Digital Social Hour - Facebook's $1 Billion Mistake: What They Don't Want You to Know | Adley Kinsman DSH. #709
Episode Date: September 9, 2024💥 Discover the shocking truth behind Facebook's $1 Billion Mistake 🤯 and what they don't want you to know! Tune in now to the latest episode of Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as we dive dee...p with viral video sensation Adley Kinsman on the secrets to captivating audiences and the real story behind Facebook's colossal misstep. 📉  Join the conversation as we explore how content creators are pivoting in the ever-changing digital landscape. Packed with valuable insights on storytelling, viral content, and the booming world of short-form videos, this episode reveals how anyone can make it big online. 📈  Don't miss out on [Guest Name]'s incredible journey from bankruptcy to billions of views, uncovering the secrets of attention-grabbing content and how you can apply these strategies to your own media empire. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀  CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 02:11 - How to Hold Attention 03:07 - Going Viral 03:58 - Strategies to Go Viral 06:06 - Taking Entertainment Back 08:07 - Ed Mylett's Success Story 11:24 - Elements of Great Storytelling 12:28 - Ed Mylett's Rise (Part 2) 15:09 - Guaranteed 1M Views 16:25 - Physical Product Ideas 16:53 - E-commerce Strategies 18:33 - Content Creation Schedule 20:11 - Top Content Creator 20:59 - Current Projects 21:58 - Starting a Podcast 22:55 - Making a Viral Video 26:00 - Pursuing Attention 29:54 - Power of Gratitude 30:37 - Recovering from Bankruptcy 32:29 - Finding Adley  APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com  GUEST: Adley Kinsman https://www.instagram.com/adley/ https://goviralish.com https://www.instagram.com/viralishhouse  SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly  LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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What's up? Jason Tatum here.
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Oh, so Facebook kind of cut back a little bit?
Yeah, the whole platform seemed to just be,
hey, we'll give you the reach and then you figure it out going forward.
Because everybody can be a content creator now.
Yeah.
As short form just really ramped up, there's no barrier to entry.
Anybody can make a reel, you know, and a viral one at that.
Right.
Where you just pull up your phone, you scan across some wildflowers, put a trending audio
and a motivational quote, and you've got something now.
So the barrier to entry lowered.
Right.
All right, guys.
We got Abby here today.
This girl gets billions of views, guys.
You've probably seen her before.
Thanks for coming on.
Maybe.
Yeah, happy to be here.
Crazy.
You've been at the social game for years now.
Yeah, pivoting as fast as it changes.
What was true six months ago is not true today.
Yeah, and I've liked how you've adapted the platforms too.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, because you were on Facebook early, right?
Early, early Facebook.
Yeah, way before they were monetizing anything. Yeah. Just because I loved making videos. So when they turned on the
money, I was like, well, this is the best. This is just icing on the cake. I heard they paid a lot
and Snapchat right now is paying a lot too. That's our two biggest platforms. People always ask,
they're like, how much are you making on TikTok? I'm like, squat, comparatively. And creators have
just slept on Facebook since 2020, 2018. TikTok and IG, I get so many views,
but I only get like a couple thousand a month.
Nothing crazy.
Yeah, nothing crazy.
It's worth doing it, I'd say, for a lot of people.
But it depends on what you're used to, I suppose.
I wonder why Facebook's so much higher than Instagram.
I think they'll turn it on eventually,
but I think they've realized that
I think Facebook realized that they're overpaying because
when TikTok came out, they're not paying anything, right? But they're just giving so much reach to
creators and there was no shortage of supply. And then YouTube does the same thing with shorts and
Facebook's like, we're over here paying tens of thousands of millions of dollars to creators.
And so they've just really dialed it back. Wow. Oh, so Facebook kind of cut back a little bit.
Yeah. Damn. I know. The whole of cut back a little bit? Yeah.
Damn.
I know.
The whole platform seemed to just be,
hey, we'll give you the reach and then you figure it out going forward
because everybody can be a content creator now.
Yeah.
As short form just really ramped up,
there's no barrier to entry.
Anybody can make a reel,
you know, and a viral one at that.
Right.
Where you just pull up your phone,
you scan across some wildflowers,
put a trending audio and a motivational quote, and you've got something now.
So the barrier to entry lowered.
And so where we really come in is taking the craft of stretching it and traditional storytelling and how to hook people and compel them to watch videos that they don't even want to watch.
Yeah, because yours are longer than 30 seconds, right?
Yours are like five minutes.
Yeah.
Minimum a minute, but we'll go 18 minutes
holding your attention on something
that you don't even care about.
And you're sometimes even angry
while you're watching it.
