08:30Brian Mark · Tutorial
How I Turned a 700 View Reel Into 700,000 Views
The exact posting and split-testing system Brian Mark uses to generate half a billion views a year from one reel.
May 19thThe argument in one line.
Growing a service business on social media isn't about making more content, it's about finding which of your existing posts already converts, then boosting, re-scripting, and search-optimizing that proof relentlessly.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A coach, consultant, or service business owner who already posts content but can't connect views to booked calls.
- A creator running paid boosts or ads on existing posts without a clear targeting strategy.
- Someone managing a content calendar who wants a repeatable system for deciding what to re-post, re-script, or retire.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for camera gear or editing software recommendations, this is a strategy video with no production tutorial.
- You have zero existing content to analyze, most of these tactics assume you already have a posting history to mine.
The full version, fast.
A fitness-coaching business owner breaks down eight tactics behind the social strategy driving his $1.5 million-a-month business. The core argument: most creators treat 'viral' and 'conversion' content as opposite goals, when the real skill is writing avatar-specific messaging into formats the algorithm already rewards, then boosting it with $50 to $100 of ad spend instead of guessing. He teaches how to split test hooks on TikTok before posting to Instagram, read two retention metrics (three-second watch-through and skip rate), recognize when a format has expired, and re-script proven winners instead of constantly creating from scratch. The closing argument: platforms now function as search engines, so captions and bio text matter as much as the hook.
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00:00 – 03:49
01 · Boost your niche posts, not your viral ones
Opens with the creator's stats claim, then the first hack: boosting your most-viral post wastes ad spend because broad content has no specific audience signal. Boosting avatar-specific posts instead gets followers for $2-3 each without hurting organic reach.
03:49 – 09:17
02 · Put conversion content in viral formats
Reframes 'viral content' vs 'conversion content' as a false choice. Walks through five formats currently working (split screen, top/bottom split screen, carousels, skits, live breakdowns) and the ManyChat DM script that turns comments into qualified leads.
09:17 – 13:22
03 · Re-script your own winners
Argues a viral video hasn't reached everyone, since each repost hits a different slice of followers. Shows a video that got 10x more views on its second post, and gives the process for mining your own top 10 posts via sandcastles.ai.
13:22 – 15:35
04 · Split test on TikTok before you post
TikTok distributes mainly to non-followers, making it the honest test bed for hooks. The method: record three hook variations, post all three to TikTok at once, and move the 24-hour winner over to Instagram.
15:35 – 18:04
05 · The three-second scoreboard
The two numbers to check after every post: skip rate (target under 50%) and watch-through past the first three seconds (target over 50%). Explains why generic intros like 'hey guys, welcome back' tank both.
18:04 – 22:28
06 · Formats expire
Every format has a shelf life: once enough creators copy it, audiences get desensitized and views decline even without a drop in content quality. Uses the 2022-2024 swipe-workout trend as a case study, and names split screens and carousels as still-durable formats.
22:28 – 25:58
07 · Raw beats polished
Native, unscripted phone footage now outperforms produced content because audiences crave authenticity. A personal video of the creator holding his newborn, with no business message at all, pulled 6.6 million views and 2,000 new followers.
25:58 – 29:20
08 · Platforms are search engines now
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube parse transcripts, captions, and bio text to match content to what users are searching for. Hashtags no longer categorize content; consistent, specific keyword usage in speech, captions, and bio does.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Boosting your highest-view post usually wastes ad spend, because videos that go viral are broad by design and the algorithm has no specific audience signal to target.
- A post is boost-worthy when it names your ideal customer's exact situation in the first three seconds, not when it already has the most views.
- Paid boosting and organic reach aren't in competition: spending on avatar-specific posts can grow both audiences at once.
- Content isn't split into 'for views' and 'for clients.' The strongest posts put a message aimed at your buyer inside a structure the algorithm already favors.
- List-format videos (ranked tips, numbered steps) consistently outperform straight talking-head videos for both reach and lead volume.
- Five formats were reliably converting at the time of this recording: split screen, top/bottom split screen, carousels, skit-style videos, and live demo breakdowns.
- A DM automation tied to a comment keyword turns video engagement directly into a qualifying conversation without anyone leaving the app.
- A video that already went viral hasn't reached your whole audience, each repost gets redistributed to a different, mostly non-overlapping slice of followers.
- Reposting an identical video with zero changes produced better results the second time than the first, because it reached people who never saw it.
- TikTok is the one major platform that distributes primarily to non-followers, which makes it the most honest place to test whether a video idea works.
- Recording three hook variations for one video and posting all three to TikTok at once reveals which opening line earns the widest reach before committing budget to it.
- Two numbers predict performance after every post: the percent still watching past the first three seconds, and the percent who skip immediately.
