Transcript
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Explains why virality comes from saying something different in a way the audience already feels, using a rehab center case study and personal-brand examples. Also covers auditing competitors, choosing a message, and setting a measurable goal.
You've probably heard that going viral just takes luck or posting 15 times a day until something finally sticks, but that's not true at all.
I've spent 20 years as a copywriter and a brand expert and I've learned that what truly makes brands take off is just one thing.And that one thing is actually what took my YouTube channel from a thousand to over 300,000 views a month.So let's dive in.The first strategy is to say something different differently.Most people think going viral starts with volume.It starts with finding the one sentence that no one else in your space is saying.Most people hear be different and think it means be loud, say something crazy, and if nobody reacts, say something crazier, and don't stop until somebody bites.Now, sure, that can work right up until you're competing with people who can out crazy you on a much bigger budget.Mr.Beast can outspend you on outrageous every single time.If that's the game, you've already lost it.But different was never about being outrageous.
One of the clearest examples I have of this is when a rehab center came to us as a client.So, we started with an audit.What is everybody in this rehab space saying?Something we noticed immediately was how every other rehab center sounds the same.Soft, gentle, careful not to scare anyone off.Understandably, you could screenshot any of their homepages though and not tell them apart.Then we went further.We read the reviews that people were leaving on books about addiction, about 12-step programs, about being the one who has to convince someone they love that they need help.Now, book reviews are an absolute goldmine for finding your message as a personal brand or any brand.Nobody in those reviews sounded soft.They were actually pretty blunt.One line came out of it that said something different differently and it was this, if you think you need rehab, you do.
It was a different message expressed in a different way.The tone was unlike any rehab center I had used.We split test that one line, if you think you need rehab, you do, against other angles, testimonials, and data points.And that line beat every one of them by a landslide.The numbers are public and there's a link in the description to a presentation I gave on this case study.You will love it if you nerd out on word choice in marketing.Now, here's the part that's really easy to miss about that line.It didn't work because it was clever in some way.It worked because it wasn't new information at all.Every person facing that decision was already thinking, should I?Should I?Should I?But they did not have the words in them to finish the sentence.The line just said it back to them.
That's what different really means when it works.Not something nobody's ever heard before, but something your audience has already thought a hundred thousand times and never said out loud.That's really the whole secret to a personal brand.It's words with one person's face on it.And when it fails, it fails for the same reason any bad copywriting fails.The promise is vague, it's aimed at everyone, and it's written in the creator's own words or the brand's own words instead of the audience's words.Now, that's true for personal brands, too.Think of the world of like positioning consultants.April Dunford has her lens on positioning and Reason Trout have their own, too.The version that nobody said yet sits somewhere between what they're already saying and what business owners struggling with positioning are saying.For my personal brand, I too say something different differently.I tell copywriters they need to get trained, which can sound like an attack the first time you hear it.
But it's actually the thing copywriters wish they could say and can't.I got hired for a job that I have no training for, and that's the reason I'm frustrated and so is my CEO.I'm not a copywriter saying, everything you're doing is fine, change nothing.I'm a copywriter saying, look, the world doesn't get the value you offer because you don't yet have that value to offer.I didn't invent that message.It was already sitting in their heads.So, before you write a single post, audit what everyone else in your space is already saying.And don't settle on just one idea.Walk away with three real candidates.You will test these soon.Set a goal for why you're building this brand in the first place and put a KPI, a key performance indicator, on it so it's measurable.The key part to remember is that while none of this is easy, it can actually be really simple.
of the simplest parts is not trying to do it alone.If you want the names of some of our favorite brand strategists for hire, follow us on Instagram and DM me there with the keyword brand help to get a list of my favorite brand builders on the planet.The link for Instagram is in the description.
Shows how to make a brand recognizable through visual cues like a signature look and the right platform choice. It also explains why consistency builds trust and how to audit your visual identity, comfort, and competitive landscape.
Okay, now once you've got that message, the next question is whether anyone would recognize you saying it.Strategy number two is to show something different differently because messaging is both verbal and visible.If someone could scroll past your video with the sound off, would they still know it's you?This was the question I asked myself about my personal brand videos online and it ultimately led me to bringing in outside help.But the one thing I did know before doing that was that before I could figure out the look and the visuals of my content, I had to figure out the room, who I was talking to.If your audience is influencers, that room is probably Instagram.If it's sales teams, that room is probably LinkedIn.For building my personal brand, I knew for ages that YouTube was the way to go.Not only is it stellar for AO and SEO, but I know as a copywriter that people who spend time spend money.
