going viral is shockingly uncomplicated | #17

Transcription

Matt: People who have never gone viral think that there's like this magical secret formula of like all these parameters that you need to tweak in order to guarantee you're gonna go viral, when in reality, it's not that deep. Every time you say the word algorithm, just replace it with people. If you can understand human psychology really, really well, then chances are you'll also be good at content. It's so important because when things do get tough, that mission is going to be the thing that continues to push you forward. What to do after you go viral is very interesting. Daniel: Yeah, that's actually something that I feel like nobody talks about that because well, one... What's up, Daniel here again from the editing booth. Realized we didn't have an intro for this one. I had already filmed all those intro bastards at the same time. So here's the intro. Hope you look forward to this mini episode and let us know if you like this new format. Thanks for watching as always. Matt: So many people who have created content before, I feel like don't talk about the mental effect of going viral, and it's not a positive one. Like, yes, the positive one is like, it's like doing drugs when you're going viral and you're just checking the analytics every five minutes and you're like seeing the chart go up exponentially, but that only lasts for like a day or so. Matt: And then seeing the chart come back down and then thinking to yourself, all right, I've got to prove to myself that I'm not a one hit wonder and that it wasn't just luck and that I can actually recreate the same conditions that led to this success. That's what goes through every creator's mind. I would bet money, even the biggest creators are thinking about that, right? And yes, I think there's a lot that you can learn from one viral piece of content and there are a lot of variables that you can probably also tweak so that the next content is more likely to go viral, but you'll never be able to with a hundred percent certainty, recreate exactly the same conditions. It's kind of like winning the lottery, right? Like you, you can win the lottery once, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of winning the lottery the second time are higher. Now with content, yeah, maybe you can change a few things, pick the right topics, you know, use the same style of editing, but a lot of creators, I think, struggle if they're not able to recreate that same level of viral success on a video or on a post. And mentally, that really messes with you. So I totally agree with what you, you said earlier, Daniel, of LinkedIn, posting on LinkedIn, posting content in general being like mental warfare almost because your biggest enemy is often your own brain. It 100% is. Daniel: Even when running, my cross-country coach used to always tell me, the hardest muscle to train is the one in between your two ears, talking about your brain, because yeah, you know, you got to train your body, but it's really your mind when it comes to running. And it's the same with LinkedIn. So I might have to start using that coach Shenigy that the hardest muscle to train is the one in between your two ears. And I really think it's true because once you go viral, you're constantly trying to think about how you can repeat that, you know, how you can be known for that. Matt: And, and I feel like I'm repeating myself all the time on the show, but what keeps me motivated, and I think you too, Matt, is that we're trying to make content that we wish we knew when we were on LinkedIn. And that is something that keeps me motivated to keep things going viral and keep posting because a lot of creators like Kevin Bakers, we talked about before, it's been three months since his viral Costco post. And he was talking to us about it on the show. And like, that's it was really vulnerable of him to talk about it. And it's tough to follow up a banger like that. So it is mental warfare. It's hard to train the muscle in between your two ears and having a mission or a goal can really help you continue posting because that's something that's not only bigger than yourself, but bigger than the content you're making can help you reach new heights, in my opinion. Daniel: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Matt: I think there's like two or three things that are really important to be a successful creator on LinkedIn and not just on LinkedIn, but just in general, in my opinion. The first is, first is what we've talked about, which is needing a mission that's bigger than yourself. The second thing is being reflective and almost like having a certain level of self-actualization where you spend the time to actually reflect and think about why you feel a certain way or what different experiences in your life have taught you, which helps you to create good content. And then the third is you need to be very consistent and have the mental strength to continue posting when results aren't there. And I'm going to talk a little bit about each of these three in a typical consulting structured fashion. Daniel: With the first one, which is having a mission bigger than yourself, like you said, Daniel, it's so important because when things do get tough, that mission is going to be the thing that continues to push you forward, right? Wanting to provide value and help out a past version of yourself who was just starting out posting on LinkedIn. That's your mission. And so even when, you know, it's a bad day, you don't feel like the post that you are about to hit. That I'm sending on is the best work that you've done. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, oh, this is, nobody's going to want to see this. This is so cringe. Matt: Like why did I even think this was a good idea? Thinking about, okay, is there at least one person out there who's kind of like me from a year ago or a couple months ago who would really find benefit from this post? That is going to be what's going to still push you over to continue posting. So number one, have a really strong mission. Number two, as we talked about is being reflective enough about your experiences where you're able to think about, okay, in the past, maybe I have succeeded or failed at these things in your case, Daniel, building viral LEDs to over 700,000 ARR. Like what did you learn from that? There's a whole host of good and bad things that you probably gained from it. And being able to reflect on it and think about what did I learn and what does it mean to someone who's maybe a past version of myself? That I think is super important and not enough people talk about in being a creator because the best creators are able to articulate what they've learned from their past experiences, not just talk about those past experiences at face value. A lot of the value that you're delivering to people, especially when you think about, okay, why am I different and why would someone want to listen to me? A lot of that value comes from your own personal reflecting and what you have personally gained from a set of experiences in the past, right? Daniel and I, we're both current and former management consultants. There's a ton of other people who worked at BCG and Bain. Matt: So why would someone want to listen to consulting content