The SECRET FORMULA To VIRAL SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT (Grow Your Audience!)

1. Welcome - Viral on Social Media: Hello, and a very big warm welcome to my new course, the secret formula to viral content. I define viral content as getting 10-100 times more views than you would normally get. And if we take a look at all the viral content out there on the Internet, they all have very similar patterns. And over my last ten years of learning and being a social media creator, a content creator on YouTube, and, of course, Insta and TikTok, I have picked up a lot of insights and knowledge that I'm going to share with you today in this course. Breaking down that sort of secret formula that I think will help you unlock your true potential on social media, which is great. If you're starting out trying to be a content creator from nothing, this is going to be very valuable to you. Also, those who are already slightly established, looking to grow even faster and further, and of course, small businesses looking to get exposure. Now, being a content creator is one of the most desirable jobs. My name is Dylan. Social media is my thing. I've been doing YouTube now for ten years, and I get 250,000 views per month. I've gained subscribers on several different channels. I've got five different monetized ones, along with millions per year on the smaller short form platforms like TikTok, Instagram reals and YouTube shorts. So I'm going to be breaking down all of that success that I've had and giving you the tips and tricks that I've learned. We're going to cover multiple things, but most importantly, the viral story line. However, enough is enough in the intro. Let's jump in to Class one. 2. Viral Video Structure - The Set Up: Welcome to class one, grabbing attention the setup. Now, viral content if you follow a certain formula, you definitely increase your chances of generating a lot of exposure. However, of course, there is no hard fast formula that if you follow, you're going to guarantee it, but we certainly can maximize our chances of doing so, and that has been proven, which is why this course is very valuable for anybody who's making content, social media, marketing, or just wants to be a content creator themselves, their business or their personal brand. Um, now, there are two types of content that can go viral, long form and short form. So if we take a look at what long form is, let's say long sort of YouTube videos. I'm talking about 8 minutes plus, really. And then short form nowadays, I'd say, it's going to be about 30 seconds to a minute. So 30 to 1 minute or sometimes you can even go less than 30, so let's say 15. Now, any less than 15, you're probably not going to go viral statistically speaking. It's a lot harder. Long form going viral 8 minutes works, and then you kind of have this sort of middle ground of 4 minutes, which to me, can often be a tiny bit of no man's land in a weird way. There was a bit of a push to make 4 minutes to sort of norm, but it never quite took off. It's like, either long or you want short. You either want super quick and snappy and fast, or you want to sit down with a cup of tea and sort of relax. Now, like I said earlier on, as I draw this tea cup, Today, we're really going to focus on short form content, which is on the right hand side because this is a pillar of our society. This is going to be things like Insta, Tik Tok, of course. When I say Insta, I'm talking about Insta reels. Then you have the likes of YouTube shorts and Facebook reels at the same time. However, you don't really need to do Facebook reels if you're doing Insta Reels because they're owned by the same company and so you're targeting slightly different audiences. Me personally, the most valuable ones to focus on is going to be TikTok and Instagram. YouTube Rules is good, but really brands love these two metrics of Insta and TikTok. Now we've established what short form content is. This is what this course is focused on. So what exactly is going to be like in terms of going viral? So if we take a look at some of the patterns of going viral on short form content. Now, often there is always a that hook is all based upon a very strong intro. Now, just a quick note on why short form is so valuable is that brands know that deliverables are a lot easier to meet. They take less time for creators to meet, and you can invite somebody to come to an event and be like, why don't you come to this event for free, make this piece of content. It can look very nice and quick. Everyone consumes it in today's world, and there's not a ten minute video with a 1 minute sponsorship, it's purely dedicated to that. So that, in my opinion, is why short form has become so valuable in today's society. But that's slightly off topic. However, going viral, yes. So short intro Hook. Like I've written down here, going viral requires a very strong hook in the setup process. Now, a strong hook often happens at the start where it could be something like this. It could be either on screen visually or it could be a sound or it could be a certain caption that just creates a bit of curiosity for the viewer, which makes them stick around to find out the end result. Now, I've got a great example coming up later on. But for example, London's best kept secret. If you read that straightaway when you're scrolling through very rapidly like you do on short form content, wait a second. What is this secret? Now, I'm going to watch this to find out exactly what that secret is. That