The Hidden Formula Behind Viral Posts 🔥

Chris Walker, how are you doing? Good. How's it going? Yeah.

Great. Great. Um, so you were saying recently that you, you came, what was it like top 10 in the school games and didn't even realize it, right? Yeah, actually you were the one that pointed it out to me.

I had, and then a couple other people did too. Uh, I guess, yeah, I think we finished like seventh or fifth or something like that. And I didn't even know I was participating. So we did real well.

That's pretty awesome. And, um, is that like something you're trying to grow or you just purely focus on legit? So it's a community I started with, I don't know if you knew Gregory Ortiz or Greg Morrison, but I started it with them back in July, uh, because we knew that we found that there was like proper, there wasn't a proper SEO and AI training community. So yeah, we are trying to grow it and we are doing well by our, I don't like the term students, but students in it.

But, uh, I mean, legit's always my number one focus, but it's something that I focus on as well. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

So you were saying, um, it's been a great year for business in general. Where are you up to with legit? Like how's it going? It's going well.

Uh, we're focusing more now on making it into more of an all-in-one, we call it an operating system for your business. So it has like all the data and tools and stuff for your sites. So you can kind of see it all in one place and then find the people that you need to do it. That's kind of been our focus the last few months and it will be all of next year as well.

But on top of that, it's still going very, very well. It's growing every day and very, very proud of it. It's awesome. That's awesome.

And have you seen like that growing since AI has come into place or? So yes and no. Um, back in 20, before it was 2022, when chat GPT came out, uh, AR content writing was our number two category and now we barely sell any of it. So in that way, it's been bad.

It's like plummeted since we've, uh, since that came out, uh, similar for like graphic design, although not as severe, but we've pivoted on top of that. And the people are buying more, I don't know what to call it, but like AI SEO services, the AI category itself is doing well. Automations have done well. So as one category, I don't want to say dies cause that's cliche in the SEO industry, but as it deteriorates, another kind of seems to take its place.

And that's also why we went the direction of having more than just services. Cause you know, who knows what AI is going to pick off next? Yeah. Yeah.

That's, I mean, it's so unpredictable, right? It's like every time there's a new update that comes out, it could, it just wipes out a bunch of SaaS tools that someone's been working for a year or two. Yeah. I, uh, chat GVT can easily like put any AI SaaS out of business by just adding that as a feature tomorrow, you know?

So it's, uh, I would not bet my entire career on something like that personally. I think that the, uh, the unique mode that you can create is the data that you have. That's a big advantage that we have because we have eight years of what's working and what people want and things like that. And then also the way that you can present the data that you can get from AI to somebody.

In other words, the way you can take it and make it do something unique, as opposed to something that chat GVT, you can just add as a feature. What it reminds me of is around 2016 when Snapchat had stories and that was like their whole unique value proposition. And then every other platform just added stories and like made them not unique at all. So.

Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. Actually, they seem to like take these features and be like, do you know what, maybe we're just going to do that inside chat GVT. Now I saw it the same with AI studio.

Like for example, you had lovable, you had bowl, all these app builders, but now AI studio can basically do that and do a better version directly inside the canvas. And it's like, yeah, I think that they're going to like continue to put AI SaaS out of business because they can always just add whatever anybody else comes up with and they have better engineers and more money. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

So, I mean, obviously, and you know, for anybody listening who's not familiar with legit, how would you describe it, Chris? So the way that most people are familiar with it is a two-way marketplace for marketing and SEO type services, but what we've added to make it more robust and comprehensive is a full as into a full platform where you can connect your website and tell it to answer a few questions and it'll go. And our AI will use, funny that we're talking about AI as I was just shitting on AI SaaS, but I will, our AI will go look at all of our past data. Like I said, that was the unique thing that you can have and then figure out what worked for sites and businesses similar to yours and then recommend what you should do and either give you a tool, a training or a freelancer to do it for you.

So that's kind of, that's kind of too long of an explanation and I am still working on a good elevator pitch, but that's the explanation more or less. Like for all those agencies and all those freelancers out there who are worried about AI potentially taking their job or taking their clients or making them unnecessary, what advice would you give them? Get better at something else. Like if you do SEO, it's, I think it's a great time to be an SEO because first of all, I find local SEO to be easier than it ever has been before.

