How To Crush At Short Form Video for OFM
Watch the video version of this essay on YouTube here.
The reason you’re not making millions of dollars in OFMa isn’t because you aren’t working hard enough. It’s because you’re working hard on the wrong things.
Organic social is WITHOUT A DOUBT THE best way to scale revenue for OnlyFans models, and every second you spend learning low leverage bullshit like SnapChat to dating app funnels is a waste of time. Mega-stars like Camilla Araujo and Sophie Rain are pulling down MILLIONS of dollars a month on OF alone PURELY through organic social, and that’s not even considering the other ways they monetize.
But “organic social” is very broad concept. There are tons of posting formats [popup showing a tweet, a TikTok, a YouTube thumbnail, and a Carousel], dozens of major platforms [popup with the Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch logos], and hundreds of micro-skills you need to learn to be successful.
Social media is the most powerful advertising medium in human history, and it can be overwhelming if you’re starting from zero. But the rewards are well worth the effort. In this series, I’m breaking down everything I know about organic social for OFM into bite-sized chunks that you can use to start building 6 figure per month models.
Today we’re talking about the most important format you NEED to understand for maximum growth- short form video.
If you’re wondering who I am and why you should listen to what I have to say, my name is Francis, the founder of Milki Media- an OnlyFans management agency and consultancy that has produced millions in revenue (screenshot of OF revenue), millions of followers (screenshot of accounts) and over a billion aggregate impressions (screenshot of lifetime impressions) for our clients.
Quick heads up before we get into the good stuff- while I spend a ton of resources on editing and this video does have helpful visual elements, I make my content for businesspeople who are constantly on the move, so you aren’t missing too much if you put me in your headphones at the gym or in the car and just listen to this like a podcast.
Video Structure
At this point, I think everyone understands how powerful short-form video is- despite being the newest addition to the content stack, it’s now what most people think of when you say “social media”. TikTok launched in 2016 and took the content ecosystem completely by storm, and once it picked up steam, every major social media platform realized very quickly that if they didn’t come up with their own short-form video format, they were going to get left in the dust.
It’s no surprise that YouTube shorts have over 30 TRILLION views in the last year, and Instagram Reels has around 73 trillion views in the same time frame. Short form content represents 90% of video traffic on major social media platforms, which is exactly why it’s the first thing I’m covering and where an overwhelming majority of your time, effort and resources should be spent.
In this video, I’m breaking down the two most important things you need to get started:
Strategy- how to approach short-form content creation and avoid the most common mistakes other OnlyFans management agencies make
Anatomy- the structure of an individual piece of content, the psychological levers you can pull to be an effective short-form marketer, and what makes content good (or bad)
1a. Strategy
We’ll start with strategy.
I outline fundamental tactics you’ll need to win hard at organic social in the intro to this series- if you haven’t already, be sure to watch that video after this one- I’ll link it onscreen and in the description.
Just in case though, I’m going to quickly recap those here before moving on. This is the basic formula for success with short form content:
1: Hit minimum viable quality (MVQ)- all your content needs to hit a 7/10- I’ll explain what that looks like in Anatomy.
2: Reach optimal platform volume- to start, you need to post at least 1 piece of 7/10 short form content every day
3: Repeat what works- when a piece of content gets a ton of views and engagement, analyze it and milk it dry- put out tons of variations until it stops working
4: Double, triple and quadruple volume- every time you reach the point where you your optimal platform volume at that 7/10 quality threshold, double it. Start with 1 reel a day, then 2, then 3- just keep pushing until you hit your limit, then build the systems you need to increase volume while maintaining quality.
Now that you have tactics, we move on to strategy. Strategy for socials consists of 3 core elements- Planning, Metrics, and Goals. We’re going to start from the end- Goals- and work our way backwards.
1a. Goals
Strategy should always start with our desired outcome- because you can’t make a plan if you don’t have a goal. Lucky for us, our desired outcome is super obvious- revenue growth. We’re doing this to maximize the amount of money that the model makes on OF, so with every step we take, we should ask; is this going to grow revenue, and if so, how and on what timeline?
Timeline is the only tricky part of the Goal equation. In most cases, you get feedback on whether something on socials works or not VERY quickly. If a piece of content is going to go viral, it normally happens within 1 to 7 days after posting.
Since we have the simple Goal of revenue growth guiding our decisions, next we have to figure out what elements of our strategy contribute to that goal and how to track progress over time.
