in it.
30:49Or if you find a blue wall in your town, go film stuff in front of the blue wall. Or maybe instead of having a purp a purple water bottle, put a blue water bottle in there. Like you can do little things to add the color blue, that's something you could do to be 5% better.
31:02In general, bright colors pop more than dull muted colors. So if you're a millennial gray, your millennial gray home is gonna blend into social media.
31:12If you're a beige mom, your beige toys and your beige clothes are gonna blend into social media. Not saying you have to go be a maximalist and change everything about your house. It's just be aware that bright colors do better on social media than dull muted colors do, generally speaking.
31:29Unless you're Kim Kardashian and then you can post as much muted colors as you want to. Two, better lighting.
31:37Can I show you what my lighting is? Like this lighting looks so amazing. I I know it does, but can I show you what it is?
31:44I don't think you're ready for how janky this is. It's a ring light with a pillowcase on it and the reason it's got a pillowcase on it is because the pillowcase diffuses and spreads the light to make it look more natural.
31:57So that's like I'm filling this with a webcam and a ring light with a pillowcase on top. Super easy.
32:04The ring light was like less than $30. Think it was like $29 and the pillowcase was already in my closet.
32:10So you don't need fancy lighting equipment but you can get better lighting and that makes a really big difference. If the only thing you did was make better lighting and that was the 5% you focused on, your reels would do better.
32:23People don't like to look at fuzzy, grainy videos of humans. They like to look at brightly lit videos of humans. Maybe it's because we're scared of the dark.
32:31I don't know. And then another thing that you can do is focus on having a visual hook.
32:36So, you know, you've probably seen creators, and you've probably heard of this too, so I'm gonna, like, not spend too much time on this one. But opening a can of, like, a can of seltzer water and that, like, crack of a can opening, people, like, pay attention to that.
32:52Putting lip gloss on your lips, buckling yourself in a car or unbuckling it, like tying your tying your thing like this, like a little part of your clothes or buttoning up something as you're talking, all of that are like visual hooks, putting earrings in.
33:09Our brains like to see the completion of a task, and so if you start a task like buttoning up your shirt or adding an earring, it's a visual hook. It hooks people in, and they want to watch the like, their brain almost subconsciously sticks around to see the task completed.
33:27That's also why, like, power washing videos do so well is our brains get so satisfied seeing the, like, fully clean sidewalk or whatever it is.
33:35And so small things that you can do to make your video 5% better and 5% is small enough to be doable, and so what I do is every so often I ask myself, what can I do to make these videos 5% better?
33:49And sometimes, like, I'll tell you right now where where I'm at, I'll just be really transparent, I have been creating content now, um, very consistently for a very long time, and the thing that my content needs, because I've been so in a rhythm with it, is creativity. My videos need to be 5% more creative.
34:08And so I don't know, like, know, every that means something different for every reel, but the thing that my reels need right now is 5% more creativity. So it could be, like, a little bit of a different visual than I've ever done before, or, like, oh, okay. Like, I've started taking different pictures of myself than I normally do, um, wearing different clothes than I normally do, and just experimenting with more, like, I'm wearing, like, this long, I don't know if you can see it, but it's like a long skirt.
34:34Because this is a different than something. It's just different, and it's more creative, and it makes me feel more feminine, and, um, that's what my videos need right now. And so, again, all of that to say, it is not zero to a 100.
34:46It is not 200 to 20,000. That will be the result of enough videos being 5% improved. The actual tangible thing that you're gonna work on, the very concrete thing is answering the question, what would make this 5% more visually engaging?
35:03Alright. Let's talk about haters now because what's gonna happen? I hate to break it to you, but what's gonna happen is when you go viral, you are gonna get trolls and you are gonna get skeptics.
35:15K? Those are two different things. So we like to throw around the words like haters and trolls, but I feel like skeptics and trolls are two different things.
35:25Trolls should be ignored. Trolls are people who just wake up and choose violence.
35:30They hate everybody. They hate themselves. Honestly, that's, like, the sad thing is, like, they hate themselves, and so they have enough free time to go around and just, like, spread hate on the Internet.
