23:41Build Your Tribe · Tutorial
How To Go Viral EVERY TIME on Instagram
A 23-minute breakdown of the one metric Instagram actually optimizes for and the five-letter acronym that helps you hit it every time.
June 22ndThe argument in one line.
Virality is not random or budget-dependent — it comes from selecting a storytelling format with a proven track record, often decades old, and mastering the execution nuances that separate a breakout from a copycat that flops.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You're a creator or founder trying to grow an audience from zero and keep assuming you need a bigger budget or a paid ads strategy to do it.
- You've copied a format that's working for someone else and can't figure out why your version isn't performing.
- You're building a personal brand and want a framework for choosing which type of content to commit to long-term.
- You run or advise a company that measures social media success by views and followers instead of revenue.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for platform-specific tactics like hashtags, posting times, or algorithm hacks — this episode explicitly argues against that lens.
- You already have a dialed-in content format and are looking for advanced growth-team scaling advice rather than fundamentals.
The full version, fast.
Brendan Kane grew a following of roughly two million people in thirty days early in his career with no ad budget, then spent two decades since studying why certain content breaks through. His core argument: the algorithm optimizes for one variable, retention, and creators fixate on the wrong levers — hacks, hashtags, posting frequency — instead of storytelling. Hookpoint's research division has cataloged over 300 recurring content formats (man-on-the-street, two-characters-one-actor, property tours), most traceable to entertainment history decades or a century old. Creators fail copying a proven format not because it's saturated but because they miss the execution nuance: hook clarity in the first three seconds, pacing, reaction shots, and a work-to-wow ratio. The actionable conclusion is to pick one format that fits your actual personality and resources, master it before expanding, and measure success by revenue correlation rather than vanity metrics.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
02:10guestBrendan Kane
00:00hostBryan Elliott
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 02:00
01 · Cold open + intro
Cold open on why format copycats fail, then formal introduction of Brendan Kane and his three books.
02:00 – 09:00
02 · Origin story
Kane's path from wanting to produce movies in LA to running the first YouTube influencer campaign in 2006 for the film Crank.
09:00 – 14:00
03 · What it actually costs to grow
Debunks the budget myth and the shadowban myth; platforms rely on creators as content fuel.
14:00 – 21:00
04 · What a format is
Defines format with examples (man-on-the-street, two-characters-one-actor, property tours) and Hookpoint's 300+ format research library.
21:00 – 27:00
05 · Why copycats fail
Nuance over format: hook execution, pacing, reaction shots, and the work-to-wow ratio explain why imitators underperform originals.
27:00 – 33:00
06 · Platform-specific nuance
Why the same clip performs differently on TikTok vs Instagram vs YouTube, and Hookpoint's platform matchmaking process.
33:00 – 38:00
07 · What a brand actually is
Kane and Elliott define personal brand as front-facing expression of identity, not aesthetics or gear.
38:00 – 44:00
08 · Location independence and multi-account strategy
Kane's remote lifestyle (Austin/London/Portugal), the Gary Vaynerchuk multi-channel case, and the economics of paid clippers.
44:00 – 50:33
09 · Measuring real success
The Kevin O'Leary case study, tying content to revenue rather than vanity metrics, and closing thoughts.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A format that's been proven since the 1950s doesn't die from oversaturation — it fails only when the execution misses the nuance that made it work.
- The algorithm optimizes for exactly one thing: how much of your content people watch before scrolling away.
- Man-on-the-street interviews trace back to the first season of The Tonight Show in 1954, not to TikTok.
- The two-characters-one-actor format goes back to Buster Keaton in the 1920s, then Austin Powers in 1997, before it became a social media staple.
- Platforms don't shadowban creators on purpose to force ad spend — 99% of claimed shadowbans are just content that isn't connecting.
- You can start with zero followers and reach millions if the story is told well enough — audience size at the start barely matters anymore.
- A common first-three-seconds mistake is stacking a title card, captions, and movement at once, which leaves the viewer's subconscious unable to decide what to focus on.
- Polished, ad-like production values can actively hurt performance because viewers' brains flag it as an ad and scroll past.
- Hookpoint's research team spends fifteen to twenty hours cross-analyzing high and low performers within a single format on a single platform before recommending changes.
- Instagram favors shareability through DMs while TikTok doesn't — the same clip can succeed on one platform and flop on another purely from interface differences.
- Building one clean rejection or two into a man-on-the-street sequence before the payoff increases retention, because unpredictability is the real driver, not the reveal itself.
- The right content format has to match the creator's personality first — an introvert forcing themselves through man-on-the-street content will burn out even if a few clips go viral.
- Clipping services only produce good ROI once a creator's own long-form content is already proven to connect with an audience.
- Kevin O'Leary's YouTube channel was built specifically to increase paid speaking bookings from a few times a year to dozens, not to generate ad revenue.
- The most reliable success metric isn't views or followers — it's whether the content can be tied back to a dollar figure or a defined business outcome.
Pick one proven format, then obsess over execution, not imitation.
WHAT TO LEARN
Growth doesn't come from budget or algorithm hacks — it comes from choosing a storytelling format that fits you and mastering the execution details that separate a breakout from a flop.
01Cold open + intro
- A format doesn't wear out from being popular — the problem when a proven format fails you is execution, not saturation.
02Origin story
- Being an outsider to an industry can be an advantage: Kane pivoted into social media specifically because he saw no one else serving that gap for movie studios.
03What it actually costs to grow
- Growth today costs time and effort, not ad spend — most people blaming a shadowban actually have underperforming content.
04What a format is
- Reusable content formats are historically proven, many predating social media by decades — pick from an existing structure instead of inventing one from scratch.
05Why copycats fail
- Diagnose the real performance drivers (hook clarity, pacing, reaction shots, work-to-wow ratio) before copying a format that's working for someone else.
- Simplify your first three seconds to a single clear focal point instead of stacking title cards, captions, and movement at once.
