Hello my friend!
In this article, we’re exploring the world of social media magic and what magicians can learn from it.
Our first insight is a simple one:
Filming yourself doing magic is one of the quickest ways to improve your magic.
We’d been performing magic for years before we turned the camera on ourselves and started actually watching and scrutinising our work.
Once we did, we felt our skill level and understanding of concepts like naturalness, motivation and misdirection go up massively.
For example, when we filmed ourselves doing a one-coin routine, we noticed that our eyes were constantly going where the coin actually was and not where it was ‘supposed’ to be.
We quickly changed that.
Now, this process isn’t always easy.
It’s not fun to watch yourself making mistakes, doing a move wrong, or flashing a sleight without realising.
But it’s SO useful.
If you record yourself performing every routine in your repertoire, then ask yourself “is this video something I would show to a friend?” and keep re-shooting until the answer is yes…
…we bet your ability to perform that routine well will skyrocket!
Now, social media magicians have a built-in advantage—they’re constantly being forced to film and watch back their own performances.
In other words, this feedback mechanism is built-in to their work.
We recommend taking a page out of their book and doing the same.
We’d bet this is one of the reasons our friend WOJ magic was able to blow up so quickly on TikTok.
His CD, Laserdisc and Vinyl vanishes are insanely visual.
(you really need to see them for yourself to understand.)
WOJ likely spent hundreds of hours watching his performances back to refine the approach and develop all the little movements and subtleties that really sell the effect.
He’s giving all of these subtleties and techniques away in his project CD3PO that you can learn all about HERE
Consistency is the key
One of the biggest lessons we’ve taken from watching social media and magic interact is the power of consistency.
Story:
When we started The Daily Magician nearly 5 years ago, we began by posting daily magic videos on our Instagram.
Although it’s HARD to post magic videos every day, the payoff can be huge—in two ways.
1. Your skill level and creativity
Many magicians have set themselves challenges—whether it’s 365 hours of magic, 365 days of creating new magic, or posting each day for a month—and found that in following through, their skill level and ability to create magic has shot up.
We think the secret to creativity is consistency. Rather than waiting for inspiration to hit you, just sit down and work, and inspiration will come to you sooner or later.
These challenges are a great way to kickstart that process—and because social media platforms come with an audience, there’s a level of accountability that helps motivate you to follow through on them.
2. Your reach
Social media loves consistency. Magicians that post regularly are far more likely to see their content get picked up and shared by the algorithm.
The more you throw at the wall, the higher the chance something will stick.
Having a strong feed with lots of high quality magic is also great ‘social proof’ for professional magicians looking to get more bookings.
Consistency is a win on both fronts.
What you don’t understand about social media magic
There are two worlds within magic, and neither of them seem to know about the other.
Let’s break it down:
World 1: The ‘Industry’
This is the world we’re intimately familiar with—the world of Vanishing Inc and Penguin Magic, of Magic Cafes and Magifest.
It’s composed primarily of working pros and passionate students of the art—a small but very active and powerful market.
It’s the magicians in this group that power the majority of innovation, product creation and the development of the art itself.
Most of them don’t seem to have noticed the rise of THIS other world of magic…
World 2: The Face
Although it’s the industry that powers magic, THIS world is more and more becoming the ‘face’ of magic for most people.
What is it?
Social media.
If you’re skeptical, let’s play a game…
Have you heard of any of the following magicians?
- Joel M
- Ash Magic
- Sean Does Magic
- Magic Singh
Well, what if we told you that the above 4 magicians have a combined fanbase of 49.8 MILLION people
Or that their videos have been ‘liked’ over 1 BILLION times?
Oh, and all those numbers are from TikTok alone—we didn’t even try adding their reach on other platforms.
Rory Adams from One Ahead has argued that the majority of new magicians are discovering magic through social media, and from the above numbers it’s easy to see why he thinks so.
Now, if you’re wondering how these magicians could possibly be so popular, yet you’ve never heard of them—that’s exactly our point.
The magicians of social media are raising huge awareness of the art, and the ‘industry’ magicians are working hard to develop and advance the art— but neither group seems to acknowledge the other.
It makes sense, to an extent.
Magicians on social media are optimising their content for non-magician audiences, so their content is not designed to ‘talk’ to other magicians.
But we still think that these two worlds could be enhanced by closer
collaboration and sharing of ideas.
Would love to hear your thoughts about this in the comment section below!
How to get 50 million people to watch your magic
As a magician, growing an audience from scratch on social media is no easy feat—but it can be done with the right strategy. Our friend WOJ (@wojmagic) blew up on TikTok with over 50 million views, gaining thousands of new followers week after week. We had WOJ on our podcast and got the inside scoop on how he grew his audience so rapidly. Here are his top tips:
Post Consistently
Posting daily content trains viewers to expect new videos from you regularly. WOJ said, “I aim to post daily at the same time. This trains viewers to expect new content and helps the algorithm serve your videos wider.”
Being consistent also builds trust with the algorithm, increasing the chances your content gets viewed more widely.
Find Your Niche
After being inspired by coin magic and CD manipulation, WOJ realised “I’m not really that good at card sleights…the card deck looks tiny in my hands too. So I just figured, you know, why not just find something bigger to use?”
And thus his niche combining CDs, laserdiscs, and a touch of coin magic was born—and it helped him stand out in a sea of other magicians.
Personality is key
Even if your tricks aren’t mind-blowing, an engaging personality shines through and makes content compelling.
As WOJ explained, “sometimes personality could just be your facial expressions or your hand movements or just like the excitement on your own face. That resonates with them.”
Dealing With Negativity
Negativity in the comments is inevitable when you gain an audience. Here’s how WOJ handles it:
“I try to like educate them without being disrespectful…if they keep pushing me, I’ll maybe like push back a little bit and let them know I don’t appreciate the disrespect, but you know, you try to go easy on them as much as you can.”
He also said: “I’d say take people’s feedback and try to implement that into your tricks. or into whatever you’re doing. And I think that will help improve you because negative feedback is still feedback and it’s good.”
Use constructive criticism to improve—and remember, although they sometimes shout louder than others, ultimately it’s just a tiny percentage of people that will make noise.
Don’t let a few haters get you down.
All that being said…
Perhaps the main reason that WOJ blew up on social media is because of unique and original magic.
His CD, Laserdisc and Vinyl vanishes are insanely visual.
(you really need to see them for yourself to understand.)
Watch 8 mind boggling performance videos at the link below:
https://thedailymagician.com/woj-tdm
Did you know?
This article was created by compiling 7 days worth of emails we sent to our mailing list on the topic of social media magic.
Every week at The Daily Magician, we explore a new idea within magic—and our readers come along for the journey.
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