Ryan Magin Will Make You Go VIRAL On Social Media! | Digital Social Hour #135

Like American culture versus like overseas culture and this is not talking about Americans Americans expect a lot more they're a lot more entitled whereas like I have a Filipino editor

the guy he'll do anything I feel like if it gets over a million views you give him a bonus yeah but it gets over a million views the editor gets a hundred bucks the irony of that is now that we're doing like 4,000 videos a month um it's it's it's uh it's actually now it's a problem and I'm restructuring things

All right, welcome back to the digital social hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my guest today, Ryan McGinn.

How's it going, man?

Pretty good, man.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

So, for those, we'll just get right into it.

For those that don't know what you do, could you explain?

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I do two things.

I'm a content creator.

I make videos for my own personal, you know, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts.

I go live every week, so now I can call myself a streamer, I guess.

Been making videos for like 15 years, but I didn't really, didn't really matter.

So the last like two and a half, I got really focused and dialed in on TikTok.

From that, I saw the opportunity early, and I morphed that into what I believe is the first TikTok short-form content agency that existed.

And this is in the heart of the pandemic when it started.

And I grew that to last year, we did the agency, Viral Edits, did 1.2 million.

We have 18 clients.

We post around 4,000 videos a month.

And to date, on TikTok, we've made over a thousand viral videos.

And viral being a million views in 24 hours.

Yeah.

So you've gotten over a billion views out in totality.

Yeah.

I mean, I was on Ryan Panay's podcast a long time, and he kind of quoted that.

And I was like, I don't know if that's actually accurate, but I'm going to go with it.

But definitely it is now.

I mean, my personal TikTok just recently crossed over 100 million views on TikTok.

And that's just me.

making videos like about kind of whatever.

And that's kind of, I've gotten a lot of popularity, at least in the space, just because I've just focused on TikTok.

And because I see so much data, it makes it very easy for me to go, oh, these types of videos do well.

Let's make these videos.

And then I add my spin on it and morphed.

And now, you know, I'm on a cool podcast like yours.

So what would you say are the biggest factors that goes into a viral video?

Because you're seeing all this data.

You post 100 videos a day.

So you've got a good eye for it.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, the most factor is like, especially if I'm looking to work with somebody and they, because when somebody wants to work with me, it's like they expect to go viral.

Like, that's what they're paying for like I'm a premium service it's expensive I got to get you results so I can look at somebody and go do you have the personality to go viral and that's not saying you can't build the personality like and because I did for myself like when I started I was not doing what I am now but like I amplified my personality my tonality my the way I ask questions what I ask how I ask but I think that character structure and and tonality and personality kind of make up the like the amount of times you can go viral and then when it comes to that it's just does the topic have the capacity to go viral and then if you check the box of okay this topic can go viral meaning it can reach a lot of people check that box the next box you need to check is did i say something good enough in the first three seconds to hold somebody's attention right and if you nail those the rest is easy but like most videos i would say 99 of all videos fail with the first three seconds wow because it's just not entertaining enough yeah it's just like you're just you're you know you're in a zone like if people look at their own like scrolling patterns yeah like just ask yourself why you stopped yeah it was probably because there was, and then like a hook is kind of not really just one thing, at least in my, in our world, it's like, okay, you have the, the, the audio hook, which is like what's spoken, like never eat crabs.

Or like, and then you have like a visual hook where it could be like somebody stabbing a knife into a crab.

And then it's like, or somebody throwing the crab in the trash can.

And then it's like, and then there could be something written on the screen.

for like, you know, so there's like all these different points of like, okay, if you, if your volume is not turned on, you can read or you see the image and then you get to the next, you know, three seconds.

Right.

And it's like, there's almost like a second hook that happens, which is like a transition too.

So it's like you get somebody to the first three seconds, get somebody to stop, the next three seconds gets them to keep watching.

Right.

So it's like the hook, it's kind of complicated.

It's not like, you know, say this.

It's not a set formula.

Yeah, it's not a set formula, but it's...

Really, you have to, and I think as the platforms have matured a lot and like there's so much, I don't want to say there's so much competition.

There's just so much saturation of people uploading mass quantities of videos.

To stand out,

again, it comes back to like how aggressive are you when you talk?

Like, we just started recording and I instantly started talking louder.

And it's like, that's not necessarily my personality when I walked into the room because we were chatting before that.

But it's like, I'm like, you know, I'm competitive.

So like, I see your clips.

I'm like, I want to have a good clip.

Like, I want to get one that gets a million views.

And I also want my team to get the file so I can try to get a million views.

So it's like, to do that, I feel like you just have, you have to try.

Like, I feel like it,

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Casually go viral.

Like, because there wasn't as many people.

It was easy.

It was much easier.

Now it's like you have to try.

And I just believe in virality as like the catalyst for pretty much anything.

Cause, and you've probably seen it in your own life, you know, when your podcast clips are going viral.

Like, when you're going viral, it's instant gratification.

You walk outside, especially you living in Vegas, you're probably going to get recognized.

