So one of the most frequent questions I get is, “How’d you grow your channel so fast in a few months? You haven’t even posted that many videos…” And basically what I’m going to try to explain is the strategy for what makes you successful in social media. And it’s called, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook…” Which means “Give, Give, Give and then Ask…” And it’s actually a lot more like jab 20 times or 50 times or a 100 times and then right hook, And I think Gary would agree but that just doesn’t really make a good book title.
Now you might be saying, “Well, who cares about what makes you grow in social media?” And the answer is – basically everyone should. If you’re an entrepreneur or connected to business in any way, you better know how this works. If you do anything creative, you better know how to create a following. If you want to know what makes people respond to you in the 21st century, where the average person gets hundreds of people just like you shoved onto his computer screen, you better understand this. And basically, if you plan on doing anything great today, you better understand how social media works. And that I hope includes everyone watching this.
So this video’s all about strategy. There are a million different tactics. For example, you might watch my Rich Dad Poor Dad video, and see that it’s titled, “How to get rich.” Now, under no circumstance would I want to name my video something so banal, but that’s just what people search for. And I just did a search for “how to get rich,” which gets searched for all the time, and my video came up first. Now, there were also about 4 million other results. So the 4 million people knew what to title their video, but 99% of those videos will never get viewed. So you can know every tactic there is, which I would encourage you to learn about, but if you don’t have the right strategy, it’s all going to be useless.
So let me break down the strategy. And I’m not doing this to be like, “Oh, look guys! Look how great my channel is or whatever.” I’m basically taking a step back and objectively analyzing why this particular channel has grown the way it has, and why it’s going to be one of the most successful channels in the books and personal development niche. So let’s get into it… Let’s say John and I both decide that we want to do a book review on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is one of the most famous books in personal development. And let’s say we also want to make some kind of a sale.
And let’s pick a pretty easy one which would be an affiliate sale. So basically one of those Amazon links that you see under videos. If you buy through the link, you’re not paying any extra or anything, but the person gets a commission from Amazon. Now John and I both have a choice. We can either sit down in front of the webcam and make a two minute video saying, “Hey guys, this is a great book. It will make you successful. Oh and there is a link below if you want to buy it…” Or…
We have another choice: Buy audio equipment. Learn how to edit your sound. Buy animation software. Learn how to animate. Write a meaningful script that will actually teach people things. Combine that with a hundred other steps I’m not mentioning, and then ask, “is this actually going to help people?” Alright, so the difference between those two approaches is this… The first one takes about two minutes. The second one can take weeks and months to research, and it can take you twenty hours to animate just one video when you’re starting out. Now when people look at those two alternatives, guess what 99% of the people want to pick? Yes, they want to pick the two minute option. But here’s what that means… You just picked an option where you give absolutely nothing and you ask for something. So basically you just want to walk into the ring, right hook, and then come out. And if you know anything about boxing, that’s not really how it works.
So as soon as you do that you end up in the 99% of the people who’ll end up on the 100th page of YouTube and whose video will never be viewed. Again, if you search for The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is one of the most searched books, the first two videos will be by FightMediocrity. Why? Because it’s the results of what I’m talking about right now… So let’s look at it from the viewers perspective. I’m on YouTube because I want to learn something, and I just watched a two minute video that told me, “This is a great book, it will make you successful, buy it through my link below.” So I basically wasn’t given anything, it’s actually worse, because you just wasted my time, and now you’re asking me to do something for you.
So I’m going to have a reaction like, “Yeah, no thanks.” I’m going to exit you out and never watch anything from you ever again. Now let’s take a look at this channel. I just watched eight videos in a row that I learned a lot from. I’m starting to love the channel, and I want to see more videos in the future. And let’s say I also decide I want to buy Gary’s book. If there’s an affiliate link below, why wouldn’t I buy through the link and support the channel? Now here’s the thing… I don’t even have affiliate links on my channel, but if I did put them up, people would buy through them. Why? Because if I’ve been given 10 videos that let’s say I really enjoyed and learned from, I’m much more likely to respond to being asked for something. This is why not a day goes by, when I don’t get an email from someone saying, “Hey, I just watched your videos and loved them. I want to buy the book, but I can’t find the affiliate links on your channel.
I really want to support your channel.” That right there is where you want to be! You want to do well today? That is the kind of reputation you should be building. You want to be giving so much that when you do ask for something, people almost feel bad to not help you out. We got this whole thing upside down. And this is honestly more of a life lesson than a social media lesson. And it boils down to this… If you want to do really well in life, if you want to really stand out, STOP CONSTANTLY ASKING FOR SHIT. Everyone can ask for something, and they do, but how many people try to actually give something? I get a 100 emails a day, and 99 of them ask for something. Just one persons offers to give something that is actually valuable. Just one! You want to do well? You want to stand out? Be that one person! Seriously, be that one person. Yes, you’ll get stuff back, this isn’t some zen lesson you don’t want to hear about. But give a hundred times, and then ask, and you’ll be amazed at how well people respond.
And like I said this is more of a life lesson, but it’s just so much worse with social media, and here’s why… When I was a kid, my friends didn’t come up to me and say, “Hey, my aunt has an old fridge and wants a nicer one, do you want to donate?” Why? Because you’re going to feel like an idiot. You’re going to feel uncomfortable asking. But hey, it’s the 21st century, just put it on GoFundMe and drop it on Facebook, no problem. You’re so detached that it doesn’t make you feel bad. But here’s the thing… There’s an actual person behind that computer screen. There are a hundred other people asking him to fund them every day. Like it’s so bad today that you could have a horrible form of cancer, and a person will look at your sick pictures, and it won’t phase him at all. He sees something like that a hundred times a day, and is just desensitized now. If you think you’re going to sell your mediocre product in a market like that by doing what everyone else is doing, you have to be out of your mind! Again, you want to do well in life? You want to stand out? Don’t be the guy asking for a new fridge.
Now, a few days ago I created a Twitter for FightMediocrity, and I followed Gary and I wanted to follow a bunch of other authors that I like. Now remember, these are authors that have best-selling books. Pretty smart people. And I take a look at their Twitter, and it sucks, it’s not doing well. So I take a look at their tweets, and it’s like tweets every two weeks saying something like, “buy my book here…” or, “giving a speech here, so buy tickets here.” It was seriously like right hook, right hook, right hook. Forever… 🙂 Of course their Twitter isn’t doing well, and I didn’t want to follow them either. How do you give value in a 140 characters? I remember I followed Gary, and one of his recent tweets literally said, “Hope you guys have an awesome day. That’s it.” Or something like that. Now, pretty simple right? But even that is a form of giving. He’s giving you positive emotions.
When he does that, and gives you something in another 99 tweets, and then he asks for something, yes, you start to want to give back. So again, remember you need to jab a lot before you right hook. Everyone’s asking for stuff… You don’t stand out by being yet another person who asks for stuff. You won’t even register on people’s radars. They’re completely desensitized to it. You stand out by giving, cause no one’s doing it. And you realize that the more you give, the higher your chances of when you eventually ask, people are going to reciprocate..