The Exact Formula Charlie Hills Uses to Go Viral on Any Platform | LinkedIn, Instagram and AI Content Strategy
The AI Report PodcastShow Notes
22,000 LinkedIn followers to over 210,000 in just over a year. Charlie Hills did not get there by luck. He got there by reverse engineering what already works, posting with intention every single day, and building systems with AI that most people have not even heard of yet.
In this second appearance on The AI Why, Liam Lawson sits down with Charlie Hills to break down exactly how he goes viral across LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, what his full content creation process looks like with Claude, and why he just launched a SaaS tool built entirely from his own workflows inside Claude Code.
Stories Covered This Week:
The pre-validated content strategy that got Charlie 11 million views on his first Instagram reel
The CHEF framework for creating content that does not sound like AI wrote it
How Charlie uses Appify, Claude Code and Gemini together to reverse engineer viral content
Why organic reach on LinkedIn is dying and what to do about it
Claude Code for infographics, carousels, and eventually video editing from the terminal
Vislo, the branded infographic SaaS tool Charlie just launched in public beta
Pattern interrupts, B-roll clarity and what actually stops the scroll on Instagram
Going from 9 to 5 employee to full time creator in nine months
Episode timestamps:
00:00 Intro and follower count update 01:03 How Charlie goes viral on any platform 04:01 Steal Like an Artist and pre-validated content 04:53 What structure works on Instagram reels 07:36 Speaking coach, scripting and sounding human 09:06 The full LinkedIn content creation process 10:03 Posting cadence and why twice a day backfired 12:19 The CHEF framework explained 15:07 Appify, Claude Code and scraping for content research 17:04 Claude Co-Work scheduled tasks and workflows 20:22 Going deep into Claude Code for infographics 22:06 How Claude Code memory and the MD file works 24:41 Combining Gemini API inside Claude Code for Instagram scripts 26:53 Where AI ends and humans begin in the content process 30:36 Remotion and the future of AI video editing 33:33 Over-engineering with AI and why it is addictive 35:02 The story behind Vislo, the branded infographic SaaS 40:22 Beta feedback and pricing 42:01 Done For You vs SaaS customers 43:57 Expanding beyond LinkedIn to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube 47:12 What the ideal future of work looks like for Charlie 49:12 The Mexico LinkedIn creator house with Mischa and Corey 53:03 University, failed business and the nine month grind 01:00:01 Did not leave the nine to five to earn more, but to live more 01:00:55 Why do you do what you do?
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