Like, why am I watching this?
But I have to see how it ends.
And that's the psychology
and that's the craft.
You've killed it with that.
I even catch myself
watching some of your videos.
I'm like, what am I doing?
You know what I mean?
I don't do that ever.
I'm very intentional with my time.
I believe it.
But you're so good at just captivating people.
Oh, thank you.
I enjoy it so much.
And it's such a transferable skill to know how to just get and hold attention.
You can take that to any industry.
Right.
So we started with entertainment and we're still very deep in entertainment.
But now it's transitioned to helping businesses and mission minded people.
And how do you take a message and hold attention using some of the tactics?
So you're helping ordinary dudes get go viral now. Yeah. hold attention using some of the tactics. Nice. You're helping ordinary dudes go viral now.
Yeah. Ordinary dudes, ordinary girls.
Yeah. You started that agency, right? A couple of years ago.
Yeah. Viral-ish.
Viral-ish. Yeah.
So it's kind of a full spectrum. I'd say viral-ish is a full spectrum ecosystem now where we have
content creation and distribution at scale. But then if we're doing a couple of billion views a
month, how do we do that for brands and so now we
just have packages for brands help them go viral be culturally relevant and then we train creators
how to do the same thing because as the brand division scales we need more talented creators
trained in high retention yeah damn so you're getting more views in a super bowl commercial
yeah in a single day crazy in a single hour some hours you know but it's your beast numbers right
there it is some of our creators beat him beat him in his views on shorts are you serious it's Crazy. In a single hour, some hours, you know? Mr. Beast numbers right there.
It is.
Some of our creators beat him.
Beat him in his views on shorts.
Are you serious?
It's wild.
Justin Flom crushed him, I think, the last two months.
What does he do?
Same thing we do.
Oh, entertainment?
Yeah.
Wow.
So walk me through the skip process. Do you write all of the stuff down and then you hire like a video team and all that?
How intense is it?
Yeah, we don't have a video team.
We have this right here. We shoot everything on phones
because it's supposed to look more real, more like found footage. If we were to shoot the same
bits with an actual camera, I don't think anybody would watch because it looks fully produced.
Wow.
So if we have girls pretending to put gas in Teslas or making no bake cookies in an aisle
of a Kroger or something like that, you don't want that highly produced.
You want it to be like, holy crap, this is real.
And then integrate brands seamlessly into that.
So now we're trying to compete with more traditional media saying,
hey, we can get you triple the amount of views
for a fraction of the cost and data share with you.
Interesting. That is so cool.
People get so mad about us scripting content for social media,
but they'll watch the Kardashians.
They'll watch WWE.
We've all been watching scripted entertainment forever,
but people tend to get really upset when it comes to social media.
I did see some comments about that, yeah.
But, I mean, yeah, Kardashians, that shit's so scripted.
It's obvious.
Yeah, but we're still entertained by it.
Yeah.
I'm not, but, yeah, other people are, for sure.
Yeah. I don't I'm not, but yeah, other people are for sure. Yeah.
I don't watch any reality TV.
I mean,
I caught that one dating show that Harry Jowsey was on,
but that was like it for me after that one.
Preaching to the choir.
I don't even know who that is.
Are you serious?
No.
Damn.
Do you just stay in your own lane?
Harry Jowsey?
Never heard of him.
Too hot to handle.
Have you heard of that show?
No.
Wow.
Props to you.
Cause that shit went viral,
but probably not as viral as you, honestly. I don't know. By bad. Everybody else knows about it. I just need to catch up. Wow. Props to you because that shit went viral. Yeah. Probably not as viral as you, honestly.
I don't know.
My bad.
Everybody else knows about it.
I just need to catch up.
Yeah.
It was years back.
But yeah.
Do you even watch any shows at this point or are you just focused on your own stuff?
Mostly focused on my own stuff.
I think when you've been given so much, I feel so blessed.
I'm sure you feel the same that this stuff has happened so fast to us just by staying
in the game.
And I feel like if I'm just going to turn on the tv and like zone out for six hours i feel a sense of
like heaviness like guilt like i've been given so much and i don't want to it's a parable of
the talents you know i don't want to waste it i feel that though yeah i just want to work and
grind and watching shows and movies is like distraction at this point yeah yeah i'm alive
i don't even go to the movies anymore or any concerts or anything you were from the music
industry right from the music industry yes you? From the music industry, yes.
You were big time.
And I was okay.
But I was frustrated by waiting for a suit behind a desk
to give me permission to be successful.
I just wanted to entertain people.
And they were just saying, oh, not now.
Or it's not good enough.
Or you got to wait.