- The targets to hit are under 50% skip rate and over 50% retention past the first three seconds.
- Generic openers like 'hey guys, welcome back' burn the only three seconds you get before a viewer decides the video isn't about them.
- Every format has a shelf life: once enough creators copy a style, audiences get desensitized to it and stop engaging, even if the content quality hasn't dropped.
- Declining views on a format that used to win is a signal to retire it, not a signal to push harder on the same style.
- Native-feeling phone footage now consistently outperforms produced content, because audiences associate high production value with inauthenticity.
- The most personal, least strategic post in the library, a single unscripted family moment, can outperform every tactical post, because emotion is universally relatable.
- Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube now parse video transcripts, captions, and bio copy to match content to what users are actively searching for.
- Hashtags no longer categorize content; the actual words spoken in the video and written in the caption do that job now.
Repeat what already works, systematically
THE REPEATABLE SYSTEM
Growth doesn't come from making more content: it comes from testing which of your existing posts already converts, then boosting, re-scripting, and search-optimizing that proof relentlessly.
01Boost your niche posts, not your viral ones
- Boosting your highest-view post usually wastes ad spend, because videos that go viral are broad by design and the algorithm has no specific audience signal to target.
- A post is boost-worthy when it names your ideal customer's exact situation in the first three seconds, not when it already has the most views.
- Paid boosting and organic reach aren't in competition: spending on avatar-specific posts can grow both audiences at once.
02Put conversion content in viral formats
- Content isn't split into 'for views' and 'for clients.' The strongest posts put a message aimed at your buyer inside a structure the algorithm already favors.
- List-format videos consistently outperform straight talking-head videos for both reach and lead volume.
- Five formats were reliably converting at the time of this recording: split screen, top/bottom split screen, carousels, skit-style videos, and live demo breakdowns.
- A DM automation tied to a comment keyword turns video engagement directly into a qualifying conversation without anyone leaving the app.
03Re-script your own winners
- A video that already went viral hasn't reached your whole audience, each repost gets redistributed to a different, mostly non-overlapping slice of followers.
- Reposting an identical video with zero changes can produce better results the second time, because it reaches people who never saw it.
- The move isn't chasing new ideas constantly: find your 10 best-performing posts from the last two years and recreate each one in a different format.
04Split test on TikTok before you post
- TikTok is the one major platform that distributes primarily to non-followers, which makes it the most honest place to test whether a video idea works.
- Recording three hook variations for one video and posting all three to TikTok at once reveals which opening line earns the widest reach before committing budget to it.
- Whichever version wins on TikTok within 24 hours is the one to move to Instagram, not whichever one you personally like best.
05The three-second scoreboard
- Two numbers predict performance after every post: the percent still watching past the first three seconds, and the percent who skip immediately.
- The targets to hit are under 50% skip rate and over 50% retention past the first three seconds.
- Generic openers like 'hey guys, welcome back' burn the only three seconds you get before a viewer decides the video isn't about them.
06Formats expire
- Every format has a shelf life: once enough creators copy a style, audiences get desensitized to it and stop engaging, even if the content quality hasn't dropped.
- Declining views on a format that used to win is a signal to retire it, not a signal to push harder on the same style.
- Formats that take real effort to produce, like carousels, tend to stay effective longer because fewer creators put in the time to copy them well.
07Raw beats polished
- Native-feeling phone footage now consistently outperforms produced content, because audiences associate high production value with inauthenticity.
- Audiences can tell when a creator is reading a script word for word instead of speaking in their own voice, and it costs engagement.
- The most personal, least strategic post in the library, a single unscripted family moment, can outperform every tactical post, because emotion is universally relatable.
08Platforms are search engines now
- Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube now parse video transcripts, captions, and bio copy to match content to what users are actively searching for.
- Hashtags no longer categorize content; the actual words spoken in the video and written in the caption do that job now.
Terms worth knowing.
- Boost button
- Meta's native ad tool that turns an existing organic post into a targeted paid ad without building a full ad campaign from scratch.
- Avatar
- Shorthand for a business's ideal customer profile, the specific person a piece of content is written to call out and convert.
- ManyChat
- A chatbot tool that automatically messages anyone who comments a trigger word on a post, used to turn social engagement into a sales conversation.
- Split testing
- Posting multiple versions of the same video, usually with different hooks, to see which performs best before committing wider distribution to it.
- Three-second scoreboard
- A shorthand for the two retention metrics checked on every post after 24 hours: skip rate and the percentage of viewers still watching past three seconds.
- Content pillars
- The two or three recurring formats a creator commits to because they consistently perform and stay sustainable to produce.
- Sandcastles.ai
- A third-party analytics tool used to sort a creator's or a competitor's posts by view count to find proven winners worth repeating.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
16:31
“Nobody cares about you in the nicest way possible. People care about themselves.”
