Brandon Baum's Viral 101 Formula

Brandon Baum, a visual effects creator with a staggering 14.3 billion views on a single video, understands the frustration of creating content that flops.

He shared his precise formula for creating viral content at the Nas Summit.

Some of Brandon's most viral videos include:

1. Turning Statues Into Food!! (Delicious): 978 million views

2. Ice Cream Statue: 885.6 million views

3. So the hole makes things bigger…: 616 million views

4. $1,000 Firework: 302 million views

5. World’s Longest Tape Measure: 274.5 million views

6. Spider-Man: 159.7 million views

7. Cocktails With Tom Holland: 180 million views

His visual effects skills are exceptional. They helped him work with big brands like Disney, Netflix, and Adidas. He has also worked with athletes such as Tyson Fury.

Brandon's Content Journey

Brandon's journey began at age 12 using an iPod app to create visual effects. He became obsessed with improving his craft.

He moved from Television to Social Media, joining the creator duo "Woody and Kleiny," who are famous UK pranksters.

Brandon combined his visual effects skills with their social media experience.

He then worked with other creators and discovered that every successful creator followed a similar set of rules.

He became a director and producer for "Woody and Kleiny" and helped grow their channels to over 25 million+ followers across platforms.

Brandon then started his own content journey during the Covid lockdown. He gained 1 million followers by posting daily. He then launched his own production company, Studio V. He realized he could replicate the formula for viral content.

Brandon's viral formula has 5 parts to it:

1. First Frame Mastery

First frame is the "new" thumbnail. In the past, creators would spend time optimizing thumbnails; that same focus must now be given to the very first image the viewer sees. Brandon’s team plans the first frame before they shoot.

Consider how people view content. They quickly scroll through feeds. Many videos surround them. The first frame is your chance to make them stop. In the past, the first 30 seconds of a video mattered. Then, it was the first few seconds. Now, it is the first frame.

It's the initial hook that makes someone pause and decide to invest their time. A weak or uninteresting first frame will be ignored in an instant.

Example #1: The POV Firework

Brandon saw a video of someone lighting a firework from a third-person point of view (POV).

He copied the video, but he made it from a first-person POV.

People from any country regardless of language, gender, skin color can understand the story. The visual is immediately relatable.

Example #2: The Elevator Plank

The frame shows elevator doors opening, with a wooden plank extending from the top of a skyscraper.

This image triggers curiosity, hinting at a sense of danger or suspense.

The unexpected visual sets the tone and entices the viewer to watch.

Example #3: The Giant Ice Cream

This video shows a massive, 50-foot ice cream cone dominating the background. This frame conveys a sense of fun, playfulness, and the absurd.

The whimsical nature of this first frame makes people curious.

All of these videos gained over 100 million views.

2. Doubling Down

Doubling down is the easiest thing in the world. It makes your life so much easier when creating content.

Use past viral videos as a dataset for creating new viral videos.

He views video creation like "unlocking a padlock." There is a specific number of combinations of codes you need to get right to hit that viral video. Once a video hits, that’s one of those codes.

So, instead of trying to find a whole new lock, Brandon just makes that lock even better.

This iterative process involves taking a successful concept, identifying what made it work, and then amplifying those elements in a new video.

This could be a bigger budget, a better performance, or a refined narrative.

His $500 firework video went viral and did 91 million views.

So he remade the same video but just changed it to "$1000 firework", and it hit over 302 million views.

This wasn’t just about using a more expensive firework. The lesson here is that by using data from the previous success, they could make the next video even more impactful, reaching a larger audience who might have never seen the first one.

You just have to improve upon a successful formula. This is true for content as it is for ads.

Brandon Baum has 9 videos on the same topic. They have these titles:

1. This Is What A $1000 Firework Looks Like | Brandon B

2. This Is What A $500 Firework Looks Like.

3. Sam Ryder launched to space with $10,000 Firework 🚀

4. This Is A $25,000 Firework... 😳

5. This Is What A $5000 Firework Looks Like... (Epic)

6. This is a $750,000 firework…

7. We Found This $350 Firework...+

8. $10,000 Firework Exposed...

9. FIREWORK ACCIDENT CAUGHT ON CAMERA!! #Shorts

3. Dual Engagement

Humans need 2 stimuli to stay engaged with short videos.

Dual engagement plays into how how much attention all of us need to stay hooked into pieces of content.

Split-screen videos, like Subway Surfers and Family Guy, are good examples that are blowing up on TikTok.

We're now at stage as humans where one 8 second short-form video isn't enough to keep us hooked so we need two at the same time.

While split-screen videos illustrate the concept, Brandon stresses that dual engagement doesn't require literal split-screens. The key is to provide multiple stimuli to keep viewers engaged.

He used this concept in a video with Tom Holland. The video shows Tom Holland making cocktails, but then cuts to him telling stories.

This created dual points of engagement as the viewer followed both the action of making cocktails and the narrative he was sharing.

Both things are edited together to appear as happening simultaneously.

Brandon points out that sometimes dual action may not be possible. For example, a Q&A video.

In such cases, “text animation” can be used as a secondary stimuli.

By putting text on the screen and adding animated effects, creators can add another engagement point without altering the core footage.

Brandon has playlists on his TikTok where he explains his world-class VFX skills.

A simple text adds a layer of visual engagement without compromising the original video.

You can do simple text, animations, or even cartoons as a secondary stimuli. Henry Belcaster goes viral with cartoons.

4. Audience Retention

Social media platforms want users to stay on the platform to see more ads. Creators need to keep people hooked on their content.

In Brandon's $500 firework video, they revealed the punchline at the start. This kept the audience engaged to watch the whole video for the payoff and resulted in a 141% retention rate.

If he that video carried on for another 10 seconds after the explosion, the retention rate would have been dropped.

Brandon recognizes the risk of losing viewers if a video drags on beyond its peak.

A successful video knows how to promise the reward, deliver on that promise, and then end at the perfect moment.

5. My Bar 101 - Passion-Driven Content

The most important rule is to create content you love.

Niche content, no matter how weird, can succeed.

He gives an example of Francis Bourgeois, who built a career out of train spotting.

Brandon's 5-part formula has led to 12 million followers, 7 billion views, and ranking in the highest YouTube shorts of all time. Nowadays, he blends his world-class VFX skills to make ads for world-renowned brands like Disney, Netflix, and Adidas.

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