09:28Sam Gaudet · Listicle
These 7 Strategies Will Get You 1M Followers (Starting From Zero)
A 9-minute blueprint from the Creative Director who scaled Dan Martell from 100K to 10M followers.
June 28thThe argument in one line.
Lasting social media growth comes from topic choice, trust, owned contact lists and staying power, not from polish, volume for its own sake or copying whoever is winning.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A coach, consultant or founder who is posting consistently but not growing and suspects the topics, not the editing, are the problem.
- A creator spread across five platforms who is repurposing one video everywhere and getting weak results on all of them.
- Someone about to start a personal brand who wants to avoid picking a niche or platform they will resent in two years.
- A creator with a following but no email list or SMS list who has never thought about what happens if the account disappears.
SKIP IF…
- You want a step-by-step editing or filming tutorial. This is a mindset and strategy list with no production walkthrough.
- You already run a platform-specific content system with an owned email list and are looking for advanced analytics.
The full version, fast.
Sam Gaudet, creative director behind a personal brand with over 12 million followers, shares 15 lessons he wishes he knew earlier. The core: write for casual and new viewers as well as your core audience, build real-world proof before posting, and spend most effort on topic selection using demand, audience fit and your own interest. Make platform-specific content and share winners across a content lake, post less but better, build a character from purpose, pain, weakness and worldview, and move followers onto owned channels like email and SMS. Protect your reputation, give information away free, be clear over clever, choose a niche you will enjoy for decades, and never quit.
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Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:14
01 · Credentials and promise
States the 4 billion view track record and promises 15 brutal content truths.
00:14 – 01:30
02 · Stop niching down, become worth following
Write CCN fit content for casual and new viewers, and build proof in real life before posting.
01:30 – 02:55
03 · The Pareto principle and topic selection
Topic choice is the 20 percent that matters; weigh demand, audience fit and your own interest.
02:55 – 04:15
04 · Stop repurposing: waterfall vs lake
Make platform-specific content and share the best performers across a lake of content.
04:15 – 05:30
05 · Build a character: the diamond
Share purpose, pain, weakness and worldview so people connect with you as a person.
05:30 – 06:45
06 · Post less, be different
One great piece beats ten average ones, and contribution beats competition.
06:45 – 08:20
07 · Use your platform, own your audience
Start where you already spend time, then move followers to email and SMS.
08:20 – 09:35
08 · Protect reputation, build trust
Avoid drama and comment wars and deliver on your promises instead of chasing views.
09:35 – 10:45
09 · Give it away, be clear over clever
Information free, implementation paid; speak simply so people can apply it.
10:45 – 12:34
10 · Right wall, and never quit
Choose a niche for the long haul and show up daily; volume negates luck.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Every video should work for the casual and new viewer first, then apply to the core audience, because niche-only content cannot earn distribution.
- Build proof and credibility in real life before posting, then talk about what you did, instead of posting to manufacture credibility.
- Production quality, lighting and hooks matter less than picking topics people already care about.
- A good topic sits where audience demand, fit with your core audience and your own genuine interest overlap.
- Repurposing one pillar video onto every platform worked in 2016 but fails in a competitive algorithm; make content for each platform instead.
- Instead of a waterfall that cascades one video into five clips, run a lake: every platform's best performers go into one pool others can pull from.
- Your character diamond has four corners: purpose, pain, weakness and worldview, and sharing all four makes people connect with you and not just your advice.
- One great YouTube video can be pushed for years, while ten average ones get no distribution at all.
- Being different beats being better, because competing with the person ahead of you just makes you second to their idea.
- The best platform to start on is the one you already pick up your phone to use, because you will quit the one you resent.
- Accounts can vanish overnight, so move every follower to an owned channel like email or SMS as early as possible.
- Most comments and drama are a distraction; staying in your lane protects your reputation more than answering critics does.
- Trust comes from delivering exactly what you promised your audience, which is why information density beats chasing views.
- Information should be free and implementation paid, since free content that is good makes people assume the paid content is better.