07:22
“PS, I'm looking for five online fitness coaches that want to add an additional 5 to 10K to their monthly revenue in the next 60 to 90 days. If that's you, reply with 10K.”
11:23
“That by itself has generated me 100 million plus views from one concept.”
25:35
“That video brought me in over 6.6 million views. Brought me in 2,000 followers. Had nothing to do with business.”
19:19
“Your format expired, and the reason it expired is because people on the platform stop engaging with that format.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
analogystory
My Instagram does over 50 million views a month. Those views turn into 900 booked calls on my calendar, helping my business bring in over $1 .5 million a month. These are the eight social media principles that I wish I knew sooner.
Starting with hack number one, you want to boost your most niche posts, not your most viral one. There's two big mistakes when it comes to the boost button. Mistake number one is that creators will go to their most viral posts and they'll press the boost button because they think to themselves, well, this content brought me in a lot of views.
So if I spend more money on it, it's going to bring me in more people that are going to want to become my customer. And that's not true in any way, shape or form because videos that go viral by nature tend to be broader videos, which means that a lot of people are going to relate to them. So if you press the boost button on those videos, Meta's not gonna know who to show that video to, and it's gonna show it to everyone.
And there's another side of social media that says, I don't like to boost my content because it's gonna affect my organic, which again, is not true in any way, shape, or form. My Instagram generates 45 million views a month organically, and those extra five million views come from boosted content and ads. Now, if it was true that boosted content had a negative effect on my organic content, I wouldn't be generating 45 million views a month.
Every single day I spend $400 a day on boosting posts to get them in front of my ideal client demographic. Now I found the boost button because I was in Tacky Moore's mentorship program and I came across this guy named Jay. Jay sells online coaching for e -comm business owners.
He would get his clients incredible results and then once they got incredible results, he would fly out a videographer to that client and he would film a testimonial video with that client. It was like a full on production. So he'd go to their actual store, he would watch them like create product and then he interviewed them and the interview was like a cinematic style b -roll video with a testimonial of how Jay was awesome and then Jay's entire strategy was taking that content boosting that content and putting it in front of his ideal client demographic I watched Jay join that coaching program at five hundred thousand dollars a month and scale to two million dollars a month in six months once I saw that I was like Okay, like there's something here So how I use this is I go up to my clients and I say how much money do you make as a personal trainer?
And I ask them how much money they make and then from that point that client answers and then says that I'm awesome And I put those videos in front of personal trainers I started testing the waters with this strategy with $100 a day and I was getting followers for two to three dollars a follow and Every 50 followers that I brought in I was able to book one sales call I noticed an immediate ROI, so I just doubled down.
And now, it's just a pivotal part of my strategy. I take my content that is highly targeted towards my ideal client demographic, that calls them out in the first three seconds, and I spend 50 to $100 per post, and my goal as a business owner is to get followers for two to $3 a follow. So go to your Instagram newsfeed, and I want you to watch the last nine videos on your feed.
Any videos that you mention your avatar in the first three seconds of the video are a good post to boost. Once you look at the last nine videos, you'll find two or three of them that have that avatar specific language choose one of them that already has the most engagement and that's going to be the one that you're going to boost so you're going to open up your instagram desktop to boost because apple will charge you a service fee and you're going to go to the post and you're going to select boost you're going to choose visit your profile as the option you're going to scroll down and i want you to create a custom audience the custom audience is going to be the united states of america and you're going to choose the age range of 25 or above.
To start, we're not going to do any interest targeting, so we're just going to keep it broad, and we're going to trust that the messaging in your video is good enough to bring in your ideal client. You want to run that play for 48 hours. What you're looking for is whether or not this post brings in followers for $1 to $3 a follow.
If it does, great. Keep it up. If it doesn't, turn it off and find another post that you can boost your avatar.
Don't be afraid to pay to play because the more followers that you can get on your page that are your ideal client, some of those people will become clients right away. Some of those people will become clients in six months. If they are in your audience, they have a higher likelihood of seeing your stuff more consistently.
But the boost button is only the tip of the iceberg. If you wanna learn how to turn your Instagram into a money printing machine, then you need to understand section number two, which means you need to learn how to put conversion content in viral formats. See, most people think that there's only two types of content.
These are either content that's designed to get views or content that's designed to sign clients. And the content that's designed to get views is just gonna get views and that's it. It's not gonna bring you any business.
And the content that's designed to sign clients, well, the reason that it has low views is because it's aimed at my avatar. However, when you learn how to put conversion content in viral formats, not only will you break through the algorithm because you're capturing people's attention, but you will also generate a fuck ton of leads because you're in front of more people.
So here's where I learned this. I used to post videos that were just straight talk to the camera videos, and I've posted before about a posting schedule. Posting schedule videos for me before tended to do really bad.