06Platform-specific nuance
- A format or clip that thrives on one platform can flop on another purely because of interface and audience-behavior differences, so master one platform before expanding.
07What a brand actually is
- A brand is the front-facing expression of what you represent, not your gear, your car, or your visual polish.
08Location independence and multi-account strategy
- Don't scale to multiple accounts or hire clippers until your core content is already proven to connect; extra accounts amplify a working formula, they don't create one.
09Measuring real success
- Tie content performance to a real business outcome — revenue, bookings, deals — rather than views or follower count.
- The best time to start is now: audience size barely matters anymore, and deliberate storytellers outperform larger, less intentional accounts.
Terms worth knowing.
- Format
- A reusable content structure (e.g. man-on-the-street, two-characters-one-actor) that can carry any message or brand, distinct from the specific topic or execution layered on top of it.
- Work-to-wow ratio
- A performance metric describing how much effort a viewer has to expend to reach the payoff of a piece of content; lower effort for the same payoff drives higher retention.
- Shadowban
- A creator's belief that a platform is deliberately suppressing their reach; in most diagnosed cases the real cause is underperforming content, not intentional throttling.
- Clipper
- An editor paid to cut a creator's long-form content (podcasts, livestreams) into short clips for separate accounts, typically compensated based on the performance of those clips.
Things they pointed at.
02:10book1,000,000 Followers
02:10bookHook Point: How to Stand Out in a Three Second World
02:10bookThe Guide to Going Viral
05:00productCrank (2006 film, Jason Statham)
16:30channelSchool of Hard Knocks
16:40channelBody by Mark
16:45channelAlex Stemp
16:50channelRyan Serhant
31:30channelSimon Squibb
40:00channelGary Vaynerchuk
47:30channelKevin O'Leary YouTube channel
01:00linkHookPoint.com
Lines you could clip.
00:08
“Why isn't it working for them if they're arguably doing the same thing?”
09:00
“It costs nothing. It costs time and resources and energy.”
19:00
“It's your expression. It's your execution of it.”
27:30
“The minute it feels like it's getting left behind, then it scrolls past.”
47:00
“Just because you generate a lot of views or followers, it doesn't mean that it correlates to dollars.”
Where the conversation goes.
02:00 – 09:00steadyOrigin story and career pivot
09:00 – 14:00steadyCost and shadowban myths
14:00 – 21:00denseFormat theory and history
21:00 – 27:00denseExecution nuance / why copycats fail
27:00 – 33:00steadyPlatform-specific behavior
33:00 – 38:00steadyPersonal branding definition
38:00 – 44:00steadyLocation independence and multi-account economics
44:00 – 50:33denseMeasuring success by revenue
Word for word.
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00:00Why isn't it working for them if they're arguably doing the same thing?
00:03Well, they're not doing the same thing because there's nuance. So it's like they're they're not having success because they don't understand why the format works to begin with. So it's and it's not it's not that it's becoming oversaturated because this format has been run since the fifties in video form, and it and it doesn't die out.
00:21Um, it's kind of like you know, both of us come from the movie industry. It's kind of like saying just because you use a three act structure means you're gonna make a good movie.
00:30Well, we know that that's definitely not the truth. Like, it's your expression. It's your execution of it.
00:36My name is Brendan Cain, and I'm the founder and CEO of Hookpoint and the author of 1,000,000 followers, Hookpoint, how to stand out in a three second world and the guide going viral.
00:48Everyone, welcome to another episode of the show. Brendan, welcome. Thanks for having me.
00:52It's a pleasure to connect with you and everybody that's tuning into this.
00:55I usually ask my guests, how did you get this job?
00:59Well, I initially I initially wanted to produce movies. And, um, the short story is I showed up in LA to pursue a career in film, and I realized they didn't need another film producer.
01:11I could see everybody's eyes glaze over when they asked me, why'd you come to LA? And I said I wanted to produce movies. And, uh, the that reaction, um, pushed me into what I do today.
01:23I had to kinda take a step back and see how could I provide value to this this industry and ecosystem that I was new to. And it just so happened at the time social media was just coming on the scene.
01:36This is around 2005 and started creating the first social media campaigns for for movies and movie studios.
01:44Mhmm. Yeah. 2005.
01:46That's the year YouTube comes out. Year after, Google buys them.
01:51That same year, shortly after, Apple launches iPhone. So a lot's happening.
01:57Year after that, in South by Southwest, you have Twitter. You know? And that breaks, I think, breaks the the wall of social and just everything sort of comes, you know, unglued.
02:11Like, I remember real time, you know, social Twitter was where where it was at.
02:19You know, governments were being overthrown. People were communicating more one to one things. News was happening in real time.
02:26This is an exciting time in in in history, but also just an evolution from digital into social. So those are good times.
02:35I remember it well. And so so so how did you go about that, not having any experience?
02:41I mean, you wanted to be a producer. You wanted to make movies, but that's a pretty big leap into cracking the code on social.
02:48Well, when I was going to when I was going to film school, I quickly realized I didn't teach you anything about business in film school, so I started creating a few companies on the side.
02:58And the most cost efficient way was to start online companies. So I started a few online companies really to experiment and learn of what it took to get something up and running and manage it and things of that nature. Um, so I learned a lot about kind of the Internet at the time, digital media, and things of that nature.
03:14And as social media started to come on the scene, like, again, it was brand new to everybody, so you just had to figure it out.
03:22You know? You test, you learn, you study. And I just saw an opportunity at the simplest form of that there were people creating content, some of them from their bedrooms and reaching millions of people.
03:36So my initial thought is, well, why not tap into those people and those audiences to effectively promote movies? And nobody was really doing it at the time.
03:45So ended up creating, for one campaign, the first ever influencer campaign on YouTube in two thousand six for a movie called Crank with Jason Statham.
03:55So I kinda just looked at, like, at a high level, like, what why are these platforms like, what is what because they weren't really I wouldn't say that they were, like, succeeding because at that time, like, 2005, 2006, it was so brand new.
