The reels that did the work.

Median plays on this account: 7,591. Anything above 15,000 is an outlier. The top 3 alone account for 61% of total views.

#01

"We're 2 teenagers from Australia revolutionising a billion dollar industry"

495.92K

50.7s · 3.66%

#02

"I WAS ON THE NEWS..."

87.60K

30.3s · 3.83%

#03

"Our first update since launch!"

80.76K

32.5s · 1.76%

#04

"Pitching to @blackbirdvc ;)"

36.40K

14.2s · 1.18%

#05

"The last week has been crazy... Update no. 3!"

29.14K

54.7s · 2.30%

#06

"What a coincidence @patrickskinner.tech @alphaschool"

23.15K

36.4s · 1.48%

#07

"Tools to use when building your startup (and their costs)!"

19.93K

48.0s · 1.84%

#08

"When I was 12 I watched the social network for the first time..."

19.00K

53.5s · 3.12%

#09

"Progress update ;)"

14.91K

47.2s · 1.52%

#10

"Bit of a longer vid"

14.09K

72.5s · 2.90%

What the top 10 have in common.

The math behind the reach.

• 01
  Polarised distribution. Content either goes viral or falls below half the median. Very little sits in between, which is the signature of a swing-big strategy.
• 02
  Identity hooks dominate. Any format combined with identity (age, Australia, startup) outperforms. Identity IS the distribution engine.
• 03
  Talking head > everything else. 6 of 10 top reels. Avg 113,647 plays. Direct-to-camera trumps screen share and vlog every time.
• 04
  Transparency compounds trust. Real numbers — 500 DAU, 4 paying customers, 1,000 signups — build audience investment faster than polished narratives.
• 05
  Short captions work if the hook carries. "Bit of a longer vid" and "Progress update ;)" are vague — they work only because the identity is already hooked. New brands need captions that do more lifting.

How to apply this.

• 01
  Find your identity gap. What is the unexpected contrast between who you are and what you do? Lead with that contrast in hooks. "I left a corporate career to build a content tool" is weaker than "I walked away from [specific thing] to bet everything on [specific result]."
• 02
  Open with the person, not the product. "I just hit my first 4 paying customers one week after launch" is more hookable than "Our product just got 4 paying customers." Hooks about the person outperform hooks about the product every time on this account.
• 03
  Start a numbered series. Pick any ongoing project and number your updates. The numbering itself creates FOMO — if someone sees "Update no. 5" they want to see 1-4. Keep each update under 55 seconds. Always lead with one concrete metric.
• 04
  Script to 30-55 seconds. Long enough for a hook, a story beat, and a payoff. Short enough to survive the retention drop. If you need longer for demos or walkthroughs, make sure the first 5 seconds have enough hook strength to carry.
• 05
  End with a forward-looking statement, not a plea. Instead of "follow for more," try "We're aiming for 2,000 signups by the end of the month — I'll let you know how it goes." The viewer follows to find out what happens, not because you asked.
• 06
  Keep 70/20/10. 70% journey and milestone content. 20% practical value (tool stacks, tips). 10% trending topics — but only when you have a genuine personal angle. For a build-in-public brand, the journey IS the content.
• 07
  Define your 3-element stack. Alby's is Age + Australia + AI. Yours might be [specific background] + [specific market] + [specific product vision]. The stack should be something nobody else can claim in one sentence.

Patterns are just the start.

Knowing what to post is one problem. Actually producing it across multiple brands, multiple team members, and multiple deadlines is a completely different one.

The identity gap hook, the serial updates, the 70/20/10 mix. All of it falls apart without somewhere to organise the briefs, track the pipeline, and keep your team shipping consistently.

That's what we built Clipflow for. One place for your content calendar, production pipeline, team assignments, and review workflow. Purpose-built for teams that create at scale.

To learn more from Alby's content, follow them here →