It just started, yeah.

Yeah.

And like, and that is in direct correlation with how many views you're getting on the internet.

Like, and if if you're not getting recognized, your views are probably down.

And I've just found that TikTok specifically is where everybody, I know you had Think Media, Sean Canal on here.

And I saw the clip where he did where he was like, you know, TikTok is, isn't there's no depth.

I think that's the wrong way of looking at things

just because TikTok is just relevance.

It's not really meant, in my opinion, it's not really meant.

Like, you're not going to make money from the TikTok.

Right.

But 18 to 25 year olds are going to recognize you.

So what is more important?

Like to always be the face of the 18 to 25 younger generation, which no, right now, they might be broke.

But in two years.

Yeah.

You saw what Jake Paul did with his audience.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like all, you know, it's, I think TikTok is like future eyeballs and future relevance.

And they're going to remember, you know,

when it comes to like, let's say two, three, four years down the line, you know, where that might be on long form.

Like long form, in my opinion, is not bad.

Like, I love long, I love content as a whole.

But it's like to have the argument of like well tick tock you know in his case it was like there's no depth i'm like well i mean like

you might just not be getting enough views it was a hot take for sure yeah

sean yeah and i mean i mean he he's a a beast at youtube so it's like and i mean like i would consider myself a beast at short form so it's like we're arguing

our class you know and i mean you know mad respect to him but it's like also too it's like

there's you need both i don't think either there's a world where you can only have one right i'm trying to do both yeah like you know i'm same with me too.

Like, I'm going live for two hours every week.

Like, I don't necessarily want to do that, you know, but it's.

Well, live streaming is a whole other topic.

You just saw XQC sign for $100 million.

Yeah, I just, for me, it was just like, okay, I need to commit to a long form every two weeks.

And I'm good friends with Brandon Carter, King Keto.

He's one of my clients.

And he goes live every Tuesday from like 8 to 10.

He's like, dude, it's one of the best things I've ever done for my business.

He pulls all of his YouTube clips from it.

We pull out of his short form clips out of it.

wow um and we film in person with him so it's like the the the short form no depth

is circum uh what's the word the right word for that is made up in the live stream right so like that's kind of what i'm testing right now is like because i don't want to like i know like i'm obsessive especially with editing and if i go for like a 10 minute youtube video it's going to take me 40 hours to edit this thing and make it the most perfect video I can.

Whereas like, I can just go live for two hours and it's like a podcast.

It's gonna, I'm gonna talk face to face with people, you know.

I think that I can get the same benefit of a long form if I do that, but who knows?

I might be wildly wrong and just wasting every two hours.

But I'm learning a lot about live stream.

It's like it's like the amount of you have to put so much effort into it.

Like, I mean, like, last, the first one, I had like almost 75 people on the whole time.

I was like, oh, this is dope.

I don't want to 300 people.

Second time, I was like 14.

I was like, ooh,

I was like, have it.

The third is like 22.

I'm like, oh, God.

But I just look at it like, okay,

like, give it a year, and there'll be a thousand people on this thing.

And that, that's like why I like content so much because it's like, it's a long game.

It's a, it's a compounding game.

For sure.

So, like, you know, and you, I mean, you've seen it.

Like, you see all the views you get with your clips.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It compounds.

One video goes viral, five more behind it get more views.

Exactly.

So it's like, especially on YouTube, I noticed.

Yeah.

And it's like account authority, too.

It's like the more, I just think there is a

I don't want to say society.

I think the industry right now is not weighing the importance of the relevance that TikTok brings you.

You know, it might not turn into dollars.

I think it's if it's what you do with it because a lot of TikTokers ended up making millions, like Charlie D'Amelio, Gryce Hall, all those people.

But then there's a lot that didn't make money.

I think it's also too, like, right now, now TikTok, it's not entertaining anymore.

It's educators.

For sure.

You know, and that's like when I started the agency, we focused.

I wanted educators because I'm like, there's going to be a big problem that happens where it's like, and I only know it because I was late to Instagram because I was focusing on YouTube.

I had a men's style fashion YouTube channel where I taught guys how to dress better to get laid.

And I was late to YouTube, but I was like so focused on like getting this.

And I did get it to go.

I mean, I had like 25,000 subscribers.

It was getting like a million views a month.

Like I had an agency.

I was getting paid to do videos.

But it was also about helping men get laid.

And I just recently got engaged and was having a daughter.

And I was like,

I was like, this isn't really my.

My thing anymore.

So like, then I jumped over to Instagram to like reinvent myself.

And I was like, oh, now I'm really late to Instagram.

You know, so that's like, when, when TikTok came along, I was like, I am not going to be late to this.

And that's, you know, that thankfully, you know, that paid off because the agency and then, and even my own, you know, success on the platform was based on like, I'm just going to, like, I didn't post to Instagram for like a year.

I just posted on TikTok every day.

And I got to, finally got to 100K after a little while on TikTok.

It took me like a year and three months, I think, to get to 100K.