And here's when, where, and how.
We'll allow you to entertain.
And so I think we're in such a unique position now
to be able to take that entertainment back into our own hands, storytelling our own way. And so I think we're in such a unique position now to be able to take the
entertainment back into our own hands, storytelling our own way.
And when I realized I could just turn a camera on, do a little bit,
post it and it makes money immediately.
Like, Oh, this is the new music industry for me.
This is great.
So you were at a label and they were just trying to control you pretty much.
I wasn't, no, I wasn't even at one, but I was,
I was vying for that attention.
I was vying for that publishing deal or just for somebody, know who had cheerios instead of oatmeal that day and maybe he would
have loved this song but he was just in a bad mood because he fought with his wife and i'm
waiting for that guy's affirmation that i'm good enough to storytell now wow that's intense you
were on the voice it was a whole person ago that was that's crazy that was a decade ago but i'm so
thankful for that because i think it gave me the opportunity.
It got me in the game.
And then I was bankrupt shortly after The Voice.
Bankrupt?
Yeah.
Right after The Voice, I signed a bad record deal.
It wasn't really a record deal.
But I signed away commercial rights to my name for life.
So I couldn't use Adly.
I had to work under a fake alias.
My name was, I forget what it was, but I graduated from the University of Phoenix.
I consulted for app development companies.
And I had no idea how to do anything.
But I could Google it, you know?
And so I just had to find a way to not use my name.
I couldn't use any leverage.
I had nothing.
And I just had to figure out how to be scrappy and solve other people's problems.
Wow.
So they were taking your income from other jobs?
I couldn't use it.
I couldn't leverage my name because of The Voice and because of the record deal. Adly, they owned that. So I couldn't commercially make money with my own name.
Wow. And that'll make you scrappy really, really fast. Crazy. Talk about a 360 deal. That's like a
lifetime. Yeah, lifetime 360 deal. Even in your next life, they probably wanted a piece of that
too. Yeah, probably. That is crazy. I'm glad you got out of that. Yeah, thankfully. That sounds like a tough time.
But with the content stuff, did it take off right away?
No, definitely not.
I used to vlog for like 13 people.
And I didn't care really how many people watched because I just loved doing it.
And even while we were touring, we were opening for Blake Shelton.
We were doing these stadium shows.
It was incredible.
And I had just started dating my boyfriend at the time.
And I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.
I don't want to make prank videos.
And he's like, what are you doing?
This is great.
I just shook hands with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kenny Chesney.
And that makes no money.
Videos make no money.
And I was like, give me a year to figure this out.
And I think it will.
And there was no monetization on Facebook at the time.
But I was just getting the opportunity to storytell and views were getting better and
better.
And I was so much more on fire for it.
I was so much more passionate about it.
And I could learn so much faster than the music industry.
I could put something out and market test it right away and see what worked.
And okay, how many times a day can I do that?
And then two years later, monetization turned on.
Wow.
And then it was game over.
Game over.
Game over.
I love that.
And now he's in all your videos.
And now he's in all the videos. I think he's a better creator than me at this point.
He's really good. That's so cool. What was the first viral one that just blew up?
First viral video. I was an imposter. I was an imposter at the time to where I was trying what everybody else was doing, just trying to figure out how to storytell. And then I was so frustrated
one night, my GoPro died. I was filming on a GoPro and it was horrible footage. I didn't even know how to use it, but I was,
I had to turn around. I had to turn around a 60 second video every day. Actually, that story is
antiquated. That's not going to make sense anymore because now we do 80 videos a week.
But I had to turn around a video every day by 6 AM and it's one in the morning and my footage
was corrupt. And so I'm just, I'm crying.
And my boyfriend at the time
was like,
just go get those chickens
in the backyard
and do something with them.
They make you happy
and you glow that way.
And I was like,
well, I'm desperate.
That's a horrible idea,
but I'm desperate
and I'll try it.
So I got the chickens.
I put them in a bathtub
and just did this little bit
where he walked in on me
with all my chickens
in a bathtub.
It was a 22nd bit and did 19 million views overnight,
grew me 100,000 followers back in 2017.
And I lit up and I was like, me just being myself worked.
Nothing else was working previously.
And so that's always been my North Star.
I love that.
In creating content.
That's so cool.
So you got chickens at the crib?
We got chickens at the crib.
And now we've graduated quite a bit,
but we still have chickens in the backyard.
Love that.
That's a flex right there.
Your own chickens, your own eggs.
I love that.
They come up to the door at 4 o'clock for cheese every day.
It's pretty awesome.
They eat cheese?
They love cheese.
I didn't know that.
