There’s a whole industry built around telling you how to go viral. I’m here to tell you it’s a scam. Okay relax, just kidding — or am I really? Maybe they don’t want to rip you off your hard-earned money. Maybe they just don’t know how to tell you the truth. So I will.
There’s only one way to gain attention on the internet and keep it. Being shameless. Yes, I said it. The internet favours the bold.
Think about it. If someone sees your video every time they pick up their phone to scroll, you eventually become part of their routine. Then they like. Then they comment. Then they follow. That one interaction gives the algorithm a little boost. Now ten people are seeing you every morning. Then 24. Then 50. Then — you get the point. The algorithm doesn’t reward quality first. It rewards signals. And the easiest signal to give it is volume.
Case in point: Peller
Before the millions, before the expensive lifestyle and the streaming deals, Peller was just “that Peller guy on TikTok.” He came on every single day and talked. People had things to say about his speech, his intelligence, all of it. Nigerian Twitter had opinions. The comment sections had opinions. He kept talking anyway.
Today he’s one of Nigeria’s most recognisable streamers, earning and spending in ways most people with “content strategies” can only screenshot and save. Nobody handed him a brand playbook. He just refused to stop showing up until the internet had no choice but to pay attention.
Case in point: Justada
At a point, you couldn’t scroll TikTok for 30 minutes without running into at least two of her videos. She prioritised quantity and she didn’t apologise for it.
She recently posted one piece of content 12 times — same video, different sounds, different edits. Ten of those posts got an average of 35k views each. Two of them hit 370k and 700k, still growing, all within 24 hours. There’s no official content strategy in the world that tells you to post 12 times in a day. It sounds strange. It sounds like too much. But what it actually sounds like is someone who understood that internet familiarity is built through repetition, not perfection. She wasn’t waiting to go viral. She was engineering the conditions for it through sheer volume.
Case in point: Salem King
I can’t finish this without mentioning Salem, and the fact that the name just rang a bell in your head is exactly why he belongs here. Last year, Salem did 101 days of Creator 101. Every single day, one post, no days off. He showed up, engaged with his audience, and treated consistency like a job even when the numbers weren’t there yet. He built a cult following by simply refusing to disappear.
I actually met him at an event last year. I told him I wanted to create but I was shy. He looked at me and said “I’m shy too, what’s your excuse?” I haven’t forgotten it since. Because it’s the most honest thing anyone has said about building online. Shyness is real. So is the choice to post anyway.
What this means for you
There’s no genuine formula. No content calendar is going to do what consistency does. No brand audit is going to replace the compounding effect of showing up before anyone is watching.
Most content strategy advice is written for people who already have an audience. It’s maintenance advice sold as growth advice. And if you’re still building from zero, buying into it is like buying a gym membership to celebrate weight you haven’t lost yet. The tools are real, but the timing is wrong. You don’t need a strategy. You need a streak.
The African creator economy is proving this every single day. The people winning attention online in Nigeria aren’t the ones with the most polished content. They’re the ones who posted when nobody was watching, replied when nobody was asking, and showed up again the next day anyway.
The real strategy is embarrassingly simple. Post. Again. Then again. Be shameless about it. Build internet familiarity before you build a following, because the following comes after.
The boldest thing you can do online is refuse to quit before it works.
