CASEY NEISTAT: THE WORLD'S BEST VLOGGER

Breaking Down The Strategy

Over the last few years I’ve been obsessing over marketers who are the best-of-the best at their craft.

I’ve covered:

• Copywriters

• Promoters

• SEO wizards

But today, we’re going to look into of the best video experts to ever live.

His name: Casey Neistat

At 15, he left home, dropped out of school and was bouncing from couch to couch.

By 17, he became a dad for the first time.

At 20, he decided he was going to risk it all and move to New York City with nothing to his name.

And it didn’t go as planned…

His filmmaking wasn’t panning out, he was running out of money, working as a dishwasher to get by.

But while everything was going wrong, Casey was filming every single second of it.

At the time, the videos weren’t the same quality as what they are today, but with each video his skillset grew and grew.

Until 2003, when Casey hit publish on a video titled “iPod’s dirty secret”.

The video went viral across the world.

But this wasn’t just a flash in the pan moment. It was the start of a long journey to the top for Casey.

Today, 20 years on, Casey has:

• 12.6M YouTube subscribers

• 3.15 billion YouTube views

• 4 million followers across Instagram & TikTok

It's safe to say he’s the crème de la crème of video content - but what does he know that we don’t.

Well, I wanted to find out.

So, I spent the last 5 hours going down the Casey Neistat rabbit hole.

Here’s 4 lessons on marketing from the king of video, Casey Neistat:

Lesson 1: Find What Works, Then Do It Again

On 25th March 2015, Casey put out what would be his first ever “Daily vlog”.

For the next 2-3 years, Casey would fire out one vlog every single day - without missing a beat.

At first, nearly every vlog was different.

• Different concepts

• Different structures

• Different styles

But rather than just keeping coming up with new ideas every day, Casey analysed what was working and repurposed the concept in new videos.

Take his “Fight class flight reviews” for example:

7 years ago: He goes viral reviewing a first class seat.

2 years later: Remakes it - viral again.

3 years ago: Remakes it again - viral again The exact same concept. Just with minor tweaks.

The result: 299M views across the videos. Lesson: Find what works, then do more of it.

Once he found a concept people liked, he dove head first into it.

Now, he has a whole series of first-class seat reviews - all with millions of views on them.

He found what worked, then milked everything he could from it.

Lesson 2: Apply It To New Platforms

1/5 of Casey’s online following is on TikTok and Instagram. Which is a pretty large amount to say he started on YouTube.

Granted some of that following will be there from people going from his YouTube and following him on those platforms.

But that doesn’t mean you can ignore the way he has been able to apply what he perfected on YouTube to other platforms.

If you’re not familiar with Casey’s vlogs they are renowned for:

• Being fast paced

• Including multiple shots

• And constantly moving

You get taken through a jam-packed day in Casey’s life all in just 6-7 minutes.

And people absolutely love it.

So, when Casey decided to take his craft over to TikTok and Instagram he used the exact same style - but just crammed it into 1 minute instead.

His ‘My last day of 2022’ video is a perfect example of this.

In just 60 seconds he takes you on a journey with him where he:

• Goes for a run

• Feeds his kids cake

• Skate to the office

• Get coffee

• Clean the office

• Go for lunch

• Knock down a wall

• Going for dinner with the family

• Putting his kids to sleep

• Celebrating New Year with his wife

With so much going on in it, it’s no surprise it was successful.

But the key thing to know here is that Casey knew this was going to be successful before he even hit post.

All because it was a tried and tested style that he’d already perfected on YouTube.

This time he found what works → then applied it to new platforms.

Lesson 3: Be Kinda Normal

8 years before Casey began daily vlogging, he and his brother sold an eight-episode television series to HBO for $2M.

The reason I say this is as it’s important to know that pre-YouTube, Casey was a high-level video expert.

He was creating high production videos for millions of dollars.

When I found this out I was pretty shocked due to how low-production his vlogs are.

(They’re often just him and his vlog camera.)

But this just shows Casey’s understanding of what his audience wants to see.

They don’t want:

• Big cameras

• Crazy sets

• High-production

They want someone they can relate to and someone who seems kinda normal.

And Casey plays that part perfectly.

He takes a decade of videography experience and applies it in a way that crafts him as an amateur.

Because that’s what people want to watch - they want something real.

Lesson 4: Find The Viral Moments

Last month Casey posted a 20-second video on his TikTok of a hole in the street.

The result: 42M views + shared across various news outlets.

It was a viral moment.

The video probably took Casey under 1-minute to record, yet it exposed millions of people to his brand.

But this wasn’t just Casey luckily stumbling across a hole in a street in New York.

It was a showcase of just how great Casey is at spotting a “Viral moment”.

He’s done it time and time again over the years:

• Auto-lacing Nike Shoes (10M views)

• WD-40 Cologne (12M views)

• Futuristic Mercedes (5M views)

All of these videos took virtually no time to make, yet the concept was always going to go viral.

It’s an underrated part of Casey’s work that’s allowed him to get so many eyes on himself.

Of course, there is so much more to Casey’s success than just these 3 lessons.

• The way he edits.

• His storytelling ability.

• The face paced nature to his vlogs.

…and so much more.

But truthfully, are you ever going to be as good at creating video content as Casey Neistat? Probably not.

However, you may be able to take something away from these macro lessons.

Or at least that’s the way I see it.

Right, I am dying from jet lag right now and need to get this head of mine on a pillow.

Hope you enjoyed this one.

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

This has been a breakdown of Casey Neistat’s video strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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