secret will often come at the end of the video. Now, that is something I'm going to talk about later on, but the hook reveal is always going to be at the very end. The reveal right here is at the end, and at the start, it's going to be the hook itself. So you're basically looking to always maximize that viewer time. So max that right there. You never want to reveal the hook to Alli or the outcome of the hook because then people right, I've got the payoff swipe on off I go. And if they swipe on too early, then essentially the algo goes, People are watching this video too much. Let's just skip it going forward. So you want to have maximum watch time to go viral. Having a hook that's set up at the start and revealing it at the end means that people stick around and ultimately, that maximizes the chances of going viral. So that is what the main plot is here. So a few examples. You won't believe what happens next. That's a classic because you're like, Well, what happens next? Then you stick around. He did not see it coming. Another classic what's coming, we don't know. London's best kept secret. Like I said, it's pretty obvious as well. But you also have things like bam, sound effects, loud, intense, fast. It just peaks your curiosity. The top one is really about anticipation. Then the second one is all about curiosity. And that curiosity is done by a sort of sensual overload as well, so you stick around to find out what the heck is going on here. You also have the likes of emojis. Emoji is like a laughing face. It preempts that something funny is coming. Another great way to hook audiences in, of course, just adding laughing faces won't work, but having that integrated with a bigger picture, good quality reel can make the difference because once again, you're like, wait a second, something funny is coming up. I know it. I'm going to stick around. Laughing faces, sounds and trends, jumping on trends, of course, fantastic. Having a common sound, people already know what to expect if it's a trending sound, and so they stick around waiting to see how you do on that trend versus everybody else. Largely depending on how good the trend is, and also with doing trends, you have a plate of exposure, but to really tap into it, you have to have great content. Excuse this messy handwriting. Goodness me. But hopefully you get a rough gist of what's going on here. Now, as well as those things, you can also have quite a busy opening to a reel or a piece of content, where it could be somebody taking off the top. You're like, why are they taking off their top, or it could be somebody in loads of mud and you're like, What's happened to them that they're sitting there in loads of mud. You create a shock factor as well. That can really hook people in at the very start of a real shock factor. And I saw this great example earlier on today. Now quiz videos used to pop off, but then over time, people basically know what to expect. They kind of swipe past them. However, this brand new video that went viral 3 million likes, los of views, had this interesting structure whereby there was doing a public quiz, quite common. So let me just write that down. Public quiz. There's loads of these out there now public questions. But this one was super interesting, so it got lots of views, three mill plus, and sorry, three more likes plus, which is insane. But the real secret behind it was is that in between every question, it wasn't question, answer, question, answer. No, it wasn't like what they did was they had a high jump bar, and every time somebody had a question right, it was a two V two scenario, the other team had to jump over this high jump bar. And every time the people got question wrong, the high jump bar would raise up. So the next time that other person had to jump over the bar, the bar was rising. So as a result of the rising bar, what you actually have is that you've got two elements of suspense and anticipation. Is that person going to fall over this increasingly higher high jump bar, you're like, Well, I'm going to stick around for that. But also, you've got a quiz, which is an answer and reveal. You get curious because can I answer the questions? Or would I get them wrong? Would I be like this guy getting them wrong or this girl getting them right, you know? So you've got curiosity as well on the answers. And it was genius because you've got two layers of engagement, which is super, super interesting and unique in today's environment. So they've innovated a brand new way to keep audiences hooked even more so than they normally would be in this quiz scenario so that everybody watches the whole video because the bars getting higher and higher and higher and you want to see who loses and who falls. And so you're maximizing watch time and then you're going to go viral. So like that, a lovely example. That was a hook that started off and got you involved, but then stayed throughout the whole entire video. Then of course, you can also have things like a unboxing that goes viral or some sort of content in that sense. Now, the key to making unboxing go viral or some sort of packages go viral is that they have to get better and better and better as the real goes along. You start off with, let's say, unboxing the five best things in a mystery box or going to the five best cities in Europe. Now, you wouldn't start with number one because then people go, Oh, that's the best one, see later. You start with number five, then go four and then go to one. You're slowly, as you can see right