- Speak in seventh grade English: a true expert distills complex ideas so beginners understand and experts understand more.
- Pick a niche you will still care about in 10 to 30 years, or you may climb to millions of followers and hate the wall you climbed.
- Volume negates luck, and it can be spread over decades, so if you don't quit you can't lose.
Fifteen rules for growth that lasts
WHAT TO LEARN
Growth that survives comes from choosing topics people care about, building trust and owned contact lists, and staying in the game for decades.
02Stop niching down, become worth following
- Make every video understandable to casual and new viewers while still serving your core audience, or it will never get distributed beyond people who already know you.
- Earn proof and credibility in real life first, then document it online, instead of posting to manufacture authority you haven't built.
03The Pareto principle and topic selection
- Spend most effort on topic selection, weighing demand, fit with your audience and your own interest, before touching lighting, editing or hooks.
04Stop repurposing: waterfall vs lake
- Create platform-specific content and share top performers through a lake, not one pillar piece cascaded everywhere in a waterfall.
05Build a character: the diamond
- Share your purpose, pain, weakness and worldview so the audience bonds with you as a person and the wrong people self-select out.
06Post less, be different
- Post less and make each piece excellent, because one strong video can keep earning distribution for years while ten average ones earn none.
- Focus on being different and on contribution, not on beating competitors, so you generate ideas nobody in your niche has had.
07Use your platform, own your audience
- Start on the platform you already use and move followers to email, SMS or address quickly, because rented audiences can disappear overnight.
08Protect reputation, build trust
- Stay out of drama, ignore most comments, and deliver on every promise to build trust that outlasts any viral spike.
09Give it away, be clear over clever
- Give information away free and charge for implementation, since good free content makes people assume the paid content is better.
- Speak simply so beginners understand and experts understand more, which is what gets you credited for their results.
10Right wall, and never quit
- Pick a niche you will still care about in 10 to 30 years, and keep showing up, because volume negates luck over a long enough horizon.
Terms worth knowing.
- CCN fit
- Content that fits the core, casual and new audiences: understandable to newcomers, relevant to your core audience, and wide enough to earn distribution.
- Pareto principle
- The idea that about 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of actions, so effort should go to the few things that matter most.
- Waterfall method
- Making one pillar piece of content and cascading it into clips and posts across every platform.
- Lake method
- Making content dedicated to each platform and pooling it all so the best performers can be reposted elsewhere by whoever runs that platform.
- Character diamond
- A four-part framework of purpose, pain, weakness and worldview that a creator shares so the audience connects with them as a person.
- Owned media
- Channels where you hold the contact directly, such as an email list, SMS number or mailing address, as opposed to rented social followers.
- Earned media
- Attention you get through platform algorithms and followers, which the platform can limit or remove at any time.
Things they pointed at.
00:30channelPaddy Galloway, YouTube strategist
01:35channelDan Martell
03:10channelGary Vaynerchuk (document, don't create)
Lines you could clip.
00:44
“Stop making niche content and focus on making CCN fit content.”
02:38
“The most important thing that you can focus most of your time on is picking topics that people care about.”
06:00
“It's way easier to make one great piece of content than to make 10 average pieces of content.”
09:39
“Information should be free, implementation should be paid.”
12:05
“Volume negates luck on social media.”
Word for word.
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I'm the creative director behind the fastest growing personal brand in the business space. I've generated over 4 billion views and over 12 million followers across all platforms. And in this video, I'm going to break down the 15 brutal content truths I wish I knew when I got started.
The first brutal content truth is you need to stop niching down. A lot of people talk about making niche content, but they don't understand that to get views and followers on social media in today's age, that you can't just make niche content. Yes, make content for your core audience, the people that know you and buy your stuff and watch your content.
But you also have to keep in mind that your content needs to be understandable to the casual and new audience. Patti Galloway talks about this all the time. He's the YouTube strategist behind people like Mr.
Beast and Red Bull. And he says that every single video that you make on YouTube should appeal to your CCN fit your core casual and new audience then applicable to your core audience so that you're able to get distribution views followers, but then also serve your core audience.
