I told a story that got over 1 MILLION views and here's what I've learned so far...
✅Surround yourself with smart and supportive people
For a couple of years now, my friends Kyle McCarthy, Rob Montague, and Rich Vallejos have been urging me to create more video content, but I've always been a bit hesitant. A few months ago Luke Gibbons & my partners at Evergreen Podcasts reiterated the same thing. Now, even though I trained as an actor, turning the camera on myself has (and still does) feel a bit odd to me. But last month I gave it a shot; what happened is something I never saw coming.
Staying in line with the theme of my podcast 7 Minute Stories, I decided to film myself performing minute-long versions of the 7 Minute Stories that I've already released or stories that have yet to be released. I wrestled with what platform to release them on but narrowed it down to two: TikTok or YouTube Shorts. I flipped a coin and went with YouTube Shorts. My first few stories averaged about 2-6K views. I was pleasantly surprised. The next few stories garnered 15k, 30k, and 100k views. Then, a few weeks ago I shared a story about my brother finding (and returning) a wallet of an 80-year-old veteran. As of today, that story alone has received over 1.1M views and counting.
*You can hear the original 7 Minute version of this story on Season 1 of my podcast. It's titled "The Wallet".
In less than a month, I went from having 50 subscribers on YouTube to over 3,000K and growing. Now, YouTube Shorts has become another viable platform for my storytelling work. (This is part where I say THANK YOU to my smart and supportive friends/colleagues Kyle, Rob, Rich and Luke. I'm truly grateful.)
✅Nothing beats a good story
When I was deciding what content to create, I decided to keep it simple. I decided to tell a good story. It's the same approach I take with the 7 Minute Stories Pod. In this case, instead of trying to tell a good story in 7 minutes, it's trying to tell a good story in approximately 70 seconds. No tricks, no fancy camera work, no trending sounds or dances. Just stories that are close to my heart and that I think people can relate to. This alone is responsible for the 98% retention rate I got on my most popular story and the over 85% retention rate for all the stories I've posted thus far on YouTube Shorts.
For me, this experience has made it extremely clear. No matter what you're creating, what platform you're creating on. If you keep connecting with people through authentic storytelling as your North Star - your people will find you. It may take 7 minutes, 7 days or 7 years - but they will. There's always time for strategy and upgrades but you can't get around the fact that nothing beats a good story.
✅There are a lot of good people out there
When my stories started trending on YouTube Shorts, I was certain the majority of comments and responses would be nasty, negative, and hateful. However, in this case, it's been the opposite. The vast majority of people have left thoughtful, kind, and encouraging comments and stories of their own. Of course, there are the assholes. But it's been a 90/10 ratio. Maybe this is just unique to my little experience, but a 90/10 ratio of good vibes on social media is something that I would never have expected.
✅We live in a fragmented reality
I've always been skeptical of the social media landscape. There is a lot of good that has come out of it. But there's been a lot of bad too. Oftentimes our digital landscape is confusing and has made me question the nature of many of my fellow humans.
Despite the overwhelming positivity of the thousands of comments on my stories, what surprised me was the comments where viewers didn't think my story was real. There were many people who thought that I purposely conjured and falsified my (true) stories just for likes and followers. The truth is, while my podcast isn't journalism, the 7 Minute Stories that I tell via podcasting and now on YouTube Shorts are all autobiographical and true to my life. With just one click anyone could satiate their suspicion and figure that out.
Initially, I was a little surprised at some of the suspicion and cynicism. But then I thought, “WHY?” While I may not troll people online, aren't I a bit cynical too? Isn't that partly the reason why I didn't want to share my stories on social media to begin with? While their assessment of my work/art was wrong, don't they have good reason to be cynical? The fact is, we live in a moment of history where many people don't know what's real and what's not. Some of that is their fault. But much of that isn't. There's a lot of garbage out there. People are struggling to determine what's real news or fake news. Whether they are being hustled or helped. People are always on defense. And while this makes me sad, through this experience I found myself empathizing more with the nature of their cynicism rather than being angered by it. For me, the deeper and more profound question that emerged is: How did we get here, and can we get out? The best thing I have to offer as a personal solution is my storytelling. So, I'll just continue creating and telling authentic stories and throwing them out into the void.
This act alone has helped me see more clearly through the digital haze. It's helped me keep things in perspective. It’s helped me see that beyond and behind the distracting digital haze are mostly decent people navigating their lives as best they can.
If you’re interested, you can subscribe to my YouTube page for new short stories every week.