1b. Metrics
We’ll call this Metrics. You don’t just post Reels and start printing money right away- there are steps in between, and if you don’t track them, you’re just throwing darts blindfolded and hoping you hit bullseye.
There are three basic metrics for short form content that you’ll want to track, and each one contributes to our Goal in a different way.
The first metric is Reach- the number of people who see a given piece of content, typically measured by unique impressions. Reach is the most obvious metric, but contrary to popular belief, it’s actually not the most important. Don’t get me wrong- a big part of your content strategy should absolutely be oriented around reaching as many new eyes as possible- to “go viral”. The more people see your model, the more potential customers you reach long term. But the second metric is arguably more important.
The most effective way to measure Reach at any scale is a metric that Milki calls View to Follower Ratio, or VTFR. The formula we use to measure success on this metric is simple. Simply divide the number of views a piece of content got by the number of followers the model has, and grade them based on this scale. To simplify the math, let’s say your model has 100,000 followers.
Anything under 20,000 - 20% or lower VTFR- is a flop. Figure out why and don’t repeat it unless it’s tactical content designed to reach a very specific, narrow audience, which normally doesn’t apply to OF.
Anything over 30,000 views- 30% VTFR- is a C- a passing grade. In the beginning, this is where most of your content will sit.
Anything over 50,000 views- 50% VTFR- is a B- if you can consistently hit this, you’re doing really well.
Anything with 100k to 300k views- 100%-300% VTFR- is an A minus- once you get good, you’ll probably achieve a handful of these a week, and they will be your primary driver of follower growth.
And last, anything with 1 million or more views- 200%+ VTFR- is an A++- these are your viral hits, the videos that “escape containment” and drive the greatest growth. If you consistently hit one of these per week, you’re going to grow explosively. When you find a post that does this, make tons of variations and iterations of it and milk it until your audience BEGS you to stop posting it.
All of that said, Reach is not your explicit goal- remember, the goal is revenue. Instead, think of reach as a side effect or signal that you’re doing things right. In reality, reach is just a means to the end of Metric 2:
Conversion- Conversion is actually two separate metrics, both equally important. There’s the obvious one- converting your social media audience into paid OnlyFans subscribers- but there’s also the less obvious one- converting non-followers into followers. A majority of people who end up subscribing to your model’s OF are not people who saw a random Reel and decided to dump their wallets into your bank account. The average consumer needs to be exposed to an advertisement between 10 and 20 times before it influences purchasing behavior. Understanding how your audience moves through your sales funnel- in marketing, this is called the “customer journey”- is incredibly important. Social media isn’t a direct “I see, I pay” medium- you need to constantly bombard your audience with your product- in this case, the model- day in and day out in order to achieve the exposure saturation required to convince them to become paying customers.
Conversion from non-follower to follower is easy to track through the platform’s in-app analytics dashboard. Typically, you can see exactly how many followers a given post is responsible for. Conversion from follower to subscriber is less easy to track- OnlyFans tracking links are notoriously buggy and only track a fraction of the actual clicks they get, and you have no individual level customer data. As far as I know, there is only one tool on the market that both accurately tracks conversion AND provides detailed and robust data on your best customers, and that’s Harpoon.
Harpoon is an OnlyFans tool that identifies your model’s most engaged social media followers into whales- paying subscribers who spend tens of thousands of dollars on their OnlyFans pages. If you don’t intuitively understand the value of direct marketing campaigns to whales, check out some of the results we’ve delivered for our customers- in some cases, Harpoon has increased revenue by as much as $50,000 per month for a single model. (add popups of revenue screenshots). To learn more, check out the link in the description or visit ofmharpoon.com to apply. Harpoon has completely de-risked their product for new customers- if you don’t make DOUBLE your subscription price back within your first month, you get a full refund, no questions asked. Back to the video.
The last Metric we will discuss is Engagement- Engagement is best thought of as a proxy measurement for your model’s relevance and how tuned in her core audience is. Right now, there are four engagement metrics- 3 that are visible to everyone- likes, comments and shares- and 1 that is only visible to you- average watch time. They all matter in different ways, so I’m going to break them down from most to least important. Please keep in mind that everything I’m about to say applies to the short form algorithms at the time this video was recorded, and things MIGHT change in the future. I’m going to explain how to leverage each of the engagement metrics in the event that social media algorithms start favoring different metrics than they are today.
