Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Nick Cheadle Uses Social Media to Build a Thriving Fitness Business

Episode Date: May 3, 2017

Social Media Strategies That Help Build Your Brand with Nick Cheadle In this episode I interview Nick Cheadle who's a fitness influencer and entrepreneur who has built a huge following on Instagram, I think it's like 600,000 people now , and then leveraged it to build a thriving coaching and education business. I wanted to do this interview because I'm often asked about how to use social media better, how to get more out of it, how to make more money from it, how to build a bigger following, and so forth, and honestly, I don't have great answers - at least I didn't, I have some better answers now, thanks to the interview. But I didn't because I'm notoriously bad at social media. Honestly it's just a matter of time, I put a lot of time into other things that help build my businesses and following, but not very much time in social media. Nick, on the other hand, is very good at it, he puts a lot of time in social media, so I wanted to pick his brain on a whole host of things like: how he proves to people that he's worth following, how he has gone about crafting his personal brand, his personal message, how he sells things without being annoying, what types of pictures tend to do best, and how he creates them, how he drives engagement and why that's so important, and much much more. So if you're interested in learning in how to get more recognition in business through social media and through Instagram in particular, then you should definitely check out the interview, I think you're going to find it helpful. So with that, here it is. 5:31 - Take us through the timeline from when you started to now. Any key lessons? 13:26 - Why do people follow you? 18:06 - What is your message/brand? 22:27 - How do you avoid feeling too "sales-y," or like someone pushing his material on others? 34:11- How much work goes on behind the scenes? 35:31 - Do you have any web apps that you use? 38:35- Would you plan out your Instagram posts, or is it off the cuff? 44:39 - What camera do you use? 48:154 - Which photos of yours generate the most engagement? 58:00 - What are some tactical things that have helped you grow your following? 01:01:59 - Why is it important to get engagement? 01:09:23 - Where can people find your work? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger, Leaner, Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger if you're a girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now you can find these books everywhere you can buy them online. You know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which

means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get

to the line. previously recorded, including this one. But here I am back with a brand new episode. And in this episode, I interview Nick Cheadle, who's a fitness influencer and entrepreneur who has built a huge following on Instagram. I think it's like 600,000 people now, and then leveraged it to build a thriving coaching and education business. Now, I wanted to do this interview because I'm often asked about how to use social media better, how to get more out of it, how to make more money from it, how to build a bigger following, and so forth. And honestly, I don't have great answers, or at least I didn't. I have some better answers now, thanks to the interview. But I didn't because I'm notoriously bad at social media. Honestly, it's just a matter of time. I put a lot of time into other things that help build my businesses and following, but not very much time into social

media. So Nick, on the other hand, is very good at it. He puts a lot of time into social media. So I wanted to pick his brain on a whole host of things like how he proves to people that he's worth following, how he has gone about crafting his personal brand and his personal message, how he sells things without being annoying, what types of pictures tend to do best and how he creates them, how he drives engagement and why that's so important

and much, much more. So if you are interested in learning how to get more recognition in business through social media and through Instagram in particular, then you should definitely check out the interview. I think you're going to find it helpful. So with that, here it is. Hey, Nick, it's nice meeting you. Thanks for coming on the show. Pleasure, man. Thank you very much for having me on.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm excited to have you on because you're going to be talking about something that I haven't talked about much. I mean, at all, really, I haven't written about it. It's something that is for my crowd is going to be new information. And I thought you'd be a great guy to reach out to because you're doing a very good job at it. And that is social media, but specifically using social media to build a business and using it as a core pillar of a business. And really, I mean, how I look at it and what you're doing is it's very much part of your brand and it's very much a representation of a lifestyle. It's not just like, here are some random images, which is more like my social media, which is shit. So I'm going to be taking some notes too. And, you know, so I'm just going to kind of just leave it at that and just kind of pass you the ball. And if you want to, you know, kind of take us through a bit of the timeline from when you started to not knowing anything

and what were the key lessons throughout your journey to where you are now, you know, I'm all ears. Yeah, too easy, man, too easy. Well, firstly, thank you. That's a very kind introduction. I appreciate it. I don't know if I'm an expert on social media, but I can certainly share with you some of the things that I happen to have learned over the last few years as a consequence of doing it. The results, whatever you want to say, the results are the results. Yeah, it's say, the results are the results.

Yeah, it's going okay. There are a lot of experts that don't have your results. Yeah, okay. So I guess that's a fair point. And yeah, I guess so. I've been in the industry for – I'm actually coming up to the start of my 10th year now, which I find mind-blowing in itself. Yeah. I don't think I'm that old.

Not yet anyway. I've been married for 10 years. I think about that and I'm like, wow, fuck, it's really been 10 years. That's crazy. Yeah. When you think of things like that, it puts it into a rather harsh perspective. But yeah, coming up to the start of my 10th year, so nine years in the industry as a personal trainer. And I think I've been doing the social media thing for roughly probably five years, maybe five or six years.