Now, there was one time I posted this video right here, and it was a $10 ,000 a month posting schedule. This one video, because I did it in a list format, generated me 1 .6 million views and over 2 ,000 leads for one post. From that moment forward, I knew that there wasn't just viral content and conversion content.
If I learned how to take conversion content, aka content that is so valuable my audience could get results for free without hiring me, and put them in formats that are consistently producing views on social media, Then I could break through to the algorithm. And when I did that, my inbox would be flooded with potential prospects.
The reason that most people don't do this is because they naturally think that when I'm speaking directly to my avatar, that is why my viewers are lower. And then they just get stuck in low view jail forever because in their head, they're thinking, okay, like I need to solve a specific problem for a specific person. So I'm just going to create a video that's either a raw talking video to my camera or a podcast style clip.
And when their views aren't performing, they're just blaming it on the fact that it's niche content. But just because it's niche, doesn't mean you can't get it to go viral.
Here's the way that I like to think about conversion content in viral formats. I find an in -demand topic. Okay, so I find a topic that my avatar deeply cares about.
Then I'll find a viral format. Once I have that viral format and that in -demand topic, I'll find a specific pain point or problem that my avatar is experiencing right now in relation to this topic, and I'll take that specific pain point, that viral format, and that in -demand topic, and I create my video. Here are five formats that are absolutely crushing right now that you can steal.
Number one is the split screen format. There's one person on one side showing all the things to do wrong, and then there's one person on the good side showing everything to do right is crushing. Another format, you can do is a top bottom split screen.
These formats are excellent if you want to give an in -depth value breakdown that has screen recordings on the bottom and you explaining on the top. Another format that is crushing right now on social media is carousels. You can take some of your best performing videos that have popped off on social media and you can just turn them into a carousel.
I did this with this carousel right here, which is $100 ,000 a month posting schedule. Another format that's crushing right now is skip videos. This video as an example is one where I just brought my wife into the video and she was just sitting at the laptop quote unquote, asking about a secret website.
This is the exact same script that I did in a different video, but this video also went viral because I completely changed the format. And finally, one of the top performing formats on my page right now is live breakdowns. These can be live demonstrations of you actually using the product that you have.
Or for me, it's a live demo of a sales call that I actually took of me overcoming the objection and closing the deal. Then when they get to the end of the video, that's when you're going to do a call to action. So for me, as an example, if I was to do the secret website video where I had my laptop open, I would say, if you want to know what the secret website is, follow me and comment game and I'll send it over to you.
As soon as somebody comments game, then they're attached to my many chat. chat's going to send them a message, start the conversation, and it's going to say, hey, here's a secret website, and send it over. And then this is where the magic is.
It's going to say, PS, dot, dot, dot, I'm looking for five online fitness coaches that want to add an additional 5 to 10K to their monthly revenue in the next 60 to 90 days. If that's you, reply with 10K, and I'll reach out to you to see if I can help. And boom, just like that, I have this video right here that got over 1 ,500 comments.
And that video led to 1 ,500 leads in my inbox. And there's going to be a small percentage, around 10 % of people, that replied to that 10K CTA. So now I just got 150 leads that are interested in my product.
And I could go on for days about ManyChat and the flows that I use. So if you guys want to see more of that stuff, just stay tuned to my channel and comment below and let me know if you want to see that. So here's exactly how you do this right now.
The first thing I want you to do is I want you to create a clone video, aka a side -by -side video. The reason for this is this is the highest performing video by far, and it has been for the last three years on my account. then what i want you to do is i want you to find an in -demand topic related to your industry so an example for fitness coaches is you could find the most frequently asked question or the most frequently asked pain point in the fitness industry right now related to your niche like I skip breakfast every single morning.
So what you're gonna do is you're gonna write out four of the main problems that your avatar has. So it's like, I skip breakfast every single morning. I only eat carrots and broccoli for lunch.
I have a protein shake at dinner and call that a meal. And then finally, like I never eat past 8 p .m. So those can be the fourth mistakes that they're making.
So that's on the bad side. Then on the good side, you're gonna write the opposite of that or what your subject matter expertise is. Then you're gonna film the split screen video and you're gonna start with.
I skip breakfast every morning on the bad side. And then on the good side, you're going to explain what you do well. Now, when you're filming this clone video, it's extremely important that you do it with a blank background because the less noisy the background is, the better.
And finally, you want to make sure that you have wrong and right at the top of the video. It doesn't have to actually say wrong and right. Just have a red X and a green checkmark for like bad and good.
So it's very clear. Who's the idiot and who's the smart one? Now doing this is going to cause some videos to pop off like crazy, but none of this matters unless you're squeezing the juice out of every single video, which brings us to section three.