The most important by far is the hidden metric, Average Watch Time. This is exactly what it sounds like- a measure of how long the average viewer spent watching a given video. Always keep this in mind- the goal of every social media platform is to keep users on it as long as possible, so they do everything in their power to push content that people WANT to keep watching. We know that modern attention spans are absolutely cooked, which means that the single best thing you can do to level up on socials is master the art of quickly grabbing and holding audience attention. The average initial watch time of Instagram Reels is only 3 seconds. If you can keep an average viewer on your Reel for 10 seconds or more, that Reel is going to reach a wide audience- 75-200% VTFR AND is more likely to convert viewers to followers. At 20 seconds plus? You’re getting millions of views and a massive burst of followers, guaranteed. There are SO many factors that go into average watch time, and I’m going to get into specifics on how to consistently capture and hold audience attention in the Anatomy section- for now, just understand that your first major area of focus should be getting this metric up.
The next most important is shares- how many people sent your content to someone else. This used to be super important and a large determinant of reach, but recent algorithm changes gave average watch time a substantially heavier weight. There are a few ways to game Shares, and they all have to do with Calls to Action, or CTAs. Essentially, you’re either directly or indirectly asking your audience to share the content and hoping they respond to your ask. A direct ask would be something like “Share this with someone who loves goth girls”. An indirect ask might be something like creating a highly relatable or polarizing statement that naturally makes people think of someone specific. For example, posting a reel titled “Every guy has dated this girl at least once” subtly prompts viewers to share it with the friend who actually has dated her. Another indirect approach is leveraging humor or niche references—when someone sees content that perfectly captures an inside joke or a subculture they’re part of, they’re far more likely to send it to the people who “get it.”
After shares is comments. Comments, as far as I can tell, have almost no weight in the reach algorithm. I’ve had posts with a near 1:1 ratio of comments to views on very controversial topics, and posts with a 1:10,000 ratio of comments to views where almost nobody commented but the post got millions of views. However, comments still matter because it’s the best way for your model to engage with fans PUBLICLY, which is a very powerful way to create and reinforce parasocial relationships. Your most dedicated fans will comment on almost every post, and when your model responds, even if it’s low-effort, that fan feels seen, heard and one step closer to spending money. This creates a sort of community around your model- if you look at models like Camilla Araujo, irrespective of the content she posts there are typically about half and half haters and megafans, and they’re all interacting with each other in the comments section, which creates a sense of a living, thriving community around the creator. It’s difficult to measure the impact of community in terms of effort to dollars, but it does seem to have a serious long-term impact on brand quality and fan and customer retention. Not something you need to aggressively prioritize, but worth keeping in mind.
Last is Likes- which barely matter at all anymore. Likes are basically a vanity metric at this point- as with comments, as far as I can tell they do not matter at all for reach and have no tangible relationship with conversion I’ve been able to measure. In the event that Likes do matter in the future, you game them in the same way you do with Shares- with a direct call to action- or just creating content that people find highly agreeable.
Important to note- you don’t have to optimize for all 3 metrics in every single piece of content you put out. For instance, if there’s a super popular trending audio going around, it’s very likely that you’ll get a lot of reach WITHOUT much engagement or conversion. Similarly, some types of content you put out should focus on and directly address your existing fanbase- those videos might not get much reach, but they’ll be great for conversion and engagement since they reinforce the connection your model has with their audience. It’s actually very rare that you’ll release a piece of content that hits all three, and while that’s an admirable goal, it’s also VERY difficult to do consistently.
Oh- and if you're unsure how to find these metrics, don't worry—every major social platform provides an insights or analytics dashboard for individual posts that you can easily check. Additionally, most scheduling tools (which I'll cover in a future video about organic social software) come with built-in analytics dashboards that make tracking these metrics over time straightforward.
That was a ton of information to digest, so before we get into the third part of strategy- Plan- pause the video and drop a comment if you have any questions. Milki has temporarily suspended consulting services to work on a massive film project for one of our clients, but I still want to help out where I can, and if you ask questions in the comments, I WILL answer them- if they’re interesting, I might even make a whole video!