So stop making niche content and focus on making CCN fit content. The second brutal content truth is you need to understand that you need to become someone worth following. A lot of people jump to posting on social media because they think that it's going to give them a bunch of credibility and proof so that they can sell their products or services.
But that's in most cases backwards where you need to focus on getting proof and credibility. is in real life so that you're able to leverage that on social media. You need to be able to focus on your proof and credibility before you go out and post content.
As an example, Dan Martell had three software exits before he even posted his first piece of content on social media. And he understood that he needed to do cool shit on social media and then talk about it online. The third brutal content truth I wish I knew when I got started is to understand the Pareto principle.
Now the Pareto principle states that 80 % of your results come from 20 % of your actions. And so your job in content, especially when have limited resources is to go find the 20 of things that actually matter on social media and a lot of people focus their time and energy on the wrong things they focus their time and energy on the quality of their shot the lighting the editing the content itself the hooks of their videos but at the end of the day the most important thing that you can focus most of your time on on social media is picking topics that people care about because all things being equal i could make a video about getting abs in 90 days or make a video on how to build a b2b sas company in 90 days and the one about getting abs is going to get way more views why because more people are curious about that topic but you don't want to just over optimize your content for the thing that has the most demand because if not you're just going to split test yourself this fitness content what you want to do is have three things in mind when you're picking topics for your audience number one is demand obviously you want to make things that people are interested in number two is fit with your core audience you want to make sure that you're picking topics that apply to your audience as an example if i posted a video on how to get abs in 90 days on my social media people aren't going to watch it because they follow me for content creation advice and then the last part is you want to have your own
interests in mind because if you over optimize your content for the audience's needs and not what you want to talk about what you're genuinely interested in then people are going to feel that in your content and on the flip side if you focus on talking about stuff that you're excited about things that you're interested in then people are going to feel that in your content i hope you feel this in this video the fourth brutal content truth i wish i knew earlier is to stop repurposing content a lot of people make one pillar piece of content and then repurpose it on all platforms and that was a popular method on how to create content back when garyvee was saying document the create and this waterfall method was really popular but unfortunately now that the algorithm is extremely competitive and everybody is creating content then you need to make platform specific and dedicated content you can't repurpose one piece of content on all the platforms but what you can do is make content dedicated to each platform but then you can take some of the best performing pieces of content that performed on one platform and then post them on another platform but that doesn't mean that you post every single piece of content everywhere because you want to be omnipresent that used to work in 2016.
now what you have to do focus on making good content for every specific platform that you want to focus on so what i like to do instead of the waterfall method is to do the lake method where i have all my content get thrown into a lake i make content that's you know dedicated to every single platform that i want to create it for and then in that lake people that are accountable for other platforms can go fish in that lake and get the content that they want to post on that platform and so the lake has all the best performing content from all the platforms and then you can take that content and then post it on other platforms you don't want to just have a waterfall where you make one youtube video and it gets repurposed into five short form pieces of content and then into an email you want to create platform dedicated content throw it in a lake and the best performing content gets posted on all the other ones brutal content truth number five is creating content and start creating a character if you want to make yourself attractive addicting on social media if you want people to gravitate towards you then you need to build your character diamond these are the things that you share with your audience to make them connect with you so on the top of the diamond is your purpose this is what you want to do in the world this is your mission
This is what you're sharing. This is the movement that you're on. On the flip side is your pain.
I believe your pain sits on the other side of your purpose. The worst thing that's ever happened to you. Make sure to share that on social media so that people resonate with who you are and not just what you say.
And then on the left side is your weakness. Just like Superman and his kryptonite, every single strong personal brand online has their weakness and they constantly share that weakness with their audience so that they're able to see their humanity. And then on the right side is your worldview.
This is your unique perspectives. The things that you believe about the world that you're sharing with the world so that people gravitate towards you.
And guess what? Those worldviews will attract the right people and completely repel the wrong people. Which brings us to brutal content truth number six, which is just post less.
