In a few weeks from now, I want to share all about my personal experience with gaining almost 30,000 followers in the last month, but today, I’d like to jump right into a timeline of events and share with you what I believe will help you grow your audience in a way that feels good.
I want to once and for all eliminate the need for all the gimmicks in order to succeed on social media. No more trying to beat the algorithm, and instead, fall in love with the content you create and put out while growing your reach.
I want you to find so much joy in spreading your message, not wake up dreadful thinking, “ugh, I have to make content today.”
Viral Reel #1 (we will call this VR1)
(click here to watch)
On June 14th I wrote this newsletter breaking down @therapywithlaney’s reel that got her to 50,000 followers. The reel was inspired by another therapist, but I had a very small hand in guiding her to speak her truth in it.
Then my friend Patrick “stole” (like an artist) the same post and went from around 2,000 followers to now over 130,000.
INSANE!!
Weeks later, I’m wondering why I haven’t made this post for myself.
So I did, and it went viral too!
If you read the newsletter from June 14th, where I broke Laney’s reel down, I shared what I would write if I were to make the same reel. What you see in the final reel is different. I wrote version after version trying to be sure I was speaking what was true for me, not what I thought everyone else would align with.
This reel (which I made on 6/18 and as of today 7/12 is still bringing in followers) probably netted me around 13,000 new followers.
Viral Reel #2 (VR2)
(click here to watch)
The first reel didn’t blow up until about 5-7 days later (I can’t remember exactly).
In that time I kept posting my usual content and they did fine. A bit more engagement than I used to get of course, since my following was growing, but nothing crazy or viral.
- The next day: A self conversation where I am crying during the movie Click and why a great story invites you into the emotion of the character.
- 5 days later: A reflection on friendship from my brothers bachelor party
- 8 days later: A video on gratitude
- 12 days later: A carousel about self trust that promotes my newsletter
- 13 days later: I called out getting half a million views on VR1 and how I was feeling around the experience
- 14 days later: Viral Reel #2 – A reflection on the amount of work I’m putting into my business while watching season 3 episode 1 of The Bear (highly recommend the show).
I have very little doubt the followers and growth from VR1 contributed to the success of getting this next reel off the ground.
But here’s what I really want you to understand.
THESE REELS ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!
Everything works
Here are the current insights for those interested (as of July 10th)
Let’s look at some key differences in these reels and bust some myths.
Viral Reel 1
- Purpose: The point of the reel is to share the truth of my life’s experience
- Duration: It’s 22 seconds long
- Audio: I used an audio imported from Instagram but it was NOT TRENDING
- Voice: I didn’t speak a word in it
- Text: It had text on screen which was used as my hook and message
- Hashtags: none
- Edit: very minimal
- Caption: I used the caption to expand on my story and my truth
Viral Reel 2
- Purpose: The point of this reel was to share a reflection I had about my own effort in my pursuit of being great at what I do while watching a TV show
- Duration: It’s 58 seconds long
- Audio: It has a song, but I did not add in from IG. I added it during the edit so technically it’s an “original audio”
- Voice: It is a voice over spoken reel (with closed captions)
- Text: I didn’t use a hook or even think of one. There was no headline or text besides the captions
- Hashtags: 4
- Edit: I’d say this is a medium edit (for me at least)
- Caption: I used the caption to call out 2 examples of why it’s important to put in the work to manifest what you desire
You can see there are NOT many similarities:
- Hashtags/no hashtags
- Song/Original Audio
- Speaking/No speaking
- Hook/No hook
- Short/long
This tells you, to create a successful post, ANYTHING works!!
Sheesh, isn’t that refreshing to hear?
But if everything works… then whats the secret?
Because there HAS to be a secret, right?
The real goal of your content
What is your goal with posting content?
A common goal may be to earn $10k per month.
But that isn’t really the goal.
You already understand that you have been chasing goals all your life and you are never truly satisfied when you reach them.
You finally make your first sale in your business, but it’s not good enough, you need to make 10 sales. Then you need to have consistent $5k months, then your first $10k month. Then consistent $10k months… and on and on.
You chase outcomes hoping they will make you happy when the truth is, the happiness lies in the pursuit.
I am not telling you something you don’t already know.
If happiness is what we truly want, why do continue to wait for an external result to feel happy?
And why have we convince ourselves that happiness isn’t accessible right here, right now, in the pursuit of our goals?