And then for the first time in at least the 12 years I've been doing this, we have something other than Google to, to, to work with. Like we have, you know, a chat GT and Gemini and complexity and whatever. So we have other places to optimize for. So there's more work.

There should be more work for us. If you're smart enough to, I hate this word because it gets overused in our industry, but pivot and like work towards that as well. So that, and then same with freelancers, just learn new skills. Like, yeah, if you are, if your entire business is the content, it was writing blog posts, you're probably out of work right now, but you can still learn other things.

You can learn how to write actual copy. Like there's a distinction between copy and content. You can learn other things to, or you can just continue to do what you're doing and then use AI to make it better. So you can improve the speed of your offer and the quality of your offer or whatever.

But you know, you, you just have to think outside the box a little bit and add more things that you offer or improve what you offer or whatever, but there's still plenty of work out there for the people that really want it. One of the things I try to focus on with our freelancers on legit is that we don't want like Fiverr, for example, portrays itself as a place that you can earn a side hustle income. I don't want that. I want like highly skilled, highly talented freelancers that can do things that move needle.

I hate that expression too, but move the needle for your business because I don't, I want professional freelancers and not side hustle people. So if you want side hustle money, it's probably not a good time for them to be like a content writer or something. But if you are a professional that can actually get improved somebody's business, there's still plenty of work for you. And there always will be.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, for example, actually what's interesting, I found about my own business and we use sales copyrights more and more and more now because quite often like sales copy from AI, it will do if you need to do like volume or if you need to publish like quick social media posts. But if you're actively going to, for example, put a hundred grand a month into Facebook ads, there's no way that I'm going to rely on AI or chat GPT to, to create high converting copy. It's like, I want the master.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think part of the problem with that is that a lot of people that have been calling themselves copywriters for like the last 20 years, what they actually are is content writers. And there's a big distinction there.

Content is any written word. Basically copy is something that forces someone to do something, not forces, but persuade someone to do something. And that to do that effectively is a valuable skill and not something that a lot of people can do effectively. So if you can learn to do that effectively, you can make yourself a lot of money still.

Yeah. A hundred percent. It's like being able, it's far more than writing, isn't it? It's actually being able to change and manipulate someone's behavior based on the words you put on the screen and the psychology you put behind it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I like, I mean, I do a lot of that with myself, even with like my social media posts. Like I found that changing just the very first sentence makes all the difference in the world and stuff like that. So content writers don't care about stuff like that.

Copywriters do. Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause I've been seeing your Facebook posts like every single day and it's insane. The amount of reach you gain.

Yeah, I, you know, it's funny because like I, I posted basically for those who don't know, I post like these founder stories that are like, like basically what somebody's origin story. And I posted one because I just genuinely found it interesting. And a few people liked it and I posted another one and a few people like it. And then I posted a third one and it went crazy viral.

And so I found what I did was I just looked at what that worked. And like the formula has just been working million views, million views, million views, like almost every day for a month and a half now. So I stumbled onto a formula that worked, but as I got better at it, it was the copy that made all the difference. Like tiny little changes in the copy make a huge difference.

And it's been great, you know, for, I'm getting a little bit of hate for it, but like, it's been really good for business because it attracts entrepreneurs, which is my ideal customer. Yeah. I wanted to ask you that number one, what's the ROI like? Well, it takes me almost no time to write them.

So the, I mean, if you want to look at the direct ROI, like the direct ROI, I mean, it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Like the, what I get from like creator payouts is almost nothing. It's like 1500 bucks a month or something. I say that like, it's not a lot of money to some people. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, it's not, you know, it's not quit your job. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but what it has done has started a lot of great conversations.

It's very much top of the funnel content. So it's not usually like I get a sale directly from it, although there have been a couple, but it started some really big conversations that I think are going to lead to some really big deals. So it's been, there's definitely a positive ROI on it, especially when you consider it takes me only a few minutes a day to do. You know, I like not to overshare, but I like do it while I'm having breakfast or other things in the morning.

