I’ve had several videos hit over 10 million views. Across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, all of them.
People think it’s luck. It’s not.
There’s a formula. And once you understand it, you can replicate it over and over again.
Let me break down the exact components of a viral video and show you the mistakes that are killing your content before it even has a chance.
The Components of a Viral Video
There’s a lot to break down there, but to make it relatively simple, you have a few different things you’ve got to go through.
You’re going to have a hook. Like a headline. We talk about marketing a lot already. Obviously you have to have a really good headline. We talk about door to door. You have to have a really good opener, right? Which you get three seconds.
It’s the same thing on video. You get three seconds to catch people’s attention.
The next is the big reveal. This is where you give them the education part.
The next part after that is the insider tips of how they could do it themselves.
And then the next one is a call to action of what you want them to do, whether it’s to like the post or comment below or whatever it may be.
You have to always have a call to action because you want to build engagement. The more people engage, the more it gives the algorithm a signal saying, “This is a good video and we’re going to show it to more people.”
So you want to get them to engage. You’re going to have gross disgusting bugs in there. That’s what the actual video looks like.
The Exact Time Breakdown
I’ll break it down a little further.
With a hook, like I said, you got about three seconds.
The big reveal, you’re going to have about six seconds, six to seven seconds in there.
The insight or your tips, this is quick, right? You don’t have much time to explain all this stuff. It’s going to be fast. About seven seconds.
Then your call to action. We’re going to be about five seconds long.
So again, the video is not very long. This is all the stuff you have to think about when making a short form that you want to go get viral.
My First Viral Video: The Aerator Story
I’m going to break it down a little bit further. The last thing we talked about was my first video, right? So it’s the first one that ever hit 100,000.
And this is maybe 30 or 40 or 50 videos in.
I just bought a brand new aerator and I’ve never used this thing ever. I mean, obviously I’ve ridden a million lawnmowers, walked behind a lawnmower and thought they’re all the same.
But it was just, “Hey, I just got this brand new aerator. Never used it. Come check it out.”
I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but that’s what I said. I’m walking backwards towards this machine. There was my hook.
And I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t even know what a hook was really. I was just making content.
And then I turned around and I started to walk towards this thing. I was like, “I never used it. So I’m going to jump on, let’s just see how this thing works.”
And so I jumped on the machine and I’m showing them how the machine works. Then I’m talking about what it does to the grass real quick.
And I don’t even think I had a call to action, but it just looped back to the very beginning. Again, my editors did that part for me.
But that was me talking and me coming up with the video and all of a sudden we had one or two hit like 10,000. And then that one hit 100,000.
And I was like, “Dang, that was the dumbest video ever. It’s just me on an aerator. That’s all it was.”
But it was the hook. This is what called the engagement. Then it was me jumping on the machine, showing them how to work it. And then explaining to them what the machine did. And then it looped back to the beginning.
I can’t remember exactly how long, 18 to 20 seconds, 30 seconds. And that’s the first one that hit 100,000.
The Unlock Moment
So then as I’m making more videos, I went back to that video. I’m like, “Why did that work so well?”
And then I started learning more about the hook and all these things that we just went through. And I knew right then, aha, I knew why it worked because I caught the algorithm just at the right time.
And from there on out, that first one did 100,000, and then I was like, “Okay, now I’m just going to start copying that video. How can I do more like that?”
So that’s what the base grip looks like.
The First 50 to 100 Videos Will Suck (And That's Okay)
I’m sure a lot of people see me now and they’re like, “Oh, Jonas just already has hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views.”
It has not always been like that.
The first one’s always the hardest, honestly. So it takes a lot of work.
I think the first 50 or 100, I don’t remember the exact number, 50 or 100 videos. Again, no one’s watching you. No one gives a shit at all. They don’t care.
Whoever is going to watch this video, yeah, that’s the point. This is where you get time to get good.
First 100 videos, no one cares. Same thing in long form. Your first 100 videos, they’re going to suck and that’s okay.
And I’m still learning every single day.
But it took 50 to 100 videos and also we had one take off and then you watch it and then you’re going through the backend of YouTube. Like, what made this one different?
And then you start looking through all the data and you’re like, “Okay, let’s see what worked here.”
And you pull it up and you see, “Oh, well, our retention dropped at three, five seconds in, my hook wasn’t good enough.”
Or “My retention fell off at 15 seconds in. Let’s clip that part out.”
So you start testing these things. Then you get that one that goes and you keep copying that one and copying that one.
And then all of a sudden three or four more videos, you get another one that goes a million plus.
So it’s constantly working. The content, the algorithms constantly change. It’s not like you figured it all out.
But at this point, we kind of know what timeframes we’re looking for, what the audience retention has to be, what the swipe away rate needs to be, what the call to action needs to be.
We started to figure these things out.
Iterate on What Works
This is something I love about being so iterative. I will just constantly improve upon things.
The first 100 might suck, but then you get one that goes really good. You’re like, “Well, what was it about that one?” You keep iterating upon that.
You can take those same videos too and have a different hook that could do very, very good.
And then you can switch that same hook again and it could do terrible.
So the hook is super important. It’s probably one of the most important things.
Going back to the old marketing books, Dan Kennedy said 80% of your marketing dollars spent, of the 100% of that dollar, 80 cents is all within the headline.
It’s the same thing with the hook. It has to be really good and engaging.
The Importance of Thumbnails
Let’s just say that same example. Thumbnail is super important these days too. And it’s cool because you can AB split test thumbnails now, which has been really awesome. You can see which thumbnail is doing better.