1c. Plan
Before you do anything we just talked about, you need a plan. Organic social is not a one-size fits all solution, and every model has unique strengths, weaknesses and preferences that you need to take into account. The 3 every OnlyFans social plan needs to consider are:
Brand Roadmap & Content Strategy
Platform Choices
Boundaries and Challenges
1c1. Brand Roadmap & Content Strategy
I’m lumping these together because they’re kind of inseparable- you can’t have one without the other. Branding is an incredibly complex topic, and it’s what separates the good from the best. I will make future videos about branding, but for now I’m going to give you a solid base of knowledge that you can build a functional brand for your creators on top of.
The best place to start is with a question: what type of brand do you want to build for your model? While we do have an incredible advantage over every other content vertical on the planet- the fact that men will follow our models for no reason other than their appearance- good looks is still not a brand, and it will NEVER take you all the way to the top.
The answer goes far beyond picking a niche like “big boobs” or “e-girl”—that’s just an appearance-based category, and categories are crowded- not only are you competing with other OF creators, you’re competing with every girl on the internet who’s ever posted a selfie in a bikini. Yes, we’re selling intimacy, but your model’s entire identity cannot just be her looks. Brand is about differentiating your creator- making her a unique, one of one personality instead of just another OF creator. What unique hobbies or interests does she have? How can she entertain the audience beyond just being hot on camera? How can you leverage her personality to appeal to a specific group of people?
A perfect illustration of an OF creator with an expertly crafted and fully realized brand WITHOUT good looks is Isla Moon. In the context of our industry, she’s a 5 on a good day- but despite that, she’s built a multimillion dollar OF business around herself. She’s spent her whole career on camera totally capturing a blue-collar audience that loves the outdoors- specifically fishing, diving and boating- and as a result she has built an incredibly strong positive association with that demographic, who cannot seem to get enough of her.
I go more in depth on OF branding in my video Stop Finding OnlyFans Niches. Start Building OnlyFans Brands- I’ll link it onscreen and in the description.
But to quickly recap that video, most agencies stay stuck competing inside a niche—where creators are interchangeable and easily replaced. The top .01% build brands that create functional monopolies through instant recognizability, which is the distinct audio/visual aesthetic that you use to distinguish your creator from the crowd, strong emotional associations- considering the types of emotions you want people to feel when they view your content, and avatar- understanding your target market and their psychology. When you stop thinking like a marketer chasing trends and start thinking like a monopolist crafting identity, you start to unlock the secret to building million‑dollar creators.
So spend some time thinking about what makes your model different, create a brand roadmap- the aesthetic choices, personality, target audience, and genre or genres of content, and lean into it as hard as you can.
Once you outline your brand, your content strategy will be directly informed by that brand roadmap. The types of content you create will correspond to your creator’s strengths and preferences. Milki primarily specializes in comedy content for our creators, but we have many tools in our kit- ASMR, education, self-help, cooking videos, etc. Every genre of content has its’ own sort of language- different visual and audio cues, pacing, and so on- that take time to really learn and create at scale. I would STRONGLY recommend keeping it simple to start- no more than 2 types of original content- I’m NOT counting trends and thirst traps as genres here- that you rotate through on a regular cadence so you can deeply understand the language and skills associated with them. Milki uses a ratio-based framework shared by the top creators in the business- I think it’s originally Gary V’s, but feel free to use it for yourself.
20% Trend-based content- think of this as other creators doing the work for you. They’ve already proved that this type of content can go viral- you just need to put your own spin on it. Here’s an example of a few variations of a recent viral trend- the Doechii “Anxiety” trend, which many creators copied but made their own.
70% Brand-based content- concepts that we have proven internally reinforces the brand identity we’ve created for the model. This is how you establish your creator as unique and differentiate her from the “OF girlie” identity. A good example of this is the creator nicoleskirts, whose content strategy almost is almost exclusively oriented around doing gymnastics in short skirts. She found something people like to watch- a cute, petite girl doing backflips in revealing clothes- and she absolutely dominates that niche, because SHE CREATED IT.
10% Experimental content. You have no idea if this content will work or not, but it’s good to consistently try new things- think of it as creative research and development. This is both how you discover new winning content verticals for your creator and how you refine your instincts as a creative- over time, as you understand the principles, your experiments will get better and better, and every now and then you’ll get rewarded with something totally original- or the best case scenario, CREATING a trend.
So if you’re making 10 posts a week, 7 should be on-brand content, 2 should be fresh takes on super hot trends, and 1 should be something totally experimental that might get you new audience exposure- or might get no exposure at all.