You know what I mean? Like, it's like the time required is very little. And, you know, not to get all hippy dippy about it, but like I've gotten some really, really nice comments from people that say like inspired them to go do start their business or keep trying or keep going when they had a bad day. And like, even if I never get a dime out of it, to me, it's, you know, that's worth it.

I mean, to put this in perspective, like number one, if someone is watching this and they're not sure what these stories are, basically it's kind of like, you know, how KFC was started or something like that. And it would be like the founder's story. And also like if you're reaching a million people a day, it's like 30 million people a month. It's like, what, 300 million people a year.

That's a pretty insane impact. Yeah, that's views. The reach is like about 75% of that. But yeah, exactly.

That's a lot of people that are going to see me and then like get retargeted by me and stuff like that. So it's a way of introducing people to you. You know, I'm glad that it's nice to talk to someone that just instantly gets that. Because a lot of people are like, oh, it's not going to lead to any sales.

Not every single piece of content is direct response, so. Yeah, that's it. And also, I mean, it's one of those, for example, I just find that with marketing, it's in the soul. Like the only reason I think, you know, a lot of people tell me I'm one of the biggest names in the SEO space, which I'm super grateful for.

But the only reason that we've got anywhere near that is because of the reach that we have on YouTube and all our other channels. It's like the more reach you have, the more volume you have, the more money you make typically, right? In some way or another. Yeah.

Yeah, he's kind of a scumbag, but Grant Cardone of all people is really good at putting that into context, into like do 100, 10X more, 100X more of the volume, and you're going to reach more people. And then once you get good at it, it'll let you reach even more. So yeah, I don't get why, I mean, I do, but like a lot of people in our industry just do not get that or don't want to do that or whatever. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, like, and also it was interesting. You were talking about the hook before. I think this is great for anyone using any, you know, if you're listening to this, you're probably really into AI and you're probably really into digital marketing. So like the hook is so crucial.

I find, for example, if we, we tested a bunch of Facebook ads. It's like the difference in the first three seconds between a good hook and a bad hook is literally like 2X the cost of the ad. Like we can double our ROAS just by having the first three seconds be better. Yep.

There's a, I forget the exact name of the book. The author is Joseph Sugarman. I think it's the copy out week something book. It's like a famous copywriting book.

But the thing that I took from it was he says that every line of copies goal is to sell the next line, to sell the reader, to read the next line. And I think that that's kind of what you're saying with the hook is like the whole point of the hook is to get people to watch the rest of the video and if they, or read the rest of the post. And if they, if you write that well, that will keep them in and that will hook them to the next one and that'll hook them to the next one and so on. So yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I think already for people listening to this, you already got a lot of good advice in terms of like how to adapt to AI, how to create these Facebook posts that get massive reach on organic, improving your hooks. What's the structure of those Facebook posts? Like how do they typically work?

Yeah, so I do get an assist from AI. I'll just kind of walk you through my whole process. I do get assist from AI. So the first thing I did, and I had already done this before, but I created, and you've probably done something similar.

I created like an AI version of myself in Claude. I, you know, I have like a pretty extensive list of questions that I answered. It created documents and I used that for, they don't call it knowledge in Claude, but like the knowledge and created a project. It's basically called Chris Writer, which, you know, very clever title there, but it basically writes stuff that sounds like me.

So that's the first thing I did before I even knew I was going to do this. The next thing that I did was I, like I said, I just started doing this because I genuinely found it interesting. But once I found one that worked, I saved that one. And what I do now is I just, I go and pull a list of like, I don't know, 50 or so that I wanted to like write about.

And then I take that and I put that post, that one post that worked. Well, first of all, I make sure that I have like good facts about that person, because I don't want to write something that's not accurate. But, and I put that exact post into the Chris Writer that I created. And I say, write me a post like this one about name.

And then it'll write it and I'll reread it and tell it you fucked up this, you fucked up this, you made this up, fix that, or tell it what's right. Because, you know, Claude, more than any of them in my opinion, will invent stuff when it doesn't know what to do. So I make sure it has that. And then it fixes that.