here, building up with drama and suspense and so the audience sticks around. That technique is especially useful for businesses, those shipping products, the five best teddy bears for Christmas 2025, the five best jelly cat, the five best cutest. You want to also make people feel emotions or feel something towards the content as well. So yeah, a few techniques there to set up a hook and to keep people engaged with your content. So in conclusion, the first 3 seconds of a content piece really matter if you're looking to maximize exposure for it. You also want to generate some sort of emotion, whether it'll be laughing, crying, gasping for the viewer. And then, of course, using bold visuals and sounds really helps keep people involved and engaged in today's society, listen, More's coming up and like I said, an intro, please do stick around for the viral story line because I genuinely think that is the one piece of advice that I give anybody looking to start out in today's society because you can go anywhere and get content advice. Like this is very, very good and unique and is tailored to what I've learned. You can find similar stuff, but a viral story line, I've been there, I've done it, I've utilized it. That is key and that's coming up next. However, yes, thank you for this class, take this on board. See you in the next one. 3. The Real Key To Viral Trends!: Welcome to class two. Now, in this one, we're going to focus more on viral trends. Now, as I was saying before, trends like with certain soundtracks, dance moves or random things that happen on the Internet, like spinning your partner around upside down and seeing what happens can be a great way to gain traction on your social media. However, there's a certain way to go about utilizing trends to really maximize your own chances of growth. So first thing, first, what are viral trends, it could be sounds, it could be dance moves, it could be various other things. So if you take a viral trend, you take the sound or you take the action as such. What you want to do is you really want to personalize it to yourself. If you imagine somebody searches the hashtag spino, which could be, for example, taking apart and lifting them up, doing a full on circle with them. Quite a tough trend that goes viral because firstly, people either look really cute or secondly because people drop each other and it's quite funny. Whenever you do this trend, depending on how early or late you are to it, you really want to personalize it to you. Now, personalizing that trend to yourself or your own content could be standing out by wearing what you, I don't know, for example, normally wear or making sure your backgrounds really nice or finding some sort of niche allows your version of the trend to which there's going to be hundreds of to stand out. You want to stand out from the crowd. Here's the crowd, whatever you want to do something different. You want to be in blue, for example, or do something that makes people think twice and watch yours again. What that is it's really hard to say, and some examples of generic stuff is like for example, if you're doing a trend where people are spinning each other around, where something really cool, so people go, Look how cool these people are dressed or find an amazing background when you're doing this spinny challenge. So people will go, That's so cool. They're doing it in front of the Eiffel Tower. That's so romantic. I'm going to watch the whole thing or find that little extra spice for a trend that is going to help you stand out like that. Extra spice is what I'll label it as just a stando exactly like. Once you're taking part in the trend and standing out, what you then want to do is really the tag places, use hashtags and really build a bit of momentum around what you're doing. For example, hashtags are a great one to use because people can search the trend that is going around via the hashtag. Let's say hashtag spino what I put up here, actually. So I would essentially use all of my hashtags to be stuff around the spinning trending challenge. So that if people are searching spin or spino or spino challenge, they're the three that I would personally use in this hypothetical challenge, then in essence, my video is going to be pop up. My video is going to be on this big pool of videos that everyone's making all these dots and as people scroll through following this sort of wheely trend, they're eventually going to come to mind right here. I mine is standing out enough that it's getting enough watch time, then what happens is, my video right here, I'll label my video, is slowly going to start to move up this path and no longer be at the very bottom, but it's going to make its way to the very top. And as soon as you get to the top, then bang money, you are going to be getting a lot of exposure and quite possibly going to be going viral. So how do you get there? Like I said, it's all about a fantastic hook. It's all about having a story line, all about standing out exactly like we just mentioned. That looks awful right now, but when I was drawing it, I hope it explained exactly what the thought process is behind this and how the algo works in that sense. I'll label it down now. You want three tags if you're doing a trend related to the trend. You want short and snappy content, of course, if you're doing a trend on TikTok or YouTube or Insta, a key thing is if you're using sound, even if you edit outside of the Always add the sound from inside of the app so that then the algorithm itself, the in