1c2. Platform Choices
Now we have platform choices. For short form, this is pretty simple, since you only have three main platforms to choose from: Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. While there are other platforms that allow short form content, those are the three that are designed to support it.
Despite all serving the same length of content, all three platforms have VERY different algorithms that favor VERY different types of content. When you’re getting started, the best approach is to OPTIMIZE content for one platform and post it on the others, as opposed to spreading yourself thin trying to optimize for all three. Milki prioritizes Instagram Reels- I’ll explain why in a moment- and then cross-posts content we make for Reels to other platforms. Over time, as you understand each platform better, you can come up with a unique strategy for each, but starting there is a recipe for failing at all three.
There are tons of nuances to each platform- way too many to really go into detail without derailing this video, but the MOST basic rundown is as follows:
TikTok seems to prioritize low-quality, low-effort content- “brainrot”, as the kids are calling it. This generally looks like thirst trap dances, trending audio, etc.
Instagram Reels seems to prioritize slightly higher effort content with more “personality”, a cohesive narrative structure and a consistent brand identity- you’ll still get traction on thirst traps and trending audio, but you can’t build a page entirely around them anymore.
YouTube Shorts is just… weird. They seem to really like pushing deep fried sigma grindset movie clip edits and bits from podcasts, as opposed to quality original content. This channel’s Shorts outperform our long form videos by a factor of 10 on average views, even though they’re just shitty AI-generated clips that I put zero effort into. While Shorts is incredibly powerful for other applications, in my opinion Shorts as it exists today is not worth creating original content for for OnlyFans creators at all.
In my experience and, again, with the caveat that the social media landscape is constantly shifting and this might change in the future, Instagram Reels is where a majority of your focus should be spent. There are a few reasons for this.
Instagram Reels has the largest userbase, none of the legal uncertainty of TikTok, which was dangerously close to getting banned in the US this year, and unlike TikTok you can link directly to your model’s OF from her page bio. It’s impossible to understate the value here- even if you have a huge TikTok, that one additional click to your model’s IG that stands between the fan and the OF link is a colossal drop off in conversions. If you’re using TikTok to push IG… why not just focus on the platform you’re driving traffic to?
TikTok also has much more aggressive rules enforcement than IG, especially for certain types of creators. I’ve found that both young-looking models and models with large breasts are exceptionally prone to bans, suspensions, and content violations even if they’re not posting any explicitly sexual content, and unlike Instagram, which has a robust, if annoying appeals process, if you get an account banned on TikTok you’re simply not getting it back.
That’s not to say TikTok has no value. If your model already has a huge TikTok following and you’re doing well there, keep it up- but spend most of your time understanding the nuances of IG, because based on the best available data and the resources they have access to, Meta is going to continue to eat up more and more market share, and long term that’s where I would place my bets.
Milki’s approach is pretty simple, and what I would recommend to everyone watching: we make content optimized for the Instagram algorithm, then cross-post it to every other platform using a social media scheduler. That way, even though we aren’t creating content specifically FOR TikTok or YT shorts, we still get exposure and growth on those platforms for no additional effort. As your team grows, you can hire specialists for each platform and create content optimized for each- but honestly, for the time being, you can get so much juice out of Instagram Reels that your time is probably best spent there instead of testing on other platforms.
1c3. Boundaries & Challenges
If content creation is a game, boundaries are the rules you have to play by. The factors you should always keep in mind when planning out content are:
Time
User Attention Span
Lack of Continuity
1c3a. Time
The first and most obvious limitation is time, and it’s where most of the challenges of short form content
While the maximum length of short form content has been slowly creeping up on most platforms, data indicates that content between 20 and 45 seconds long performs best by far.
This means that short-form content must be ruthlessly efficient- you cannot waste a second of space. Think of it like fast food.
McDonald’s didn’t become the biggest restaurant chain in the world because it’s an extravagant dining experience—it’s because they serve obscenely addictive food in 30 seconds flat, that you can eat while driving 90 mph through a school zone.
Short-form works the same way. People aren’t on Reels or TikTok looking for a slow-burn story or a nuanced, layered experience—they’re in dopamine drive-thru mode. They want the quickest hit of entertainment, curiosity, or emotion they can get. The moment you make them wait or think too hard- kind of like when you get to Taco Bell and there’s a line around the block- they scroll to the next drive thru in the hopes for another quick hit, and you lose a customer.