And then I'd say, okay, now give me 10 more hooks to replace the first line that will lead to virality. And it gives me 10. And then I tell it which one of those is most likely to go viral. And it'll say whichever one it thinks is most likely to go viral, which interestingly is never at the same place in the list.

You would think that they would start with that at number one but it's never in the same place in the list. So then I post that hook and then the rest, I replaced the first line and then I post the rest of the post. And then the picture is really important too. What you want, what I've found works, first of all, black and white pictures do not work.

A lot of people are getting that wrong because a lot of people are copying me. When I say a lot of people are getting that wrong, I've had a lot of other people start copying me. So a color picture, but not like a professional picture if you can find one, if you find like a candid of somebody, it's not always easy with some of them, but a candid of them. And then if it has a picture of the brand or the product in it, it helps because as much as we think that everybody, you said Colonel Sanders, as much as we think everybody knows who that is just by looking at them, some people don't.

So if you put the product in there, it helps even more. And then there's a few industries that I'm finding work better than others. Tech bro stuff does not work. Like I did one on the founder of Slack and it didn't do that well.

I did, but I'm finding that like food and beverage stuff works really, really well. People are really seem to relate to that. One of the best ones I did was Jimmy John from Jimmy John's, which I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's like a big sub company here in America.

Pretty girls do well. I, you know, it is what it is. Like we know that, but like the two of the bigger ones I did were Kathy Ireland, who was a supermodel who turned into like an entrepreneur. And then I can't even remember her name, but she founded a poppy soda, the founder of that.

Those were two of my biggest ones. So that, and then if there's like colors that kind of stand out and stop the scroll, you see how there's a lot of detail that go into this. People think I'm just like shitting these things out, but like this is quite a process. And then that's pretty much it.

And then as far as the formula of it, if you can find quotes of people that doubted that person and then they overcome it, that works really, really well too. So those are kind of the main elements. There's probably some more that I'm forgetting, but. It's amazing.

No, thanks for sharing. I mean, we actually, we tried something similar on LinkedIn. I don't know if you've posted the same thing on LinkedIn, but some of my best posts. Yeah, some of my best posts of all time, like they never got a million views or something crazy like that, but they would get some of my best performing posts for like stories about Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.

And that seemed to work really well as well. Yeah. That's another thing I forgot is that if there's a reason for people to dislike that person, that helps too. Because people love nothing more than to tell you how bad somebody is.

I told you that Jimmy John one did well. Apparently he also does like big game hunting and kills like lions and elephants and stuff. So many people commented telling me that, which, you know, I don't have a position on that one way or the other, but people do and then they engage and then your posts get seen more. So controversial people helps a lot too.

Be interesting when it like someone who's just, people love to hate, you know, like just to rage bait almost and get tons of comments and interaction on it. Yeah. I've come like this close to doing one on Donald Trump, but I just, I don't have the stomach for it. I don't have the stomach for the comment.

Yeah. That would be polarizing for sure. 50% of the audience. Yeah.

But it's not worth it. Cause that would, there was some people that would never buy money, buy things from me ever again. And I know one thing that every political party has in common is that they have money. I want them to spend with me.

So I'm not trying to alienate anybody. We had the same issue. Like I think around the election, one of our sales corporators was about to blast an email related to Trump. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.

We're not going to do that. Cause like, I mean, number one, I don't really focus or care about politics, but number two is like, if you alienate 50% of the audience you're about to sell to, like that can be pretty serious. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not in comfort. Like when you get to Elon Musk level, you might be able to get away with that. I'm not, I'm not there yet. I'm not there.

So you were also talking about doing more public speaking. as well, which is something that I tried last year. How's that going for you? Going good.

I've done probably 10 this year. I'm actually going to Thailand in a couple of days to do two different appearances there, which will be my last two for the year. I don't enjoy the time it takes to get there because a lot of them have been in Asia and I live in America, so it's a long trip. But the people are wonderful.

The welcoming and the how grateful people are to you for stuff you don't even realize is just something I'll do. I've gotten, not to pat myself on the back, but I've gotten very good at it, I think. I've gotten very engaging. At the one I just did a month ago in India, I had one guy, who's somebody we both know, tell me I almost brought him to tears and another person said that I sounded like Tony Robbins.