It took me like three months to get from 100K to 200K.

And now, I mean, I've been at like 200, almost 250 now for a little bit, but it's like

the difference between like what took me to get to 100K was me learning how to speak better.

Right.

Like, you have to be punchy.

You have to be direct.

You have to be quick.

Yeah.

And I think that that is where most long form people struggle when it comes to TikTok.

Like, even on this, like, I'm talking punchy because it's like my brain just operates like that.

Yeah, people are monotone.

I was like that at first, the first few episodes I noticed.

And I think the more you focus on short, the better your long form gets because you get more condensed.

For sure.

And I do think they're, again, they're two entities.

So it's like you have to put just as much effort in the short as you do long.

Yeah.

But from a bang for buck, you know, focus type of thing right now, like I would just say, if you want 100,000 followers on any platform, you're not going to get it going long form YouTube anytime soon.

It would take years, probably.

Years.

And I mean, and that's you coming correct with like a full-time editor.

thumbnail designer and you know your topic so good that you can talk about it for five to seven minutes yeah in a really entertaining way.

You know, and not saying that you shouldn't do that, like, because it's, you know, that in the long run, that pays off because AdSense on YouTube is absurd.

Like, people get paid, especially in the finance world.

Right.

You know, and then there is the influence that's built.

But the argument, you know, has always kind of been, at least when people talk to me about it, because we talk to clients about it, like, well, what's the ROI on this?

And I'm like, I'm like, how, you can't put an ROI on popularity.

Yeah.

It's what you make of it, I think.

It really is.

And it was like, like, all the clients that we work with that succeed the most, they're like, I'm not trying to make money from this.

Yeah.

I just want to be in front of everybody.

I think when you're too pushy, it's a turnoff almost.

When you're too cozy.

And yeah, and like the young audience is smart.

Yeah.

Like these kids, they're not idiots.

Nah, I remember when you could sell a course and it was whatever.

Now it's like you got a course.

It's like a bad look almost.

Yeah, that's why I'm kind of an anti-course guy because I'm like, well, what's going to happen?

And even if you buy a course, or if you're a creator and you sell a course, what happens?

Let's say it does well and a thousand people buy that course.

Well, now, and now a thousand people let's say 20 of us now 200 people or so are going to take that course and start making content about what they learned from that course so what just happened to the course it's not as valuable it's not as valuable anymore because all these people are like oh yeah i learned from so-and-so like thank you like easy it was like well i don't need to buy that course now like yeah and i so it's like from a long-term perspective it's just like Yeah, it seems like a waste of time right now.

I think we should just focus on if I'm going to put this in a course, I should just make it entertaining and give it away and then figure out how to sell it to the eyeballs later.

Yeah.

At least that's my philosophy.

But you know, people sell courses make a lot more money than me, so I don't know.

So I didn't know you were a dating coach.

So back when you were single teaching guys how to get laid, what was the strategy there?

Oh, so when I, so I was just teaching guys to get laid from a fashion standpoint.

And my whole, and my whole angle was make her come to you.

And I was like, oh, it sounds so easy, right?

Just dress better.

And you don't have to approach anybody because that's the hardest part for guys was walking up to girls and knowing what to say.

I mean, that's obviously changed now because it's like what to text them because of a bubble and Tinder.

But I always had had a philosophy: like, if you go into a room, let's say a bar, you know, or a club, and you can kind of guess what everybody's gonna be wearing, you just either dress one level above everybody or one level below everybody.

And that could be like, let's say you're going to a lounge and it's like business casual.

And you can find most clubs and bars have websites.

They tell you what the preferred dress code is.

It's a little looser now.

Like, society's kind of come down from like fat for fashion, I believe.

But if, like, let's say everybody's gonna be there, they're just gonna be wearing like, let's say, you know, nice jeans and like button-ups.

Okay, so you wear a suit with no tie.

Now you're standing out.

Like, why, why am I?

Or let's say the bar you're going to is more finance bro.

Like maybe it's in New York City, it's more Wall Street-ish.

And you're like, okay, how do I stand out?

It's like, okay, well, let's, maybe if I wear, you know, dark denim with like a t-shirt or like, you know, with a tie, or not a t-shirt with a tie, with like a button-up with a tie, and then like a leather jacket.

So I'm still like classy, but now I look a little more bad boy-ish.

Right.

And I'm going to stand out from all the finance bros.

And by doing that, you're naturally polarizing.

Women are going to be more inclined to talk to you.

Interesting.

And that was like, and I had like personas that like we classified guys in like based on styles.

It was like Wall Street, which is like full suits or variations of suits.

Bad boy, which was like...

If I had to dress, that's pretty much how I operate.

It's more like Banties, like more ragged look, but still calculated.

Leather jackets, like, you know, more tighter pants.

And then you had hipster, which is like maybe like, you know if everybody's familiar with a hipster bar you dress like that and then and then there's like combinations of all the three that you could you know that you could kind of like I'm a little like Wall Street bad boy or like and like so I was able to frame you know put frameworks you know for guys to follow and be like okay here's your Wall Street

here's your bad boy

like here's how you can intertwine them and kind of craft your own personal style and like my most successful product in that like I had two that were really good

one was 51 handsome guy secrets it was a digital product that sold through full VSL.