35:37That, in my mind, is very different than a skeptic.
35:45Trolls should be ignored. Skeptics can be won over, and I love doing it.
35:51I love winning over my skeptics. My skeptics, for the most part, just sharing with you guys, my skeptics, for the most part, don't believe that I make $400,000 a month.
36:04That's the thing that I get the most is like, you are a liar, you are a scam artist, show me proof that you make $400,000 a month, which I get.
36:13Right? Like, okay. Sure.
36:14It's a lot of money a month. Even when I clarify that my profit margins are 60% of 40,000, they don't believe I'm taking home 60% of 40,000.
36:24And skeptics don't hurt your feelings any less than trolls, by the way. I have been doing this for eleven years, and I am still the most sensitive little crybaby snowflake.
36:35I hate the hate comments. I hate the critiquing comments. I hate getting skeptics.
36:39I hate it. It hurts my freaking feelings Just being real, it it's not gotten easier.
36:45I've gotten more used to it, but it has not gotten easier. And so with the skeptics, what I try to do is cut down the bullshit by sharing my income proofs.
36:58That, like, right away is, like, the most helpful thing. It's like, okay. And, like, God bless the skeptics because I used to just share, like, me telling people what I made, and then they're like, we want screenshots.
37:09So then I started preparing screenshots. Then they were like, we want video walkthroughs. Then I started doing video walkthroughs of my, like, dashboard where I make my money.
37:16Then they wanted bank statements, so now I'm sharing bank statements as proof. Now they want tax statements, whatever it's called, like your tax filings.
37:24So this year when I file taxes, I'm gonna be sharing my, taxes for the year and that'll like really break it down. After that they're gonna want to come to my house and log into my bank account and like look with their own eyeballs, like I don't know.
37:36But however however, I will say for the most part skeptics are one over by my bank statements, especially now that I'm sharing, like, the bank statements. Right?
37:46The income proofs, especially now that I'm sharing the bank statements. It does tend to stop them pretty much in their tracks.
37:52The other thing I get a lot of crap for online from the skeptics, not the trolls, is that they accuse me of not donating money. There's this cause and you should be giving to it and and you have all this money, and I tell them, like, I literally give away 30% of my profits.
38:08Again, it stops them in their tracks. They might just not know. So generally speaking, skeptics can be won over by having additional information, and I love winning my skeptics over because then they tend to become very loyal followers.
38:23And so what's going to happen is you're going get more skeptics as you start sharing your remarkable thing because that's the whole point. If you're sharing remarkable things, if you're sharing remarkable achievements, people will not believe it because it's so remarkable.
38:36And so as you share more remarkable things you will get more skeptics and you need to get a sense of like what they're not liking or what they're not believing. Is there a common pattern to their accusations?
38:46If there is a common pattern to their accusations, can you come up with a one quick one liner that ends the conversation, like a polite script? We want to be classy, we want to be graceful, we want to be loving, we don't we don't like, we wanna be empathetic of the fact that they can't wrap their mind around what you've accomplished.
39:10And that's not a reflection of you, that's a reflection of them and the ways that we can love and empathize, like, just using my income for example. I deeply and dearly empathize with every person who does not believe that I make $400,000 a month because I understand that it is a mind boggling amount of money and I hold space for their own lack of belief.
39:31And so I'm not angry, I'm not hateful, I'm not judgmental, I'm not rude. I just say, hey, look, I get it.
39:37I didn't believe that I could make $400,000 a month, so I totally get why you'd be skeptical and that's why I make these income proof reports every month where I report on how much I made, I share all my business expenses, I share what I take home, and I share what I give away, and I do this every month.
39:52If you would like to read them, here you go. What's a skeptic gonna say to that? Then they're won over.
39:59They were expecting to be dismissed and hated and snapped back at in a rude way because that's what most people do, and I'm like, oh no, I get it. Totally valid.
40:11Let me here by giving you my income reports. Very different, I will add.