So I get a lot of energy out of it and I'm enjoying doing it. The business ROI, it's hard to quantify. I'm sure it's there. I can't ever tie a number to it.

I probably won't do as many of them next year, but I enjoy it. I'm glad my life has given me the opportunity to do these things as well. So if you have the opportunity to come see me, please do. If you ever have the opportunity to speak at one of these things, you should do it.

If you want to make that your whole model, you have to make sure that the numbers make sense for you. One thing I was thinking, it's actually why I stopped last year, because it was just so hard to attribute where the direct ROI is. For example, a lot of people say, okay, you don't know how good this would be for your personal brand. I'm like, yeah, that's a problem.

I literally don't know. If I do a YouTube video, I can easily see the direct ROI. If I do a live stream, I can see all the sales coming in straight afterwards. But when I do a speaking session and I'm preparing for six months and even little things like getting a tailored suit or whatever, or flying out to America, it's all so much time and so much mental energy that potentially you could invest in something else.

Yeah. I've committed to two next year. They're both here in America, so it's not as big a deal, but I'm definitely going to scale back because it's just, it's too hard on me personally. I can't get a life established here.

You know what I mean? If I'm gone every couple of weeks for weeks at a time and it's, yeah, I can't really attribute an ROI to it because the Chiang Mai one that I'm going to be speaking at in a couple of weeks is, it's pretty big, what there's like a thousand people or something there. A thousand people is a worth performing YouTube video. So I can, you know what I mean?

I can turn on my camera and reach just as many people without having to fly 30 hours. And that's no disrespect to any event. You know? No, it's not.

Yeah. That's exactly what I found was like, kind of, I mean, number one, there's, there's no, especially since, you know, COVID and everything like that, there's no substitute for like in-person events. And I think people really crave it, but like you said, it's just so hard to measure it and to see what's the difference. But yeah, I actually spoke at Chiang Mai last year and it was great.

I mean, great event by Matt as well. Yeah. It's the last, like, not the last, but like, it's the one of the few that was like missing from my resume. So I really wanted to speak at that.

So I was grateful that Carl and Travis gave me the opportunity this year. So. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And then are you still doing live streams as well, or is that something you're thinking about incorporating? Yeah. I haven't, because I've been traveling so much, I haven't had the chance to do them as often, but yeah, I love doing those and that I can put an ROI on. The more of those I do, the more money I make.

Like, it's not even necessarily, I made this sale from this live stream, but the, like the correlation is too often, happened too often. You mentioned the pandemic and in 2020, like, I didn't know what the fuck to do to like keep business going. I hope it's okay that I swear. If not, just edit it out.

You go ahead, use as many F-bombs as you need to. There's no limit. Okay. I didn't know what the fuck to do.

So I was like, well, I'll just start doing a live stream every day. Everybody's stuck at home anyway. And that took, that is the whole reason that Legit is still here today is those like two months that we were all like locked in the house. There was more than that in some places I did a live stream every day.

And there are people that still are with me today from that. And then earlier this year, I did it another run like that where I did like 60 or 70 days in a row and it took off. Now I can't do it every day all the time, but the more I do them, the more money I make. And like, not only do like, I reach more people, but the connection I make with existing people is really, really deep.

It's almost like having lunch with somebody every day or something in an office. Yeah. 100%. I couldn't agree more.

I think it's the closest you can get to in real life. That's not an event or something like that. And also like it works. I think it's got many different levers to it.

Like a super high leverage, for example, like you can repurpose the content afterwards. You can edit the content, but it's a YouTube video later. What I actually do is like create trainings inside our community. And then if people want to watch a replay back, they can only watch it back inside the AI Profitable Room.

And so like, you know, it teases the content, but most people are not going to be able to sit down and watch the whole thing and they join the community to sign up as well. So it works. Yeah, you should. Yeah.