For content creators with high information-density- for instance, content like this- this is terrible news. Short form media is not where MY target audience are. Just imagine if I had to cram all the information in this video into a 60-second reel- it would be impossible.
However, for OnlyFans promotion, this is amazing news. Our target audience- gooners- are impulsive spenders with giga-friend dopaminergic reward pathways, which makes them incredibly susceptible to this type of content. You don’t have to serve an elaborate 8-course meal- your customers’ favorite food is garbage, served fast and hot.
1c3b. Attention Span
This brings us to the second constraint: attention spans. Our target audience have goldfish attention spans. This means you have to learn and deploy lots of tricks in order to capture them and hold them. A majority of the Anatomy section will be about how to exploit the psychology of the viewer to do precisely that, but here are some basic rules of the road.
Remember what I said back in Average Watch Time? [replay this section from Average watch time as a callback: “The average initial watch time of Instagram Reels is only 3 seconds.” ]
That’s AVERAGE watch time- that means that over half of all Reels don’t even GET 3 seconds. The framework that Milki uses- I definitely stole this from someone, but I honestly don’t remember who or I would credit them- is as follows.
You have 1 second to convince someone to watch your content for 3 seconds. 3 seconds to convince them to watch for 5 seconds. 5 seconds to convince them to watch for 10 seconds, and 10 seconds to get them to watch for 15 seconds- so on and so forth. Attention is so ludicrously valuable that every second past 10 seconds average watch time can represent hundreds of thousands- even millions of additional views, which in turn can represent hundreds of new subscribers.
Fundamentally, content creation is constantly selling the viewer on the idea that they should just keep watching. You are fighting tooth and nail for attention, which eventually turns into dollars.
1c3c. Lack of Continuity
This is the most abstract and unintuitive concept, and honestly the one that I had the hardest time wrapping my head around when I got started with short-form content creation. It has to do with how short-form platforms serve content, and how users consume it.
On YouTube, you have time to introduce yourself in every video. You can say your name, establish some credibility, and talk about what you’re going to talk about, because on YouTube people are open to that kind of content experience, especially for B2B content like this. You still need good packaging, and you still have to get into the meat of the video and provide value quickly, but it’s more like 30 seconds to hook the viewer instead of 1 or 2.
You don’t have that luxury with short form, because if every Reel starts with “Hi, my name is X and I do Y”, you’re going to lose people immediately- why should they care who you are? You didn’t entertain them within the first second of the video, so now they’re scrolling to watch racist memes and car crashes.
You also can’t rely on viewers having prior knowledge of your model. On my largest model’s account, 90% of our views come from non-followers- meaning that in many cases, they have never seen her before and know nothing about her. Forget episodic content, forget intros- each and every piece must stand alone and still communicate your creator’s entire brand essence.
The easiest way to work within this constraint is to get dialed in on identity.
You should establish a consistent visual style, tone, and value (humor, sensuality, luxury, etc.) so even a single video communicates the bigger brand- this goes back to that idea of Instant Recognizability. Lean heavily on visual motifs (colors, locations, outfits), catchphrases, trending audio or personality traits that become instantly recognizable. Repeat those core brand cues until you and the model are sick of them, then keep going. You might think that your audience gets tired of seeing the same things or concepts over and over, but the reality is most of your viewers haven’t even seen your model once! Remember- if you’re playing the game correctly, about 90% of your viewers are going to be first-time exposures.
A perfect example of this is an IG creator named Syd Wingold https://www.instagram.com/sydwingold/?hl=en. She remakes the same Reel almost every single day with very slight variations- different music or outfits, but in every other way identical, and she gets 10-50 million net new impressions every week and is one of the fastest-growing non-OF accounts I’ve ever seen. None of her reels require any prior knowledge to understand- they’re just funny, quirky, immediately comprehensible to a wide audience without any prior knowledge.
That is NOT to say you cannot incorporate narrative. Narratives and stories are still important, but they have to be self-contained in a single piece of content AND something a mouthbreather can understand and connect with immediately- Camilla Araujo does a great job of this with her podcast clips, which have a distinctly reality TV-style vibe.