You need to re -script your own winners. Here's what most people do when a video goes viral is they never touch it again because in their head they think to themselves like, oh yeah, like I wouldn't want to post the same video again because my audience is going to get bored. But that's not true.
Even though the video went viral, if you go check out your viral video and you see the percentage of that video that got shown to your followers, it's going to be a of what got shown rather than to the non followers so every time you post a video it gets distributed and it doesn't get distributed to the exact same people and here's the best part and the coolest part is when you post a viral video that essentially is giving you evidence that this is a subject matter that people deeply care about that is why the video went viral because when it landed in front of people's pages they interacted with that video for some reason and so Our job basically as creators is to rinse and repeat that same formula, those same words, that same cadence that we did to make that video go viral as many times as possible until it stops performing.
And just to be super clear, there's 2 billion daily active users on Instagram. So unless your videos are getting 2 billion views, there's a lot more people that could see that stuff. I personally hated the idea of reposting the same content on my newsfeed because I want to be an original creator.
But then I saw my business partner. His name's Cole Da Silva. He's short, sexy, straight to the point, reposting his most viral videos and re -scripting his most viral videos, and they would go viral again.
After seeing that evidence of my best friend posting videos back to back to back to back, the same... Content just either rescripted or reformatted and seeing that it was working on his account I realized that I was retarded and I started doing it myself. So I want to show you something crazy Alright, so there was this one video that I posted and I remember the first time that I posted it It got 400 ,000 views.
So I was like, I'm gonna post it again, you know So I literally waited a week and I posted it again the exact same video. I didn't even change anything I just posted the same video that same video got me 4 million views the second time now we've taken that exact same concept and we've made over a dozen videos about it.
Here are all of those different videos. Same video, same concept. So it's like that by itself has generated me 100 million plus views from one concept.
which just goes to show you that once you find something that the audience receives as valuable and they're interacting with it, if you do that again, the audience is likely to react again. And yeah, sure, it might not go as viral as the first time, most often that's the case, but you're also gonna get those like outlier ones where the second time I posted the video, it actually got 10 times the amount of views.
So find your top 10 videos for the last two years. To do this, you're going to go to sandcastles .ai. You're going to plug in your own username.
And once you plug in your own username, you're going to sort the videos by the most viewed. Take the top 10 most viewed videos and just use those most viewed videos and do them in different formats. An example for me right here is I've got the 100K a month posting schedule that absolutely ripped for me.
I took that exact same video and I turned it into a carousel that was the 100K a month carousel. So it's like the exact same script, the exact same format. Now, another thing you can do is literally just refilm the video in the exact way that you filmed it the first time.
Because again, it's probably been a while since you posted this exact video. So just refilming the video in the exact same way is another way that you can use that viral video. You can do this to 5X the amount of content that you get from each one of these pieces of content.
Because if you take that video script and you use the five formats that I gave you and you take 10 video scripts and you do those in five different formats, you can take 10 of your most viral pieces of content and turn them into 50 videos that you can post over the course of the next 90 days. But before you post anything, here's how me and my team know that a video is going to hit before we even hit post.
Which brings me to section four, split testing on TikTok. Most business owners don't even know what the concept of split testing is with organic content. In fact, when a lot of people go to my TikTok account and they see a very similar video back to back to back to back, the most frequently asked comment I get is, Bro, why are you posting the same video?
But the truth is, it's not the same video. It's one core concept with five different variations. So here's an example.
As you can see, this one, two, three, four, five, six, these six videos. look like the exact same video but if we listen to the first three seconds of these six videos we're gonna find out that they're different check this out list reveal a tier one of my favorite formats on social media personal story s tier one of the best things that you can do is demonstrate social proof s tier this is the only form of content that you q a i would say b tier it can be used talking head s tier because it's the easiest b roll d tier this is one of the worst things that you can do if you're trying to deliver now that we've listened to them all the hooks are different The one that has the most views and the most engagement, the top one, is the one that I move over to Instagram.
So the reason that we split test on TikTok is because TikTok is the only platform that completely distributes to non -followers. Like if you look at even Gary Vaynerchuk's account, right? Let's just go here for an example.
We'll go to Gary V's account. Gary V has 15 .5 million followers and there are videos on his page that have 6 ,000 views. That goes to show you that TikTok does not show your video to followers.
It shows your videos to non -followers and it sees how those non -followers react to that video. So when you split test on TikTok, you're going to get the most honest version of how your video is going to perform on Instagram. So post three to five different variations of the videos you create on TikTok by split testing different hooks or re -sequencing the way that you're doing your videos.
And then whatever video performs the best on TikTok is the one that you move over to Instagram. Now, resequencing, I'm going to save for a different video for a different day because it's a more complicated concept. So I'm going to teach you how to split test right now.
All you're going to do is the next time you record a video, you're going to record the video all the way through. And then when you're done the video, I want you to record three different hooks for that video. So we've already got one because you recorded it with the main video.