04:11Like and people really weren't paying attention to them. It was just kind of like, hey.
04:17This is an interesting thing where these people are creating content, just, you know, distributing it themselves on these platforms, and they're connecting
04:24with millions of people. So why not tap into that? Yeah.
04:28It was, you know, it was mister beast counting to, you know, a million. It was not like what it is today where he's storytelling, and there's a whole arc, and he's giving me Lamborghinis. Literally, he's just 15 year old kid in his bedroom, you know, counting as high as he can count.
04:45Random, you know, cat videos.
04:49People making content from their bedrooms. Yeah. It was it was the the Wild West, but also not much to it.
04:56Not much thought to it. I agree. Yeah.
05:00So you eventually built, you know, this structure, this platform that allowed you to, like, grow 2,000,000 followers in thirty days.
05:12But, like, it had to cost real money. I mean, Facebook ads or whatever you're doing to to grow that.
05:18Was it all organic, or was there some paid to it? Like, what does it actually cost to start something from zero and do what you did?
05:28Today, it costs nothing. It costs time and resources and energy. You do not need a budget to to scale and grow an audience.
05:37A lot of our our clients today, they're scaling massive audience with just their their mobile devices. It's it it really is how effective you can be as a storyteller, and the better the storyteller become, the faster that you can grow and scale.
05:53Because people kind of misunderstand these social platforms. One such misunderstanding or myth is that they suppress your reach on purpose in order to get you to pay to use ads to get your content to be seen.
06:07The reality is is. You're shadowbanned. Yeah.
06:1099% of the time when I'm looking at people that claim to be shadowbanned, it's not. It's just their content is not connecting. But the reality is is is these platforms rely on us as content creators.
06:23. It's not like Disney, Fox, you know, Netflix, where they're investing billions of dollars in original content for, you know, these platforms, whether it's Hulu or Disney plus or Netflix, any of these.
06:37The these social platforms rely on us to create content to keep people on on these platforms. If it was just about money, then mister Beast wouldn't be the most subscribed person on YouTube.
06:47It would be Apple or McDonald's or co co Coca Cola.
06:52These companies spend billions of dollars a year advertising their products. They are looking for content that can retain audience's attention. Meaning, they want content that can keep people in these platforms longer so they can serve more ads and thus they generate profit.
07:07So the reality is in in even today, even the size of your audience to start with doesn't mean as much as it used to.
07:15You literally can start with a 100 followers, 10 followers, and if you tell the right story, it can reach millions and millions of people.
07:23So let's break that down a little bit. What what does telling the right story look like? And is it you know, is there are there formats?
07:31Is there an algorithm that you need to tap into? Is there a formula?
07:36Break it down and walk us through it.
07:38Yeah. So first, starting with the algorithm. As I mentioned, the algorithm is looking for one thing, and that is retention.
07:44So they're looking for content that they can see to millions of people that stop them in their tracks and cause them to watch a significant portion or all of the content or all of the video that has been created. Mhmm.
07:57When you look at the world through formats you mentioned formats. So for those of people that are not familiar what the format is, I'll just give you a few examples.
08:07One that I'm sure everybody has seen is man on the street. You know, you approach a random stranger in the street and a story unfolds. Now the beauty of a format is a format is a structure that's designed to incorporate any type of message.
08:20So for for a man on the street, they're a school of hard knocks that approaches very successful people and ask them, how'd you make your first million dollars? There's Body by Mark that approaches fitness people and asks, what is your fitness routine?
08:33Um, there's Alex Stemp, who's a professional photographer, that approaches rangers and asks if he can give them a professional photoshoot. So these formats are structures that you can insert your content into. Um, another example is two characters, one light bulb.
08:47It's where the same person plays two different characters Mhmm. And they break down a common myth or misconception about an industry or society or culture or things of that nature.
08:59Um, then there is, like, real estate property tours where you have a guy like Ryan Serhant that's touring the most luxurious properties in the world. Mhmm. So at our company Hookpoint, we have a research division that spent about fifteen thousand hours researching over 300 of these formats.
09:16The reason I say that is there is an abundance of formats out there that you can select from to express your message, express your brand. Now the fascinating thing is a lot of these formats were designed free social media.
09:31People think social media is this mystery black box that you need some magic wand or magic key to unlock the algorithm. But you look at man on the street, the first time that was used in video form was in 1954 for the first season of The Tonight Show. You've got the two characters, one light bulb.
09:48That was used back in the nineteen twenties by a comedian, Buster Keaton. And more recently, people would remember Austin Powers.
09:55The first movie came out in 1997 where the actor Mike Myers plays Austin Powers in doctor evil. Then you look at, like, the home property tours of from, like, Ryan Serhant. Well, that goes back I don't know when the first season was.
10:08Probably the early eighties of the lifestyles of the rich and famous with Robin Leach. So so, really, when we look at social media, it is not some kind of brand new mystery.
10:20It is history repeating itself, and the structures that have proven itself prior to social media apply to telling great stories on these platforms. So what we always kind of look at and and recommend is find the format that you wanna execute and become a master of that format.
10:38Like, it's the same thing of, like, um, going to film school. It's like you spent all this time learning the three act structure because every movie over the past hundred years uses the same format. And you only get good at something when you really study it.
10:51You study the the the the successful use cases versus the unsuccessful use cases.
10:58Yeah. I love that.
11:01Say more about the the format or formats that you use to build to a million followers in thirty days.
11:10So I tested over 5,000 variations of content during that time period, and that was really an experiment. It was an experiment about what type of content does it take to get somebody to share that content and allow those shares to turn into follows.
11:27So for me, that experiment wasn't the first time I did it wasn't really about, like, I wanna build myself into a specific type of brand. It was more a market research test of, like, what does it take to actually generate followers at scale? So I leveraged podcast clips, so podcast as a format, um, political commentary, motivational and inspirational quotes.