Like couldn't stop it.

Just kept playing.

Like I was that guy.

And it was $49.

It had a continuity attached to it.

And that did really well.

I actually had a partner on that one, Jason Capital.

He's a good friend of mine.

We partnered on that.

And that kind of took the dating world by storm.

But my most successful product ever was Seven Looks to Make for One to f ⁇ k you.

And it was a $5 digital product that was like basically seven Photoshopped pictures and what items specifically to buy on Amazon so you could have these looks.

Wow.

And I would update it every month.

It was that easy?

It was the product took me like five minutes to make because I had, it was like literally I just photoshopped pictures together.

But that didn't devalue the product.

It was like, because I made a video about this and like, there was, oh, it's just scamming.

It's like, no, it's like, I put everything in one place on a singular page.

It's like, this is the look.

Here's where to get it.

Here's, and I had different price variations too.

Like you had premium, like, you know,

like Amazon was like the cheapest.

Then you had like H ⁇ M Zara.

Then you had like, you know, premium.

Right.

And that was for each variation, like, exactly.

These shoes, this, this.

Based off your price budget.

Yeah, just like, and it was, but it was just frameworks for people to be like, that didn't want to like, you know, like have that decision fatigue of like, what am I wearing today?

Right.

So they could put their, their, you know,

their personality into a framework and be like, okay, I can wear that.

But you still got to be able to talk to the girls.

So like, well,

I didn't really mess with that.

I was just, you know.

When they because it worked for me.

So like the story behind like my whole like I'm you know, I'm currently you know currently engaged.

i have a fiancé we've been engaged a really long time um i have a daughter but we we broke up for like a year and during that time i kind of wanted to reinvent myself like we you know i didn't get broken up with because of my image but like i it was like i was like i need to reinvent myself something needs to change and fashion was a area that i lacked and then when i went to look at what was already out there which was um people that are not my friends like aaron marino i am alpham huge youtuber um antonio senteno real men real style um teaching men's fashion was jose zaniga he was just starting out right so this was like the era of the fashion influencer but none of them were like like i was a single guy yeah what did i want to do go out get drunk and meet women you know and i was just in a long-term relationship so i was just like

you know i need to reinvent myself and then i watched all their content i was like all of them were trying to say do this to get laid i was just like well it i'm just gonna like figure this shit out and i'm gonna talk about just doing this to get laid right and that was really the the indicator because I and again, it's based on personality.

I know a lot of guys struggle really hard when it comes to face-to-face conversations with women, but I fortunately never had that problem when it came to talking women,

but I wasn't getting approached.

So like I needed to fix that aspect of myself.

So once you fix that, it was easy.

Yeah, once I fixed that, it was like, and I was literally, I had it calculated.

That's where the frameworks came from.

So I started split testing my dating life as far as like, I would go to the more upscale bars in my area and I would wear a leather jacket with jeans and then just see what type of girl would talk to me.

And like, and then I would go to, let's say, a more dive bar and I'd wear a full suit just to see the reactions I would get.

And it was always so fascinating to me, the types of girls that would talk to you based on what you were wearing.

And, you know, it's kind of said a lot about them.

But it was like very interesting that like, you know, when you were like going to a more upscale bar and you dressed kind of down more to like the bad boy, you know, tone, like you would have like, you know, very attractive middle-aged women like talking to you wow like that you wouldn't assume were even into that type of person right and then when you go to like the dive bar where you'd have like you know we'll say more alternative types of girls like that you wouldn't expect to like a guy wearing a suit they would be talking to you and i and i was like maybe this is a fluke maybe this is just me yeah but it was like

I started helping my friends dress.

And I'm like, yo, wear this to here.

And like, let's just see what happens.

And the same thing kind of started happening.

And that was, you know, again, these were more naturally charismatic guys.

They didn't really struggle with the conversation aspect.

So, yes, it would, I would say, it's slightly easier for somebody like that.

But at the same point, it's like most girls, if they like how you look and your kind of demeanor and your persona, I just don't think it's hard to have a conversation with somebody like that.

Like, they're, I mean, and again, too, it's not looking at every woman like you want to have with them.

I think most guys that up hard now.

Like,

they're like, oh, yeah, if it's like, it's okay to just talk to girls without wanting to have them like it's okay So you think you could be friends with a girl?

I don't like I will say if I mean I'm engaged so it would be very hard for me to be friends with a girl right like I think when you hit that long-term relationship dynamic slash you know fiancé wife

Unless that girl the girls that you're friends with are friends with your fiancé as well equally to the same degree yes right but I think it's like no if I just like if I met some girl here in Vegas and I was like, oh yeah, we'd be great friends.

No inclination to have her whatsoever.

And be like, oh yeah, yeah, I met this chick.

She's really awesome.

