Viral Short Form Ideas

Image: Stop guessing what to post. Steal from the videos that blew up.

Viral short-form ideas

Help the user generate short-form video ideas at volume and run an ideation system instead of waiting for inspiration. This skill encodes the named frameworks and mining patterns prolific creators use to produce hundreds of ideas without burning out or repeating themselves. It doesn't predict which idea wins. It makes sure there are enough strong candidates that win-rate matters.

For hook writing itself, see viral-hooks. For platform algorithm mechanics, see viral-tiktok-content, viral-youtube-shorts, and viral-instagram-reels. For captions, CTAs, and on-screen text, see viral-captions-and-ctas. For script structure and retention, see the viral-short-form umbrella.

Operating principles (read these first, apply throughout)

1. Ideation is a system, not a mood. Creators who post flat output every week run a process with inputs and outputs. Inspiration-based creators post in bursts and then go silent. Treat brainstorming as a scheduled production stage.
2. Constraints generate ideas; blank pages don't. Unconstrained "think of a video" almost always produces nothing or something generic. Every framework below adds a constraint (a pillar, a format, an audience, a problem) and lets the constraint do the thinking.
3. Topic vs angle. A topic is what you're covering. An angle is how. One topic has hundreds of angles. The blank-page problem is almost always a missing-angle problem, not a missing-topic problem.
4. Test cheap, then scale the winners. A tweet or single-line post is the cheapest test of an idea. A polished 30-second short is roughly 10x more expensive. Ideas should earn their way up the production cost ladder.
5. Capture and creation are different modes. Fast capture (voice memo, notes app) collects raw material through the week. Deeper sessions turn captures into scripted ideas. Mixing the two kills both.
6. A captured idea is not a made video. A content backlog that never ships is the most common failure of any capture system. Every idea needs a status and a deletion rule, or the pipeline clogs.
7. Pattern-matching, not prediction. Frameworks tend to lift volume and consistency. They don't guarantee any individual video performs.

Workflow

Adapt to the ask. Don't interrogate the user. If they want 20 ideas now, skip to step 4 and infer the rest.

1. Clarify the brief (ask only for what's missing): niche, audience, platform, format constraints, and whether this is a one-shot brainstorm or the start of an ongoing system.
2. Establish or sanity-check pillars. If the user has none, draft 3 to
   5. If they have more than 5, suggest collapsing. Pillars are the first constraint everything else depends on -> references/pillars.md.
3. Pick the ideation engine. Matrix-style fan-out for volume, repurposing for one strong idea into many angles, mining for research-driven fresh material -> references/frameworks.md.
4. Generate. Run the chosen engine end to end. Produce labeled output grouped by pillar, format, or angle so the user can scan and pick.
5. Filter and rank. Run candidates through a fast evaluation pass (audience fit, can you conceive the hook, gut excitement) -> references/idea-evaluation.md.
6. Hand off and schedule. Slot winners into a cadence. Move the rest to a swipe file with an expiry date. Suggest a re-angling plan for the top performers once they post.

Modes (route by what the user asked)

• "I'm stuck, give me 20 ideas" -> infer pillars from their last few posts or a quick description, then run the content matrix engine. Return labeled, grouped output. Don't ask for a brief first.
• "Build me a content system / pillars" -> steps 1 and 2 deep, plus assets/pillar-worksheet.md. Recommend a weekly cadence per pillar.
• "Turn this one idea into 5 angles" -> repurposing mode. Run the one-topic-many-angles pass (consumption, response, curation, instructional, narrative) -> references/repurposing.md.
• "What should I post this week" -> light brief + step 4 capped at 5 to 7, mixing one trend candidate against four evergreen, balanced across pillars.
• "Find ideas from my audience / competitors" -> mining mode. Walk the user through comment mining, Reddit, autocomplete, and competitor outliers -> references/mining.md.
• "Critique my idea list" -> evaluation mode. Score each against references/idea-evaluation.md and rewrite the weakest as stronger angles instead of just deleting them.

Example

User: "I make videos about home espresso. I'm completely out of ideas. Give me 20 to work with."

Good response: infer three pillars from the niche (gear, technique, buying decisions), then run a small matrix: 3 pillars x 7 styles (actionable how-to, contrarian take, cost confession, before/after, tier list, beginner-mistake call-out, behind-the-scenes) and return ~20 ideas grouped by pillar, each specific enough to film:

• Gear / contrarian: "Your $800 grinder is why your espresso tastes flat."
• Technique / actionable: "The 3-second tamp check that fixed my channeling."
• Buying / cost confession: "I spent $2,400 on espresso gear so you can skip to the $180 setup that matters."

Then flag the two highest-leverage picks (specificity + clear hook potential), suggest filming the top one as a single talking-head test before committing to a full script, and offer to run it through repurposing mode for 5 angle variants. Never hand back an undifferentiated list of 20 vague ideas. Group, label, rank.