🪄 Kian Luke's Outlier Videos

Hey,

The Spells Master is back!

Welcome to the 115th issue.

Today's topics:

1. Kian Luke's Outlier Video Format

2. A tool to Check Backlinks For Free

3. One recommended video on Generative AI in a Nutshell

Kian Luke's Outlier Video Format

Kian Luke makes badass 60-second videos that cover everything you need to know about a topic.

But he wasn't always creating popular videos. Check his Oldest videos.

He found a hit with 1 video using David Goggins' picture as a thumbnail.

So he used the same format in all of his later videos.

The format is simple:

1. Use drawings in the video

2. Keep the video short (<60 seconds)

3. Use a thumbnail with popular authority figures on YouTube like Alex Hormozi, David Goggins, Connor McGregor, and Rick Grimes (The Walking Dead)

4. Put text in the thumbnail "World's Fastest Guide" to get the attention

Once he found the winning idea, he went all in with it. Check his Popular videos.

Currently, 5 out of 8 videos are in his Popular Tab.

As a content creator, your goal is to find a winning format.

Once you find a winning format, reverse-engineer what made it go viral and keep doing the same thing until novelty wears out.

If other content creators start copying you, then you know you've made something valuable.

You only need one winning format to win big.

Fireship, a programming YouTube channel, went mainstream with its 100 seconds video format.

But previously, Fireship was making long-form content that didn't go anywhere.

Then, it pivoted to 100 seconds videos explaining a complex programming idea in a simpler way in <2 minutes.

It worked. This is the format that got Fireship mainstream.

Now Fireship makes long-form 4-5 minutes videos and sometimes even 10 minute long-form videos explaining a complex topic.

In short, find a winning format and use it to become an influencer.

Once you are an influencer, you can pivot to anything once you have built your audiences' trust.

There are people who pivoted from selling JPEGs (NFTs anyone?) on the internet to becoming AI influencers.

It probably shouldn't get harder than that.

A tool to Check Backlinks For Free

Bing Backlink Checker is a free tool that allows you to check backlinks for free.

Learn how to use the free backlink checker in a tutorial filled with screenshots.

One recommended video on Generative AI in a Nutshell

This video covers everything you need to know about Generative AI.

Basically a full day AI course crammed into 18 mins of drawing & talking.

My YouTube trick for finding oulier videos is reading the comments section to find unique (not generic) comments. It never fails. One comment says:

"I've worked in and around AI since the mid-90s, and this is one of the best explanations of the current state-of-the-art I've seen. It's a semester course crammed into eighteen minutes."

Video so good that someone translated it into Hindi, the 3rd most spoken language in the world.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

People don't buy the product. They buy the packaging.

The comments are golden on this one.

One comment says:

Another comment says:

2/

UGC forums are the new gold. Focus more on Parasite SEO.

Rabbit Holes

1. George Mack x Shaan Puri Email Convo - Goal of a content creator is to create entirely new content ideas. George Mack and Shaan Puri's email conversation is one of the most creative ways I've seen that has done it.

2. AI will take all our jobs - AI isn't just coming for creative work. Our robot overlords are coming from the plumbers, the chefs, the cleaners, and many blue-collar jobs. UBI (Universal Basic Income) is inevitable.

3. Nike: An Epic Saga of Value Destruction - Nike's lost 25 billion in market cap because they hired McKinsey and replaced things that were not working but were hard to measure for things that didn't work but were easy to measure. Alex Hormozi found out the same thing with his content. He stopped posting his podcast years ago and had a downturn of leads as he thought his podcast wasn't working but it was actually working. It just wasn't measurable. Now, this can be fixed while onboarding by asking "where did you hear about us?" but there are a few things that simply can't be measured. Like 30-second TV Ads for years and decades. But they do work. Performance marketers are opposed to Brand Building but Brand Builders are the reason behind Generational Companies that charge out of market prices like Nike and Apple.

Until next time,

Your Spells Master!

If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it with a friend. If a friend sent you this, get the next newsletter by signing up here.

Read all the old case studies here.

More Startup Spells 🪄

1. Avni Barman's LinkedIn Content Strategy (LINK)

2. Social Engineering in Clubs (LINK)

3. Volume x Time = Quality (LINK)