You should totally meet her.

That's not going to go too well with my fiancé.

So I think that there's, you know, but if you're in the dating scene, yes, I think most guys would solve their dating problems by being friends with girls.

Like, as far as if you build out a friend circle of nothing but, you know, moderately attractive to attractive females that went with you to places, you're going to pay less money for your drinks.

You're not going to wait in line that long.

And you're going to be, more girls are going to be more apt to approach you based on the fact that you have girls surrounding you.

So like that was always like the also another reason why I always found it easy to talk to women because I always went out with women, you know, which is social circle.

And in Vegas, like if you're just like three dudes, it's really hard to get in anywhere.

Like let alone, you know, you need like six girls to get in somewhere in Vegas.

So like it's way harder here.

But I mean, where I live, it's like, you know, you can get comp to $300 table if you bring like three girls.

Wow, where do you live?

Like St.

Petersburg.

Like it's changed.

It's gotten better, but it's like this is, I mean, I'm 40.

So like, the dynamic is definitely different now.

But like, I went out pretty heavily when I was like 25 to 30.

So like, you're talking 10 years ago.

Yes, things changed.

People are like, oh, you're so old.

But it's like,

I just think the more girls you're friends with, it's just easier to have that dynamic.

Like, who do you go to brunch with?

Go brunch with girls and a few of your friends.

What's going to happen?

You're going to have more conversations.

More people are going to be apt to approach you.

Yeah.

So

I know I tell, I've made some videos about it that they surprisingly didn't go viral.

It was like, I'm like, you should get friend zoned a lot

Have you ever been friend zoned?

Oh, yeah, I mean you can't not like I feel like every guy is scared to admit it, but it's yeah, it's part of the game.

It's hard.

I mean game as a whole was like I mean it was a fun part of my life I don't like regret like that that whole aspect, but it's also it's so different now with like Tinder and Bumble and all that.

Like that it's like it's just a numbers game now.

You have access to so many numbers.

But with with everybody focused on this I would just be walking up to girls.

You were old school.

Yeah, like because it's how do you stand out?

You do the exact opposite of what everybody's doing.

Like, and like, be like, hey, how about we go through your Tinder together?

I'll help you pick out a person.

Right.

You know, like, I mean, what girl is going to be like?

Some might be like, ooh, no, but others be like, that's actually funny.

Let's do it.

Now you're building rapport.

Like, I mean, so it's, I've just always achieved success in a lot of areas in my life, just doing the complete opposite of other people.

Right.

It's not simple.

Yeah, but it's also, it's not saying it's the easiest.

Yeah.

So, but I mean, but definitely dating dynamics.

Like,

I've never been on, like, I created like a Tinder account, a Tinder account like once when I was broken up with my fiancé because we were broken up for about a year.

And I was just like, this is so complicated.

Like, I'm just like, this is like, I'm like, I'd rather just go out, talk to people.

Yeah.

And that always, and that's where the dressing kind of came in.

And I was like, oh, this works.

But now, I don't know.

Like, the dynamics have changed quite a bit.

Different game now.

Back to your TikTok agency, because I want to touch more on that.

You have 18 clients.

Some of them are huge names.

Yeah.

How did you go about growing that company to a multi-million dollar company yeah so uh i mean it started like i said we i took my first client uh i had really good case studies when i started um but again i was i was fortunate because i was very early um i would say fortunate because like i had time to kind of get it together before i started charging premium right um but i knew i just always came from the you know if you get results things kind of figure themselves out.

And when I say figure themselves out, I mean like you can charge more, you get better clients, you get word of mouth.

So i

was for one i was starting on my own account i was like okay

something i've never focused on in the past was my own brand so i need to have that at least 100k you know so i was aggressively working on making that grow then i was like then i need an alternative account that i can show success on somebody else's account now i was fortunate because of my network with the fashion um i had a lot of friends that were youtubers but i also knew that they didn't care about tick tock like they're like it's a new platform and most successful people are always they're usually pretty late to new platforms because they're like, should I commit to it yet or is it going to go away?

So I kind of knew that going in.

So I was like, I, my approach to, well, two, specifically two of my friends, one was Elliot Hulse.

He's a huge YouTuber, very controversial political figure too.

I hit him up and I was like, hey, I want to grow your TikTok.

I don't want to charge you a thing.

I just want.

10% of revenue at some point generated from the TikTok.

And he, being a friend of mine, was like, sounds fair.

Let's Let's do it.

So we started growing his account.

And then another one of my friends was, his name's Chris Barnard.

He runs an athlete training account called Overtime Athletes.

I said the same thing to him.

And he's like, cool.

So we started meeting up to film.

We started, you know, I started posting it to TikTok.

And both Chris and Elliot got to 100K in less than 30 days.

Wow.

Now, Elliot went on to get banned three times.

Wow.

Because he was just very controversial.

And this is like before, you know, it was the beginning of like the end of the Trump era to like.

He was the politician.

Yeah, he was just talking about some that like you don't talk about today.

