 What's up everybody once again it's Brandon Shawn and I'm back with another video and I got a special guest today you guys I have Nate also known as Lucid Dancer and yes he is a dancer dudes been killing it on tiktok I want you guys to check out this story not only because of what he does and his tiktok success also we're going to talk about one of his stories from complex con that's super dope that's going to be worth y'all hearing just from a networking standpoint so even if you know if you aren't a dancer for one you might want to reach out to him might go ahead and plug right we'll make sure y'all you might want to video the post the video because he's popping on tiktok but also he's going to have a lot of great tips for you guys influencer artist networking so much this thing is at your impact let's get into it I appreciate you being here Nate what's good how you doing I'm great man thank you for having me I appreciate you reaching out to him for sure man for sure give a little bit background how long have you been on tiktok let's start with tiktok and then we'll flip into some of the other stuff yeah I have tiktok since august so it's just been about four to five months okay yeah and now you're right about at 100k you're close to that you got a video that took off for five million views what do you feel like was your success on tiktok no actually were you popping on other platforms before tiktok no and not like this tiktok uh became my biggest platform in five months in comparison to instagram youtube facebook twitter where my biggest platform at the time was ig like 1200 followers so tiktok is what started blowing me up and then it kind of traveled around the internet got you got you traveled around the internet yeah what do you mean by that uh it blew up on tiktok um overnight and then made it onto the four u page uh started to get million after million on tiktok and then i posted it on youtube actually the same day i posted it on tiktok but it took about two weeks for it to catch on and then it got two million in a week then in the same day someone posted it on twitter and then it got posted on funny hood vids on ig and both accumulated like two million each and then yeah so hold up the twitter got two million the ig got two million you were already passing two million ultimately we know you had the five million on tiktok and then how did the youtube video do i posted that on my own channel and it got two million uh in a week on your own channel your own youtube channel my own 55 subscribe subscriber channel yeah i think people were looking for it and then saw that it was not only on tiktok but on youtube because i didn't want just i didn't want it to be limited to be seen on tiktok so i put it everywhere yeah yeah okay yeah man look you already are speaking to what i've told people again and again and again about tiktok it's a different beast man yeah it's trans transferability is different like you don't have people locked in they will go and stuff for whatever reason you can get into those nuts and bolts on another time but people really do travel from just being on tiktok your music your videos all that stuff so i'm before i even get some of the details with you and some of the things tips and tricks that you kind of went through and experienced what did that feel like bruh uh when i was dancing with them the video that got viral um i wasn't expecting it to go viral i was just enjoying myself dancing with who the java walkies the java walkies yeah two of the java walkies are complex and uh the quick quick the quick story is that i got a picture with them originally and that's all i wanted was just to have a picture just to be like java walkies and then i shot my shot with them i was like can we do a video real quick and they were down and then it was just a minute long and that was pretty much the end of it posted on facebook ig and that's where i thought it would stop and then i was like let's put this on tiktok to see what happens and tiktok is a thing that made everything else happen and i only had 80 followers on tiktok yeah of course not surprised so let's let's walk back because i do want people to get the value of um the java walkies how you approach them and just complex con in general because so many people ask me do i think complex con is worth it and i say when people ask me do i think a3c is worth it do i think so many events are worth it and i'll say the primary thing with most of these types of events are the ability to network the ability to be certain people and hopefully leverage that into something so walk through kind of how that encounter happened and then we can get back to tiktok um anyone who's been to complex con understands that there are celebrities and content creators all over the place from king vader to loku j chance a rapper to shon heavens and um like i said i use it as a place to network and there's a lot of areas and opportunities are for nests for nests at complex con you can kind of sneak back to you know back stages and back rooms and uh sometimes say someone has a VIP bracelet but they don't want to go to complex con the next day you can take it from them if they didn't put the wristband on too tight and there's just these little cheat codes throughout complex con like even sparking up a quick little conversation with someone who's working there and if the relationship goes well they might be you know nice enough to let you back somewhere so because of the nature of this this event um it would kind it just kind of happened upon itself that i saw the japa walkies and i just took the opportunity to shoot my shot and to ask them if they would be down to shoot a video but i'm networking and talking to everyone else uh king vader the bentis these are guys that are huge on tiktok hit key to the great he's huge in the dance community and i'm just talking to them asking for advice looking