You know what's funny is Alex from OG recently was like, yeah, what I'm going to focus on this year is live streams. Cause I think that's a great way to make connections with people. And so many people are sucking his, kissing his ass and saying, yeah, that's such a brilliant marketing. And so I was like, bro, I was doing that in 2017.

Like I've done 10, like probably 2000 live streams. And now everybody's kissing his ass. Like he came up with some revolutionary new tactics. So I probably sounded a little bit jealous.

And I probably am because I feel like I deserve the credit for it. And not like I was the first one to do it either, but it's been a big part of my business for a long time. In fact, I am just more naturally better at like making stuff up off the top of my head than I am at like regular YouTube videos. And I'm better at life than I am at like regular YouTube videos.

Kind of like what we're doing right now. I had no idea what you were going to ask me. And I feel so much more comfortable than when I have a script and like a topic to read. Yeah.

I'm, I'm the same. It's like I can go off the cuff for 90 minutes, two hours, no problem. But then if I had to do like a perfect video, like a talking head view on YouTube, it would just drain all my energy. Like I wouldn't even enjoy it.

You know, I much prefer to do the live streams. Yeah. And it doesn't come out natural when people watch it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's it. The other thing I was thinking was like, you know, if you look at like those huge live streamers, you know, someone like I show speed, for example, it's like they kind of integrate work and lifestyle really well by doing those live streams just wherever they are. And I was thinking like, how can you do that more for this?

So that was something I was thinking about recently. Yeah. I've tried to figure that out too, but the problem is a lot of what I do just isn't very interesting as far as like day to day, you know what I mean? Like I have meetings and like I make good content and like, you know, I don't really do stuff a lot and it doesn't translate to video very well because I wish that I was doing like stuff that I could just turn on the camera and like do it alongside people.

I think that would work really, really well. But it's either that or like I'm dealing with numbers, which is kind of confidential. And so it's like I haven't found a way to make that work, but I totally agree. If you can figure out how to make that work, it's it crushes people love to see everyday stuff that you do.

Kind of like that one guy that went viral earlier this year. Like he's like a workout guy that was like dunking his face in a bowl of ice water. And like that it was just him following him through his day. And that like went mega viral and people just love seeing everyday stuff.

It's really weird if you think about it, but. Yeah, it's weird. It's kind of like, I mean, you know, for example, in Thailand, right? There are these TikTok live streamers.

You go really viral and all they're doing is like sitting down in the morning and eating some noodles, you know, but people love to watch it. It's crazy. Yeah. You know, now that I think about it, I live in Las Vegas and there's a few TikTokers that their entire thing is they just walk around Las Vegas all day, live streaming on TikTok, like for hours at a time.

And that's like their whole thing. And it's constantly hundreds of people watching it as like, what a great time to be alive when you can make a living just walking around, looking at shit and just do it and that and nothing else. Yeah. I think that's it.

It's just like, you know, if you've got. If you've got the ability to put yourself out there and just be confident and be natural in front of a camera, like you, you separate your, you all of a sudden you become a creator, not a consumer. And then, you know, like we were saying before, the more people you reach, the more you win. Yeah.

Like I started in this, this business in doing SEO, but I enjoy creating way more than I ever have, uh, like ranking websites and stuff. Like I still do it and I still think I'm pretty good at it, but like, this is what I enjoy the most. Like this, I'm getting more energized the longer we talk and less than I do when I have to like format H1 tags and that shit. Oh yeah.

Yeah. No, that trains me. That trains. Thankfully I've got an army of VAs who can help me with that.

So, and probably you the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome, man. Well, it's great catching up. Um, obviously anyone who's watching checkout legit as well, cause that's a fantastic platform for hiring. Is there anything else or anything else you want to plug in?

Ah, if you want to connect with me more, find me on Facebook or on YouTube. I'm happy to, I'm very responsive. Like I, you messaged me, I'll have a conversation with just about anybody, but, uh, and thank you for having me on. Will I get to see you when I'm in Thailand?

I'm not sure if I'm going to Chiang Mai SEO or not, but if you come to Bangkok, let me know. I'm sure you're right. Okay, cool. All right.

All right. All right. Thanks so much. All right.

Thanks for having me. Thanks everybody.