But he was growing so fast because it was still happening, but then they really started putting the hammer down.

So

we took his account three separate times to 100K and it got banned every time.

So the point where like if you even hashtag his name, your views, your videos like,

but then, but Chris's was very like a vanilla account, basically.

It's like athlete training.

Took him to, you know, I mean, he's at like like 250 now.

We still work.

I still work with Chris today.

So, like, I had these two case studies.

And at the time, I think I was at like 40 or 50,000 on my account, but my editing style was significantly different than most people.

Like, I started TikTok with a camera and an editing software.

And I was like, I'm not editing on the phone.

I'm going to do this to build a business so I can scale it.

And I know you can't scale videos on your phone.

So I just started literally filming, you know.

turning the camera vertical before there was mounts.

I would just mount the tripod, like turn the camera vertical and filming for 9x16.

And I started making videos directly for the platform on my own and then it turned into you know probably like four or five months in there was no subtitles like so I started subtitling my videos in the most obnoxious way possible because I was trying to stand out right and I mean if you guys pay attention to tick tock you know the subtitle style that is now the norm like that's everywhere that that was started July of 2020.

Wow, you started that?

I mean,

I can't take credit for subtitles, but like nobody prior to that made those red and green and all that fun stuff that has now become the normal.

normal plus you know I had a lot of big clients we were using them on their their accounts and they were getting really good results

And you know, I mean a couple of the accounts I mean I can share like we you know we've helped Bran Cardone we've helped Ryan Pineda I helped Brandon Carter so like a lot of my these accounts and then plus my own video started taking off so it was like you know a lot like we just kept but the the funny part was I was like I just wanted obnoxious subtitles like kind of taking the Gary Vee

what he he had and turning it into like a Gen Z version of Gary Vee and I was like let's just make them big and bold and the funny thing is is like I don't know how to use Premiere Pro but I employ nine editors and all use Premiere Pro my software of choice was one called Screenflow which is like super basic so like the edits became very basic because I didn't have access to learn the other fancy so that's why we we did them word by word and I was like oh let's and I'm a copywriter because I was selling products on the internet I was like I was like let's make this word bigger because it makes sense

Let's bring that one to the forefront and make sense.

So, I was treating it like I was writing sales copy with my words.

You're just playing testing a bunch of stuff.

Yeah.

And then it just morphed into taking over basically.

And now there's different variations of it.

And I think it's pretty cool.

Like, it's fun to see.

Yeah.

But, you know,

a lot of people started requesting that style.

And then, I mean, now your DMs are probably full of that style.

But it just became like, you know,

so basically, you know, rolling back a little bit, like after I had Chris to 250 or it's like 200k, Elliot had a K, my own account was growing.

I got my first paying client, technically, which was a prankster.

I don't want to degrade her by calling her a prankster.

She's like an amazing contract creator named Adley Stump.

She's a Facebook creator.

She manages like a bunch of viral creators.

They get like a billion views a week on Facebook.

It's insane the amount of views they do.

I was just repurposing her

and posting it to TikTok, and she was paying me 750 bucks a month.

And we got her a million followers in six months.

Jeez.

I had my most viral, like 600,000 of those followers came from one video.

Wow.

How many views did that video get?

It got 48,000, or I'm sorry, 48 million on TikTok.

Jeez.

World Star Hip Hop reposted it and links back to it.

What was the video, though?

It was a girl who caught her boyfriend cheating in Starbucks and threw a coffee on him.

Oh, like a prank?

It was totally scripted.

All of it was fake.

They knew the manager of Starbucks.

On YouTube.

Yeah, and that's, but that's what they do.

They do those

fake, viral videos, and people think they're real.

And they

go viral because people comment it's fake and this whole thing.

Yeah, that's what they found out.

They're like, that, you know, people just don't care.

They want the entertainment.

So her account to a million.

And then like

when I had like all that, I had a lot of buzz generated.

And then it just turned into, okay, you know, then I got my first really big client, you know, Grant Cardone.

We've helped him a lot.

And then more came after that very, very quickly.

It was like a snowball.

And then I was just hiring people.

And then I ran into the problem, like, I knew how to edit like this now.

I had to teach others to edit

and it wasn't as you know again.

This is two years ago.

It was a long time ago.

It wasn't like now.

Like it was, it's, I feel like it's easy to come in and know how to edit subtitles now.

People have gotten better.

But it's, it's, it was, then it was like brand new.

People were like this.

And people were like resisting the style because it was like, it was so childish.

Like,

which is why it worked.

But,

you know, so it was just like one big client after another.

And then I just kind of kept like, you know, I've had, I've built a really, really incredible team.

Very, I mean, they're expensive.

There's a lot of overhead involved in, you know, running a really, in my opinion, a really good team.

But all this I had to figure out because like I came from being like a one-man guy making like YouTube videos.

And then like I had like, I was helping local businesses make videos.

And then now it's like, it was, you know, I hired one editor and then like, then I hired two editors and then three.

And then, you know, I had to bring in an operate operator slash assistant at the time.

