Yooooooo!!!
As you are reading this, I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina on Lake Norman for my brothers bachelor party. Actually, probably chipping one in for birdie on the golf course. The boys are going wild.
It’s a short week for me, so I’m gonna keep this one short (short for me, anyway) and give you some very actionable advice today. You will finish this email and know exactly what to do for your next post that will create engagement.
I will be breaking down the advice I gave Laney that helped her go from ~5,000 followers to 30,400 and today, she’s over 50,000.
No, I won’t promise virality (nobody can). I have spoken to creators who have had more than one reel go viral and it’s not always that great.
Kind of like this reel posted by Colette I saw the other day.
- 870,000+ views
- 119,000+ likes
- and she “only” has 2,359 followers as of writing this
The reel hasn’t really seem to grow her account or business.
Laney on the other hand, had insane conversions. Those same people who had reels go viral never see the views/likes that Laney got convert to that many followers. INSANE.
Not all virality is created equal, which is why that’s not my main focus (not that I wouldn’t love to go viral every day).
If you follow the advice in this email you will learn:
- Why Laney gets 50,000 new followers and why Colette doesn’t
- How to get comments that say, “I immediately started balling I feel so seen”
☝️ On One Condition
If you’ve been following me on Instagram, every once in a while I will put up a question box and say, “Tell me what you do and I’ll give you your next best content idea.”
Lots of people jump on this and it’s really fun for me. It’s a chance to flex my creative skills and offer people new perspectives they may not be seeing with their content.
And you know, as a coach, how rewarding it is when people actually implement the work you offer them.
She had fun creating AND made money? What’s more fun than that?
Here’s my ask today.
If you’re going to take the time to read this, then take the time to make this post.
If you’re stuck, I will help you. No strings attached. Just reply to this email by telling me what you do (or it’s faster if you DM me on Instagram) and I’ll happily give you some ideas.
Hey! Real quick!! I’d love your feedback!
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1. My Advice
Laney (@therapywithlaney) replied to one of those IG stories and here’s how it went down.
→ If you’re just dying to see her reel that blew up, here it is
Before we begin, I just gotta say I am happy to be wrong… because there are no rules. Laney didn’t make a video talking to the camera per my suggestion, and even though I haven’t asked her about her conversions, I can see she’s getting a ton of sign ups for her workshop. LEADS BABY!
Even though there are no rules, I stand by the power of speaking to the camera not only to build deeper relationships, but to practice your own speaking. But what I stand by most is making content fun, energizing, and enjoyable for you. Do that first… then, one day, I’d love to see you talking to the camera too.
Anyway, on with the show.
The high level to getting comments from people who resonate are in these two points.
- Get your audience to identify
My entire thought process is this: I want my audience to consume my content while unconsciously, but aggressively, nodding their heading thinking THIS IS ME!!!
When people feel seen, heard, and understood this creates a psychological sense of belonging and safety. This is the most important thing to us human beings. So we want to let our audience know we see them and they are safe here with us. We do this by getting more specific.
- Get tangibly specific
When ANYONE tells me what they do, I think, “what does it tangibly look like?”
Not generally. Not a feeling. (feelings are great, but we’re not talking about that today).
I want to know if I’m watching a movie of Laney’s life and she goes into freeze mode, what would I be watching her do? She wouldn’t turn to the camera and say “I’m frozen.” But that’s what most people do with their content. They will say, “are you stuck in freeze mode?” and the audience has no idea if they are or aren’t.
If I’m watching a movie, I would watch Laney endless scroll for hours, I would see unfinished to-do lists at the end of the day, or cancelling her doctors appointment to take her dog to the groomer.
This is much more specific… but not too specific. Too specific and it won’t go viral, but it will make people feel even more seen.
So you can see in my advice to Laney in the screen shot above, I am basically asking her to act out what specifically happens. It’s a cue to get her thinking more tangibly.
Something happens → person freezes → what does life look like?
And she did it SOOOO WELL.
2. Breaking Down Her Reel
This is top tier execution by Laney.
Before we begin remember, if you want to resonate, you must speak YOUR TRUTH!
As Laney explained, this her story. It’s not manufactured. It’s not what you think your audience wants to hear or needs to hear.
It’s. The. Truth.
That’s not to say it makes this easy. Your truth can sometimes take time to uncover. The more content you make, the more clear you will get.
Here’s the Reel again so you can check it out (link)
Let’s begin.
The Execution
There are two core parts to this story and it creates a simple framework called The Listicle.
Part 1: The hook
“The little girl who grew up in a chaotic household becomes the woman who respond to stress by…”
Here, Laney invites you to identify with her. If you identify with growing up in a chaotic household, you don’t have to think if this is you, you know it’s you. That stops the scroll and the “…” makes you want to stay for more. (Remember, we want to belong so badly that we will stick around and see if I can relate some more).
👉 Your Turn: What is the truth of your childhood?
Personally, I don’t identify with this. I had a Leave it to Beaver childhood with a stay at home mom and a dad who commuted into New York City and coached my brother and I in baseball as he jumped off the Metro North Train still wearing his suit.
I don’t identify with “chaotic household” so I would just scroll on. That’s great. Trying to please everyone is not real and won’t cause your ideal clients ears to perk up.
What would stop me? My truth would be, “The little boy that grew up with parents who just wanted him to be happy becomes the man who…”
Part 2: List out specific examples
She then lists 5 specific examples of ways she respond to stress (and shows them in each clip).
- Making tons of to do list but never finishing them
- Doom scrolling constantly throughout the day
- Dissociating then getting frustrated for doing so
- Wanting to work on her physical appearance but can’t keep it up
- Taking great care of animals or loved ones… but hasn’t been to the doctor herself in years
Again, all Laney did here was list out her truths. Things I bet she still struggles with today.