for contact to you know uh collaborate with these people okay got you so he's approaching them like yo i dance too i appreciate what you're doing yeah let's talk like that kind of thing yeah have a quick video ready to just you know 15 30 second video sometimes a little quick highlight reel to show different things in a very short amount of time that's okay so they can see that you and you aren't a wack dancer yeah um and then even just dancing whenever there's music around uh people always got the phones on looking for a moment to put on the internet so that's exactly what ended up happening so that the goal was met got you it's interesting so you basically your promo is one you already have a snippet to show people if you meet specific people and then also doing it or live in real time for other people to capture and for for all they know you could be somebody that they just don't know the name of but you're good at what you do oh oh shit who's this yeah yeah okay i like that strategy i like that strategy so with the jab walkies you said you came up you asked for a picture and then and i'm a reset it just they walked away right after the picture though yeah that was almost it i and i almost didn't make a tiktok guys think i was corny for kids but my boy was like just make it stop being stubborn i have an issue where like i can be stubborn and i used to not be too open to ideas outside of what i like to do what is why i reached out to you because this is the type of stuff you say on your channel all the time yeah yeah i appreciate that man a lot of people are like that but especially creators yeah they get set in their own ways of different and ways of thinking kind of make who you are yeah but cool so you got at your own weight and next thing you know you blew up yeah and the rare thing is i don't i didn't expect to blow up off of something that wasn't following any trends that's not a challenge that wasn't a dance challenge although that is the plan to reach out to kita let's wins and be like fiction and say this is what got me viral with the jab walkies i want to do like a handshake dance challenge at this point you know what i mean okay handshake dance challenge what do you mean by that uh so in the video i walk up to and we shake hands and uh it's the three of us and we're passing kind of like dance moves back and forth while holding each other's hands and uh i would in theory walk up to let twins or fiction and just go for a handshake then it turns into a dance so it's like oh every time this guy meets a famous dancer they he shakes their hand and then like a cool video or a cool dance move starts happening you know it's crazy okay got you i wonder if i let me see if i pull that up real quick so people can get some context since we are on on the video here we go go ahead and whip this up no man it's not letting me all right i'm gonna get it up at one point in this conversation but so what did you do when it comes to hold up can you hear that oh man okay so obviously this is it i'm not gonna let the music play or whatever just let people get a vibe yeah yeah yeah i hear you uh uh yeah they nice it was a lot of pressure i'm not gonna lie okay yeah i mean look the jab walk is definitely one of my favorite groups obviously i mean there's there's a lot of people yeah what show was that again that they uh yeah that's not s and l you said s and l oh uh america's best dance crew there it is yeah and we're just on s and l with the baby that's what i thought you were gonna say oh no no no man i've been watching them i actually you too yeah like watch walk with the dance community heavy man i don't i'm not like an active involved person but i've been yeah i didn't like that dancers yeah um for from that show to the even so you think you can dance all the weird shows yeah why youtube binges i knew about all that stuff yeah yeah it's interesting i love dope dances but um okay so you you did this you had this moment and i i like the fact that it was creative it wasn't just like dope dancing it was that interactive piece right mm-hmm because i see this as a challenge you do have to make this a challenge because automatically you're involved in multiple people those ones tend to just move you more virally yeah and it's it's a novel at the same time mm-hmm it's definitely something you should leverage and i think people who are trying to figure out challenges should look at it from this angle too often we look at challenges to just be dances and yes it could be a dance because technically y'all are dancing in that but you don't stop at just okay let's dance or let's do this dance or let's make it simple all right because why why would somebody do that when there's all these dances just like there's all this music being promoted why would they stop to listen to your new song yeah why would they stop to check out your dancing if i'm not an active person who's looking for dancers i just like dancers why would i stop to do your challenge versus everybody else's challenge that's that's being um created these days you know yeah it's easy to do it is it yours yours is easy to do and it is easy to be creative beyond the norm and you just take the time to do it what made you because you didn't pre-plan this you didn't know you're gonna do something with the jabber walkies how did y'all come up with that dance that fast that's that's an easy answer the jabber walkies are just amazing dancers and i'm not so bad myself so we were able to just freestyle it but to so specifically y'all just thought to hold hands and i walked up to them he shook my hand and then the third and middle put his hand down and we all danced to no music by the way i threw the song on there because it came out the same day and it was playing all the way in the background you could barely hear we weren't even really dancing to hot by gunna and uh young thug future and gunna and i