One last honorable mention for constraints- which inevitably as OFMs we are going to run into- is platform ToS. Do your best not to build a brand based entirely around sex and sex appeal. You want to offer some nominal value to the people consuming your model’s content- that value could be pure entertainment, it could be a feeling of connectedness, it could be controversy or rage bait- these are all things you should consider over, or at least in addition to, twerking and text over b-roll.
2a. Anatomy Intro
Congratulations, you now know all the basics to craft a winning strategy for short-form content. Always keep in mind these three things:
Your goal- to make as much money as possible- every decision you make is guided by this.
Your metrics- how to monitor progress towards your goal to make the appropriate adjustments
Your plan- your creator’s brand and the visual style, content, platforms, and limitations of the platforms you’re going to use to execute on that brand.
Now, we can talk about the process of creating the content. In this section, I’m going to explain the anatomy of short form content in other words, what each piece of content should contain to increase the chances that it succeeds.
Because short form content is so compact, most OnlyFans creators think of each piece of content like one solid chunk of material, one… contiguous thing. In order to become effective at organic social media marketing, you have to recognize that there are actually distinct building blocks every piece of content is composed of- even if the creator doesn’t realize they’re using them.
I wrote and rewrote this entire section 4 times because something kept feeling off. The reality of content is that the landscape is so broad that it’s impossible to outline a universal formula for success. The structure of educational content is fundamentally different than the structure of thirst traps, which is different than the structure of comedy content, and so on- so I kept having to add a bunch of notes and caveats to each section and it was messy and confusing, so I simplified it quite a bit.
On a spectrum between pure entertainment and pure education, the 5-stage framework I’m about to give you is slanted far towards entertainment, because that’s what 99% of OFMs will want to specialize in for best results. Note that this is just a framework. I’m not trying to say there is only one correct way to do things.
Lots of content gurus will claim to have a “viral blueprint”, but the truth is that over time, creators who understand these individual components and can improvise and manipulate them to create innovative content- rather than just blindly adhering to a blueprint someone else created- are the ones who are rewarded most heavily over time.
THE HOOK (for bolded parts, insert the clips in the folder Sample Hooks for Insert)
We’ll start at the top, with by far the most important component: the Hook. A friendly reminder, you only have a second or two to stop someone from scrolling and convince them your content is worth their time. A good hook is designed to do exactly that.
The best hooks typically do one of four things- I’ve created examples of each:
Open “curiosity loops”- essentially, creating tension by giving the viewer a sense that you’re sharing something they don’t know ("This is the BIGGEST secret NOBODY knows about shitting your pants...")
Make bold claims that surprise the viewer ("This completely changed how I shit my pants...")
Start with conflict or tension (”My wife took the kids because I keep shitting my pants”)
Use something visually shocking or unusual that immediately catches the viewer’s attention- this is called a pattern interrupt - (me punching the camera and stating that I shit my pants)
If you fail to create good hooks, the rest of your content simply does not matter. Learning and mastering hooks is where 80% of your effort should be spent in the beginning, followed by-
THE PREMISE
Right after the hook, immediately establish the premise - what value are you delivering? This is where you set expectations. Are you telling a joke? Selling a product? Telling a story? You got their attention, now what are you doing with it?
Sometimes, the hook will actually contain the premise- here’s an example of that. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMLLGUesKDx/
Whatever it is, the premise needs to be crystal clear and delivered fast- typically, simply adding text to the video the easiest way to accomplish this. This is what keeps the viewer engaged in that 3-5 second range- you hooked them, now you have to keep them on the hook and start reeling them in. You’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs with the promise of something delicious at the end. If my hook is- "This is the BIGGEST secret NOBODY knows about shitting your pants...", my premise might be something like- “This HARVARD study shows that shitting your pants somehow makes you live longer- here’s why.”- here, I establish the premise- that shitting your pants makes you live longer- then invite additional curiosity by offering an explanation of HOW shitting your pants makes you live longer.
THE PAYLOAD
Now we hit the meat - your actual content. This is where you deliver on the premise.
As with everything else about short form, you need to deliver value FAST. No fluff, no filler, pure concentrated entertainment. Note that despite being an educational content creator myself, it’s very, VERY rare that you’ll have a model who people are genuinely coming to for expert knowledge. The reality is that due to the constraints of the platform we talked about earlier, most of your audience are not consuming short-form content for educational purposes, so your time is best spent learning how to entertain.