And it can be up to 10% of the chicken's diet.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Oh, so they be eating cows.
Yeah, for sure.
Interesting.
And if they're sick, you got to feed them eggs.
No.
Yes.
So I'll cook up some eggs, their own eggs, and I'll feed it back to them.
What?
Yeah.
You're feeding them their babies?
It's good for them, though.
Look at that.
Is it?
Wow.
I fed my dog some.
No, I didn't feed a dog.
What am I saying?
You fed your dog dog.
I feed dog like other animals, but it's kind of weird.
It's eggs.
Feed them dogs.
See what happens.
Damn.
What other animals you got?
A puppy.
Okay. Aussie Pawsborne. What breed is it? Bernadoodle. See what happens. Damn. What other animals you got? A puppy. Okay.
Aussie Pawsborne.
What breed is it?
Bernadoodle.
Ooh.
I got a Bernese Golden Retriever mix.
You do?
So cute, yeah.
I bet that's the best dog ever.
Oh my gosh.
Otis, yeah.
I got to see pictures of that dog later.
Yeah, I'll show you after.
Dogs are game changer, man.
Yeah.
What do you think is the difference for you between a good storyteller and a great
storyteller after everybody you've interviewed it's been something i'm working on because i was
ass um the pauses dramatic pause yeah those pauses when i go to conferences and i see like ed my led
or tony robbins on stage that pause just captures that emotion man especially when what they're
saying is so powerful if they were to just go 100 miles an hour, it wouldn't land the same.
Wouldn't land.
It wouldn't land.
Because people can't comprehend it that quick.
So you got to pause after a bold statement.
Let them digest it a bit.
Yes.
That's something I'm working on because my brain is so fast.
I listen to books at 2x speed.
2x.
Yeah.
I'm only at 1.5.
I got to get to 11.
That's still pretty good.
But yeah, no, I listen to podcasts at 2x.
So when I talk, I already know what my guest is guest is gonna say and then i have my next question prepared so
i find myself trying to slow down a bit i could i could use that lesson that's why i asked them
like you talk to all these people i know you got a good tip yeah and as a fast talker as well yeah
it's tough because you want to just blurb out a bunch of shit fast you know what i mean oh yeah
sometimes going up here for sure non-stop and you
just had you make 80 videos a month we put 80 videos a week a week 80 videos a week holy crap
it started with my husband and i just making prank videos but then in 2020 we went from averaging 20
million views a week to over 200 million views a week on organic content we've been over a billion
views ever since but we're exhausted what if we sick? What if we wanted to take a vacation?
So we're like, how do we scale?
And also, for us, scale was more about this has been the most fun job I could ever imagine.
It's the biggest blessing.
And I think you find once your own needs are met, the immediate next desire is, how do I let other people feel this type of joy?
How do I watch their lives change? So we recruited all of my family members now make videos full-time, all of our
best friends make videos full-time, uh, cause it's more accessible than ever. And we really
just have a shortcut to help get people off the ground and making money. We failed our way forward
and we learned enough and have relationships with the platforms that if you want to make videos,
viral videos as a job, we got you. That's so cool. It's available.
The one platform I'm trying to figure out is YouTube.
Yeah.
We just started on YouTube, I think 11 months ago, but it took off like a rocket ship.
Shorts is the best, isn't it?
I'm trying to figure it out.
Some of them get like 100K and some of them get like 1,000.
It's not consistent.
Like IG is consistent.
I know what I'm going to get pretty much minimum on IG.
Yeah.
You're crushing IG.
Yeah, IG is my best one.
But YouTube, I want to crack because I feel like that's the most important one for long form.
Absolutely.
We're starting long form.
We launched in two weeks.
And so our shorts have been amazing.
We're doing, I think, almost a billion views a month.
Maybe some shorts.
We grew 9 million followers in the last 11 months on shorts several different channels started one in spanish
and grew it to over a million subs in 120 days you speak spanish no
but we have voice actors that just overdub our viral content so we create for facebook
first it's the long form then we break it out into different links to make it platform native
and then started dubbing
everything in Spanish.
Mr. Beast does that too.
It's so smart.
Yeah.
And it's more accessible
than ever too
to where now
that's something
that we're helping creators do
is just like dub your stuff
in Spanish
because you already made it.
You already did the hard work
and it's really accessible
but you're just going to
triple your amount of reach
to the rest of the world.
I need to be the first podcast
that does that.
Oh yeah.
We'll talk about that. That'd be sick. yeah yeah i need to find a double of me and
be hard though they don't look like me i could but even just your voice like the voice actors
could just sit here and they're so good i don't know how they do it honestly they giggle when we
giggle no like they just study this video and do it in Spanish in the same way.