11:48I even test tested, like, pet videos and things of that nature to all kind of understand, like, what does it take to get somebody to share something at a high velocity and then turn that shareability into follows.
12:00What surprised you during that testing time? Because I sometimes I feel, and I can speak for personal opinion, like, I think I've cut the most interesting, compelling, interesting, heart stopping clip, and it falls flat.
12:16And then I don't take any time, any thought, no strategy. I just clip something, and it just goes crazy viral for for some unknown reason to me.
12:27So, I mean, sometimes it's deliberate, and I I know this is gonna be a banger. Other times, it's like I'm completely surprised. So weigh in on this.
12:37What are your thoughts on what I just said? So there's a lot of nuance that goes into content breaking through.
12:44First, understand that there's 5,200,000,000 people on social media today uploading upwards of 1,000,000,000 pieces of content across all of these platforms every single day. So the amount of content that you're competing against to break through is enormous.
13:00It's literally survival of the fittest of the best storytellers. So when you're competing at that level, oftentimes, you're talking about seconds or fractions of seconds that dictates whether your your content connects and retains audience's attention or falls flat.
13:16So it could be as simple as, like like like, a big mistake people make in the first three seconds is is is not having a clear visual hierarchy. So they'll have, like, a title card. They'll have captions, and they'll have somebody moving.
13:32And your subconscious brain, which is making the decision for most of the time of what you're gonna stop and pay attention to, can't figure out, like, what am I supposed to be paying attention to? The And minute it feels like it's get getting left behind, then it scrolls past.
13:46Or your content is positioned into something that the audience thinks they already know what's gonna happen, and they've seen it before, which can do that.
13:57In addition, oftentimes, when you kinda put too much polish on content, it triggers something in our subconscious brain to see, like, oh, this is probably gonna be an ad, so I'm gonna scroll past it.
14:09Because it's with a click of a finger, you can just scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. So I know it kinda feels like virality is is is random, but there's always a reason behind why a certain piece of content breaks through versus another one falls flat.
14:26Mhmm. And how about, um, a piece of content going viral on one platform but not on another?
14:32So, like, the identical clip. Now, you know, I'm seasoned enough to know that the ecosystems are different.
14:38You know? Like, what works on YouTube doesn't work on TikTok because they're different platforms for different people.
14:44That consumption patterns and habits are different. But speak to that a little bit. That's exactly what you just said.
14:50Yeah. The user interface is different. It's unique.
14:53Even though, like, TikTok seems very similar to Instagram Reels, there's unique differences to that, And there's unique differences to how these platforms work is, like, Instagram really favors shareability in DMs and communicating and connecting through content through DMs versus TikTok doesn't. So each each platform is designed and set up in different ways that dictates what type of formats work per per platform.
15:22So it's really these these nuances that cause a piece of content to succeed on one platform at a very high level and and not break through on another.
15:32So how does one then you know, if we've chosen a format, you know, per your direction and advice with let's say it's man on the street, how are we customizing that format for each platform?
15:46How do we how do we know how to break it down from YouTube to TikTok to Instagram? Those are basically our three most popular visual programs platforms right now.
15:57So there's a a few ways to look at that. Number one is I've I I I highly recommend focus on one platform to dial in and get good at. That doesn't mean you can't take that same content and post it to other platforms.
16:09By all means, do that. But we want to make sure that we can actually master one platform versus trying to master all the platforms at the same time.
16:18Yeah. Because by mastering one platform, it allows you to spot those nuances. Now the process that we go through in order to really understand what takes a format to succeed is we will take a specific format on a specific account on a specific social platform.
16:36So let's just take, like, school of hard knocks, for example, because they're doing really well. So we'll look at school of hard knocks using man on the street specifically on TikTok. And what our research team will do is they'll spend about fifteen to twenty hours cross analyzing the high performers versus the low performers to really diagnose what qualitative elements and nuances are driving performance versus detracting from performance.
16:59Now we start with TikTok, but if we want to then master Instagram and we're not seeing that correlation, we'll do the same thing on Instagram, same format, same account, to see if there's any distinct differences in terms of how that content performs on that separate platform.
17:18Gotcha. Okay. So, yeah, it really is.
17:20I think that's great advice. Focusing on, you know, becoming the master of one first and then learning taking key learnings from that and trying to apply it and then tweaking, making adjustments to to one or the other.
17:37Let's go back to your books for a minute. So you've written three books which seem to sort of build off the last. You know?
17:42So you have, you know, 1,000,000 followers and what is the second book title again?
17:50Point, how to stand out in three second world. And then you have guide to going viral.
17:54So each book, there's about five years between the first and the last. Right?
18:01Or maybe six years. No. There's a lot.
18:03So so the the tricky thing is each book's been written a few rewritten a few times. Yeah.
18:09The guy doing viral, the first version or not the guy who do. 1,000,000 Files, the first version came out in 2017. Okay.
18:16But I I rewrote each for that book at least three or four times You've updated it. Just by updating it.
18:24Yeah. The first version of Hookpoint came out in 2020. We just released a new version, I think, in 2025, and then the guide to going viral came out in 2025 as well.
18:34Okay.
18:36So, yeah, about ten years from the first book to now. So um, and it sounds like you have made updates.
18:43Question was gonna be, like, what what did you get wrong, or what has changed since, um, 1,000,000 followers to guide to going viral? I know a lot's happened in the last decade of social media, but, like, was there anything that you sort of was more obvious that you missed or left out of the first book that you included in the last book just because you've learned so much and rose so much and understand the space?
19:11Yeah. I think one of the biggest changes, obviously, is the amount of people that have joined social media and are creating content on these platforms, which has made it a lot more cutthroat and nuanced to succeed today versus back then.
19:31I I think that one of the biggest the biggest things is just how important storytelling is. Like, I don't think I really kind of understood that back in 2017 or 2016 when I was writing the book. And it's kind of interesting because I started in a storytelling environment and storytelling industry.