Let’s just say you’re working with an aerator or maybe it’s a bed bug and you have that as a thumbnail. You want it to be, because you got the click through rate super important too at this point.
They first have to click on the video and watch it.
So that’s really important too.
The Hook Isn’t Just What You Say
There’s almost a misconception about having a hook. This is something that I’ve realized somewhat recently is that it’s not just the things you say in the video, but it’s also what is on the video.
The caption of the video, if there’s any music. So it’s not just the first things you say, it’s everything, right?
It’s the bells and the whistles and the boops, all these things that all play a part.
We’ve played with all of it. And a lot of stuff that we thought would do great, sucked. And stuff that we thought would suck did great.
It’s just really important after each video that posts, go back and see how it did. See where people clicked through it and see where the drop off was. See if you could shorten that same video up. See if you can make it a little bit longer.
Just constantly testing and getting better at each video. And we’re still doing that to this day.
Breaking Down My Most Recent Results
At the end of each week, we’ll go back to the entire week and look at all of our short form and see what did good, what did bad, why it did bad, why it did good.
And the same thing every month, our long form too, we’re going to go through, see what did good, see where their attention fell off, see if we can adjust some things.
There’s a lot to unpack actually. I’m not Mr. Beast by any means. Like we look at Mr. Beast with pest control.
But in the past, not that this is a big number for a lot of people, but in the pest control space, I think we just looked at it in the last 28 days, we had like 4.5 million views.
That’s a lot. Still generating over and watch time. It was like 20,000 hours of watch time or something. And so people are watching the content, still going viral.
I still remember the first time it happened. I was out at Pest World in Boston. And these two guys walked up and they’re like, “Hey, you’re the TikTok guy.”
What? Yeah. “You’re the TikTok guy.”
I had no idea what you’re talking about. “Yeah, you’re the guy on TikTok that does pest control.”
Right. I’m like, “Yeah.”
And so that’s the first time I heard it. Now it happens all the time. Obviously everyone just knows me.
I don’t know if I paved the path for everyone to start doing it. I was one of the early ones for sure.
No one thought you could go viral in pest control. Now everyone’s doing it. So it’s pretty cool.
Breaking Down a 10 Million View Video
Let me give you an example of one of my viral videos and break that down. What are the exact components within that?
One of our most viral videos is just one of my technicians standing in front of a pond.
And we recreated this again, two weeks ago, kind of the same thing. It works. Why not?
Again, why are we inventing it? If you find something that works, double down on that thing. Post it 12 to 14 more times with a little bit different iteration.
People don’t remember. So just double down on what really works. And it keeps going viral, keeps going viral.
So there’s the technician standing in front of a pond and he has a mosquito dunk.
He’s just talking about what the mosquito dunk does. And then you see him throw it in the pond and he’s talking about what the mosquito dunk does in the pond and blah, blah.
And that’s basically what it was. Him talking in front of a pond with his cell phone. No tripod, no crazy video cameras.
Almost all of my content that’s gone viral, all of it’s from a cell phone. We’ll talk about that later on, but just going to show you it doesn’t take a whole lot.
Just stand in front of it, talk about mosquitoes, how the mosquito dunks work. It was 15, 20 seconds, getting the education part, had a call to action. They’re like, “Go buy these mosquito dunks.”
And then it went back to the beginning. So it worked really, really well.
The Metrics That Matter
The things that you’ve got to look for: I went back and looked at that video and you’ve got to watch your view duration, right?
And every viral video, every single one, the view duration is above 100%. It’ll be like 110%, 120% view duration. So people are watching it over and over again.
Your swipe away rate, which is people start watching and they swipe away, you have to have it above 80%. So keep that in mind.
And then your call to action or your click through rate, you want to keep it above 10%. So it means that people see the thumbnail, they click on it and they start watching it.
A lot to unpack. There’s a lot of small little details that go into even just a small short video.
Those are the things you’ve got to watch for when going through your shorts.
The Biggest Mistakes People Are Making
What are the biggest mistakes you’re seeing with these owners?
Just not being consistent. It’s like anything that you do in life, you’re just staying consistent.
At this point, it’s almost a full time job. We have to keep putting out content. The channels are so big, we can’t stop what we’re doing right now. You can’t stop at this point.
So you’re constantly just making content.
And again, just make sure you go back, watch your videos, see what’s working, what’s not working. If you have a good one, double down on that.
And I would say where people are making the biggest mistakes is just not doing enough.
And so I get it. It’s hard. You’re busy. I’m a busy guy. Everyone’s busy. I get it.
But it takes 10 minutes to record a video.
And I get it. I was that guy too. My first video took two hours. It’s embarrassing. To make a 15 second video.
Last year I went to record with Jake and he’s like, “Dude, I’ve never met someone who can crush videos like you do.”
But I’ve done it so much I could just rip right through them without even thinking at this point because I’ve done it so many times.
So it becomes much easier and faster.
The Bottom Line on Going Viral
Your first 50 to 100 videos are going to suck. No one will watch them. That’s okay. That’s when you get good.
Study what works. When you get one that hits, go back and figure out why. Then copy that formula.
Hook: 3 seconds. Big reveal: 6-7 seconds. Insider tips: 7 seconds. Call to action: 5 seconds.
Watch your metrics. View duration above 100%. Swipe away rate above 80%. Click through rate above 10%.
If something works, double down. Post 12 to 14 variations of it.
Be consistent. You can’t stop once you start getting traction.
Most of my viral content was shot on a cell phone. No fancy equipment needed.
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Your first 100 videos will suck. Post them anyway.