was just tacked on before i put it on tiktok because i was like this needs music to feel a little better and now we're the shirt a lot because i'm realizing people recognize me when i wear a striped shirt and striped shirt wasn't even really my thing but now it's gonna be my thing for a while yo that's crazy so many elements in that because you have one the post-production understanding how to take a raw moment and then still make it digestible to go viral because yes i need to add this music and all these little things okay make it digestible it's cool by itself how can we make it even more digestible and then for you to even run with the branding aspect of look people recognize me in this shirt now i gotta wear the shirt you call travis scott because the braids are like travis and the last pressure to wear that hairstyle all the time now it's hey i they say man whatever blows up whether it's a specific song a specific you know dance all these things that's that's that association and now you have to figure out how to follow up from that so what have you been doing to think about following up is it just being the challenge so far you've been thinking about uh planning on the challenge uh contacting i've been emailing dancers that have gone viral salif kita that's wins um fiction what else have i done reached out to you i also work at a bar philadelphia eagles came by and then an event and uh swoop the mascot was there and i walked over to the guy that was part of the crew and i asked them hey look i have a viral i have a video that went viral and i have this idea i came up with this right on the spot i was like hey what if i showed up to a eagles game and i walked up to swoop and i shook his hand and we did like this handshake dance that i did in the video so um some of these things kind of come together in the moment but even that is still uh that's still a technique or a skill that people should do whereas like you see an opportunity you just go for it because that's how i went viral i just went for it so i just quickly came up with the idea ask them if they would be down showed them the video real quick showed them the numbers showed the legitimacy of the fact that i went viral showed that it went viral multiple platforms showed all the followers i gained and then asked for specific emails from coordinators and other people that are important to approve of me just being at the eagles game um posting more videos this is very important if you go viral you should go live on that platform the day you go viral i go live on tiktok because i found though i can go live because i watch your channel you said that and i was like i'm gonna go live right now i went live 300 people were in my live the numbers were going up even faster so i was already getting followers because of the video but then followers were tacked on because it'll let you know how many people followed you through your life and people were sending me pandas which is like a former tiktok currency and um translates to real money by the way yes it does and then um twitter i was very active on twitter respond all of them i was active on tiktok twitter instagram responding to all the comments and i you know just being funny and joking here and there and just interacting with all the people engaging with the people um answering all the questions i say hi to everyone who pops up on the live to acknowledge every person like i don't care if your name is user 5227926262 i will say the whole thing it's just like sense of humor so it's not just showing that i'm a dancer but showing the other parts of me that i know are also just as marketable personality and being someone that people like outside of dancing the same thing happened on instagram when funny hood bids posted it on their account i went live and that was the most amount of people that ever like been on my live all at once it was about 60 70 people uh brought some people on live with me and we talked and they asked me like oh how'd it happen so i repeated the story so many times over the past month um posting my own content wearing this shirt more often plans to do a dance video to hide i email the java walkies like i spam them which is a technique you know that you have uh you've said to do you know like don't feel like you're bothering them or annoying them the point is to get their attention right um i emailed a lot of uh other dance companies dm'd a lot of other dance instagram accounts that post viral videos dance viral videos and i just would like send the same message over and over like uh like once every couple days so those are things that i've done got you so i see that you have a great ability to move in the moment recognize those opportunities and act on them at least you you're being you know on a hot streak right now right now and then you're talking about following up hitting people up to get more more things posted all that stuff now tell me what's the plan though like in terms of a dancer then what does that look like to okay yeah you work with these other guys or you actually do get a video with king vader or okay you actually do end up on the philadelphia eagles field and do that dance in the middle of the game and then they put you on the jumbo tron and go viral from content and all that kind of stuff okay that happens what what does sustainability look like for you that'll be taking uh me as a dancer and my skillset and this moment that is now a part of my resume bringing into agencies bringing into auditions call castings and uh hopefully getting signed to an agency that's a direction that a lot of dancers go and through the agencies they get booked for uh you know music videos commercials uh you know they go on tour stuff like that is the goal of mine is to be able to tour with artists uh you know i have dreams with performing with certain favorite artists but it's not like i would turn and down if