19:50But I think, like, that that's the biggest thing, you know, just looking back on it is is how important storytelling is. And and as that we were just talking about is, like, how history is just repeating itself and what has worked decades earlier works today.
20:05And that the most important thing is, um, and focusing on, you know, ex excelling in social media is kinda push away, like, all of the information about, like, hacks and hashtags and time of day and frequency. Like, forget all of those things.
20:21Like, the most important thing is, like, can you actually tell an effective story that grabs people's attention and wants them to watch more of your content? I mean, it's it's very simplistic.
20:33It's not easy, but it's a very simple formula to success.
20:38Yeah. And, you know, we've talked about school of hard knocks. I like what those guys are doing.
20:42It's sort of a reinvention of what I've been doing for a decade. I've been focused on YouTube, more mid form, long form, and School of Knock Hard Knocks has been focused on short form, killing the game.
20:55It's a different format than we've got, but it's super effective. Now let me just push back on that or maybe play the other side of the coin, which is when I watch their stuff, I also see Man in the Street being done by lots of other people who are trying to jump in that space who do the similar thing to School of Hard Knocks.
21:15Why isn't it working for them? If it's kind of the same format and the same kind of thing, is it because it's it's being played out now? Or because it's no longer about followers and subscribers.
21:28It's you know, we're in the attention economy, where you're right. You could have one to 10 followers on TikTok and and hit a banger and that thing goes viral.
21:41Talk about that for a minute. So other people jumping into the space, imitating the format, Why isn't it working for them if they're arguably doing the same thing?
21:50Well, they're not doing the same thing because there's nuance. So it's like they're they're not having success because they don't understand why the format works to begin with. So it's and it's not it's not that it's becoming oversaturated because this form has been around since the fifties in video form, and it and it doesn't die out.
22:08Um, it's kind of like you know, both of us come from the movie industry. It's kind of like saying just because you use the three act structure means you're gonna make a good movie.
22:17But we know that that's definitely not the truth. Like, it's your expression. It's your execution of it.
22:23Who are the actor? Yeah. Yeah.
22:25I mean so that is the the element is, like, if you're not succeeding, there's a reason you're not succeeding. So, like, literally, what we will do with clients is we'll like, for example, Manor Street will put the school of hard knocks, a high performer on one side of the screen, and they're underperforming it, uh, elements on the other side of the screen.
22:43We'll watch them side by side. And if you're really honest about it and pay attention, you can tell the difference. Like, there is a difference.
22:51It's not just because the school of hard knocks is is is has some magic key or spending a bunch of money in order to create these, um, content that that that drives that performance. It's literally in the nuances of how they tell a story.
23:05So, like, what are those nuances? Well, it can be in in the actual reaction of the person they're interviewing. It can be, you know, how do they actually approach the person on the street?
23:15What is the initial question they ask? What is the framing? Like, what is the you know, is there a perspective shift, you know, in the actual interview that gives somebody this moment?
23:28We call one of their our performance drivers work to wow ratio. How hard does a viewer have to work in order to get, you know, useful information? You know, how effective is the hook?
23:39Like, how are they using title cards or captions or things? Are they using it?
23:43Are they overusing it? Like, what is the tonality of the host? Is the host interrupting the person?
23:50Like, is the auto audio quality good enough that you can hear them? There's all these variables that go into the successful use case of a specific format.
24:00So it's not just, hey. I'm going to I look at what School of Hard is doing.
24:04Oh, that's so easy. I'm just gonna do the same thing. It's like and even even if you go back and look at the School of Hard Knocks, if you go all the way in the beginning, they weren't killing it.
24:13Like, they had to learn the progression of what it took to make these videos successful.
24:19Mhmm. And and at what point did they start working with you, or did you reach out to them?
24:25Oh, I don't I don't we didn't work with School of Hard Knocks. We just did research on their account. Oh, okay.
24:31We we research accounts every week, every day to understand, um,
24:37to understand what formats are working and why they're working. Like case studies. I gotcha.
24:41Yeah. Yeah. I think another one that you sort of mentioned, it was subtle on a just underscore for the audience here.
24:47It's and it's also a big, you know, storytelling element, and that is what's at stake.
24:56And so if we're using, you know, their content as a case study, would say, you know, like, interrupting millionaires or billionaires,
25:04there's a lot at stake. You know, you could get thrown out, you know, on your ass. Or it's Well, one of the reasons man on the street works is there's the unknown factor Yeah.
25:13Of approaching a random stranger. You do not know what's gonna happen, and that's why that has a high ceiling Yeah.
25:18If you if you execute it properly. Simon Scriv is another one that that excels at this format of approaching people and asking what is their dream.
25:27Yeah. And I like Simon because he'll also show the failures when he asks someone, and he gets totally ignored or he gets a a terrible The thing is that is a performance driver. As we've seen that we've seen that a lot in man on the street is oftentimes if you put, like, a rejection, like, one or two rejections before the actual acceptance, it actually causes more retention.
25:50Yeah. What do you think the psychology behind that is? Is it the vulnerability?
25:54Is it the relatability?
25:57I think it's more so the, again, the unpredictability. It's like, what is if this guy keeps getting rejected, is somebody going to get violent? Is somebody gonna yell?
26:06Like, it just like, the the format just has this unpredictability unpredictable nature that causes you to lean in. Mhmm.
26:15And so when you're working with clients or you're evaluating which format is going to work best, is it just a process of elimination, or do you have, like, a top five?
26:29Like, okay. I wanna I wanna audition these formats first because I think for this type of content, that's gonna be the best fit.
26:36What's the selection process look like? We we do a pretty deep matchmaking process, and this is the reason why we've done so much research.
26:44Because number one, the format needs to really connect with you and speak to you as a person. You need to be excited about creating it.
26:51Yeah. Because if you're not, if it's like like, for example, like, to be transparent, like, I tried Man on the Street myself, and it didn't work because I'm an introvert.
