0-1 Billion Views in a Year: Kane Kallaway’s Short-Form Video Content Secrets

This week, we’re joined by Kane Kallaway, a content creator specializing in tech, AI, and cult brands with over 550K followers and 1B+ views.

Founder of WavyStudios, Kane helps companies enhance their video content for audience growth and conversions. He also leads WavyWorld, a community/course on short-form storytelling, and shares insights into the creator entrepreneur world through his newsletter Blueprint.

Recently, Kane had an interview with Mark Zuckerberg where they talked about the future of creators, AI, Meta's roadmap, and more.

In this episode of “Uploading...,” Kane shares his strategies and workflow for creating engaging short-form video content. He discusses the importance of creating curiosity loops, placing strategic hooks throughout the video, and tailoring content to each platform's unique consumption experience.

We discuss at length Kane’s content creation process, where he finds his ideas, how he chooses relevant topics and writes scripts with his unique angle, why rhythm and pacing are important in video editing, and how all these factors in creating an engaging short-form video content which then drives his audience to longer-form content where conversion happens.

Fav Quotes From Episode #23

Short-form vs. Long-form Content: “The fragility of the audience with short form cannot be overstated. It's like it takes hundreds if not thousands of reps of a short-form video in front of somebody on Instagram or on TikTok for them to actually understand who you are and, like, buy into you. I had this framework called content minutes, which is like, let's assume for someone to go from a stranger to a superfan level, it takes like 90 minutes of your content watched. Well, if you're making short-form video and the average one is watched 20 seconds long, that's 270 videos they would have to watch to hit that bar and become a superfan versus a podcast. If they listen to the whole hour, it's like two podcasts.” — Kane Kallaway [00:09:27 → 00:10:05]

Newsletters as Content Idea Source: “So the first piece of finding what's interesting, I just am constantly scanning, and I find for the videos I make, which is like business of culture, tech stuff, email newsletters are the best place for me to find topics because they're already a curated filter on everything. So if I didn't have email newsletters, I would have to go to like TechCrunch, The Verge, Business of Fashion, Entrepreneur.com, whatever the sites are. I'd be scanning like 30 sites. And you can use something like FeedLIVE to do this, but I've tried it and there's a lot of noise, there's not enough signal, it's like way too much noise. And so what I find is email newsletters, people who have actual businesses designed to filter the bad stuff out, curate just what's interesting. And so I subscribe to like ten or twelve newsletters that I love.” — Kane Kallaway [00:19:48 → 00:20:29]

Video Script Structure: “Most people think of videos as like a hook, the body, and the conclusion. I think of it like a hook, there's a dance, and in that dance, you have context and conflict, which is basically just set up, rehook. Set up, rehook. Set up, rehook. You're trying to rehook them. Then at the very end, I tried to hook them again with, like, the ending so that they share it.” — Kane Kallaway [00:23:11 → 00:23:28]

3 Strategies for Success From Kane Kallaway

1. Develop Your Unique Story Lens

The key to standing out in a crowded content landscape is to approach topics from a fresh perspective that only you can provide.

Ask yourself: What unique experience do you have that can add value to the topic? What angle do you bring to the table that others don’t? How can you incorporate your personality into your content?

Here’s an example from Kane Kallaway:

In making this video about Taylor Swift attending the Super Bowl, he could have explored common topics, like what she’s wearing or general fan reactions.

But instead of doing that, he honed in on the financial impact of her attendance to NFL. By attacking the topic from this angle, he created a video that fits perfectly with his channel's "business of culture" focus.

Like Kane, you need to give your audience a reason to choose your content over the countless other options vying for their attention.

Consistently deliver insights that can't be found anywhere else. This way, you’ll become an indispensable resource in your niche.

2. Hook and Rehook Your Audience

For Kane Kallaway, one hook isn’t enough. For your content to be binge-worthy, you have to continuously open what he calls a “curiosity loop.”

To get a better idea of how this looks like, watch Kane’s video on how Google could lose their $238B/year search business.

Kane’s first hook, “I think Google might be in trouble,” creates immediate interest by hinting at a major disruption involving a familiar and significant entity.

But this is no news; strong hook = attention.

What’s interesting is how Kane sustains this attention by incorporating a series of hooks and rehooks throughout his video:

"And what's the biggest thing you notice? No blue links."

"But we might be entering a new era..."

"Now Google, of course, is still in prime position... But it's quite the dilemma, isn’t it?"

Kane opens so many curiosity loops that it becomes a “mental itch” — a driving force that keeps viewers watching to know the answer.

The more curiosity loops you open, the longer your audience will stick around.

3. Pay Attention to Your Video’s Rhythm

Kane Kallaway raises two important points about rhythm.

First, the way sentences flow and the speed at which information is delivered can make a big difference in keeping viewers interested.

Imagine reading a paragraph where every sentence is the same length. It would get boring quickly. But if you mix up short, medium, and long sentences, it’s much more fun to read.

Kane Kallaway says the same idea works for videos. He tries to mix up how long or short his sentences are and how fast or slow he talks to keep things engaging.

Second, each platform has its native consumption experience and creators need to match the rhythm expected in each platform so as not to disrupt the experience of the viewers.

Kane explains that this is the reason why most slow-paced podcast clips don’t work on platforms like TikTok or Instagram, where people expect quick, snappy videos.

So next time you make content: pace smartly and sync with the rhythm of your chosen platform.

We're excited to be part of your journey to turn content into business.

Have thoughts or ideas?
Any topics you’d like to cover?

Just respond to this email. We're all ears!

Until next week, keep uploading…