And then that person quit and then had had to bring on more editors and it was like and then i was also figuring out okay how many videos can editors edit before they like burn out yeah because all of my clients were massive and all the clients were like we need results we need results we need results and i'm like

i got like i had like two editors quit i'm like guys like and then i'm back editing and like

overwhelmed yeah it's just like the expectation and that's why i think there's an industry problem right now with creator to editor um that i don't know how it's solvable because it's like the creators expect so much from the editor and the editor is just like you know it is creativity and you're expected to be creative every single video and just because it's like a 30 second video doesn't in my opinion doesn't make it any less unimportant as like a 10 minute video right you know so it's like and most of my editors like you know that like they asked how do you go viral so much and you get make a thousand viral videos and i was like because the edits take like an hour to two each edit wow like you know and most of them have and they've gotten longer you know where it's like most of our viral videos now fall between 45 to 55 seconds geez And they're packed.

And they're all educators.

Yeah.

Images everywhere.

And they're packed in.

You got to find studies.

You got to find this.

And that became a big problem because I was trying to do the normal route, which was like outsource overseas.

That's what I tried.

Yeah.

These editors didn't do it.

And they, no offense to overseas editor.

No offense, guys.

Like, you just don't understand American culture.

Exactly.

That's what it is.

You know, that's why I pay more to use U.S.

editors.

Yeah.

And then it's like, you know, and then you're, then it's like, okay, what's the expectation?

And like, I found the sweet spot to be four to five videos a day.

Yeah.

Um, for what an American editor averaging, and like, and you get faster.

I don't want to say, like, and I've never optimized for like, you know, now we've kind of made some changes in the structure of the company where it's like, I used to just pay per video.

Like, I'm like, I don't care how long it takes you, just make a good video.

And then I also bonus like the editor if the videos go viral, which is, I don't know many people that do that.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, so the editor.

If it gets over a million views, you give them a bonus.

Yeah, but it gets over a million views, the editor gets a hundred bucks.

Nice.

Like, that's a lot.

You know, and I've also, the irony of that is now that we're doing like 4,000 videos a month,

it's actually now it's a problem, but I'm restructuring things to figure out.

Yeah, but

in my opinion, that's like the best problem to have because that means all my clients are happy.

Right.

You know, and I mean, obviously, like, you know, we're not like some freaks.

Like, we,

last month, we had 27 videos get over a million views.

Nice.

You know, and then this month, we're, I think right now we're, I don't know, what, it's like the 23rd or 24th, like, I think we're at like 17 total.

So it's like, we're seeming to hit like basically in my company across 18 accounts one video is going viral every single day it's really good you know so you know i you know that's 3k in bonuses basically every month i was like i will gladly send that out yeah to have that clout come back to me for for that amount of viral videos yeah at least a business creep you know and it but i mean the problem with the industry is like

You let's say if you we were working together like you just start getting viral videos So now your expectation is more viral videos Yeah, once you're on that train and you don't want it to stop and it's a it's a dopamine roller coaster as a creative.

There's a week where I won't go viral and I'm kind of like,

yeah, I'm depressed.

Like, I just like, I had like a month, like, and I just had a 1.6 million yesterday.

And I was like, yeah, I'm going on a podcast.

It's big, and I got viral.

I was like, I'm on top of the world.

But prior to that, I'm like hitting up all manner of it.

It's like, yo, you guys, like, we got to do step it up, guys.

I'm like talking to my team.

Like, I, like, they know more something I don't.

And I'm like, I'm not saying that.

I'm like, I know what they're going to tell me.

Yeah.

Like, they're like, hey, there's the topics aren't hitting, Ryan.

Like, let's just calm down.

So it's definitely a, you know, managing the doping, and at least for clients, is like, you know, I've just had success like keeping growing the team.

Like, basically, it's one American editor at a time.

But now we've kind of changed the structure to where we have

multiple American editors doing more quality control.

And

I deem them like, you know, we'll say, you know, professional editors per se, or whatever you want to name them if you do this.

Like, you know, they've just edited a lot of viral videos.

So they have the mind-muscle connection for those types of things.

Yeah.

So, and I am going off overseas, but they're getting stonewalled by the American.

It'd be like, okay, dude, change this to this, change this to this, change this.

But even that process is like

hours a day.

So it's, you know, but it just sucks.

You can, like, the American culture versus like overseas culture, and this is not talking to Americans because I love Americans.

It's like Americans expect a lot more.

They're a lot more entitled.

Whereas like, I have a Filipino editor,

the guy he'll do anything I feel like.

And we pay, like, I pay everybody in USD too.

So they're like rich in their country.

Right, right.

You know, like, and I make that, like, that's why a lot of people, like, I have a good influx of good editors right now because like the word has gotten around that I pay very well, plus it, you know, plus they want to work on the bigger accounts.

You know, still good company culture there.

You know, but that's to say, like, that's taken, you know, the edit, like my agency as a whole, it's like two and a half years old.

So it's like,

that's a lot of time in the content space.

yeah, short-form content.