27:00Like, I don't wanna go out there and just approach random strangers. So Yeah. And that's a big part of, like, finding the format is, like, if you're not enjoying it or if you're not fueled by it in some way, that's gonna show up on camera.
27:12Even Yeah. Really in a subconscious level, but it's gonna show up and disconnect you from the audience. Yeah.
27:18So we look at, like, their personality types. Like, what are their communication strengths and weaknesses? We look at what resources they have.
27:24Like, do you just is it yourself and an iPhone? Do you have a camera setup? Do you have a camera crew?
27:30How much time do you wanna spend creating content? What is your experience level in creating content?
27:36We look at all these variables to understand what would be the best fit in terms of formats to start out with. Yeah.
27:44Yeah.
27:46And so there is no one size fits all answer or our top five list. It's it's all made to order. Yes.
27:54Because, again, a lot of it's personality driven of, like, what the person connects with. Like, I never wanna say, go do man on the street because it performs, and and you're an introvert and you hate talking to strangers. Like, I mean, that's just gonna it's not it's not gonna turn out well.
28:08Even if you do get some viral hits, you're eventually gonna burn yourself out and be like, I don't wanna do this anymore.
28:13Yeah. And and, you know, I've seen a fair amount of that too. You can kinda tell that that people are kinda sick of it.
28:20It it translates even if they're still doing it. That's true.
28:26So this series is called behind the brand. Let's let's weigh in on what you think a brand is, and maybe we'll put it in the context of personal branding because it seems to be a lot about what you're writing about.
28:37So, you know, sure, you know, Apple or Google or some, you know, some of these bigger consumer brand companies can utilize your knowledge to build brand, build community.
28:52Let's let's maybe talk about people who are building personal brands. First of all, what do you think a brand is? And then tell me what you think the Brendan Kane brand is.
29:04Well, I'm not the foremost expert. Think the guy that introduced introduced us, Chris Do, is the best person to give the the articulate definition of a brand. I think I can speak to it from a personal brand standpoint, which I think it's it's just a front facing expression of who you are in the world and what you represent.
29:23And that representation can be just a personal brand business.
29:28It can be the the the front facing brand of company, a product that you're selling. But I think it's, like, it's expressing what you stand for and how you show up in the world that has the ultimate impact on whether people know, like, and trust you and are willing to take that next step to take the action that you that you want them to take?
29:50Yeah. I think that tracks with you know, I've asked probably over a thousand people the same question. I think that tracks with some of the better answers I've got.
29:59I I think if I was gonna add my two cents, you know, your brand is not your window dressing. You know, it's it can enhance or support or help align or communicate what your brand is, you know, what you're wearing, what you say, how you say it.
30:18But, you know, brand is not your logo, and it's not the clothes you wear or the car you drive.
30:24I remember years ago, as a director, I was pulling up to set. I was being paid well.
30:32I pulled up to set in a little Honda Civic that I was driving that had probably 220 something mile a thousand miles on it. And I remember getting this look from my client who watched me get out of this beater, and he said, oh, this is your car.
30:49And I read through the lines, which I realized was really important actually for positioning.
30:57It's why we don't always bring smaller cameras to shoots. I mean, here's a small little SLR camera, for example, and this is one of the more, you know, smaller run and gun stuff.
31:11This is probably a $5,000 camera setup. Even, you know, by today's standards, it's a small camera setup.
31:17And so sometimes the optics matter. You know?
31:20But, ultimately, brands are distinct. When you start looking the same as everyone else, you sort of fall into this category of commodity.
31:30And so, like, if, you know, we're talking about formats, if you're just doing the format to repeat it because it's been successfully done by someone else in, you're in danger of jumping into a commodity. Brands are distinct. They're different.
31:42And and it's not, like, how to be better or faster or stronger. It's about being different.
31:49How can you differentiate from other big ones? So I like what you said about that.
31:56How how would you describe your personal brand?
32:01I think that my personal brand, it really is about you know, the thing that drives me is is how do you stand out at the highest levels? Like, what what causes something to break through versus falling flat?
32:13And the basis of how I always come to that answer is through constant experimentation, research, and learning. So I'm always testing new things, trying new things to learn what is the best way to break through at the highest levels and learn from why you you fail to to to do that same thing and then sharing that knowledge with the world.
32:36Yeah. Why are you in London or not back in LA doing this?
32:41What why why that area of the world?
32:45Well, so I I split time between Austin, Texas, London, and and Portugal. I fell out of love with LA during COVID when when it just kinda went south.
32:57I had spent fifteen years in LA, and I just was kind of I was just kinda done with it. And the beauty of the work that I do and I learned this very early in my career.
33:08I just know how to build things, communicate with people in a fully remote situation. I mean, I built some early social media technology platforms as early as 2007, and I was forced to hire remote developers from all over the world to help me create those things.
33:27So for me, the location doesn't really matter as much.
33:33And, yeah, I just kinda fell in love with or fell out of love with LA during that whole kind of COVID Yeah.
33:40Side of things and have been jumping around ever since.
33:45Yeah. I think it also speaks to the idea that you're going back to content creation or becoming successful achieving your goals.
33:55You don't have to live in the hottest city. You don't have to be in New York with Casey Neistat. Well, maybe it's not Casey Neistat's story anymore, but, you know, you don't have to be in these hot cities with quotes
34:08to be Yeah. I mean, it's funny because Chris Do and I had a a pretty big debate about this on our last podcast, the last podcast I was on. I was in the same boat as you, but he was saying, no.
34:18There is a big benefit to to being in these cities. I was like, man, like, you could be anywhere.
34:24Like, it it it's like you look at mister Beast.
34:29You know? He's in, what, North Carolina and, like, he's the most subscribed person on YouTube, which is Yep. I I I really don't think that you have to be in a specific geolocation outside of the fact that you need a Wi Fi connection and at least, like, a a phone camera to be able to do it.
