If I Started Social Media From Scratch in 2026, I’d Do This

Summary

In this video, the creator shares a four-step playbook for business owners to win on social media in 2026. The first step is choosing the right content game out of five possible strategies. The second step involves building a data system to track smaller creators and reverse-engineer what works. Step three focuses on experimenting with different content approaches to find outliers, while step four emphasizes scaling the successful content into a factory for consistent lead generation. The method combines data-driven insights with rapid iteration to turn views into long-term business growth.

Takeaways

• 😀 Make sure you're playing the right content game for your business, choosing from five distinct games: mainstream cult fandom, category cult fandom, intuitive products, explanatory products, and authority building.
• 😀 Understand that each content game has different strategies, competitors, monetization models, and ways to win, so align your strategy with your goal.
• 😀 Focus on small to medium-sized creators (10K to 1M followers) when reverse-engineering successful content rather than studying industry giants like those with millions of followers.
• 😀 Build a content data system to track successful patterns from smaller creators in your niche and use this data to inform your content creation.
• 😀 Experimentation is key. Test different content formats and ideas based on data to find outliers that can be scaled into successful content.
• 😀 High volume and quality content is necessary during the experimentation phase. Aim for consistency with 10-15 videos per week while iterating based on feedback.
• 😀 Once you find successful content (outliers), scale it into a content factory, continuously iterating on those formats until they stop working.
• 😀 In monetization-focused content games (intuitive products, explanatory products, authority building), prioritize metrics like dollar per view or conversion per view instead of just views or followers.
• 😀 Don’t get attached to topics or content pillars during the experimentation phase. Be open to anything the data suggests to maximize potential success.
• 😀 Keep running your experimentation lab and content factory simultaneously to adapt quickly and scale the most successful content types over time.

Q & A

What is the first step to winning on social media in 2026 as a business owner?

The first step is to ensure you're playing the right social media game. There are five different content games, each with its own strategy, competitors, monetization models, and ways to win. Choosing the correct game for your business is crucial.

What are the five different content games described in the video?

The five content games are: 1) Mainstream Cult Fandom, 2) Category Cult Fandom, 3) Intuitive Products, 4) Explanatory Products, and 5) Authority Building. Each game has different goals and strategies, from building broad fame to deep expertise or driving product conversions.

Why should business owners focus on small and medium-sized creators rather than the biggest players in their niche?

The biggest players, like those with millions of followers, often have compressed performance where even poor content performs well. Studying smaller creators with 10k-1M followers can provide better insights into successful content strategies because their performance is more dependent on content quality.

What is 'Callaway's Paradox' and how does it affect content strategy?

Callaway's Paradox refers to the phenomenon where large creators' content performance becomes compressed as their channels grow. This means their highs are lower and lows are higher. Because of this, business owners should avoid studying top creators in their niche, and instead, focus on smaller channels to find actionable insights.

How can business owners reverse-engineer content to succeed on social media?

Business owners should study smaller creators' content in their niche to identify outliers—videos that perform unusually well. By analyzing these outliers, they can create similar content and gradually improve their own content creation skills.

What is the importance of building a content data system?

A content data system helps business owners track and analyze successful content from smaller creators in their niche. This system allows for data-backed decisions, ensuring that business owners are not just guessing, but instead following a scientific approach to content creation.

What does the 'experimentation phase' entail in the content creation process?

The experimentation phase is when a business owner tests various content ideas, formats, and strategies based on data to find successful content types. The goal is to test as many ideas as possible to find a content 'outlier' that performs exceptionally well.

Why is it important to experiment with both quality and quantity in content creation?

Balancing quality and quantity is key in the experimentation phase. The more content you produce at a high enough quality, the better your chances of finding a winning content format. This iterative process helps speed up the discovery of successful content.

How does the content factory differ from the experimentation lab?

The content factory is where successful content formats are produced consistently. Once an outlier is discovered in the experimentation lab, it moves to the factory, where slight variations of the winning format are created. The factory ensures a continuous flow of content until a format stops working.

What is the most important metric to measure content success in the different content games?

In games focused on media and engagement (games 1 and 2), metrics like views, followers, and engagement rate are key. In games focused on sales or conversions (games 3, 4, and 5), metrics like dollar per view or conversion per view are more important to track success.