it's someone that i don't listen to but it's it's all about being able to um build build build a larger platform from this point on and create consistent work and start getting paid and stuff like that okay got you who i'm just curious because okay agency agency is not necessarily a record label but right i'm trying to imagine if that doesn't happen right because at the end of the day you you are building things up competition is heavy and you still have to look for somebody else's approval on that side of things what ability do you have or have you seen anybody build their own kind of indie fan base from a from a dancer standpoint and flip that themselves where they can control their own destiny a little bit more that way yeah i think he's led twins as an as an example they um they they have such a strong brand being twin dancers with big afros tall black guys from french uh from france that they they kind of they already had that working for them and they dance very differently than everyone else yeah their style is super unique yeah and um that was able to help them win i mean their skill set alone was able to win battles and then they were able to collect money from winning competitions and then um they get noticed by world of dance and they perform on there and then they started to tour they started doing master classes and workshops all over the world they were able to travel and get that going that's something that um i and other dancers can um that's another direction we can go in as well is we can become teachers we can become instructors we can become owners of our own dance studio there's an iam fresh dance studio and philly owned by smart mark and who's also worked with schizo let's win and um he's been a world of dance as well so you can always go in the direction of investing in opening the dance studio even if you're able to run out just you can go to already an established studio and start having classes there because that's happened to me too i've been asked to work at community centers with kids and you know go a couple days a week that's dance that's consistent dance work if that's you know the kind of answer you're looking for got you um somewhat but i'm also thinking about the aspect of like a rock star dancer or something i guess yeah that's that's going to america's god talent abdc world of dance okay holds all the higher profile of um companies and platforms like that auditioning and those folks will lock you into contracts though don't they yeah they can nearly lock you into contracts so that comes down to you bringing the right personality the right brand um being marketable and bringing your skill set you're just you being a great dancer does still kind of come down to how good can you dance because you can't be on tv and not be great like you talked about your shirt and what that did for brand what about and then you talked about like twins with the afro french uh twins all those things right that that stand out for brand have you ever thought about what could make you like a brand you know what i mean yeah there's i'm still building um the brand because this happened without me realizing what would i what i didn't plan for what happens if i go viral i only knew what i can do afterwards um and watching your video helped to know like what to do after you you go viral because you have a video about that but i wasn't really prepared for that to happen the way it did and um so i like i said i have the shirt i have the hair i have like my dance style was a little unique in how i look i don't really dance like other people there's nuances that you can detect if you're savvy with dancers and see you got a little bit of this guy in that girl in but it comes down to uh like my name is lucid so i want to go in a direction where my videos kind of start taking a psychedelic turn um you know dreams and reality and you know inception type of stuff and that's a lot of big budget stuff big budget ideas that i have but i'm already thinking how can i come up with content videos photo shoots that are affordable that you know won't burn my savings into you know into dust i got you so using post production to tell a story brand around as well okay what are some tips that you have when it comes to tiktok well if you do have a video that gets you on to the for you page like me like i said go viral i mean go live as soon as it happens and interact with everyone and um post consistently i only post a few times a week i would recommend posting daily if not a few times a day um that does require you to have a long list of stuff of ideas that you know check off the list so that you can and constantly come up with ideas stuff that's consistent to whatever your your um your tiktok is about some videos i made right on the spot and it's not even dance related one was like uh me watching an old video game and making fun of the old like graphics so some stuff is just like right on the spot i make it right then and there and i post it um what else would i say go live more often in general uh pay attention to the trends and the challenges and how would you go more live more often in general um to just just be around to talk it's kind of like you checking in with the people that are following you especially if you have a lot of followers if you're in the 10k 100k um i think they're engaging with the people who are following you is a really good way to um know what they want from you that they can actually give you the ideas by just you talking to them and just kicking it with them i've been on tiktok for two to three hours sometimes and all the kids they're middle school kids and they'll tell me the rappers that are coming up that they like and i'm like okay well i'm gonna make videos of these artists look at their videos look for the vibe look for the look in the video and make dance video versions of that to connect with y'all more and then