Note- not all videos have “meat”- simple videos with an obvious, linear premise, like trending audios- will sometimes skip this step altogether, opting to cut down to just 3 parts- a hook with an embedded premise along with the next step,
THE PAYOFF
Every great short has a satisfying conclusion - the payoff. This is where you deliver on your promise from the beginning. The transformation is complete, the story is resolved, you say the punchline, etc.
Make it memorable. Use a callback to your hook. Reveal the unexpected twist. Give them that "aha" moment that makes them want to watch again or share with friends- create as strong of an emotional response as you can, even if it’s negative, because they’ll REMEMBER it.
Here’s the payoff for the Reel I used as an example of premise- https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMLLGUesKDx/
The payoff was, in this case, getting to see the soles of the blond girl’s feet. In many cases, you will be providing a similar sort of payoff. If you had a hook that opened a curiosity loop, this is where you’ll close it or create a cliffhanger that entices the viewer to follow.
Typically for short form, that’s it, but if a piece of content DOESN’T end here, that’s because it has a
CALL TO ACTION
Call to action, or CTA, is a request the creator is making of the viewer. This is typically an ask to comment, share, follow, etc. People are MUCH more likely to comply with your CTA if you present it in a unique, fun, or creative way. Don’t use the basic “follow me for more X” formula- get inventive.
Give them a reason to perform the CTA that benefits THEM, not you.
The best CTAs promise direct engagement with the model, create FOMO or promise specific value. Your CTA should ALWAYS have a specific goal in mind. If you want people to fight in the comments, make a controversial video and ask for viewer opinions in the comments. If you want people to share, say “share this or you’re gay” or somesuch.
If you do use a CTA, get inventive, and make it memorable and fun.
A CTA can be embedded in a joke- here’s an example. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLGIcwgsq5o/
Note that the CTA is implied- “for 2.99, you can see my pussy” is not-so-subtly informing the viewer that she has an OF and informing them of the price. It’s not an explicit ask, but it’s still a call to action encouraging the viewer to sub.
For this video, my call to action is that if you pause this right now and subscribe to my channel, I will call you daddy, pull down my pants and fully spread my b-hole on camera. Thank you daddy, you’re so good to me. Here’s what you wanted…
Wow, can’t believe you actually thought I was going to do that. You’re a sick fuck, you know that? Thanks for the sub though I guess.
Anyway, those those are the structural components of short form content. There are also binding components that you thread into the structural components to reinforce them and hold onto attention. If Hook, Premise, Payoff and Conclusion/CTA are the bricks of content, the binding components are the mortar that holds them together. Many of these binding components are intangible, and most of them are more intuitive than formulaic. The only one I’ll talk about for now is
THE PACE
Pacing is the invisible force that keeps people watching. It's not just about speed - it's about rhythm.
Leave very few gaps where there’s no speaking or audio. Mix up your shots. Change angles every 2-3 seconds. Use pattern interrupts - sudden zooms, unexpected transitions, audio stings. Watch any viral short with the sound off and you'll see constant visual change.
But pacing isn't just visual - it's emotional too. Build tension, create releases. Set up problems, deliver solutions. It's a rollercoaster, not a flat road.
If you’re a fan of comedy, you intuitively understand the importance of timing. Content is the same way- over time, you will develop a sense of rhythm and an understanding of when something feels just a bit off.
Always always always remember- your primary goal with every piece of content is just to keep people watching, one second at a time. Every second of incremental average watch time you get is another bump in views. If you can keep people around for 15-20 seconds on short-form platforms CONSISTENTLY, you are a GOD-tier content creator that is going to get millions of views and followers.
This requires skill and volume- remember, the idea is to put out as many pieces of content as you possibly can at that 7/10 quality threshold. The last thing I’ll leave you with is a quick checklist on what 7/10 actually means.
Before posting a piece of content, ask yourself these 5 questions. If the answer to any of these is “no”, figure out where you went wrong and try again.
Is the hook solid- would a new viewer stop scrolling in the first second?
Does the video communicate the model’s vibe, brand and aesthetics without prior knowledge?
Can someone watch for 10+ seconds without getting bored or confused?
Is there at least one moment that makes someone feel a small jolt to trigger that dopamine a laugh, surprise, curiosity, arousal?
Is the content visually appealing, with clear audio and intentional editing?
If the answer is “yes” to all five, you’ve hit minimum viable quality. And if you’re hitting all five consistently, you’re guaranteed to have content that goes viral.