And if you spend 15 minutes a week watching my content, eventually, you will either buy or refer people to me or both.So, I decided to take YouTube very seriously.And once I knew what the right room was for me, I hired specialized proven agencies to help me show up on YouTube like a pro.And what my YouTube agency worked with me on right out of the gate was this.Showing up came down to one question.Do you have a visual hook as a brand?Not for a single post, for the whole brand.Now, Dan Martell has his blue shirt.Alex Hormozi has the white tank top, the Breathe Right strip on his nose.Mine became the red blazer.And we really only veer from the red blazer when we're testing or trying something new related to the brand.And the thing to remember about personal branding is that this isn't a gimmick.
It's a symbol.That symbol is shorthand for the brand.This answered my initial question because now, with my red blazer, if you are a subscriber and you scroll past my video with the sound off, you will recognize that it's me very quickly.The part that people skip with this is that being noticed isn't the same as being trusted.You don't build trust by telling people you're trustworthy.You build it by showing up same way enough times that they stop having to guess.That's what a consistent look does.One outfit doesn't build trust.A hundred of the same videos wearing that one outfit kind of actually helps too.By then, people aren't seeing a red blazer, they're seeing Joanna Wiebe in the red blazer showing up the same way every time.And keep in mind that this doesn't have to be cemented forever.You can still change this.
You can test new things.I have started testing different color blazers to see what resonates with different topics.So, to start showing up differently, here are three audits for you to do.First, audit your own visual signature the same way you did with your message.What colors, styles, and settings keep showing up when you're at your best?And where's the gap between that and everyone else in your space?What is different enough to get noticed, but also close enough to keep their trust?Then, audit your own comfort, too.People will pick up on the difference between something that looks great standing still versus something you can actually move in.And the version you can hold up every single time beats the one that you just can't sustain.Lastly, audit the room itself.Go find the top five people on YouTube who already have that audience and study what they look like, sound like, how they show up.
And if you want the room and look decision built out properly instead of guessed at, find a really great YouTube agency like I did.Importantly, do not seek out the cheap agency.That is actually a recipe for burning cash.It makes me nuts.If you want to know who my agency is, check out the link in the description below to DM me on Instagram for it.
Focuses on finding a through-line by running many at-bats across formats and platforms until one message clearly performs best. The speaker shares testing tactics, posting frequency, and why volume reveals what works better than overthinking.
Okay.So, once people recognize you on site, the real test starts.Can you make them stick around?Strategy number three is to have and repeat one key through-line message or lens.And you get there by repetition.When I was just starting to build my YouTube channel, a genius named Sam Gadget told me something I still repeat to this day.You may not have heard of him, but you should because he's one of the most respected people in social media and has been central to building one of the fastest-growing personal brands on the planet.What Sam told me was this: At bats are the point.You need more at bats.An at bat is a swing.The more you swing and learn, the better you get at knowing the right swings to take.In sales, an at bat is one shot at a qualified prospect.If it doesn't close, that's not proof the product or the pitch is wrong.
It's just one good data point.Testing your message works the same way.You need a lot of at bats.One post that flops is not proof that your message is bad.It's one swing.You need enough of them before you can tell what's working and what's actually not.So, that's what I did.I took the three messages I'd short-listed and I tested them everywhere as a personal story, as someone else's story, as a repost with my own hot take on top, different formats on Instagram, different formats on LinkedIn.The same message though running as a podcast clip in one place and a straight talking head in another.Trial reels on Instagram to reach people who didn't even follow me yet.Most algorithms don't care about production value, so I didn't overproduce a single one.For me, that testing came down to three angles.The struggles creative teams deal with, general business messaging, and messaging built around copywriting itself.
Now, creative teams is the one winning right now by a clear margin.As I recommend you do, we hired an Instagram agency to run all of this.DM me for the name.After just 3 months of this, our Instagram channel has grown to over 10 million views a month.We add 1,000 followers a day, but that didn't happen on day one, and it would not have happened if we'd done what most people do when brand building on Instagram, which is try posting for a week and thenbail when the world doesn't just fall to their knees.We post twice a day, every day, and we're moving to four times a day, every day.That is a lot of at-bats to test more and more messages.Here is why testing works when thinking harder about your message does not.You cannot figure out your through-line by sitting alone with a notebook.