we have a closer relationship so interesting i like that the the customer feedback essentially and yeah because at some point they're gonna be running the newest trends they're gonna be running what is relevant so as much as i like the artists that you know i like in my age bracket i still want to connect with what's going to be the next wave 100 by also also implementing my own unique self into it because i have my own ideas that will you know it all come together got you okay yeah that makes sense that makes sense well cool man i i appreciate just all the gems you dropped today first and foremost and then telling the story because i think it's interesting to hear a different perspective obviously we talk about artists and and you know a lot of things are transferable to so many influencers and people who want to build a following but hearing it directly from someone outside of that box i think is extremely valuable to see what you have going on and again yo man if y'all want to get some videos post it you know i mean you know hit Nate up you know hit him up at lucid dancer well obviously he's dope you know he held us on with the jabberwockies hopefully you get that challenge going that would be my last question like what would be so the point of that challenge and getting that to blow up would be showing other people as a resume that you pop the challenge off yeah that i got other people that don't even dance all the time to do it man it just doesn't sit right with me man that doesn't sit right with me and that's why i like we'll start to ask and pry so deeply into like some of the next things and what things look like for dancers because i feel like there should be a way that bump what what everybody else could offer you directly in terms of agency bump becoming a teacher and some of those things it seems like there should be a way we're just directly off of who you are and what you build like to in the same way running up a challenge for behind an artist song does shit for artists there should be something that it pulls back to for you whether it's at the very least merch of lying shirts you know what i mean um you know the backpack kid how he was able to create an entire thing and brand off of that whole thing and i guess he realized yelp got a key wearing his backpack right recording glasses yeah like but there has to be something that makes you the guy not just being a performer with rappers or artists and things like that which is cool that's work just like you have i can be the superstar artist and then i can also do sing deals i can be backup singer and i can do and i can write music there's all those versions but i'm just thinking about the way where you can be the guy so now you have even more leverage to do the other things because you have this thing built on yourself so i encourage you to think more about that and feel free to hit me up on it when you come up when um when you come up with some ideas and things not going live it's the first time i've ever had an interview of this nature because um i've most of the time i'm just figuring a lot of figuring this out as i go your channel helped me go in certain directions and be more open minded my homie also he's also just making sure i'm not being so stubborn and closed minded because i have a tendency to do that so i'm still someone who is learning what to do along the way like i don't have all the answers yet that's why i do encourage people that if you are trying something and they're not getting the results you want you definitely should be open to more than what you're comfortable with because like i said he told me to get a tiktok and i almost didn't do it and i was like okay you know what let me get out of my own way and just do it what do i have to lose but other than him being right and i would be happy to be wrong in a situation and look how it turned out that's a good way to sum it up i like that okay with being wrong sometimes be okay with being wrong quit being stubborn try tiktok a lot of y'all know that i'm i'm pushing tiktok heavy these days but it's for a reason and you can check out how to push your music anybody who's in the music or have friends in music you can check out some music artist specific courses at tiktok music promo dot com there's a free training get on that and definitely reach out to lucid dancer check out his tiktok his videos are dope and look state commission what'd you say new commissions people people DM me all the time i'll pay you to dance to this song this song can't be garbage though uh unless you'll put up a lot of stacks this is a small thing i will say about tiktok i don't know if i said this anywhere um i feel like i might have said it whatever somewhere but look i think also trying to get tiktok influencers to post your shit is a good a and r situation where you find out if your stuff is trash or not because if you can't get anybody to post it then that's starting to let that gives you an idea so there's a good feedback loop there so you'll find out yeah go to complex kind of your long beach cali area too i'm in an affiliate area and i flew out there once a year so i made it worth it uh like i said there's so much that can happen at tiktok there's you never know who shows up on top of the list of people that do show up and uh there's so many members of each team you want to talk to those guys too it means one thing to talk directly to say freeway or talk directly to chance but there's usually a manager or team member that's around that you would rather want to talk to instead too yep great insight great advice definitely talk to the to the other guy because the other guy has a lot more power than you perceive yeah sure and be consistent with your um content 100 i appreciate you once again man everybody if you like this video go ahead to like what if you like it you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button