How To Go Viral Consistently and Get More Sales from Instagram
The video structures that helped me reach more than 33,328,589 people
Since I started growing my Instagram account I have gotten over 33,328,589 views with my content. I have posted more than 200 reels to achieve this. Some went viral with a best performer reaching just under 10 million views. More than 28 videos reached 100k+. I consider viral anything with more than 500k views. This means one in every 19 of my videos went viral. One in every 5 videos reaches at least 50k people.
Tons of experimentation is needed to figure out what works on an Instagram account, you’re going to have some videos that fall flat and some that work. Then you get to analyse them afterwards to determine what actually makes for a viral video on your account. I’m going to give you the breakdown of what performs best on my account. This might not work for you, but it might be a great place to start testing from if you’re interesting in growing.
Post Frequency:
For the first 146 days I posted every morning without fail. After that I got a little more sporadic going from 4-7 posts per week. This is when I noticed numbers fluctuating which signalled to me that posting at least once a day was critical for growth on my account. However, I have found that when the view count starts to go down inexplicably from my average of at least 10k views, then I pause for 2 days and my numbers pretty much always spike back up. I don’t know why this works, but for me it always does.
Here’s example of this. 2 days in a row of really low views for my account. Skipped 2 days and started again - back up to a much healthier 34k views. Maybe it’s like a little reset for the account but it’s a handy little tip.
Best Time of Day To Post:
There’s no such thing as the best time of day to post, just the most strategic time to post. I usually post between 6-8am. Why? I catch the late night scrollers in the US, I’m probably the first of folks in my space to post in the UK & Ireland give or take 30minutes in the morning and it’s 2-8pm across the Eastern part of the world so I get worldwide distribution. Instagram tells me to post at 3pm and that it’s 3pm when most of my followers are online. I’ve tested it repeatedly and I have never gone viral at that time. I don’t think posting at the most saturated time could possibly be a good idea.
Video Length:
Your video length doesn’t matter, but your retention does. If you post a shorter video you’re going to need to ensure that the vast majority of people watch that video 100%+ and if you create a slightly longer video you’re going to need at least 50%+. Your retention metrics get more lenient by length. I have found that the videos I have that have gone viral are between 15 and 22 seconds with a view rate of at least 50%.
Video Structure:
Because video retention is so important to going viral, you need to structure it in such a way that your videos hold peoples attention. The best way to do that is with the following structure:
Hook - Problem - Solution - CTA
The reason you want to structure it like this is the hook will catch their attention, the problem will make them watch for the fix, and then the fix is always delivered 50%+ into the video to catch those retention metrics.
You ideally need to start off with a great hook. Here’s a custom GPT I have built with my account and others to help you create viral potential hooks.
Here’s a prompt you can use in ChatGPT to write scripts to this format for you:
“User
Act as a world class Instagram Reel script writing expert. You know that viral content is about 15-22 seconds long. Ensure the script is this length. You’re going to structure the reel with 4 key sentences that are not more than 15 words long each. Ideally written in English that could be understood by someone in 7th grade or younger. Sentence 1 is the hook, it should be sensationalist and attention grabbing. Sentence 2 should point out the problem that the user is having. Sentence 3 should provide the solution and sentence 4 should be my call to action (Comment a keyword below for more information).
Here's the problem and solution my video is looking at. Problem: ___________. Solution, _______________”
You can see now the basic structure to your video that you can riff on to create your content. The reason that we ask people to use a keyword in the CTA on Instagram is because this is where you can leverage engagement to get even more views and more importantly, to get people into your DMs which is where the sales can start to happen for your business.
Video Engagement:
Your retention metrics are the most important, but after that you need to be looking at your saves, shares and comments. Likes are great, but they mean nothing in comparison to retention, saves, comments and shares. If you’re in the European Union like me, you unfortunately can’t see your shares, so I work off of saves and comments for my metrics. Every video that I have that has gone really viral has more comments and saves than likes. Creating saveable content is key.
Above we talked about using the CTA of commenting a keyword to drive engagement up further and this is a tactic you can use to provide even more value. You’re likely receiving this email because you signed up via one of those DMs from me that asks you to join the newsletter too.
I use ManyChat to do this. Essentially it’s an automation tool. You set up a trigger “When a use comments on your post or reel” and then the message they should receive in their DMs afterwards. You can get more complex with this and start a full sales funnel too. Driving up your engagement and driving sales potential at the same time.
Retention Editing:
You will want to start editing your videos with retention in mind. Your script is only one piece of the puzzle. You have to ensure you have great audio, great sound effects placed strategically, movement and other changes that occur every few seconds. Instagram is certainly slowing down, but only by about 15%. I’m still finding strong performance with retention first editing in place. When I stray from that my views go down.
Hope this is helpful for your Instagram growth in 2024! I am launching a video on YouTube this Friday on How To Go Viral on Instagram that showcases my editing process too. Subscribe using the button below to be the first to see it!