7 Superstar content creators/manager’s tips of the many in the book One Million Followers by Brendan Kane
!Disclaimer – The 2 book links in the post are affiliate links and I will get a commission if you purchase through them.
Reading time: 14.2 minutes according to wordstotime.com(1852 words)
1. Prince EA
About Prince EA
From a rapper to a spoken words artist, music video director and rights activist, Prince EA has about a billion views across his platforms. On YouTube, for example, he has 6 million subscribers.
Focus on Who You Are (Chapter 11 Staying Power)
Prince EA Says: Focus on who you are by asking the following questions:
1. Why am I on the planet?
2. What can I give others?
3. What makes me happy?
4. If I had 5 years to live, what would I do?
5. If I had 1 year to live and knew that whatever I chose to do would be guaranteed to succeed what would I do?
Once we nail down these questions we will have a stronger “why” for the brand. And our why is what builds brands, NOT commodities. Just as the book Start With Why by Simon Sinek advocates.
An example of this is the Nike brand which is not a shoe company, but a “performance” company. And because their audience knows that, they stick to them. If they would just be a shoe company, the second someone made a better shoe, they would be forgotten.
2. Pedro D. Flores
About Pedro D. Flores
One of the earliest YouTube pioneers, rapper and entertainer Pedro D. Flores produced the videos “Kings of Myspace“, “Kings of YouTube” and one of his biggest hits “Tacos“(Probably Re-uploaded because Brendan says it had a 100 million views, and back in the day that was a huge deal).
Adapt With the Times ( Chapter 9: Going Viral )
Pedro had no Idea that his video about tacos would go viral where he is talking about him being a non-looking-Mexican Mexican, but after it did, he created many more videos with the same subject.
He says that we have to be willing to keep up with the times, and change with the trends. That’s where having a brand (see Lesson 1), also comes in handy.
3. Julius Dein
About Julius Dein
Create Strategic Alliances (Chapter 7)
Julius attributes his success to partnerships.
When Julius was just starting out he used to do favors for influencers and even pay to some of them so that they would feature his posts on their pages. He also did share-for-share alliances on Facebook and Instagram after having gathered a certain following.
4. Taylor Swift
About Taylor Swift
A top-chart-musician with at least 5 YouTube songs reaching over the 1 Billion views mark, the most performing of which is Shake It Off with 3.1 Billion views, being the 27th most viewed video on YouTube as of this writing according to Wikipedia.
Engage With Your Audience (Introduction)
In the beginning of her career, Taylor Swift had a page on My Space where she personally would respond to every comment. She even once held a 17 hour meet-n’-greet session where she signed autographs for and took photos with 3,000 fans. She knew that those fans would become life-long advocates, and spread the word about her.
And since the average person has 338 friends on Facebook, Swift could potentially reach over a million people that day.
Key takeaway: Make your content Shareable and extend your reach while doing so.
5. Erick Brownstein
About Erick Brownstein and Shareability
Erick is a Chief Strategy Officer and President at Shareability – A company which brands itself as one which helps produce shareable content.
Shareability’s top-20 videos of 2017
generated 10.5 million shares compared to the top-200 campaigns on Ad Age’s viral video leaderboard’s 6.4 million shares on Facebook and YouTube in aggregate! And Ad Age includes the best videos from Apple, Google, Facebook, Samsung, Budweiser, and more.
Source: Brendan Kane, One Million Followers. (Additional info is either only for insiders or paid subscribers as far as I saw in my research)
Highly Produced Content is Not Necessarily Shareable (Chapter 1)
One of the most engaging videos of Shareability is Dua Lipa’s “New Rules”(The video above). Which is a collaboration between artist Dua Lipa and Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
It became viral because it had both traits in it.
It was both highly produced, and created with the plan to be highly shareable and emotional.
In contrast, other videos on Hyatt’s YouTube channel are very highly produced, but lack the emotional connection, says Brownstein.
6. Black Eyed Peas
About Black Eyed Peas
A musical group founded in 1995 they have sold 80 million records making them one of the best-selling groups of all time, according to Wikipedia.
Be Relatable to Global Audiences (Chapter 8 Go Global)
Emmy Award Winnning producer Mike Jurkovac says that Black Eyed Peas became one of the most known brands in the world because they knew how to connect with an international audience.
When they went to Brazil – Will I Am wore the national soccer Jersey.
When they were in Mexico – Taboo would have a Mexican flag.
And so should we leverage international audiences. In fact: They are cheaper to target because of smaller competition, and they often spend more time on social media on average in comparison to US UK and Canada audiences, which makes them extremely valuable for building your brand.
7. Brendan Kane
About Brendan Kane - The Author
Brendan Kane worked with some of the Top artists to help them grow their audiences, including Taylor Swift, Rihanna and the company Yahoo. As a part of an experiment he managed to grow a following of one million followers on Facebook in 30 days.
Make It Emotional
“When creating a piece of content and thinking about the message, ask yourself if it
can get someone to laugh, cry, smile, feel angry, feel motivated, or express a
strong opinion about what’s being said. Emotional messages and content get
people to share.” – Brendan Kane, One Million Followers, p.136, Chapter 5
Image Sources(Upon Click):
Takeaway
Instead of perceiving content as good or bad, reframe my thinking to shareable or not shareable.
(There were more takeaways I believe, but this one came to mind first. And I found it enough to share 1 takeaway in this post. )
Didn’t find the review thorough enough? You may also check the companion post: One Million Followers – 6-Part Rating – Conclusion: Fine