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Understanding Virality Recap & Q&A

For a recap, again, you don't wanna rely on views as your sole metric of success. It can be a metric that you consider, but I would always use it in combination with some of the other metrics that I talked about today so that you're getting a more well rounded understanding of the performance of your video. I would say it's ideal to have both numerical and non-numerical metrics of success just because like I said, when you're starting out, those views are gonna be low and you're gonna feel like (clears throat), you're gonna feel a little bit discouraged and so having those non-metrics of success are the other things that you can lean on so that you can always be winning quickly and winning often. Alright, we made it guys (laughs). So just to do an overview of everything I talked about today, I hope that you can leave with the understanding of knowing that virality is not just about reach or time, it really is about understanding the relationship between reach, time, and impact. I hope ...

that you understand how important it is to be clear and intentional about the work that you're putting forth. There's too much generic content floating around and so the more specific you are, the more likely you are to impact someone and to make that person feel like your work is speaking to them. And it will allow them to see their needs and desires reflected in your specificity. You definitely want to decrease the cookie cutter content so you wanna think strategically about how you're putting content on each platform and so because of that, again, you don't wanna be on every single platform that's out there that doesn't really help you in any way. You wanna make sure that you're on the platforms that make sense for you and your audience and the success that you want. As you can see, there's an asterisk, and so part of the reason why that's there is that a lot of this is dependent upon the money and the resources that you have, so for instance, I said for my podcast videos, I know that they would probably do better if we could caption them, but me and my partner don't have the time or the resources to do that. But, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't put your content out there, so don't use that as an excuse to say I shouldn't put it out there. You definitely should and then you know, when you have the time or the resources, and you can do it, then you can add the captions or do what you need to do to help increase the visibility of it. But on the Internet, people value consistency more than anything else, so if you're just consistently showing up, people will definitely value that. You wanna make sure that you're not just aiming for a million views, like I said, there's so many other valuable non-numerical metrics of success. You really wanna be thinking about the growth that you can contribute for yourself as an artist as well as digging a little bit deeper into some of those other metrics. And then you always wanna aim to build trust. When you build trust, that usually will naturally lead to more engagement and that engagement will lead to more visibility. And then lastly, I wanna leave you with the words of a sister, aunty, queen, Oprah, and I love this quote because, so Oprah was, when she said this quote, it was when she was talking about, so the Oprah show, there was a time in which her competitors were doing better than her and one of the reasons why they were doing better than her is because they were doing more risque and lowbrow content. And even though it was tempting to do so, Oprah said, "No, I'm gonna stick to my values, "I'm going to stay in my lane, and I'm going to," and through doing that she was able to rise above the competition. I put this quote here because I think it's important, especially in those early stages, and those dark times of low numbers, it's gonna very tempting to wanna pander, to doing what everyone else is doing and doing what's popular, and I think that it's so important with this quote to stay in your lane and still continue to provide content that's true to yourself. So if you ever find yourself on those dark times, just remember, sister, aunty, queen, Oprah. And so, I am Daysha Veronica and I loved being here with you guys and I guess there's time for questions, yeah? Yes. Yes, I did it, I was so scared (laughs). Alright, wow that was damn packed, than you so much Daysha. Let's start in the studio audience, and yes please. Alright, I wanted to get your views, specifically on Instagram on increasing your reach, because typically people will say, use hashtags, right? But then, you'll use a bunch of hashtags and then all the comments are just like weird stuff and just people who wanna get more followers, you know what I mean? Like, visit my fitness page or something like that. And then you get these views but they're not necessarily actual views, you know what I mean? So how is that working, because on other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, like Twitter, like I've had content that's popped on it because people can just retweet that, it can go viral really fast, but like Instagram, it's kind of a struggle on getting audience there. Yeah, I was trying to figure out how I worked hashtags into the conversation but essentially, when it comes to