So record two separate hooks. To find the separate hooks that you're going to use, you're just going to go to sandcastles .ai, look at five of your top competitors and look at the hooks on their top performing videos. Then you're going to steal the word for word hooks that actually match the video that you're trying to create and film two of those hooks and add them to this video.
Post all three of them on TikTok at the exact same time. Wait 24 hours. Whichever one has the highest views is the one you move to Instagram.
Which brings me into... Section five, which is called the three second scoreboard. Most people post content on social media and they never even look at their analytics.
And even if they do look at their analytics, they don't even know what they're looking for. And so as a result, they're just like, they just post content. Sometimes it gets views, sometimes it doesn't.
And they don't actually have a deep understanding of why this content performed well or why it didn't. So instead, what you wanna do is every time you post a video after 24 hours, you wanna go into the insides of that video, you're gonna scroll down and you're gonna look for two things. Thing number one that you're gonna look for is what percentage of people are watching after the first three seconds of the video.
Thing number two that you're gonna look for is what percentage of people skipped on this video. The two metrics that you are looking for are as follows. Under 50 % skip rate, over 50 % of people watching after the first three seconds.
The worst mistake that you can make to start your videos is opening up your videos with, Hey guys, it's Brian. Welcome to another video.
Because you literally just wasted the first five seconds of the video. That's going to cause everyone to skip and it's going to cause nobody to watch. First of all, nobody cares about you in the nicest way possible.
People care about themselves. And so as they're watching your social media content, they're asking themselves the question, how does this apply to me? So if it doesn't apply to them within the first three seconds of the video, they're going to scroll.
Second of all, there's not a group of people watching your video. So saying, hey guys, doesn't make any sense in any way, shape or form. The two things that you need to focus on in the first three seconds of the video are very simple.
Thing number one, just by them looking at the video without you saying anything, they should know exactly what the video's about. We can accomplish this with two things. One, the text on screen, because the text on screen gives immediate context as to what the video's about.
Two, the scene in which the video was shot. So as an example, if you're doing a gym video talking about workouts, you should probably be in the gym. If you're doing a nutrition video where you're demonstrating food, you should probably be in the kitchen, maybe with a cutting board.
We call this effective without context. People can just turn on your video and immediately know what it's about. Now, in terms of the text hook, ideally, in the text hook, you wanna have something that's very specific for the avatar.
I try to keep my text hook as short as humanly possible, and as much as possible, I like to put numbers in my text hook, whether that's the seven steps to X, the three worst mistakes in X $50 million content strategy, I try to attach a number to it to give it specific meaning and context as soon as somebody lands on my video.
When I'm creating a hook, I'm thinking to myself, what is the least words that I can use to get people hooked on the actual concept of the video that I'm talking about and make them want to watch the entire video? Because I understand that I only have three seconds to either grab somebody's attention or they're going to scroll.
And so you want to be as short as humanly possible while grabbing their attention and making them want to watch the entire video. Now, you can have the best hook in the world, but the reality of the situation is that formats expire, which brings me into section six.
Now, the reason that I can speak on this with confidence and certainty is because this happened to me. When I started my Instagram account, the format that I used to blow up my account was talking head videos. All of my videos were filmed the exact same way.
My videographer was filming me straight talk to the cam. We were changing scenes every 1 .5 to 3 seconds. I would say a line, we would change the scene.
I'd say the next line, we'd change the scene. I'd say the next line, we'd change the scene. That format by itself took me from zero to 100 ,000 followers in 18 months.
But after 18 months, I started to notice something. The views on my videos were starting to go down. The substance and the value of the video was still there.
I was still focusing on the hook and capturing their attention. but the actual views were just slowly decreasing. That's when I realized it wasn't just about the value that I was communicating and the words that were coming out of my mouth, it was the way in which I was delivering that video and whether or not that was actually captivating people's attention.
So naturally, when there's a new format that emerges on social media, everyone sees this new format and they start jumping on it and they start utilizing it and they start creating with it. So now you've got like, hundreds of thousands millions of creators using this format and as soon as everybody starts using this format that format gets more competitive and now all of a sudden you're not standing on social media and it's not because your content isn't good and it's not because your value isn't good it's because your format expired and the reason it expired is because people on the platform stop engaging with that format because when somebody sees the same style of video over and over and over again in the newsfeed all of a sudden they become desensitized to it and they no longer engage.
Now, even the five formats that I gave you in this video right here, all of these formats are currently working on social media right now. But these formats have a shelf life. It depends how many people jump on these formats.
I'll tell you the ones that are currently working right now and they've been working for the last year and they're working consistently. Split screens and carousels. Now, my belief on carousels and why they are consistently working on social media is because they're hard to make.