You find it by putting what you think your message may be in front of real people and watching which one they stop scrolling for.It looks chaotic as if you have no plan, but the testing is the plan.Nobody knows their through-line on day one.The through-line is what's left standing after everything else gets tested off, and it changes regularly enough that you should keep testing and refining yours.So, short-list three brand messages from day one and go test your butt off.A few ways to get moving with out needing to research any of this yourself.Run the same message as a talking head video, then as a voice-over story, then as a text on screen post, and see which format people finish watching.Test different hooks on the exact same piece of content.Post it natively on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and YouTube Shorts, and use trial reels to get in front of people who don't follow you yet.
On TikTok specifically, post three to five times a week at minimum, since consistent posting can mean something close to four times the engagement of accounts that don't.Use trending sounds even on videos that aren't riding a trend.Keep your hook strong enough to hold someone past the first 3 seconds and reply to comments with video instead of text since TikTok rewards that with extra distribution.And don't overproduce any of it.The volume of at bats is what surfaces your winner not how polished any single one looks.
Describes how to pour fuel on the message that wins by expanding it across platforms, adding paid media, and building supporting infrastructure. It also covers welcome flows, lead capture, and turning a proven message into a distribution engine.
Once one message is clearly pulling ahead, the question changes from which one do I keep testing to how big can I make this?Strategy number four is find the winner and pour fuel on it.And this is exactly where most people either build something real or waste everything they just tested.When working on my online brand, once my team knew which message was working, we didn't just sit on it.We took it straight from Instagram to TikTok since the two platforms behave closely enough that the jump is almost seamless.Then YouTube shorts and of course LinkedIn.Then we started dropping long-form content on top of all of that.For every one of those moves, I made the same call I made back when I was choosing my aesthetic.I didn't bring in a branding agency, I brought in the branding experts within a YouTube agency who operate inside the platform every single day.
Because a gorgeous brand system is worthless if the people who built it have never had to understand how a platform like YouTube or Instagram distributes a video.Once the message was repeating across all of that and clearly working organically, that's when we layered in paid, not before.You need to throw ad spend at messages that are likely to work with your audience and organic is really great for testing that.Once people started subscribing and following in real numbers, we needed somewhere for that attention to go.So, every new follower gets a message from us.Thanks for the follow.Are you here for the videos or here to grow your business?If someone says just the videos, cool.We point them to more videos.If they say the business part, now we've got something to work with.Here's what all of this was really building toward.
People think building a personal brand is about the tactics, the hooks, the platforms, the aesthetic.It's not that stuff.All of it, all of it comes down to one thing, distribution.Point one, what to say.Point two, making sure people recognize you saying it.Point three, proving what message resonates best.Now it's about getting that proven message in front of as many of the right people as possible as often as possible.Just dial it up.That's also why the infrastructure matters even before you're ready to use it.You don't need a sales team in the first 30 days, but if you wait until you need one to start building it, you will have a following with nowhere for their attention to go.So once your message is proven, move it to the next channel your audience lives on.Don't just default to LinkedIn though because that's where a business audience supposedly is.
Then once it's repeating and working, add paid media to fuel it.Set up an automated welcome message for new followers using something like ManyChat's follow to DM feature and ask one clear question that tells you what they really came to you for.And if you're a creative or a consultant, put up an Amazon coming soon page for a book even before you've written a word of it and fill it in properly cuz it's one more place your message can liveand one more reason for someone to trust you.Lock a single unforgettable promise, build it into repeatable content, test it in the wild.30 days and you have the engine that sets up your personal brand to go viral.
Shifts from short-term virality to long-term brand building, emphasizing consistency over years rather than weeks. The speaker closes with examples of sustained posting and a call to keep building beyond the initial launch.
What I haven't told you yet is what happens if you stop there.So here's the part I promised we would get to.Setting up a personal brand to go viral can take 30 days.Building one people want to show up for, defend, and buy from, that takes longer.Think about this.Dan Martell made himself a promise.He was going to post once a week for the next 10 years and he's been doing it.He committed to and kept doing it long before the results caught up to him.I'm doing the same.
I'm mere months into my personal brand building journey on social media and we have nearly 20 million views a month across our platforms.That's up from under 10,000 a month.Stand your brand up in 30 days then build it for 30 years.The future belongs not to trend seekers but to the bold people who do boring things consistently.If you want to go deeper on how to sell what we have built here, that's in the video next.