I went from 24m views to only 4k views. Here’s where I messed up...
In my most recent reel on my @Master_Sims Instagram account, I got only 4k views. However, in my 4th most recent reel, I got 1.2m views. Yikes, that’s an unhealthy drastic change.
One of my most successful work ventures in social media happened by accident. I was 15, and at that time, I loved editing sound, specifically, “Foley”.
Foley is the technical term for sound effects that are added to film to fit what is happening on screen accurately. This could be when a cartoon character is walking around with wet sneakers, and so someone’s job is to add the squishing sounds of his shoes.
To practice my Foley skills, I would recreate music videos with my own sound effects. I removed the original music, and then added the sounds of what was happening on screen, as if you were sitting there on set as they were filming it. With my Rode NT1-A microphone, I also recorded my own voice to mimic what they were singing… but I would give them funny frat boy accents.
I was heavily inspired by the channels “Bad Lip Reading” and “Without Music”. Because they were far better than I was at making parodies of music videos, I decided I would do the music videos they hadn’t yet done.
This is a principle I strongly push to anyone creating content to follow: Do not reinvent the wheel. Copy what works, but put your own twist on it. Or do the job that your competitors missed. The latter is where I had success.
This principle became evident to me when I made my first parody video of “See You Again” by Tyler the Creator. He’s one of the most famous rappers in the USA, but neither Bad Lip Reading nor Without Music had created a parody of him yet. The top dogs missed the gold.
And so I made my parody video of “See You Again”. On its own, See You Again already had over a billion streams. Within a month of my video being uploaded, it gained around 4m views. Since then, it’s gained well over 20m views on all platforms.
It was an instant success, so I created more videos, purposely copying the styles of Bad Lip Reading and Without Music. But I only copied popular franchises that they hadn’t yet touched.
With under 50 reels, I reached 50k followers on Instagram. My most successful video to date was a parody of “Highschool Musical”, which has gained over 50m views on all platforms, and with my singular reel sitting at 24m views.
What I didn’t realize is that I had accidentally put my Instagram account in the “viral meme” category. People followed me in hopes of seeing another parody of Highschool Musical… but then, I would post a parody of the Aladdin movie. I was constantly switching up on the audience, and so they were no longer loyal to me.
I didn’t want to face the fact that the success of my videos was heavily dependent on whether the original piece of content I was parodying was already popular.
I eventually was forced to face the truth out of my stubbornness. I decided I would branch out into a new category of music: K-pop. Oh boy, big mistake. I never actually listened to K-pop, so I did NOT understand who was popular and what K-pop fans were attracted to.
I remember going into the Trending Music category on YouTube and looking for music videos that were K-pop. Sure enough, one of the most popular songs at the time was “Work” by ATEEZ.
Little did I know that the song seemed to be one of ATEEZ’s more singular successful hits. They did not have as well-known a name and loyal following as I thought they did. And so after 6 hours of editing and voice recording, I posted my parody, which now has 4,368 views as a reel. 4 reels ago, my parody of Benson Boone got 1.2m views. Oof.
This taught me a hard lesson: do not try to make content for an audience you do not understand. I also learned this while creating real estate content with a client, who I failed to bring successful results to.
My most recent success over the past two years has been creating content in the pro-life movement, because I fully understand the message and who the audience is.
Don’t get ahead of yourself; remember, you are serving the audience. You will be the most successful in it if you know what your viewer wants and needs.