You can't just pull out your phone and make a carousel. it takes you 30 minutes to an hour and a half to make a carousel. Because of that, there's not gonna be a lot of people that sit down and actually put the time in to make a carousel.
The reason I think split screens consistently do well is because you can communicate a high amount of value in a very short period of time. And although there's a lot of people that are trying to do split screens, Most people don't know how to do them well, so they're not getting distribution.
And as a result of that, the format isn't dying out because a lot of people aren't consuming it. Now, here's the perfect example. In 2022, the format that was absolutely ripping on social media is swipe workouts.
All of your favorite fitness influencers were doing swipe workouts. They were in the gym. They would do a workout.
You'd swipe over. It would be the next exercise. You'd swipe over.
It would be the next exercise. And they were all exercise videos. And then all of a sudden in 2024, that format stopped working.
And I know that because one of my clients, Christian Flenor, blew up his entire social media account with swipe workouts. And then he noticed his engagement started to go down and down and down and down and down.
It's because that format stopped working. So essentially, you will know when a format is expiring when the views on that format are consistently going down and you're not getting any more breakout videos. that is an indication that this format is starting to reach a shelf life and you should start looking for a new format.
So now that you understand this, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to social media right now and you can also use the information that's in this video. And I want you to just scroll through your newsfeed.
And I want you to identify what formats you're coming across consistently. If some style of video continues to pop up in your newsfeed, that is what we call a trending format. What you need to do, especially if you're creating content on social media, is you need to experiment and you need to diversify into different formats for two reasons.
One, you need to find what's actually going to work on your page. But two, you need to find formats that you can do over and over and over again that actually feel good to you. Once you find two to three formats that you can do consistently that feel good to you, those become your content pillars.
For me, it's split screens, list videos, carousels, AI carousels, and raw talking heads. Those are my formats that are like my staples in my business right now. And I'm willing to rotate any of those formats if any of those formats start dying out.
So long story short, you just need to look at the data and figure out, What is still working? You know, I actually like to sit down and look at the data once a week to determine what were my top performing videos and posts of the week.
I also sit down and look at the data once a month and if I look at the data on a monthly basis and I see that there's one format that's consistently under producing, we kill that format and we move on. Now there are some trends that will transcend formats and understanding this principle is gonna cause your content to pop off no matter what format you make, which is section seven.
Raw beats polished. Most people think that you need a professional camera, a microphone and a videographer in order to get started. And that's why they don't post content because they're like, well, you know, I don't have all this stuff set up and I don't have all this gear.
But the reality of the situation is that if you actually look at the Instagram news for you right now and you spend time scrolling through, you'll notice that there's a majority of that content that looks native to Instagram. What that means is it looks like you could just pull your phone, edit it in the edits app and then post it on Instagram.
This started becoming more apparent around early 2025, and this has stuck around for the last two years. As AI gets better and better and better and better, as there start to become more creators that are popping up on this app, people are just craving authenticity more. They just wanna watch somebody talk to the camera that's a real person.
And so this is why, regardless of what day and age you're watching this, Pulling out your phone and just speaking to the camera about raw, real emotions, talking about the value that you have to deliver, sharing your perspectives on what makes you a good creator or what makes you a good business owner, what makes you a good leader is always gonna win every single time.
now this doesn't mean that every single video that you post on your instagram news feed has to be a facetime raw talk to the cam because the reality of the situation is that these are best done in the moments when you're experiencing an emotion that you really want to share with your audience that's when you're going to get the best videos from these raw talks however this means that you need to bring in authenticity to all of your content and if i break that down on a tactical level what that actually means is let's say you've got quad to write your script for you for your instagram reel And then what you do is you open up that quad script, you're filming that quad script, and you're literally just reading it line for line.
There's none of your personality coming across. And because you're not ingesting your personality or putting your take on the quad script in the video, it literally just sounds like everybody else and most people watching can tell that you're reading this quad script word for word. And so my recommendation, whether you're doing a raw FaceTime talk to the camera video or you're doing a scripted format video with a videographer with a nice camera, you need to insert your own personality and you need to insert your own expert advice.
The reality of the situation is that I used to be scared to post this type of stuff on social media because I didn't think that it would do anything to help me grow my business or my following. I was like, why would people care about me and my story? Like, why would people care about how I didn't meet my dad until I was 26 or how my mom kicked me out when I was eight years old?
But the reality of the situation is that that's the type of content that people care about the most. And the reason they care about it the most is because struggle is a universal language. And so when you're communicating something that you're genuinely going through, when you're communicating something that you overcame, when you're communicating something that your audience can resonate with, that is going to connect them to you on a very deep emotional level.
Struggle is a universal language, so is anxiety, so is depression, so is love, so is hope, so is celebration. So when you have a gigantic moment in your business or your life and you capture that moment on camera and you share with social media, that's the real shit people want to see. Another example of this is when I posted the video of me holding my baby girl for the first time.