And it's incredible.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Wow.
And I saw you just posted.
You're basically able to help people get a million views guaranteed within a month.
Oh, maybe even faster than that, depending on the type of content.
And to be honest, how good they are.
We have a formula that knocks it out of the park. I don't care if you're trying to sell these shoes or you want to make viral videos.
We'll use the same formula if we're doing an ad for Land Rover, for Charmin, HP, if we're staging a celebrity publicity
stunt, or if we're doing a prank in a park. It's the same formula and it works for all of them.
That's massive because there's people that don't get that in their lifetime.
To be able to get that in a month is pretty insane.
It's life-changing. And once you know it and you're like, oh my gosh, throw a niche at me
and we can watch this apply. How do you not share that with people? It feels like a superpower. Yeah, that's huge.
You're going to be changing lives with this business. That's the goal. Love that. Do you
edit all your own stuff? We edit all our own stuff. Wow. So you really have a lean operation
here. Yeah, I think that's the goal too. As social media, as the platforms continue to just
take the money away, they're like, hey, we're going to give you the reach, but you got to figure
out how to monetize it more and more.
The heydays, I feel like,
aren't what they were in 2020, 2021,
but the attention is there.
So if you can get good at the psychology of attention,
everything else that you want will follow.
You'll get the views, you'll get the sales,
you'll get the clients, you'll get the service business.
Whatever you want is on the other side
of knowing how to get and hold attention.
Any goals to launch a physical product
like Mr. Beast and Logan Paul did?
Yes.
You want to know what my physical product idea is?
What would it be?
It's called the Wine-Z, where it's a onesie that has a camelback-ish thing in it.
It straps around here and you put your wine in it.
It's the wine rack.
And then it's built into the onesie so you can sit on the couch in your wine-Z and drink wine.
I could see that kicking off.
I mean, I don't drink wine, but I know some girls that would probably buy that. That's what I'm
saying, right? With TikTok shop. Yeah. TikTok shop's killing it right now. I know. There's
people doing a hundred K a day on there. I know. We're not in on that. So we're having some
conversations. I'm like, we're not in the e-com business, but how can we be? I'm not in on it
just because the margins are thin, but if they're providing all the traffic, then I might get back
into it. I know.
Because before you had to run ads
and the margins were so thin, you know?
Yeah.
But with your own brand,
I feel like that's the move now with creators.
I do too.
I mean, Jake Paul just, I don't know if you saw this,
he raised 350 million yesterday for Better.
Really?
Yeah, they just, Better app.
Yeah, it's a sports betting app.
Yeah.
Yeah, so all these creator-led projects now
are worth eight, nine figures.
Sheesh, I want to do a hat line. That'd be cool.'d be cool because i wear a hat every day oh yeah you'd kill it then
not even because i love them i just it's out of necessity because i don't really know how to do
my hair yeah did you make that hat i did not i'm not that talented okay you don't know how to do
your hair not really wow i just took the time to learn yeah not every girl knew how to do that
i'm not a real girl.
One of these days, I'll learn.
It's on my bucket list.
You're just so busy making 80 videos a week.
Yeah, so busy.
I'm just like, yeah, this is going to take a lot.
I'm just going to throw a hat on today.
Yeah.
Wow.
I know people like that, though.
I got a couple buddies that don't shower.
Really?
Yeah, once a week.
Really?
I feel like it's inefficient.
It's inefficient, man.
Not going to shower.
Some billionaires out there just optimize by the minute.
And I'm like, eh, it's a bit much.
Rob Dyrdek does it.
He doesn't shower?
No, he optimizes his schedule by the minute.
That is impressive.
I've listened to him and the way he breaks out his schedule a few times.
I'm like, that is a bionic man.
It's impressive, but I like to have a little free will.
When I see my calendar and there's six calls on it, I'm like, it's one of those days. You know what I mean? Yeah. We all got one of those days. I'm like, I'd prefer to keep it at
one max a day for myself. Yeah. I started stacking my days. Have you heard of the six, six, six?
Sounds bad, but it's a great time scheduling thing where you're just tripling the amount of
work that you get done. If you say you have three businesses or three verticals that you're
interested in, you do six hours on one, six hours on the next, six hours on the next.
So you're working 18 hours a day.
Wow.
And you do that two times a week.
Holy shit.
I have not done it.
That's also on my bucket list.
Damn, that sounds intense.
You're only sleeping six hours.
What about eating?
I'm not great at that, but I'm getting better.
I'm still a ramen noodles.
Still?
Still a ramen noodles.
You're getting millions.
Come on now.
I know.