hashtagging on Instagram, a lot of people tend to think that the more hashtags I have, the wider the reach it'll have, and I just, I don't think that that's true. I would say, so this is where you wanna think about partnership strategy in that way. So I think that the best way in which you can build an audience on Instagram is through partnership strategy and collaboration. So like I said, if you're not necessarily doing influencer marketing, maybe if you are a creator, it's reaching out to another popular influencer and saying, hey I'd love to work with you on something. That's a really great way to organically build your reach. As far as hashtags go, it also, it's really being strategic about the kinds of hashtags that you're using, so I would, you don't have to use like 30. I remember I was doing sponsorship with a brand that wanted to have 30 hashtags on the post and I was like this is, and the hashtags were ridiculous, I'm not gonna go that deeper to that. But um, it really is about choosing the ones that you think people are actually going to be searching for. For instance, on my lifestyle website, I do, I have a newsletter, and so I'll do like a Monday motivation newsletter because that's a very popular hashtag on Twitter and other social media spheres. And so I'll hashtag that because I know that there's a built-in audience and that people are gonna be looking through that. Again, it's being strategic about the hashtags and thinking about what are the ones that people are actually going to be looking through, not just kind of putting stuff just to put stuff there. Does that help? Yeah. Hi. Is there a way to get insight metrics on Instagram without having to create a business profile? Not that I know of, but I feel like there's value in creating a business profile just because once you reach a certain amount, another way in which you can increase your reach. I believe if you hit 10k followers on Instagram, you get the ability on your stories to add links. So that's another great way to share your content to people, 'cause a lot of people engage on Instagram stories. So would it be best to wait till you hit that 10,000 mark to convert it into a business profile? The reason why I ask is because I've heard that by, switching your profile over, it will lessen your exposure due to them thinking that you're wanting to market to people. Hmm, okay, I would have to do a little bit more research into that, 'cause I have always had a very high following, so I never really considered that, but yeah that's something that I would definitely, I have to do more research on myself. But if you're nervous about that, then you can totally wait, but I do think that there is value in converting it eventually and maybe it is waiting until you get that 10k mark. Because that ability to put links in your stories is very valuable. Alright, Daysha, we've got some questions coming in from online. Steffany Hedman had asked about, can you get a little bit more specific about attention grabbing intros to videos? When we think about attention, it really is content specific, it's based on a video that you're doing, so when we think about the men try heels video that I did, so I was very strategic about making sure that I kind of documented their every move of struggle and I just got very lucky that day that we happen to be doing an earthquake drill at work. And so they're just like trying to walk through the grass and they're like trying to walk around the building. If you are a video maker, specifically, I would definitely, depending on the type of content that you do, it's looking for those really interesting key moments that you think that someone's gonna be like, "Oh that was super funny," or "Oh that was super, that sound bite was very deep," or something like that. And it doesn't necessarily have to be visual, 'cause sometimes it could be sound bite. If somebody gives like a really knockout sound bite, you can use that as your cold open, which is what we would call them. But it really is content specific, it's based off of what you're making. Give us some final words of wisdom, Daysha, just about how you've gotten to where you are and how people can go forth and conquer video. I would say, don't be scared. You get so scared, you think your ideas, like I have, I would say keep an idea book and just write it down, 'cause you never know. There's some days where I write down an idea and I'm like, "This is dumb," and then I'll go back to it two days later and go, "This is gold." So don't be afraid to fail. Literally, I would not be here if I had not been afraid to fail, if I hadn't been afraid to do my spoken word video and let it be the lowest performing video that I've done, to then see it turn into being a 32 million view video in a week. So I would also say don't give up on your ideas either. That doesn't necessarily mean, so I wasn't working on my spoken word videos every single week. I would definitely take time, I would think about them, I would analyze, use those metrics to think about making informed creative decisions, and then making the next thing. But always remember that this is a process of testing and iterating and that is the best that you could do for yourself is like, if you're really committed in something, stand behind it but make sure that you're doing the work to make informed creative decisions.