My 17 year old daughter was in the room and she had her camera out and she just recorded the video of me holding my baby girl for the first time. That video brought me in over 6 .6 million views. Brought me in 2 ,000 followers.
Had nothing to do with business. but that got me seen by 6 million people. There's gonna be a percentage of those people that came to my page, started watching some of my content, and some of those people were likely business owners, and 2 ,000 of those people chose to follow me.
So post the real shit because that's what connects people emotionally. Now this last one is something that I don't see a lot of people talking about, but in the age of AI where everything's getting transcribed, it's becoming one of the most valuable resources on the platform, and it's this. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are now operating as search engines.
Instagram has one job, and that job is to keep you on the platform for longer. And so, it is in Instagram's best interest to make sure that when somebody is searching for something, that the most relevant videos and topics come up. So if I'm an Instagram user and I search dog walking businesses in California, It's in Instagram's best interest to make sure that I get shown all of the dog walking businesses in California, which means that Instagram is going to analyze the transcript of my video, it's gonna analyze my profile itself and the words that I'm using in my profile, and it's also gonna analyze my captions, and then if my profile says dog walker in California, my videos say I walk dogs in California, and I'm consistently talking about walking dogs in California, When there's somebody that's on the platform that's searching for that, Instagram is going to send them my page because if Instagram does that effectively, that person is going to stay on the platform for longer.
And so the way that you can use this in your videos is number one, when you're making content, you need to speak to your ideal client consistently in the videos itself. You also need to have captions on it, all your videos. So Instagram can read those captions next.
Ideally, when you're creating the written caption for your video, you want to include as many keywords as possible in that written caption. If you don't want to do this yourself, you can just take the transcript of the video. You can plug it into the cloud and you can ask it to write you an SEO rich keyword caption.
Next thing you want to do is you want to make sure that you're optimizing your bio so if you notice if you go to my page right now it says Brian mark social media growth and monetization expert so when somebody's searching social media growth coach my profile is gonna pop up because I put that in my SEO you want to use this as much as possible in your content and your captions in your videos and your written captions so that when there's a user that comes onto the platform that's searching for those specific terms Instagram is gonna send your videos to them because they want to keep that user on the platform for longer so back in the year in 1886 hashtags were the thing right you would add 30 to 50 hashtags on your videos and that's how instagram categorize your content but now with ai ai is so much smarter you don't need to use a hashtag to categorize your content your content is being categorized based on the words that you're using the videos and the words that you're using your captions i don't see a lot of people talking about this because talking about this is like talking about water on a weight loss journey it's one of those things that's absolutely necessary in order for you to lose weight but people don't talk about it because there's no immediate gratification
instead people are like oh yeah six minute ab workouts so in the content world what that looks like is make better hooks yes making better hooks is important but this is one of those foundational things that you must have in all of your content so your content has a higher chance of getting seen by your ideal client so those are the eight hacks but they only work if you actually post most people are just going to watch this and never post a video if you want to learn how to create content with ai and you actually are going to post make sure you check out these videos right here Every day my goal with creating content is to change one person's life.
And so if you're watching this video and you're actually going to take action on this information, this video might get 3 ,000 views, 10 ,000 views, whatever. As long as there's one person that actually takes it seriously, that's what matters to me.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
A fitness-coaching business owner who says his Instagram pulls 50 million views a month and his business clears $1.5 million a month opens by promising eight principles he wishes he'd learned sooner, starting with the exact opposite of what most creators do with their ad budget.
Named ideas worth stealing.
05:45list
Five viral formats for conversion content
- Split screen
- Top/bottom split screen
- Carousels
- Skit videos
- Live breakdowns
The five content structures the creator says were reliably earning distribution at the time of recording, each capable of carrying a conversion-focused message.
Steal forPicking a format for any niche-specific post that needs to still break through the algorithm
07:22model
The comment-to-DM funnel
A viewer comments a trigger word, a ManyChat automation DMs them the promised resource, then follows with a soft qualifying offer ('reply 10K if that's you').
Steal forConverting post engagement into a sales conversation without a landing page
15:35concept
Three-second scoreboard
A two-metric post-mortem run 24 hours after every post: skip rate under 50%, and retention past the first three seconds over 50%.
Steal forDiagnosing why a specific post underperformed instead of guessing
21:59concept
Content pillars
Narrowing down to two or three formats that are both sustainable to produce and consistently perform, then rotating out any pillar that starts underproducing.
Steal forBuilding a content calendar that doesn't require reinventing the format every week
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
28:44next-video
“make sure you check out these videos right here”
Soft outro pointer to other videos on the channel rather than a spoken pitch. The actual monetization ask (apply for business coaching) only appears in the video description, never spoken on camera.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