I'm a better hire a chef at this millions. Come on now. I know.
I better hire a chef at this point.
Yeah, someday.
Otherwise, I just eat like trash and then I'm going to wither away.
Yeah.
I remember that phase, but yeah, you're past that.
You're past that.
I could be past that, but I still, I mean, ramen noodles though, straight from the college days.
I think it's the nostalgia for me.
I think if I ate it right now, I wouldn't even like it because I go to Chinatown every week out here. Oh, so you get the good ramen.
Get the good stuff out here. Bougie boy. Yeah. Vegas got a good food scene.
I know. We're growing though. We're going to catch up. Real estate out here.
I got to get out there. You've been there for a while in Nashville?
10 years. Since the boys, yeah. Wow.
It's awesome. It's grown so much. Yeah. You've seen a lot of growth there then.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to come down for sure. All right. I'll make a trip out there. How are the people? People are great. wow it's awesome it's grown so much yeah you've seen a lot of growth there then oh yeah yeah you
gotta come down for sure all right i'll make a trip out there how are the people people are great
so you have i feel like nashville you've got the southern hospitality and you don't meet a stranger
everybody's super friendly but with the the exodus out of like california everybody's run to nashville
to i feel like have better people around them and better sense of community where everybody truly
helps each other so you have that young entrepreneurial energy as well.
Nice. I love that.
Yeah.
So cool. At the rate you're growing, you're going to be the biggest content creator in the world.
I don't even know if that's the goal, to be honest, the biggest in the world. I'd like to
be the most helpful in the world when it comes to serving other creators. But maybe one's a
byproduct of the other.
Yeah. I mean, nine million this year you
grew you said nine million on youtube that is insane on youtube on youtube just on youtube
in the last 11 months and then we're trying to figure out how to take okay we're really really
good at growing shorts channels but how do you transfer that to long form how do you transfer
that cross platform to instagram where facebook and snapchat have been our jam that's crazy i'm
gonna hire you to
start doing my shorts. Dude, let's go. I would love that. I need that for sure. YouTube's like
the one I need because TikTok, I'm crushing Instagram. Honestly, my Facebook's not good.
So I need, I definitely need to talk to you. Yeah, we'll definitely step it up.
Any projects you're working on outside of this? It's all content related. What we're really
focused on is helping talented creators.
One,
learn how to do this and then make as much money as possible.
Cause once you've made the asset,
so many people will just post to their Tik TOK and it makes what it makes,
but that's not the end of it.
If it's a great video,
I don't care if you made 10 grand on it,
on your Tik TOK partner with us,
not exclusively,
we'll never own your content,
but because we have so much distribution,
we just blasted across all of our pages too and we just split the rev 50 50 so creators can make a piece of content and post it
to a channel with 10 million followers that they didn't have to spend years building and so while
they're on their come up they can still be monetizing their content at the same time sign me
up right i think that's the model that we're going for now because that's what i would have wanted as
a creator on my come up because it takes a long time to grow a page it takes a long time for some people to hit monetization and so
if you can just have access to all these monetized pages while you're figuring it out that's the goal
that's the way I think we could be of most service to the younger me I love that plans to start your
own podcast or no I want to I but it's got to be worth the I don't have seven in me a day you know
so it's got to be worth the time versus money allocation right now i lost money the first six months but now it's just a
money printer that's incredible takes time you do sponsorships and stuff like that sponsors uh and
views from youtube and stuff yeah yeah and podcasts are getting quieter now quieter acquired
okay yeah i think we should do it i think you should because I could talk about content and making videos all day, every day.
I love it so much.
And then just have other viral-style creators on, maybe.
In Nashville, you could pull it off.
Yeah, there's creators out there, right?
For sure.
And we have a creator house that people will fly into
just to shoot with us, come from us, stuff like that.
So we could probably,
we want to turn one of the rooms into a podcast studio.
I would, for sure.
Even if we just rent it out until we do our own.
Yeah.
But just create an awesome creator clubhouse.
I definitely would.
That sounds like fun.
Let me know if you do it.
So I can get out there.
I will.
For sure.
Most people, when they say they're going to make a video, I think they're doing it completely backwards.
They're describing the outcome.
They're saying, hey, I'm going to show you how to make the best three ingredient brownies.
And that's the wrong way to go.
We would completely reverse that if we want to make a viral video where we don't describe the payoff.
If you're in viral-ish, we have you describe the first three seconds of your video.
And then we decide if we want to hear the rest of it.
Because even if you have a great video, less than 10% of people are going to make it to the end of your video.
So they're never going to see those amazing brownies that you're talking about.
So we say start with your opening shot.