house algorithm recognizes that you're selecting a trend sound and they can display it on their collection of trending reels and so on. That's a key tip, actually, making sure using in house in house sound, and of course, ideally, using some in house edits. So what I say when I say in house is using the app itself, whether it be Insta or TikTok or YouTube to add a few overlays, to add the sound, so they think, essentially, you're tricking them in some weird way if you're using external editing, that you're utilizing their platform to really make those reels look cool and fantastic because if you're making call fantastic reels and you're using their platform, then they're going to push that content even harder so the rumors have then the final part of a trend is you want to make it easy if you're starting the trend, people to replicate it or mimic. So you never want to do something so outrageous that people can't really catch onto it. But if you're looking to start a trend, which maybe if you're a business, you might do, very, very hard to do, but you want to make it something relatable, something funny, something that's not too difficult to get involved with. So just a light touch here on trends, let's move on to the next class. 4. VIRAL STORYLINES (KEY!): So welcome to class three. Now, this is the one that I'd say is most important in this course. It's the one that I'm kind of a big fan of, and I alluded to it earlier on about ways to go viral and actually capitalize on no viral video. So many times people and businesses and content creators go viral. And then they kind of just let it die out and they're like, Why is my content not going viral? If this has gone viral, surely, I should just fly now. And the simple answer is it comes down to first having a bit of a niche, but also recognizing that no matter what your niche is, if you found a piece of viral content, so let's say, a you normally make content on topic A. But in actual fact, you've just made a slightly different video on topic B and topic B has gone absolutely crazy. Now, what happens is people then go back to creating content on topic A, and all those people that have come for the content on topic B go, I wanted topic B content, but you're going back to your old content on topic A. As a result, what you should really utilize and do if ever you have a viral video is continue on with the same theme of content that that viral video was about. So let's just say it was about boxes, very random. You don't want to go back to making anything else other than boxes content until that virality has died out. You make boxes content basically for the next week or so and watch those numbers be a lot higher than they normally were. That is why I say story line. A story line typically looks a bit like this. So you're going from one place to the other. You're starting off at A, but in actual fact, B has just generated loads of traffic, and so you want to stick with B like we're doing right here. As we stick with B for as long as we can, over time, you might slowly start to test the water and branch out. So does B version two work, which is slightly different content to boxes. Does that still generate views? If not, then you're going to want to continue back on with box content and then try and find something else, then if that doesn't work, find something else later down the line, and eventually you'll find another piece of viral content that works, possibly in line with your old piece of viral content and then over time, you might start to build up a very nice niche. That is only if you're going from a place of having no niche to finding one. But in essence as well, this is all part of the story line that I mentioned earlier because you're following a same route, and you're just doing a bit of AB testing in between. Now, for me, I have a great example of this. I was a sort of public interviewer, doing public content on TikTok and reels and stuff like that. How much is your rent, how much is XYZ. Then I I was getting a bit of attraction but not loads and loads. I basically made this video talking about a leak in my house. I captioned it something funny like paying 5,000 pounds to live in London, and this is what I get. I was just like a leaked out balcony where I used to rent and I'll roll it on screen right now, it got 1 million views. And I was like, This is crazy. The engagement's massive. Everyone's talking about London and about living in London. People are saying, I don't even live in London because I was on the outskirts of East London. As a result, there was so much engagement around where I live that instead of going back to my public interview videos for a while, I just made content about my rent, about a house tour, about what it's like to live in London and be like, no, I'm actually living in London. Look at this. I'm right by the River Thames and people you'll no in her Central London, I'd be like, Look at me here. So in essence, I found a new story line and I stuck to that story line while the iron was hot, while the fire was hot. And so you always want to do that. You never want to change course too much. Otherwise, you lose that spark that's just started from having a piece of viral content. So I've mostly talked about it, but the viral story line in a very, very small nutshell because I've got a greater course coming on it soon, it's all about sticking to that same story line once you generate traction and just branching off here and there, if you'd like to, to find out what else possibly