I believe most people are posting way too much on social media and it's way easier to make one great piece of content than to make 10 average pieces of content. And I think a lot of people wake up and say, I need to post every day. I need to post three times a week.
I need to post, you know, one video a week on YouTube, but they don't focus on making the best piece of content. And so my advice to you and my advice to myself when I was just starting out is to focus on making one great piece of content instead of making 10.
Because as an example, if you spend all your time and energy on making 10 videos on YouTube, then they're not going to get distribution. But if you pour all your time and energy into one great YouTube video, then that video is going to get pushed for a year or two years. We have videos on Dan Martell's channel that are still getting views years later because we focused on the quality of our content, not just the quantity.
Which brings me to brutal content truth number seven, which is different is better than better. Stop thinking about being the next Alex Ramosi or being the next Dan Martell or be... the next sam gadet and start thinking about how can i be the best version of myself and this goes for competition too a lot of people say i want to beat this person i want to be better than everybody in my niche but instead how can you ask yourself how can i be the best version of myself and a lot of people think that social media is a competition i believe that if you show up and instead of thinking about competing with other people you focus on contribution then you're going to get way better results than someone who's just competing with the next guy because the person competing the person focusing on all their competitors all the time they're just going to be second to an idea and if you focus on being the best version of yourself then you're going to come up with ideas that everybody else in your niche never even thought of and that's why different is better than better you want to focus on being different than everybody else and not better than everybody else which brings me to brutal content truth number eight which is the best platform to post on is the one you already use that's probably the number one question i get from my audience is which platform should i start on instagram youtube linkedin facebook let me just tell you this one time when you pick up your phone whatever platform you gravitate towards that's the platform that you need to be posting on
social media because if not then you're gonna hate the content creation process and content creation is a marathon not a sprint for years for decades not just days and so if you want to build a sustainable social media engine if you want to get results in the long term then start on the platform that you use the most that it feels natural for you which brings me to brutal content truth number nine which is understand owned versus earned media a lot of people focus on building their social media but they never focus on building their owned media where they actually own the contact to the person i've seen this happen time and time again especially last year where a lot of people were getting banned on instagram for sending too many messages and their instagram completely vanished overnight and they weren't collecting emails they weren't collecting sms's over the time of building their personal brand and they were stuck with no leads and so if i could go back and tell my you know 16 year old self when i was getting started in content i would tell him to focus on owned media just as much as earned media yes use the algorithms to get views to get followers to get people to know like and trust you but then as soon as you have a follower try to get them as soon as possible over to an owned platform
this is where you get an email an sms number a physical address in some cases because you want to own the contact with the person because that's something that no one else can take away from you not facebook not instagram not youtube even if they shut you down you still have those emails and phone numbers which brings me to brutal content truth number 10 which is protect your reputation if you grow fast on social media people will attack you people will make content about your perspectives people will make content about your personality about who you are as a person and if you want to grow on social media sustainably then you need to focus on protecting your reputation and what that looks like is to not get involved in the drama of social media because negative energy attracts other negative energy and if you want to truly build a strong brand then stay away from that shit and protect your reputation by just staying in your lane and just focus on making better content and serving your audience don't worry too much about what other people are saying don't look at your comments ignore your comments in most cases because that shit will only eat you up in the long term which brings me to brutal content truth number 11 which is stop chasing views and start building trust if you want
to build a strong personal brand one that people get attracted to one that people buy from then you need to stop chasing views and start building trust with the people that you already have and what trust looks like is just delivering on the promises that you make to your audience and so if you tell your audience that you're going to give them the best tactics on how to grow on social media then you better deliver on that and that's why every single video that i make whether it's on youtube or on short form i focus on giving people the best information because on the other side of optimizing for trust over views on the other side of focusing on information density and not just viral growth then i'm going to build a way deeper connection with my audience and i hope you see that for yourself too which brings us to brutal truth number 12 which is give away everything for free i believe that information should be free implementation should be paid if you want to build a huge personal brand to 10 million 15 million 20 million followers across all platforms then you need to stop gatekeeping you can't put information behind a barrier you need to give away your best stuff for free and guess what the more free that you give away it's actually counterintuitive the more people will buy your products and services because if they see how good your
free shit is, they're also going to wonder how good the paid shit is. And so it does feel backwards when you do it and does feel awkward. It does feel like you're giving away your secrets.
