Can you please introduce yourself?
"Hi Léo, thank you for the invitation. It's always a pleasure to exchange and collaborate with the Submagic team.
I am 30 years old and known on social networks as @MisanthropeSocial. I do not wish to publicly reveal my real identity because that's the whole point of my business as you will understand. I am the first French person to have broken through on TikTok by riding the wave of Artificial Intelligence that has engulfed us all this year.
You see those unbearable videos of AI-generated characters giving life advice with a robotic voice? That's my niche, except unlike my competitors, I've set everything up to achieve maximum quality videos by thoroughly working on all aspects: Image, Voice, Editing, Subtitles, Communication. And it paid off: Today, I am relieved to be able to say that I can make a living from TikTok monetization and the various partnerships my audience of 450k subscribers brings me. I have also set up my own training to teach others everything I've learned during my journey, and I'm also setting up other channels on the side to stack my income."
Why did you start creating short videos?
"It all started as a joke with a friend (Big Up DKOF!). He always wanted to build a large community and I wanted to taste the new black gold which is content creation, convinced that it could pay off big and allow me to gain hierarchical, financial, and geographical freedom.
So, we invented the character of MisanthropeSocial (my friend found the name, what a genius), a kind of Greek God who doesn't like humanity but still pulls it upwards, because nobility obliges. Hence the paradox between "Misanthrope" and "Social" in the name. Anyway, we decided to post a video a day for a year and see what would happen, my friend had to leave me to manage the project alone for personal reasons and to my surprise, I didn't give up.
I took the whole TikTok thing as a video game to not see this daily work as a chore. I posted every day for a year, always trying to do better than my previous video, staying on the lookout for what's best in my niche to do it even better."
How did you use to edit your shorts before Submagic?
"My case is a bit special and I'll clarify it for those who are reading. I use several different artificial intelligences to generate each aspect of my video (creating the character's avatar, creating the script, creating the voice, making the character move/talk) and then I have to edit it all on a video editing application to finally add subtitles. Once the subtitling is done, it finally goes on TikTok.
I forgot to mention one thing: I work 100% from my Smartphone, I NEVER go on my computer. The most logical choice for editing is therefore Capcut, and since they offer an automatic subtitling system called "Automatic Captions," that's what I used for my subtitles... Under its "one-click captioning" guise, it was a nightmare to use. I wouldn't go back to it for anything in the world.
I tried to redo subtitles on Capcut one night when Submagic was down for maintenance, and honestly, after 35 minutes, I preferred to stop when I saw that Submagic was back online. I was right because after 5 minutes on Submagic, starting from scratch, I already had my subtitles finished and with better visual quality."
How much time/money did you spend at that time?
"The two things that took me the most time were the exports on each tool and the subtitling. I quickly found radical solutions:
- For the exports, I bought one of the most powerful smartphones in the world.
- For the subtitles, I took the most powerful subtitling tool in the world, Submagic.
Let's focus on subtitling because that's what interests us here.
I said that subtitling on Capcut was a nightmare and some might answer that there's nothing complicated about clicking an "Automatic Captions" button. Indeed, if you want subtitling worthy of 2005, it's quite effective as a button. Except that on my side, I need the best possible result to be able to perform and make a living from it.
I remember having to go through the whole customization of captions with an outdated interface, all compressed and especially completely infested with bugs. You will spend more time understanding how to anticipate selection, display, playback bugs, or fixing your project than really using the app.
If you've made it this far, one thing is for sure: either your subtitles are ugly and ultra-basic, or you are a war machine.
And still, be careful to check the right boxes at the right time, otherwise, you risk modifying the style of only part of the captions...
In short, I hate it just thinking about it. It was free because I was the product, *laughs*.
In the end, by wanting to save 20 or 50€ per month, I missed out on the opportunity to publish more videos and have better rendering quality, which would have earned me much more money quickly. I wasn't thinking like a business yet, so I had the results of an average user."
What's the most significant benefit you've gained from using Submagic?
"The most precious thing in the world: time. It's surprising, but in 2024 (soon) only Submagic allows me to achieve the rendering I aim for my subtitles. I couldn't achieve it on Capcut even though I spent twice as much time on it."
"By the way, I had fun calculating the time I saved in 6 months by switching from Capcut to Submagic and it's chilling: 30 hours saved per month, so 180 hours in 6 months.
"It's like I extended my life by a week because this tool change allowed me to do something else during that time. Not to mention the fact that I was able to double my video production and my TikTok revenues along the way."
"I almost forgot something very important too, the affiliation. When I wanted to start using Submagic, I was lucky to stumble upon David, the co-founder of Submagic, who is a wonderful person, very down to earth and who brilliantly understood my atypical character (I have ADHD). We were able to understand each other quickly and set up a collaboration profitable for both parties.
David had the immense generosity to offer me a license to use the tool unlimitedly and in exchange, I had the honor to regularly propose recommendations to improve Submagic and even to be one of the first affiliates!
Thanks to Submagic's very simple affiliation system, I was able to quickly earn a 30% commission for each new user and it allowed me to significantly increase my cash flow.
You may not realize it, but 30% on monthly subscriptions is huge, and I see that this affiliate program is now open to everyone. It's easy money and in addition, you recommend a real premium product that works wonderfully, everyone wins."
What advice would you give to others who want to start creating content in the video automation niche?
"Normally I charge for this advice but for you, it's a gift, keep it to yourself. If you want to get into the niche of AI-generated advice videos (and even other niches), you need to have one thing in mind: watch time.
"Your sole and only goal is that viewers stay on your videos even just a second longer than on the competition's videos (preferably at least 22 seconds on average for videos over a minute) with a retention rate of at least 50% for videos under a minute and at least 15% for videos over a minute."
"Still following? Where I'm going with this is that you can no longer afford to rush your videos (e.g., no editing or irrelevant subtitles) and rehash topics that have already been covered a million times. Grab the viewers' attention from the first second with the ultimate combo: a unique, innovative, and impactful hook and script on an intriguing, poorly or not well covered subject + an enchanting voice + professional editing to today's taste + a character consistent with your speech + state-of-the-art subtitles to catch the eye and facilitate intuitive understanding of the content.
Don't try too hard to produce something you like. Prioritize producing something that consumers like.
Don't forget, if you're just a clone, you'll crash sooner or later."
One more thing, what’s your favorite Submagic subtitle design?
"To be honest with you, I still ask myself that question every day when it comes time to edit my subtitles. I can't decide, they're all great, *laughs*.
It bothers me a bit because it's very important to keep a consistency in the artistic direction and not to vary the colors and style of subtitles from one video to another, otherwise you risk less engagement from your audience.
I'm still testing to see which ones work best and I tend to customize the templates offered as Submagic provides this functionality.
But if you force me to choose, I'd say my favorites are "Devin," "William," and "David," although I've worn out all the versions of "Hormozi" for a while!
Thanks again for this interview, it was fun."
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