And I'm just like,

I had to figure all the out because there was no, like, I mean, you had my friend Eddie Maloufon, he has a massive agency.

I remember I hit him up for coaching, and you know, I think I paid him like 3K for a phone call, and like we get into it, and he gave me really good advice.

I don't, but it was so funny because he, I was like, what do I do about the videos?

And he was just like, he's like, bro, I don't handle 4,000 videos a month.

I don't even know how to help you there.

I'm like, okay.

And then I remember I bought coaching from D-Rock, like Gary Vee's guy.

Nice.

I was just looking at like, I was just hitting people, like, yo, can I, like, just because how do people manage, like, I mean, like, storage, file systems?

Like, because, you know, the average client, like, basically, we're doing, you know, two videos a day for a lot of our clients.

So you're talking 90 videos a month.

We started flying to them because we get better results.

So I'm like having a factor travel in.

Wait,

where are you storing 4,000 videos a month, actually?

Google Drive.

It could fit that many?

Yeah, I mean, we have like the Google One plan.

We had to upgrade.

um but you know it was just getting it organized to where it was like easy you know because we when you're doing like two sometimes three videos a day for clients it's like you know we do batch filming where we fly to them we film a couple hundred videos each time we're there for two or three days then they most all them have their own videographer they're sending us stuff so they're uploading that to the file Plus, we're taking podcast clips.

We're clipping them.

But due to the expectations of the clients that, you know, because I mean, we're charging, you know, I mean,

what do you charge on average?

Anywhere.

Right now, it's like I only really take people at 10K a month.

Wow.

And like the package for that is like, we basically, it's, we call it the super famous package.

Yeah.

It's kind of like what some of like the Brandon Carter, he's a good friend of mine.

He's like, like, we're posting up to like six videos a day.

We're managing multiple accounts.

We're manually posting on all those accounts because we need to see the analytics.

We can't have any

things happen there.

We're taking podcasts.

We're like, we're pulling from his live stream.

Basically, we're it's like full autonomy yeah for us to just grow you and do you guarantee any views or yeah i mean i don't contract the guarantee because and i tell them that i said look but we do i do a three-month contract to start with anybody new and i'd be like look the goal is you know if i look at somebody and go okay you're like your personality on point like you can talk you know you're

like we can help you like a million views a week is like the norm like that's like if we're not hitting that like there's something wrong with the account at that level.

But ultimately, it's you know, one viral video on any platform every week.

Smart, you know, and that, and then I've even started to, you know, but this is where like the industry hasn't caught up to like where we're at.

Cause I've always kind of innovated, and I feel like in this space, a lot of people look to me to like innovate the

like I started implementing performance bonus structures for the client too, instead of like, because I was always doing it for the editors, because that was the only way I could keep the editors looking at each video individually, not like a robot, you know.

But I mean, I have clients where I'm testing out, like, if we get you a million views, it's a thousand dollar bonus.

Like, or a million-viewed video, but it's only one video per platform because we have the case.

Like, we make one viral video and it goes viral on all four platforms.

Like, that happens,

I mean, if for the average client, like, probably

once a month, the same video goes viral on all four platforms.

Yeah, I noticed that.

And so that's why we always focus on TikTok first, because if it goes viral on TikTok, it's good everywhere else.

TikTok's like the main thing, and then from there, it can...

That's just what we've seen.

So, like, with that, it's like, okay, like it hasn't gotten to the point where I like slap a client with like a $10,000 bonus.

But, like, I also understand that it is a long-term game, too.

So, it's like,

but I think the industry hasn't caught up to like the clients not expecting to pay the amount of work that's involved to continue to make you go viral.

Absolutely.

And that's kind of a, I don't know how that's going to get fixed, but I think I feel like we're putting, you know, me and myself on pushing that boundary of like what's possible there.

It'll be fixed over time as it gets, the market gets more competitive.

Yeah, because I mean, if you think about it, like ads, I mean, you know, a million views for a thousand bucks, like, you know, that's low CPMs.

Yeah.

So it's like, that makes sense, at least to me.

Like, it's like, you want a million views, and then the argument comes in, well, they're not targeted views.

It's like, but if you're getting a million views on ads, they're not that targeted either.

Yeah, you might put broad general interest, but

they're just showing your video to everybody, especially with the pixel updates are not as targeted as they used to be.

Yeah.

So like, I don't think there's a difference anymore.

Yeah.

Um, as far as like how do you make money from these views versus like what do you charge for these views?

So, the algorithm's gonna show it to people that are semi-interested, yeah, because they because you're watching it to the end.

The only way a video goes viral is if you watch it start to finish, yeah.

So, it's like the more people that watch it, they're obviously interested.

Absolutely, Ryan, it's been a pleasure, man.

Where can people find out more about you?

Yeah, my Instagram's like home, it's just my name, Ryan McGinn.

Um, same on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, um, but Instagram's the baby.

Awesome.

Thanks for watching, guys, digital social hour.

See you guys next time.