🪄 10,000 followers with 1 post

Hey,

The Spells Master is back!

Welcome to the 54th issue.

Today's topics:

1. 10,000 followers with 1 post

2. A place to find Experienced VAs in <24 hours

3. One recommended video on She Turned 5800 Followers Into $1 Million Per Year

10,000 followers with 1 post

This guy had 11k followers before the post went live.

He posted 1 thread that went viral. We are talking 60 million views, 445,000 likes, 23,000 reposts, and 810 comments.

Only a few celebrities get those views on X. Its mostly Elon Musk who gets that kind of views.

But he got those views and got 10k followers after that post went live.

A few observations on what I think happened:

1. Use the right hook and the right image.

The X algorithm is designed in a way that it recognizes patterns.

Our human brain works the same way. We have a finite set of triggers. We laugh at certain things said in a certain way. Comedians know this so they write and act their jokes a certain way.

Similarly, algorithms know what went viral before and they keep a track of it in their database. They know what words were used in a post so if next time someone uses the same words, give it a boost.

Expert Facebook Ad Managers give the same tip. Make your ad exactly similar to the other ad that went viral. If the ad that went viral had a person sitting on a sofa with a blue background, then do the exact same thing.

So Ben, the guy who went viral, did the same.

He copied the hook from someone else's account that has gotten countless likes before.

So the hook on his tweet became "I collect ads like rich people collect watches."

And he used a clickbaity image that was a funny ad.

2. Timing matters

When you post actually matters.

You can't expect to post when everyone is sleeping.

Yes, everyone is awake at any given time but you still need to post at the right time.

Either its early morning, mid afternoon, or late night.

Posting at these times gives maximum visibility.

Don't believe me? Fine. Go check the time you get YouTube notifications or emails from a newsletter you've subscribed to. It'll be the same window.

3. Make friends with accounts of similar size

The new algorithm has changed to become more like TikTok but Ben gave me this tip.

If you are at 5k followers, make friends with a 5k follower account in your same niche.

This trains the algorithm so it shows your content to your friends audience if you don't have overlap. And it makes sense you won't have a 100% overlap.

So in short, here's what Ben told me. I've edited it for brevity.

That's what got him 10,000 followers. You can see the stats on SocialBlade although the numbers are a bit off.

4. Astroturfing

One thing he didn't mention is astroturfing. It might or might not have happened but the cynic in me thinks that it is a lie by omission.

But if you think like an algorithm designer, you'll learn that to go viral all you need are a few likes to start the process.

5. Pay To Play

My reply to it also went viral. I posted a reply within a few minutes as I had followed him the last time he went viral 2 months ago.

But my reply has gotten very few likes despite being the best reply to it for one simple reason: X has become pay to play.

So if you don't pay for the blue checkmark, expect fewer views, fewer likes, and fewer followers.

I bet having a blue check would've granted more likes, more views, and more followers. The same is true for Instagram as Meta is charging much higher prices than X.

6. Best Posts on X

I found a gem of an account while observing the post that went viral after a day or two.

Its called Best Posts X which tracks X's most viewed posts.

They alert you when a post crosses 50M views (~2 posts/day) and 100M views (~1 post/week.)

And one thing I've noticed scrolling through Best Posts X is that the biggest account that has most views is Elon Musk. That shouldn’t be surprising as he owns X.

And a few random celebrities like Katy Perry and Cristiano Ronaldo.

But its a good account to study.

A place to find Experienced VAs in <24 hours

The idea of hiring VAs from 3rd-world countries is everywhere. The biz model behind this is incredible.

Most of USA doesn't know how much $1 costs in other countries. Most parts of the world only need $100,000 one time to live a good life. If they are an average employee for a USA company, then they can retire in 10 years and live like a king. Dollar arbitrage is real.

One recommended video on She Turned 5800 Followers Into $1 Million Per Year

This video was a slap in the face.

People underestimate how much 5800 followers really are. If you sell high-ticket stuff in a very narrow niche, its more than enough to make $1m a year doing just that.

Every Social Media Algorithm has gotten good at serving niche content to its exact niche audience.

Tweet of the day

I can't believe I never thought of this.

Everyone outside the tech bubble uses Canva, not Figma.

Canva is so wide-spread for its templates, its hilarious.

Pure time on the market is an underrated strategy. They have been here for 15 years, they'll be here for 15 more.

Time is what makes brands.

Rabbit Holes

1. VPN Arbitrage Guide: How To Make Money With It - If you think the illegal businesses exists only in real world and not digital world, you are mistaken. This is one of those that is highly against terms of services but people are gonna whatever makes money.

2. Who is MrBeast? - If you don't know who Mr.Beast is, this is the place where you can learn all about him.

3. From 0 to 10 million users in four years - If you are building an AI-related SaaS, follow this playbook. Their papertrail is awesome and since they were VCs turned founders, they used their brilliant network plus all best practices from Day 1 as VCs learn a lot from Adjacent Industries by advising Entrepreneurs in variety of niches.

Until next time,

Your Spells Master!

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More Startup Spells 🪄

1. The ChatGPT Plugin that went viral worldwide (LINK)

2. 9 funniest ads of all time (LINK)

3. Dumb Marketing (LINK)