40:19Trolls or haters are different. Okay? I'll share a story that I'll just share it because it happened to me and it was super mean and I was really sad.
40:33So I made it I made it real and it was like, um, talking about like, okay, is a question I get all the time which is like, Maria, you are pretty, I am not. I can't make reels.
40:44Now I am not saying I'm pretty, I'm saying this is a question I get. Okay? I I understand that looks so subjective.
40:50So I filmed a reel saying if you feel like you are not pretty or you feel like you don't look the way you need to look to look to grow on social media, I want you to find influencers who look like you and use them as the proof that you can do it.
41:11That anyone, whether you're pretty or not, can be successful, be a successful content creator that goes viral.
41:22So this reel of mine somehow got the attention of this group of guys who I don't understand what their motives were or why any of them took the time out of their day to, like, leave the comments they did, but they, like, took time out of their day to critique my looks.
41:44And we're basically, if you're gonna talk about pretty privilege, you should at least be pretty, which, like, obviously wasn't the point of my reel, and it was answering a common question I legitimately get all the time.
41:58And it hurt my freaking feelings, and I just didn't give it any time of day. This is the first time I'm talking about it.
42:03Like, it was fine. It was, like, for, like I think it was, like, for three days, I had a bunch of guys commenting on all my YouTube videos and commenting on all my, um, reels on Instagram, like, pretty privilege.
42:16What a joke. Like, really, I'm like, what are you guys doing with your life that you have time to be leaving mean comments about my appearance, which is the my appearance is the least interesting thing about me.
42:26There are so many more interesting things about me than my freaking looks and whatever.
42:32Like, I think it just triggered them. Like, on what I honestly think, if I'm being really honest, is, like, I think my income stuff can be hard for some guys to process.
42:43And so if they can't tear down my financial success, they must tear down my looks because, God forbid, a woman feel confident in herself.
42:54It's like one theory after why they were taking so much time out of their day. Long, long story short, people like that should just be ignored. I gave it zero attention, I didn't reply to a single one, didn't delete a single one, never delete your comments, like, just let let their own embarrassing comments sit there and embarrass themselves, that's kind of my philosophy on that.
43:11I don't know why this like one little hair is not wanting. Like now I'm all worried about my looks, but in general like trolls or haters should be ignored.
43:22Okay. Having said all that, my computer is literally freezing because of how long this video is. There's there's something that I think would be really helpful.
43:31I have made a lot of templates. Oh my god.
43:34This hair is gonna drive me freaking crazy. Let's just move this over here.
43:40There we go. Oh my god. It wants to be the star of the show.
43:45Alright. I've made templates for you. Okay?
43:47Because, basically, what I did is I realized that there is some content and some formats, most importantly, some content formats that have a better chance of going viral than others.
44:00And this is based on me making content specifically on Instagram for two years straight. I've made content for two years straight. I've tried all the different angles, and I know which angles have a greater success of going viral no matter your industry.
44:14And so these students that I shared here, they use my templates.
44:20Again, you can see these are industries that are totally unrelated to business, industries that are totally unrelated to finance or social media. These are, like, gut health, narcissistic relationships, rodeo athletes getting re like, you know, these are these templates I'm about ready to show you work for all industries.
44:38And what I love about that is it takes the guesswork out of you because frankly, you probably don't have time. Like, for me, this is my full time job.
44:45I have all the time in the world to sit here and experiment with all the different angles to go viral, but I was thinking maybe you don't, and so what I wanted to show you was just an option for you to use, and I wanna show you, um, kinda like what this looks like.
45:01Okay? So this is what I made. It's a content planning spreadsheet, but then if you use the drop down, you can use all of these.
45:11So like faceless real insider knowledge, b roll real, intangible tangible, faceless real is extreme value, um, talking head real, answering cues.
45:20These are all formats that work really well and what you can literally do is like okay, I'm gonna do this one this day, this one this day, and then if you use my viral templates, you can actually just literally like input your words, your text, and it makes the content creation process so much easier and it really what it does is it takes the thinking out of it for you, um, because that I think is like the tricky part is the thinking.