They are not wildly specific. Lots of us probably do these things, BUT when you pair them to your identity of growing up in a chaotic household you will now start connecting dots in your life.
THIS IS HUGE!!!
It gives your audience an “ah-ha” moment. They think “OMG this is why I do these things that I wish I didn’t do!!”
It’s like constantly having low energy, cramps, and fatigue and a doctor finally tells you you have Crohn’s disease. Before you and other doctors didn’t know how to help, but now that you have named the problem, you can FINALLY take action toward remedying it. What a relief. How safe do you feel now?
FORE!!! (lol jk—just out here golfin)
What you’ll notice is that Laney doesn’t give any solution (besides saying therapy can help). Lots of coaches are so stuck on “how-to” content and constantly trying to educate their audience. In truth, information isn’t all that valuable. I’ll say it again, the feeling of belonging is far more valuable.
By listing specific and tangible actions she builds trust with her audience. They think, “if she knows me this well, she also knows how to solve it.” That is more valuable than doing what Google could have done.
That’s what gets a comment like, “I’ve never found anyone online who understand this”
👉 Your Turn: You only need 3-5 things to list. Don’t do more.
Here I list a few things that are true for me (I’ll include the hook again for context)
The little boy that grew up with parents who just wanted him to be happy becomes the man who…
- waits for permission before taking action
- is always looking for “the missing ingredient”
- won’t make and a choice and is, “more than happy with whatever you want”
- prefers things that come natural and abandons things that are too hard for too long
Part 3: CTA
Not part of the story, but she ends with a Call To Action, “Make sure to follow me (a therapist who gets it)”
This is one reason why she gained so many followers. You must call your audience to action. There’s a reason you always hear this. People don’t do stuff on their own. They need to be told what to do. Laney asks for ONE call to action at the end of her video and cues their client to very easily hit the follow button.
👉 Your Turn: Add a CTA to your video. Could be askinig your clients to follow you, maybe you ask a question, or maybe it’s asking them to comment a word so you can send them more info. There’s no wrong move. Since you aren’t offering a solution in the video, they’re gonna want more.
Part 4: The hacks?
Trending Audio?
Yes, she used a trending audio for this, but everyone does that and that doesn’t guarantee varility and DEFINITELY doesn’t lead to comments like “I’ve never found anyone online who understand his”
I have seen trending audio help some of my reels get more reach, but they don’t always. I also see plenty of viral videos on my feed with no trending audio either.
Personally, I like to choose a song that enhances the feeling of my video. I think Laney’s choice did just that because it had the “backyard kid noises” in it AND it just happen to be trending. Perfect storm.
Hashtags?
Laney didn’t use any hashtags.
I just want to bring this to your attention. Stop worrying so much about these things. Even if they work, they aren’t going to get your the follows and leads you think they will.
Your messaging is the thing you should be focusing on.
👉 Your Turn: If hashtags frustrate you. Fuck em. If finding a trending song frustrates you. Fuck it. But if its easy or you love finding a beautiful song to add to your video, then enjoy enjoying it.
Part 5: The Caption
She kept her caption simple and didn’t too much with it. She essentially repeated the text from the video but added more personality to it. She also added a line or two for more context, which I thought was great.
Two things I’d point out.
- Once again, her forth line is a call to action to follow her again (probably lead to more follows)
- She had a second call to action to comment “FREEZE” for her free guide.
Most marketing gurus say don’t do 2 CTAs in one post because the audience can feel overwhelmed. Once again, rules are meant to be broken.
It also may be likely that these 2 specific CTAs work perfect together. If I want a freebee, I’d probably follow that person too. I wouldn’t go around telling people to comment a word AND go listen to a podcast episode.
👉 Your Turn: Keep it simple and get this post out! You could probably write even less than Laney. Skip right to one or two sentences about the topic and then drop the CTA.
Not all virarilty is created equal.
Colette’s reel is absolutely beautiful.
It does tell a story. People love it. Just read the comments and you’ll know people resonate and feel safe to share. That’s soooo cool. I love it!
The only problem with it is: she doesn’t own her truth compared to the way Laney does. She says in the caption, “i could not tell you what inspired this other than this audio. neither could i tell you what this is supposed to depict.”
I don’t believe that. That caption is a cop out.
The truth is, she made this video because the audio made her feel a certain way. It spoke to her and ignited emotions within her. If she owned the truth of her experience and told the audience what that truth was and said in the caption with something like, “I am simply trying to slow down and experience more nature in my life and to stop hiding in my apartment” then I bet you more people would have followed.
I just made that up… but I know, if that was her truth, that would resonate with me and I’d like to see more of that. I’d like to see more content from the person who is trying to slow down and be less attached to technology. That’s the honest truth that would get me to follow her in hopes of seeing more content just like that so I could feel more seen.
Be bold. Speak your truth. Just as Laney did by saying, “follow a therapist who gets it.”
In Summary
It’s time to go take action on this idea.
You can replicate Laney’s reel exactly (though this audio isn’t trending any more).
You can make it a carousel.
You can speak it directly to the camera.
It doesn’t really matter because if you nail the messaging and speak your truth, people will resonate, feel like they belong, and follow for more.
I hope you see that I am not offering you a chance to chase virality. I am offering you a chance to push your edges and speak your truth so you can deeply connect with your audience.
The most important thing is that you feel connected to your content. It should feel GOOD.
It’s your life’s work after all.
If you resonate with what Laney shared above and want a deep dive into how I coach others to share more of their truth, get access to my signature framework by clicking here.
Here’s what Laney had to say about it:
I hope you enjoyed this.
Don’t forget to hit me up on Instagram @matthew.allyn if you get stuck.
With love,
Matt
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