34:43If you're living, obviously, in the in in the middle of nowhere or in in a a very poor environment that doesn't have Wi Fi or ability the to create content, then that's gonna work against you. But outside of those variables, I I think that you literally can be anywhere in in the world and and, you know, build an audience and create effective content.
35:03Yeah. Now if you, uh, have a production company like mine,
35:08um, you could argue that proximity matters. Yeah. That's different because different.
35:13You're servicing you're servicing clients.
35:15And Yeah. You're relying on other people to pick you or to find, you know, it's just about the size of the watering hole.
35:21You know, how many fish are in that pond. You know? If you're you're fishing in a small pond, then you've got that many fish.
35:27If you're fishing in a bigger ocean like LA, New York, Austin, Atlanta, etcetera.
35:34You know? So, yeah, sort of rounding third coming home here.
35:38I wanna go back to maybe some of these mistakes that you've made. A lot people don't like to talk about the f word of failure.
35:45But, you know, I've I think the way I frame it is, you know, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. So what are some of these things that you've learned or, you know, made mistakes or failed at in order to get to where you are now? Maybe some of these things back to you know, what surprised you about the evolution of how you've built this architecture of instruction, of how you teach people how to build audiences?
36:08Well, I think that the earliest stages of social media were were really about tactics and hacks, um, and these little tricks that you could figure out how to manipulate the early verges versions of social media to to gain the system to your advantage.
36:28And I think that there was an overreliance in the beginning to kind of look for those things instead of looking at the larger picture as you mentioned earlier of, like, well, how do you actually just connect with an audience?
36:41You know? And I think that that that was a progression. You know?
36:43I've been doing this for, you know, going on on twenty one years. I I think that, you know, those earliest stages, I think that there was a lot of time spent trying to figure out how you shortcut your your yourself in front of the line, how you build these these audiences through more tactics than actual storytelling.
37:02And, you know, it took quite a while to do that. And there were some reasons.
37:06You know, early on, these social media platforms were easier to game because there was less content on the platform, so they would favor, for example, frequency. Just by the sheer fact of if if you were to post more, you would get more eyeballs versus today, that's just not the case.
37:20It's not just about volume. It's it's it's really about the quality of content. So I think, you know, in those earlier days, I think there was a lot of time and energy wasted looking for those elements instead of really looking at the larger picture of what what is going to be truly meaningfully meaningful and and valuable in the long term.
37:45Is now the best time or the worst time to get started? I mean, with so much Yeah. Out there The best time.
37:50I mean, it's it's counterintuitive. Right? You're saying how many billions of people are are on social media and how many billions of hours are being created, and yet you're saying it's the best time.
38:00Why?
38:01Two reasons. I mean, I agree with you. 99% of the people creating content are don't have the understanding of what we're talking about today.
38:09So the sheer fact that if you're gonna actually spend the time on how to, like, create, like, meaningful stories, that is gonna work to your benefit, and you're gonna rise above the noise much quicker. Number two, we live in a world where there's 5,200,000,000 people on these platforms.
38:27Like, there's so much audience out there that it's crazy. Like, there's just so many people that you can reach.
38:33And number three, it's it's it's the fact that you can start with 10 followers, a 100 followers.
38:42We have some clients start with zero followers, and you can build an audience. Like, it's if you find your format and and find the best ways to, you know, master that format and tell great stories, you literally can start with zero and build a massive audience.
38:57It's the the the opportunity is is open to everyone.
39:03Let's talk about that for a second too. So, uh, there's a trend of having multiple profiles, multiple avatars, you know, basically creating an echo chamber.
39:15Weigh in on this. You know what I'm talking about?
39:17Are you talking about clipping, or are you talking about something else?
39:21Well, we can talk about both. So brands or influencers who hire other people to clip on their behalf, that's one thing.
39:32Another thing is just simply let's say it's Gary Vaynerchuk. You know, Gary and I are friends from way back. Gary probably has 30 or 40 Gary channels, right, on each platform.
39:44So he's just duplicating, replicating, creating multiple accounts.
39:51Is this a good strategy? And talk about maybe why he would do it or why he shouldn't do it.
39:57So for Gary, it makes sense because he had a team of 40 people creating content for him. So, like, for him, sure. I for most people, I would not recommend it until you've actually mastered one account.
40:08Like, you you you've gotta master one thing before you kind of expand out. Like, just just by creating 10 accounts and creating count concept for each of the 10 accounts does not mean you're gonna be successful.
40:20Again, it comes down to the content. So if you create one account and you create great content and you feel like you could create different types of content for different channels, then sure.
40:33Go for it. I'm not saying it's a bad strategy. I'm saying for most people, it's not the right strategy.
40:39It's hard to scale that. Yeah. And talk about what's happening with with Clippers.
40:45Yeah. I mean, basically, what you know, you have a lot of, um, top livestreamers, some top YouTubers that that pay, um, these guys called Clippers, which are editors that will take their long form content and cut it down and, uh, place it on separate accounts.
41:04And based upon the performance of those clips, those clippers get paid. So the better those clips perform, the more they get paid.
41:12Uh, again, it's a good strategy for those people that already have content that's connecting with an audience.
41:20But I don't believe in it as a strategy if somebody hasn't dialed in their own content first.
41:27Yeah. I get a DM from these guys literally every day saying, I'll take your, you know, sixty minute, ninety minute interview with Tony Robbins or with Gary or with Brendan, and I'll I'll clip it out.
41:42Is this better suited for someone who has a product or service to sell? I mean, can you can you can you really You need to you need to you need to get an ROI out of it because it costs you money. So so, I mean, even with social media, it's it's the same thing.
41:55It's like, what is the end result that you're going after? You have to have some type of benchmark to determine whether you're gonna be successful or whether you are being successful.
42:04Because just because you generate a lot of views doesn't mean or followers, it doesn't mean that it correlates to dollars. So it's something that once you have, like, a real model that's dialed in that you know works, it's kinda putting fuel on the fire.