works. Generating a niche is something that all content creators should ideally do because to start out, it just allows the audience to know exactly what they're coming to you for. It also means that brands and events they can invite you because they know that you're a food guru, for example, or they know that you love cars, and so if they invite you out to restaurants or events or car launches, they then know that you make content and it's going to hit their target audience. Having a niche is having a very clear idea on your content. It's very targeted, and it also means that you have a direction with your content. You always want to have a direction. Content unless you're a mega famous star and your niche, you as a person, that kind of zigzags between fashion or sport or gaming, it doesn't really work. You want to select one or two, especially when you're starting out and growing just to maximize your efficiency there. So one or one or one. The likes of KSI, bigger people, they can obviously do whatever they like. In short form content, that story line is always going to be about that viral story line. It's always about explaining something but leaving them wanting more. You have a hook, you have your content, it's a hook right there. You have your content in the center. But then at the end, when you're doing a story line, you want to have some sort of trigger. Now, this trigger can be something that keeps people coming back. It's like, Well, what happens next in the story? It could be that you're still debating your case about no, for example, me, I live in London. Look at this guys and they're like, No, you don't. Now I want to come back and see your next content, or they're engaged the whole time. They come back for more, or it could be like, I was unboxing my 5,000 pound guitar and it was really good and all this sort of stuff happened. Then this happened, so I had to get a new guitar. Okay, well, I want to see the new guitar now. The new guitar is going to be in the next piece of content. And so they follow the content along and they're following that story line. So always something new, just to keep you hooked as well and keep you engaged with the story line. It's like a script, it's like a story. You always come back in a sequel to find out what happened in the last movie. And so you want to do that just on those reels in a much, much shorter, more condensed version, lengthwise, up to a minute, never longer. I'd say you always want to be above 15 seconds, like I said earlier, and the sweet spot could possibly be 20 to 45. It really depends in that sense. But that, my friends, is a viral storyline. More coming soon, but I hope that makes a lot of sense. I'd love to have any questions and answer them down in the discussion board about this. I'd say it's my area of expertise and also, please do feel free to leave a review if you're enjoying this. It helps me out massively and of course, the class project. Don't forget to do that. But now let's move on to the next course or next episode in this short form class, class four. 5. YOUR Content Niche!: So welcome to Lesson four. Now, Lesson four and Class I. It's all about your ideas for creating content on social media. Now, for me, this is the toughest part about being a content creator or starting out on that journey or even being a business is like, Well, what do I actually make good content on? So I touched on it last class. Having a niche is a fantastic thing to do. Looking at your life and well, this is what I could utilize. This is my unique selling point. And so I have access to this area of life or this expertise that no one else has. And so I'm going to make content based on my expertise. When I was at university, I made content all about studying economics at Uni. When I finished university and I was at drama school, I made content on drama school. When I left drama school, I made content about living in London. And so all of that stuff became my niche. And exactly like in the last class, it just meant people knew exactly what they were coming to my channel for, which meant if they like that sort of content, they'd come back over and over again. Let's take a little look at finding ideas for viral content. Again, if you don't have an audience, then you can select this and decide who your imaginary audience is. Who are you creating this content for? Always the first pillar. Then you want to think about what makes your personal audience have an emotional reaction? What is it that they love to see? What are they interested in? What do they find funny or what makes them really emotional? Maybe you've got a following who love motivational videos and they just love that sort of content. To that? What problems do they have or what trends are they interested in if they've got something that they like to have solved? Like maybe you're a business that specialize in creating products that allow you to hang up blazers without creasing them. Well, tap into that problem. One life hack you won't believe or one of the best life hacks that you have to know about. How to hang up your blazer without increasing. What? Don't like ironing? Check this out. That's the niche you'd go down for something like. Solving a common problem, but making that problem relatable is another way to start thinking about how a base for your content is. This is the problem I'm solving, but this is how people think about the problem in their heads. So this is what I'm going to target, not just like, This is the best blazer hook ever. It's