And if that's good enough, then you'll maybe be lucky to have people make it to the 15, the 30-second mark, the minute mark, or in our case, sometimes 18-minute mark.
Getting and holding a single moment of tension and learning the craft of suspense, I think, is the biggest thing that separates good creators from the best creators in the world. Right. That's so smart because the
first three seconds, if I'm not interested, I just scroll. Yeah, absolutely. And especially
if you're in a niche, it's controversial, but we say completely un-niche yourself. Like if you were
a small jewelry maker and you're just promoting your jewelry, you're going to scroll. I'm going
to scroll because I don't really care. Everybody in this room is going to scroll because we may not care
about jewelry or how to bake cookies. But if you had a pregnancy stick and it was positive,
I would take a positive pregnancy stick and start smashing it with a hammer, put these pieces in a
Ziploc bag, melt them down with a lighter or something, show this process,
and then show how you're molding it into a ring or jewelry or something like that.
Wow.
And that's how you show how you take, and that's how you show you make a really special
piece of jewelry by commemorating a special event in your life.
Yeah.
But you just reverse the way that normal people would storytell. You pack everything interesting
and good at the front of it, and you don't reveal
what you're really doing until the end.
And if people in any niche can get great at that,
their lives are going to change so fast.
That's massive, yeah. People just throw up clips
expecting people to watch them, but that doesn't
happen. No, you have to master the art of
storytelling. And it's not really new, hooking
people, suspending people,
and then paying off at the end. If Liam Neeson rescued
his daughter in the middle of the movie,
we would all stop watching, right?
And the stakes are high because she was stolen, sex trafficked,
and brought to the other side of the world,
and he had to kill 160 guys to get to her in three days.
High stakes, crazy locations.
It's never going to happen, and it pulls on your emotions all the way through.
It's great storytelling.
It's the same thing that we apply to a gender reveal video or to a silly prank video or
to an ad for the brands that we work with.
You recorded your gender reveal?
I have never had a baby, but you're damn right I will.
We record everything.
Yeah.
There's some creators that document some interesting choices.
Yeah.
Some very interesting choices. Yeah. Some very interesting choices.
Yeah.
Did you see that one in the hospital?
No.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, their baby was in the hospital and she was recording it doing TikTok dances.
You didn't see that?
Oh, no.
Yeah, that went viral.
I bet it did.
That was interesting.
Yeah.
Anger is a big emotion to step on if you want to get engaged with.
Do you know Jack Doherty uh not personally no okay i just there's a fine line i think between attention and like
content i agree like how far you're willing to go how far you're willing to go i'm not willing
to go very far believe me i'm not uh but we will hire creators that are very good and they don't
give a crap what they do.
And I'm like, we can do a lot with you.
If you have no shame and you'll do anything.
Oh, my gosh.
You're sitting on a gold mine.
Gold mine short term.
Yes.
And you just need you need the formula and you need to have a goal.
And I think that's the hardest people.
I think that's the hardest thing for most people to define as a content creator is it's what's the end goal?
What are you doing?
What are you willing to do?
And what's the North Star that you're doing it all for? Because I used to be just a rabbit
chaser where I was doing a little bit of everything when I was a young, young entrepreneur.
And then I realized I thought I needed multiple streams of income. And then I realized I'm going
to get really freaking great at one thing that is a highly adaptable, transferable skill that I can
end up going into sales. I can go into product development.
I can go into podcasting, whatever,
if I know how to storytell,
but mostly if I know how to grab and hold attention.
And look at what it does even on stupid videos.
We make stuff that I would never, ever watch,
but other people will.
So we're a network in that sense.
But if we can get and hold attention on bad videos,
think of what the formula can do for great videos. You're unstoppable. You're unstoppable. Your service is needed,
honestly, because there's people with followers. They don't make shit. They're broke. And that's
actually common. People just assume if you have a million followers, you make a lot of money.
Yeah. Oh, not at all. I mean, we've even got a million. I got a small TikTok for me at 2 million
and we don't make
crap over there also you can't build a business on a single platform alone because we'll get a
community standards violation that's not even really warranted and then your whole business
shuts down and that happened to me yeah youtube and tiktok and ig did you say something bad not
me it's never me that's the cool part about my job i'm never i'm never the bad guy i'm never
getting shit on it's always the guest you know It's usually going after big pharma or big food companies or whatever.
Oh, sure. I'm sure you got to be really selective of what clips you post that isn't going to suppress your channel.
Yeah, very. I try not to be, but now that I have a strike on YouTube, I kind of have to be.
And it sucks because what you really want to post that is the most controversial, you're like, this is going to crush, but this is also going to get me in big trouble.