42:18What should we be measuring? You know, how should we be measuring success?
42:24Well, for for most people, it's are you generating the return? Are you generating revenue off of the content that you're creating? Now that doesn't mean Facebook or Instagram, YouTube really paying you.
42:35I mean, you can make money off of, like, YouTube Ad Sense and and other things, but it it's typically not really the best way to to to generate revenue off these platforms. It's really what is the underlying business that you are representing? How do you make money today, and can social media allow you to make more money currently doing what you're doing?
42:55So that could be selling products. Um, for some people, like, for some of our clients, it's getting more speaking engagements, could be book deals.
43:03You know, it it can be a number of different things, but I always like to tie it to revenue because if you can correlate the dollars coming in, you're more likely to stick with creating content versus if you don't see dollars coming in, you start questioning why am I spending time creating so much content if I'm not making money off of it.
43:21Yeah.
43:22Yeah. I mean, the default ROI or the KPI seems to be views, followers, engagement, watch time, etcetera, which is not a bad but, like, to your point, how does that translate into the amount of money that we're spending on the cost of production versus the the end result?
43:43And, you know, one of my more high profile cases that I use is you know, we we built Kevin O'Leary's YouTube channel from zero to hero.
43:53And that was how we measured success too is, uh, there are several measures of success. One of them was that Kevin's most successful or profitable activity was public speaking.
44:08You know, he would get high 6 figures between, you know, a 150 k and 250 k per hour, and so we wanted to increase that from a couple of times a year to couple of dozen times a year.
44:21We also wanted to use the channel to market and promote his 20 or 30 Shark Tank investments. We also wanted to do it to audition other formats.
44:31He was a classically trained chef. He collects really expensive watches, guitars.
44:39He loves cameras. He owns every lens known to man. And so we started auditioning to the shows where he was chef wonderful, cook.
44:46We ended up doing a deal with QVC as a result. So, yeah, I think if I'm adding my 2¢ to how to measure success, I think there's more than one way than just A 100%.
44:58The money. You know, sometimes it even might be finding other team members or collaborators or
45:06and I've been Yeah. It's just being super clear on what e what outcome you want. And if you're super clear on that outcome and it's delivering that outcome, that's your benchmark for success.
45:14Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had Malcolm Gladwell on the series, and, you know, the ROI of that is just being friends with Malcolm.
45:21He and I go for both car guys. We he talks about his restoring a BMW. I'm I'm into Porsches.
45:29Anyway, so sometimes it's just friendship. So there's lots of ways to measure, but I I think it's important that we we are you able to track, you know, the money you spend in your activities back to some sort of return item?
45:41Very smart point, Well, I love this conversation. I can talk to you for another six hours, but I respect your time.
45:50Maybe let's have some closing thoughts.
45:56How how do you make money these days? Like, what is your main source of revenue? What's important to you?
46:01And maybe we could pull that in so people can find you and find your stuff.
46:06Well, I mean, the most important thing for me is that I I and and each of my three books have the exact same dedication, and it's that I believe there's people all over the world. They have the ability to transform the world in a positive way through their message, their product, or services.
46:21They just need those those insights and that helping hand to break through in this ultra competitive and noisy environment that we find ourselves in. So our entire mission is to help people break through on social media through all of our research and our insights that we've gleaned in in doing this for for twenty plus years.
46:43So, basically, we we empower companies by helping them find their ideal format and giving them the clear blueprint on how to execute that format based upon, you know, the process that we've talked through today.
46:58And what does that look like? Is it, like, consultation? Is it hand holding?
47:02Is it giving them a playbook?
47:04Yeah. So we have all all different types of of of scopes that we work with. We we have a certain scope where we just give people access access to our library of formats and the insights, and they can do it completely on their own.
47:15We have, you know, done with you programs where we can hold your hand all the way through it, or we can just create the strategy for you and and be off and running. So we kind of meet the client, you know, where they're at based upon kind of the stage of their business and the the type of support that they're looking for.
47:32Who's the ideal person you're trying to reach or help with this?
47:36So the, you know, the simplest the simplest thing, and it and it sounds stupid, but it does matter, is first off, somebody who believes that social media is going to help them in their growth. If you don't believe it, like, I can't I'm not gonna try and convince you that social media is. But it's it's really you know, social media is top of funnel awareness.
47:56So this is not direct direct response marketing. Um, it can definitely benefit and accelerate direct response marketing and get, you know, better results from the pay that you're doing. But we are there to help people that want to build a relationship with an audience.
48:10They want to scale a connection, um, with an audience that that ultimately when that trust is built, they will ultimately wanna support that brand or that person. So we work with companies that are solopreneurs all the way up to multibillion dollar corporations, um, and we work with people that have never used social media all the way up to experts that have millions of followers and subscribers.
48:32I think that the common denominator is people that really want to excel at the highest levels of social media. We're not the type of people you go to as, like, if you just need a social media to a manager to post for you. Like, that's just that's not us.
48:45We're there to kind of really decode how you reach that top 1% of social media and breakthrough.
48:52It sounds like a more, like, you know, teach a man to fish kind of philosophy where you're empowering similar to take the tools and develop them and work into the future.
49:07I mean, we were just sitting back, you know, chopping it up, reminiscing about the good old days and all that.
49:14You know, tracking my roots, where I came from and where I'm going.
49:25But like I say, man, always said it. It's not about the destination.
49:33It's all about the journey. Ain't nothing changed but the weather.
49:41The dangling
49:57not I'm you. Wasted.
50:13Good and bad news, which one you want first. Either way you pick the best, still gonna hurt you the worst. I never got to bask in the fruits of the labor, and I never got the cash from that dude from the labor.
50:23I'm just thinking back.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The episode opens mid-thought, on the very question most creators never answer: two accounts run the identical format, one breaks out and one goes nowhere. Brendan Kane spends the next fifty minutes explaining why — and it isn't the algorithm.
How they asked for the click.
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