like, no. Relate to the people, get in their heads, think about what you like consuming and create that. Again, a nice simple way is to spot trends early. You never want to jump onto a trend too late. If there's a certain piece of music or song or a brand new Hyperna movie or a brand new hyperana series, jump onto that hype. Squid Games was such a big success back in the early days. The amount of content that was based around Squid Games in real life or Squid Games This or the Squid Games Challenge, went viral like crazy because that was the hot topic of that month, but you had to get on that straightaway. If you waited, you know, five, six months down the line, it's already been done. There's that quick of a turnaround during content that any trends that arise, any sounds, any music, any hot topics in life or society, get on them as quick as you can once you found out what it is you want to make. Content relatable and simple and reliable in terms of put your own spin on it. Don't just copy other people. Copying people goes nowhere because if they've seen what happens before, then the audience aren't going to be engaged. Having your own unique spin on something like we said earlier, really transpires into a fantastic viral piece of content because they're like, This is new, this is different. I like the original content, but this outweighs it all massively. Keeping things fresh and making them your own is really what's going to take you to the next level, of course. Same time, you don't always need to overcomplicate things. The biggest piece of advice I could give when creating content is to get out on the field, create content and learn. You've got such a great fundamental understanding now digesting all of this information in this course about what you need to go viral, that your content is going to be much better than it was before you started if you didn't know this. But also, even if you don't feel 100% confident, just get out there and make content, learn on the job. It's the biggest part of what holds people back is it's not ready yet. Sometimes I agree, other times just get out there, post it, do it. You'll learn so much. Brainstorming a few ideas right now in your head about what is best for your content or even trying to figure out your niche. It takes time, cycle through various different niches to get to your final niche, but make some content. Have a little look around, discover what it is that you like it and put a feeler out and make something. It's not always going to be a great success. But eventually, when you find it, using that viral story line, that's how we start the movement story. That's how we get started. There's different types of viral content. There's that sort of building a personal brand, and there's stuff like just content that goes viral in general, which is what I'm going to touch on in the next class. 6. Class Project: So thank you very much for watching today's course. For the class project, I would like you to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and brainstorm ten Instagram TikTok tubial ideas. Think about a niche you want to target, and then just talk about those different types of videos that you could possibly make on a list of ten. And then I want you to do one arrow next to all of those ten video ideas and talk about the then I'm going to hook people by doing this at the start or talk about a sound that you could use or an emoji or some sort of factor that you could then use with that idea is going to help people become hooked into your video, your short reel. Then finally, I want you to write a little paragraph, just a small one or two lines about how you could utilize a viral story line on one of those ideas if it were to go viral. What is the next piece of content you'd make after that one went viral? And leave it down in the class projects. I'll take a look at those ideas. I'll fine tune them, give you better captions maybe if you like that, just so that you have maximum chance of going viral and building up that brand. So I'm offering some free consulting down below. So definitely get involved. I offer one on ones as well. So definitely check those out. Everything's linked in the class description. And, of course, please do leave a positive review if you have enjoyed. 7. Outro - Thank You: So, once again, thank you very much for taking part in a course on my channel. Ivan Dillon. Please do follow me on social media. Keep in touch. There's plenty more courses coming very soon. Now, this has been a very casual sort of chill course. I like doing social media courses like this because it's like I'm talking to you, and we become friends in many ways. And as a result of going viral on social media, the infinity there's infinite possibilities about life. You're never always going to go viral. You're gonna have your ups and your downs. As a content creator, that is the nature. Some days you're on top of the world, and other days, you're not quite on top of the world. Don't worry about it, but this formula in today's course, I hope is offering a small bit of guidance on certain factors that will help you on your content created journey. Please do take them forward with you, of course, nothing is ever gospel, but I believe that this helps a lot. Yeah, any questions, dropping down below. See you in my next course. Thank you very much for tuning in. I hope that everything has been clear about what makes a successful social media brand and channel and content created life nowadays. Take care. See you soon.