Get me banned off YouTube and then I'll end up like God knows who.
Yeah, you'd be fine.
Without YouTube, it'd be tough.
YouTube's a big one to lose.
Really?
Yeah, I think I'd be fine without Spotify, but YouTube would be tough.
For a podcaster, at least.
Yeah, you think you're going to podcast forever?
Well, that's a stupid question. For a You think you're going to podcast forever? Well,
that's a stupid question for a long time.
I want to do what Rogan did.
I'm going to sell it in a few years,
but also still do it.
Yeah.
Great.
Cause you're,
they're getting three to five X multiples.
So do you want to do a physical product?
Uh,
if it's the right fit,
like if shrooms get legalized,
I'll do a mushroom company.
I love mushrooms.
Oh,
awesome. Yeah. I'm mushrooms. Oh, awesome.
Yeah.
I'm a big micro-doser.
Really?
Yeah.
I've always been so curious on that.
You've never dabbled in it?
A little bit, but not micro-dosing.
I've done it one time.
Okay.
And just a little bit.
And I didn't expect to laugh so much.
I was laughing nonstop.
I was trying to do the thing.
I was trying to go in and like talk to my subconscious and like figure stuff out about
myself, you know?
Yeah.
But that didn't happen.
I just laughed.
I was so
joyful and i was standing on the roof and we were with just a couple other friends and we were
looking at this guy and he was so angry across the street at somebody and they were in a fight
and we're like what are you so mad about don't you see all this look how beautiful this is how
could you ever be upset when all of this is available to you and i feel like it's a really
beautiful thing to just your circumstances hasn't changed. Nothing's changed about your life, but your perception
of it did. And if you could get more people to tap into that and true, true gratitude,
that's the most life-changing thing. Even when I was super bankrupt, I thought I was the luckiest
person alive. And I just, whether I was lying to myself some days or not, I really started to
believe that I am the luckiest person alive.
Even when my circumstances didn't show that.
But I think having the vision to see past your circumstances
is a gift that I wish I could give everybody.
To know that the situation that you're in right now
is temporary if you allow it to be.
And that so much more is meant for you.
And these are just tools, you know?
And there's hills and valleys and that's a part of it.
And we have to be grateful for that because the tools that got you to the top of this mountain
are not the same set of tools that are going to get you to the top of the next one.
And the top of every mountain is just the bottom of the next one.
I love it. We're getting deep now. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
Like your mushrooms are transferring over to me.
That's a great mindset though. Cause some people go bankrupt and they never recover mentally.
Yeah. I think you shame spiral a little bit. You're like, I thought my life was going to
look different than it does. And I can't get over that. Not really realizing that reinvention
of yourself is the best possible gift. When I was bankrupt, it was the best possible gift.
I was right off The Voice and I was getting recognized everywhere I went and all my friends
were getting all these record deals and everything amazing was happening to them.
And I'm losing my father to alcoholism and I can't put gas in my car and I'm stuck in this record deal where I don't even own rights to my own name.
And having my back against the wall when I thought I was going to be up here,
but I was actually down, it felt like in the gutter.
It was the best gift I was given because I learned how to be really resourceful.
I learned how to start something out of nothing. And so now any negative thing that happens to me now,
I'm like, this is cake. Yeah. Compared to that, it was a huge gift and perspective that I've just
been able to carry forward with me. Not that it's a practice. I think like anything else,
it doesn't always come that naturally. Yeah. But if you know that it's available to you,
I think you just got to find ways to tap back in, let gratitude lead. Yeah, look at you now.
I think you chose the right path.
I definitely chose the right path.
And I'm so fortunate.
And I don't know if you feel this way too,
but when you've been given so much and you know what it's like to not have a lot,
it feels like a big responsibility
to just to pay it forward
and be a river, not a reservoir.
The second we start like holding it so tight
and we operate out of scarcity,
the flow stops. But the more we just receive and we just want to teach everybody else about this.
And I truly think making viral videos as a job is the coolest job in the world.
I just want to pass it through and serve the younger me who feels really desperate and
thinks they have a mission or they believe they have a mission. They've got things they
want to tell the world or sell to the world. you just got to know how to storytell it.
Absolutely.
I love it.
I love it.
Where can people find you?
And do you have anything you want to close off with or promote?
Yeah, sure.
I'm Adley.
Pretty much on all platforms.
A-D-L-E-Y.
The Adley Show.
On others.
And if you want to make viral videos as a job,
go to goviralish.com.
Sounds good.
We'll link it below.
Thanks for coming on.
Sure, thanks.
Thanks for watching, guys, as always.
See you next time.