17.5M views and nothing to show for it

Short Form Launch closes in three days (Deadline is Sunday, 11:59pm ET).

This is the story of the video that taught me views ≠ dollars and virality is a trap.

My biggest video ever was about Leo Messi.

The video did 17.5M views on Instagram, 11.7M on TikTok, and it brought in 25,000 new followers in 3 days.

It also ruined my account for months.

Here's what happened...

When I first started making content, I was growing a channel about tech & AI.

My goal was to build an audience that I could eventually monetize with my own products and services.

I saw that Leo Messi signed with Inter Miami and thought the business breakdown of how they got him to do it was super interesting.

The problem is…even though it’s an interesting, large TAM topic, that video had nothing to do with what I normally post.

So when it went nuclear, many of those 25,000 followers came into my world misaligned from the beginning.

When I went back to my usual tech & AI videos, most of those new followers didn't want to watch.

For the next several months, I was gaining 2,000 to 3,000 aligned followers a week and losing about as many…churning in place as I had to shed all of the “bad fit Leo Messi fan followers.”

My net growth was flat and my tech videos were flopping...despite having a massive viral hit sitting on the account.

I learned a very important lesson that day, that became the thesis for everything I do/teach moving forward.

If you’re looking to monetize your content (and not become A-list famous) you actually don’t want hypervirality. The Messi video was total virality (as many views as possible, from anyone in the world).

In this era, virality is actually a counter signal.

What you actually want is on-target virality...as many views as possible from the exact people you're trying to reach (that match your target audience avatar)

Here's the example I always use…

If you sell lawnmowers, you don't care if someone in an apartment building (with no lawn) sees your video.

What you'd rather have is 1,000 people with big lawns who watch it, save it, and end up wanting to buy your mower.

To help the algorithm match your content to the right people with lawns, you need to align and commit on one sentence...

I help [X people] with [Y problem] to accomplish [Z objective/outcome].

That's the short version of what I call your Target Authority Statement.

Once you have it, take the next topic on your list and ask who would watch it that you're not trying to reach.

If that's most of the audience, reframe the topic to specifically serve the person in your TAS.

Two members of my program have seen what this shift to on-target views can do.

Joanie cooks for people managing blood sugar, and when her first breakout video hit she said, "I had to check my blog revenue analytics to make sure something wasn't broken because there was so much traffic."

Mark trains dads over 40, and one of his videos put 400 people into his funnel.

For both of their channels, we had to narrow in on their core ideal customer and use it as a filter to match their expertise with the customer’s pain points.

When we did that, both of them started ripping 100K+ view videos with the perfect fit viewer.

Inside Short Form Launch, you learn how to refine your full Target Authority Statement in the first week, and every one of your ten videos is aimed with it.

You also get my latest version of the Audience Bullseye Builder, a Claude skill (yours to keep) that interviews you and maps your topics outward from your exact ideal viewer.

If you want to make sure your first ten videos aimed at the right person, reserve your spot here.

PS - Doors close Sunday, October 25, at 11:59pm ET. If Short Form Launch ever runs again, it will cost significantly more and it probably won’t be live.

Not interested in Short Form Launch? Click here and you won't get any more emails about it. You'll still get my regular newsletter.