45:47Um, and so again, if you are feeling like, okay, I am super overwhelmed, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, um, you're probably like some of my students here, this is one of them.
45:59She used Maria's templates and got 1,500 likes when she normally gets a 100 to 200.
46:06Again, there's that, like, 100 x multiple that we're talking about. She says in the past three days, Maria's templates have helped us generate $35,000 on organic sales.
46:14Recommend them 10 out of 10, especially if you feel like you're posting the same things over and over again. And then a different student, um, my reels are now going viral.
46:22Before, two k views max, now 15 k. Super close again.
46:2720,000 would have been her no. That's 10 x.
46:31That's a 10 x. But still, going from 2,000 views to 15,000 views is certainly nothing to sneeze at. Um, she's been reaching non followers with my reels, some are going viral.
46:40That's what we want. So, again, these are what I call them. They're the viral Instagram content treasure chest, and basically what I created is 55 template tutorials that I use.
46:52These are the template tutorials that I use to make it even easier to go viral. So a lot of what we talked about in this video is done for you in these content template packs. So I did all the things we talked about, being remarkable, standing out, I did all of that for you, so you just have to enter in your info.
47:09So if you wanna grab them, it's totally optional. You can kinda click that page. Here's a list of everything that you get.
47:14I'll put a link in the description. I highly recommend you grab them. You don't need to.
47:18You can do this all from scratch. Like everything we talked about, you can just do it all from scratch, but if you're one of those people where time is short, where you're not feeling like testing, you know, a 100 reels to get the one good one, um, you can certainly get a massive head start with these viral Instagram content treasure chest.
47:35High recommend it. I also included a bunch of video training. So if you like this training, um, there's a bunch more video trainings in here, how to write viral captions, um, even more stuff on ChatGPT to create viral content quickly, um, how to monetize your Instagram content, which is really nice.
47:51Specific stuff for, like, the new, um, Instagram algorithm update, they just had a big update, which is particularly relevant for new smaller content creators. You guys can get so much growth. It's like us bigger creators, we lost a lot of growth, so you guys could have it.
48:04So and I'm happy for that. I think newer content creators have a bigger chance now more than ever, um, to actually grow in a massive audience.
48:12So, um, how to modify them for your industry. So, again, like, these are it's all very helpful. I highly recommend it, but it is optional.
48:19You can do this all from scratch if you want to. Otherwise, is a link down in the description below, and I will see you around.
48:25Thank you so much for watching this. I love that you guys stuck it all the way to the end. Good job.
48:28Can't wait to see. I wanna see your reels glow up. I wanna see you be my next success story.
48:32I'm excited.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
She skips the fast-paced edit entirely and opens with proof instead: four students in totally unrelated industries — a rodeo-athlete recruiter, a relationship coach, a digestive-health page, a career coach — who all went viral running the same system she's about to teach.
Named ideas worth stealing.
03:20concept
Viral-For-You (100x Rule)
Define your personal viral threshold as roughly 100 times your normal per-reel view count (e.g., 300 views normally -> 30,000 is viral for you), decreasing the multiplier as your account and follower count grow.
Steal forsetting a realistic, personal growth benchmark instead of chasing arbitrary huge numbers
20:20concept
ChatGPT Remarkable-Idea Prompt
A prompt template that asks for 20 unique, advanced, non-typical reel ideas pulled specifically from industries unrelated to your own, deliberately avoiding generic in-niche brainstorming.
Steal forany creator brainstorming session that's stuck producing the same ideas as everyone else in the niche
31:40concept
The 5% Question
Instead of asking how to jump from 200 to 20,000 views, ask what one small change would make this specific piece 5% more visually engaging — a repeatable habit that avoids burnout.
Steal forany incremental-improvement habit for recurring content production
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
46:49product
“I'll put a link in the description. I highly recommend you grab them. You don't need to, you can do this all from scratch.”
Soft-sell placed only after the entire free framework has already been taught in full; the paid templates are framed as an optional shortcut for people short on time, not a requirement, which lowers resistance to the pitch.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