from someone like me, right? I struggled with this for a really long time because I was posting lots of consulting content on my YouTube channel. But over time, I realized that my own perspective was unique amongst the sea of other BCG or Bain or McKinsey consultants that were also posting content online because they don't talk about it in the same way that I do. So that's the second point there is being reflective about your experiences. And then the third one I'll just touch briefly on is the consistency aspect, right? You got to have the mental fortitude to be able to keep going even when things don't feel good. And I don't want to, at risk of going all Alex Hormozy on this podcast, you sometimes need to ignore the side of yourself that is just like, I don't want to swear, but you sometimes have to avoid the little side of yourself that's being a little bitch and is like, oh, I don't want to post today because I don't feel good or I don't look good in this photo or in this video shot or this post. I'm rereading it for the second or third time, and it sounds really cringe to me. I actually don't think that people would want to see this. It's okay, right? Like I can just skip a week. It's fine. It's fine. Matt: Now, obviously, it's nuanced, right? There's a fine line behind consistently putting out good content versus just churning out stuff that nobody gets value from, right? You want to be the first one, which is consistently putting out content that has inherent value to someone out there. You don't want to just be posting for the sake of posting, especially if it's not providing value to someone. But assuming you are the first, then it's really, really important with content, like with VC investing, because there's a power law, and you need to put out enough content so that you can get that 1% of content that's going to drive 99% of your growth. Daniel: I love those three, Matt. I, of course, I'm going to add my two cents and add another two. I think having a mission is perfect to keep you motivated of, you know, making content for your past self and what you wish you knew when you were on LinkedIn. But I also think a specific goal is important as well. Like for this podcast and with my LinkedIn content, I want to feel like, I want to give something for the audience to feel like they're part of and what keeps them motivated to like my content as well. So that's why I think having a tangible goal, like a $10 million podcast or a million dollar business or selling to 10,000 people is really important. We went over the time consistently one a lot. I think time is super important. So we have a goal, a mission, time. I think to simplify, your one too is emotion as well. Matt: I think that's like, you know, talk about your experiences and making sure you're connecting with humans and not sounding like ChatGPT because at the end of the day, the algorithm is just humans on their phones liking stuff. It isn't, you know, some sort of black box. And then the last one I want to add is brevity. I think the more words you can save the reader, especially on LinkedIn when people are very business minded, the audience appreciates that. You're saving them time. And if you can express a message in fewer words, that actually makes you look cooler, not weaker. So those are my two to add, just brevity and a specific goal that can help you make better LinkedIn content and what a lot of the great content creators we see have. Daniel: Yeah, I absolutely love it. And you also mentioned emotion, right? As kind of a key point. We chatted with Julia Alvarenga, a senior at Harvard, absolutely crushing it on. And something that I realized after we had that conversation with her is she's really, really good at using emotion in her content. And I'm not just talking about, like, she's not just putting out like a sob story post, or like, just like a generic, like, what am I trying to say? The way that she basically incorporates... She's not trying to, like, she's not trying to be like, oh, I went to Harvard, and like, almost like engagement farm. I don't know what the best word for it is, but like, kind of clout chase in a way, but in a... Daniel: She's not just doing it purely to engagement farm. She does it in a very thoughtful way where the reader still gets a ton of value from the post. And of all the guests that we've interviewed so far, I think she's like the best at doing that. She gets crazy engagement on every post too. So all I wanted to say there is, I think, again, emotion is also a really important aspect of content that people need to understand because you're talking to humans, right? Humans, not machines. Whenever people ask me, how do you hack the algorithm? Or how do I go viral on the algorithm? I tell them, take a second. Every time you say the word algorithm, just replace it with people because at the end of the day, the algorithms are just giving people what they wanna see. Matt: So if you can understand human psychology really, really well, then chances are you'll also be good at content because you're thinking about, imagine there's a person on the other side of the table that I'm writing this LinkedIn post for. What are they going to think? What value are they getting from it? What are they gonna feel when they see this, when they read the text, when they look at the photo and the image? Like, is the hook in the first two lines, first line or two, is that gonna be something that's curiosity-inducing to them? Why is it gonna be curiosity-inducing to them? And how can I craft it in a way that makes it a scroll-stopping click? Those are the kinds of things that you should be thinking about. Matt: You shouldn't be thinking about like, oh, I need to optimize the algorithm. I need to optimize for the latest algorithm so that it means that I've got to repost at 9 a.m. and then I have to wait, you know, four hours until the next one. There's just too much. And anyone who has gone viral will know what I'm talking about. But basically, people who have never gone viral think that there's, like, this magical secret formula of, like, all these parameters that you need to tweak in order to guarantee you're gonna go viral. When in reality, it's not that deep. Like, you need to just post a lot, post valuable content, and eventually, if you don't stop, something will go viral. And I feel very passionate about this because even after having multiple videos on my own personal channel go viral, and then I guess you could say I've had a couple LinkedIn posts as well that went viral. And even though on LinkedIn, and this is a whole other topic, viral on LinkedIn is like 200,000 impressions, whereas on YouTube, it's like you got to get like 500,000 views. And on other platforms like Instagram, TikTok, viral is like at least a million, right? So it's a different scale, but still, not to get distracted from the point, I think that remember that you're talking to humans. And even though there's AI-generated content and, you know, we've got all these algorithms and stuff in the background running, at the end of the day, your audience is still just another human being. Daniel: And to the human being listening to this, we appreciate you tuning in to this short episode of the Connection Accepted pod. Thanks, and we hope to see you at the next one.