Let’s revisit the goal of content creation and look more deeply.
A common goal might look like this:
I want to reach more people → so I can get more followers → so I can have more leads → so I can land more clients → so I can make more money → so I can travel the world → so I can feel energized about the world around me.
You are try to accomplish any goal in an attempt to feel a certain way.
So, in this example, the goal is to feel energized.
If I want to feel energized, why should I wait for all this to happen to feel energized?
What if I could feel energized while creating content?
Your content holds the truth of your current energy state
If you continue to create content from a state of need, lack, frustration, constriction, blame, or any other emotion that aren’t the ones you hope to feel as a result of achieving your goals, then those are the results you will actually continue to get.
You go to make a post and you can feel neediness oozing out of you. Or maybe you are like, “ugh this hook sucks and now I gotta go find some trending audio 😑”
Truuuuust me, I’ve been here. It’s giving the feeling of your partner saying, “we need to talk,” and your stomach is now in knots. You can feel that when you’re making content, which means everyone else is going to feel it too. The same way you walk into a room of two people who just fought and you say, “whoa, I could cut the tension with a knife.” Your energy is written in the DNA of your last post and it’s not fooling anyone.
However, when you uncover a way to create content that feels so energizing to create. You watch it 5 times because you’re like, “this is fucking IT!” You cannot wait to post it!! That’s when you AND your content will be super charged. You AND your content will be in alignment. You AND your content will be authentic. And that’s when your content will actually perform well.
Said another way: When you uncover a way to pursue your goals in the energy state you desire to feel right now, you won’t even need the tangible goal. You are already getting exactly what you want out of life. That is what it means to raise your vibration. Once you do that, all your goals HAVE to come meet you there. It’s not you chasing goals, it’s goals chasing you. And they’re begging to catch up.
Growth on Social Media
Looking back on the two viral reels, when I made them, neither of them was an attempt to appease the algorithm. Neither of them was a desperate need to go viral or grow my business.
[[[Side bar: there’s a difference between needing to go viral and owning the fact that you want to go viral and get excited about the idea of it happening at any moment.
For a long time I denied my desire to go viral. I wanted to prove that you didn’t need to go viral to have success on social media so I publicly rejected virality. But deep down I wanted virality and I so badly wanted 100,000 followers. People would comment on my videos and say, “how do you not have more followers.” or “I’m here before you blow up.” and I would agree with them. Deep down I could feel how badly I wanted that. By rejecting my truth, I was closing myself off from growing as fast as I wanted.
So yes, I definitely wanted to go viral with VR1 just like Laney and Patrick did. I was finally able to just fucking own that I really wanted that and I stopped shaming myself for wanting it (another layer in owning my truth).]]]
I already laid out the differences between these two reels and the fact that anything can work, so whats the secret?
The only similarity I can find in these reels were my efforts to speak my truth, own my story and have so much fun using my creativity while filming each shot.
When I create from this space, I feel energized NOW. I get exactly what I want. I don’t need the reels to pop off so that I can get leads so that I can make more money so that I can do what I want so that I can feel more energized.
Spending my life hiding my truth, how I feel, trying to cater to an algorithm, trying not to make too bold of a statement so nobody would get upset with me was DEPLETING. It was killing me slowly from the inside out. And of course, this lead to not seeing the external growth I was looking for.
A friend just popped in my DMs and said, “the reason I’m feeling so burnt out is because I haven’t been able to be my authentic self in my content lately. I’ve been trying to do all these stupid hooks and trends and it’s draining.”
Depletion and feelings of drain is decay energy. It’s the opposite of the growth.
So let’s end the gimmicks.
No more waking up and thinking, “fuuuuuck I gotta post today 😖”
You love the work you do, but are frustrated with content, but content is just you talking about the think you love…
If you have to make content to grow your business, why shouldn’t it be exciting, energizing, and full of joy and love? (btw don’t change my sentence to “I get to make content” when the truth of how you feel about it is not one of gratitude. Maybe lying to yourself by changing one word is part of the problem. Let’s take new and fresh action so that you actually change your feelings about content creation 😌)
I am hosting a live training at the end of July so you can begin creating content everyone loves.
It’s called, “Growth without the Gimmicks”
To sign up or get more details, you can click here.
Can’t wait to see you there. We’re gonna have fun 😊
Matt
View comments
+ Leave a comment