But if you want to grow fast on social media, then you need to give everything away for free. Which brings me to brutal content truth number 13, which is be clear over clever, especially when making content. It feels good.
to say complex things. It feels good to seem smart on camera. But the problem with that is that you're not actually helping people.
And a true expert is able to distill complex topics into very simple principles that everyone can understand. When you do that, you're going to help the beginner understand for the first time and the expert understand more. And so speak in seventh grade English.
Don't use big terms. Make sure that you're being clear over clever because that is what's going to get you better results compared to other people. Then they're actually going to be able to understand what you're saying, apply to their life, get results, and then attribute you to that result.
And so if you want to actually impact people on social media, stop trying to be clever and start being clear. Which brings me to brutal content truth number 14, which is don't lean your ladder against the wrong wall. The biggest mistake that you can make on social media is to grow an audience in a niche that you hate.
And so before going out on this journey of growing your personal brand, because I trust that everybody watching, you know, up until this video, you guys are at the end of the video, which means you're serious. You have to pick something that you're going to be interested in for 10, 15, 20 years. And so make sure that you have that in the back of your mind whenever you're picking the thing that you want.
be known for because if not you might lean your ladder against the wall and climb up that wall of success and be very successful get millions of followers but then wake up and hate your audience hate your life hate the stuff that you're talking about and then want to start over from scratch you're going to want to go down the ladder again and then lean your ladder against a different wall the number one decision that you can make as a content creator is to answer the question of what do i want to be known for what do i want to be talking about in 10 20 30 years and make sure to lean your ladder against the right wall which brings me to brutal content truth number 15 which is you can't lose if you don't quit like said earlier content creation is a marathon not a sprint and the only way that you can guarantee results on social media is to show up every day and do it in spite of your feeling and trust me there's some times where you're gonna feel like not shooting content where you're gonna feel like you don't need to but on the other side of you showing up in spite of that and then pushing through when things get hard you're gonna get disproportionate returns next to the other person that just quits when things get hard just understand that volume negates luck on social media and volume doesn't need to happen in a week it could happen over a decade over 20 years
30 years and if you want to build a strong personal brand then you need to show up every single day and just understand that if you don't quit you can't lose those are the 15 brutal content truths that i wish i knew earlier and if you want my custom gpt that's going to help you generate viral topics in your niche then go find me on instagram just message me the word gpt and i'll send it over to you and watch this video next if you want to learn how to be disgustingly good at content creation
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Sam Gaudet opens with his credentials, 4 billion views and 12 million followers, then counts down fifteen lessons in 12 minutes. Each one is a short claim, a reason, and usually a named example.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:44acronym
CCN fit
- Core
- Casual
- New
Every video should be understandable to casual and new viewers while still serving the core audience.
Steal forchoosing topics for any channel
02:11list
Three-part topic filter
- Demand
- Fit with core audience
- Your own interest
Pick topics that satisfy all three to avoid splitting yourself into an off-brand channel or boring yourself.
Steal forweekly content planning
03:38model
Waterfall vs lake method
Instead of cascading one video into many, make platform-native content and pool the best performers for reuse elsewhere.
Steal formulti-platform distribution
04:16model
Character diamond
- Purpose
- Pain
- Weakness
- Worldview
Four things a creator shares so the audience bonds with who they are.
Steal forpersonal brand positioning
07:09concept
Owned vs earned media
Use algorithms for reach but convert followers to email, SMS or address as soon as possible.
Steal foraudience ownership strategy
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
12:15link
“If you want my custom GPT that's going to help you generate viral topics in your niche, find me on Instagram and message me the word GPT.”
A low-friction keyword DM offer tied directly to truth number three (topic selection), placed at the end with a next-video suggestion.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