I sort of began to dabble in it maybe a little bit earlier than that, but obviously put my foot down around that sort of five year ago mark. Basically, for me, the catalyst for doing so was trying to figure out a way to better leverage my time essentially um there's obviously only so many hours in the gym that you can do as a personal trainer before you a feel like you don't want to be in there anymore and b just want to do something else so for me um you know obviously earning more money and connecting with more people and being able to leverage my time better was was the main catalyst for trying to figure out the whole social media thing and I think at the time as well to begin with if I'm being honest there

was probably a little bit of ego attached as well I saw a lot of guys on social media at the time with you know large followings and I thought that sounds pretty cool yeah yeah um it's the shiny object yeah exactly you know and and i think at the time that obviously played a part in it um trying to figure out like how can i get there how can i be one of those guys and how can i be seen the way that i'm seeing some of these guys myself so you know for me when i first began my social media i wasn't really sure how to go about it and i was certainly guilty of you know being one of those guys that just posts countless motivational photos and if i had my time again i go and kick myself in the face because and by that do you mean do you mean like pictures of you or just like random quotes and shit no like random

quote pictures like just like yeah, you still see that all the time where I see these accounts where I'm like, why are you doing this? Like it's not, there's no way this is going to work. I mean, again, I'm not one to speak on, you know, how to make social media really work, but, uh, I know that doesn't work. Yeah, exactly. So, but you know, at the same time, it was a learning experience. And I think that's one of the most important things that you can do consistently, whatever industry you're in is whatever it is you are doing. I'd say the positive thing is you were doing something, at least you're trying. Yeah. And then at least you're willing to learn.

Absolutely. And so, you know, at that point I was ticking things off as to what doesn't work, which means, you know, ultimately over time you'll get to that point, I was ticking things off as to what doesn't work, which means, you know, ultimately over time, you'll get to that point where... That's like the Edison method, right? Exactly. Just try every single possible way and eventually you'll stumble into something that works. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think at the time I had just started working with a business mentor because honestly, from a business perspective, at the time,

my business was not killing it. I was running maybe 20 to 30 personal training sessions per week. But I just thought that social media might be a way of putting myself out there enough that I might be able to attract more clients. Okay. And you were thinking offline clients at the time? I was thinking that I would like to dabble in that space. I had seen a few online personal trainers at the time have success selling meal plans and training programs. Um, I was thinking that I would like to dabble in that space. I had seen a few online personal trainers at the time have success selling meal plans and training programs. And I thought that seemed like making money and connecting with more people. So that was certainly on the, you know, on my mind. And then, yeah, one day I just sort of said, maybe I'll just start doing this. And

so I started off very basically just trying to sell, as I said, meal plans and training programs, which when I look back on them now, very poor quality products, just goes against everything that I stand for now. conclusion that all of the information that anybody could ever need relating to fitness health and fitness and and bettering your physique is already out there you know if you want to know the answer to a question you can simply go to google which apparently not a lot of people know how to do and figure out the answer to any question that you have so i sort of thought that well if if that information is so readily available why not be the person that's actually bringing that information to people right why not be one of the first results that pops up when people search for whatever topic it is right so i started to uh sort of see my social media as an opportunity to put out content and more content.

And yeah, absolutely. And ultimately what that has turned into today is a means of driving traffic to other portals and other products and services. Other opportunities to generate. Yeah, exactly right. So for me, social media first began as an opportunity to create content and just put more and more content out there. And one of the most reassuring things I've heard since is I'm sure you're aware of Gary V.

I remember hearing one of his talks about how he was saying you never know which piece of content might just explode as far as virality is concerned and which piece of content might just throw your name into the stratosphere yeah and you never know also if it might whose lap it's going to fall into i've i've met a lot of uh just interesting and influential people just from you know they've they read one of my books i mean so many actually or or even even from articles people and then they add then they have a question and they email and they're curious if I'll actually respond and they get a response. And it turns out that's the CEO of some $2 billion company. Like, oh, well, shit. Yeah, exactly right.

Exactly right. So, yeah, I just started putting out content. And so I guess it was refreshing to hear Gary Vee say something like that, because that's sort of the approach that I ended up taking. Yeah, I think that's like something that needs to be accented. That's like a key takeaway is to be I'm sure you still do that actually educate people with your social media as opposed to just make it about making it about your just narcissism. Look at me. Look at how good i look like that yeah and you know that's the thing i think i never considered myself to be um i think what most people in the fitness industry would consider themselves to be as an athlete right you know i just yeah same same you know i never saw myself as that and i think the people that do need to you know take a long hard look at themselves

in the mirror yeah um because chances are if that's what they do see themselves that i mean how much of an athlete am i i mean i i lift weights four to six hours a week. I mean, that's not, if I'm, if that's, if that's an athlete, then I guess we have the bar set really low. Yeah, exactly. Right. So for me, I guess the, the, the whole purpose behind social media was adding value. You know, the question that I kept asking myself is why should people follow me? Why would they follow me? Why would they keep following me? Why would they interact with what I'm putting out there?

And how do you answer that question now of curiosity? Like, I'm sure it's something that you are now. It's still, you know, I mean, that would, that would be a smart question to revisit every quarter,

for example, or regularly. Just, I'm just curious what. Honestly, I ask myself that every time before I post. Oh, great. And ultimately, the question, is this adding value, is not always yes. However, at times, I think due to the nature of social media, you can use that to your advantage

in a way. Yeah, or sometimes it is just about social media, you can, you can use that to your advantage in a way. Yeah. Or sometimes it is just about like almost, uh, I mean, I would still say it's probably value though, because like, would you agree that, you know, if, even if it's just a vicarious experience, you know, you know what I mean? Where like that's kind of the image and that's what it's showing. Or maybe it's just like someone sees your physique and they're just like,

damn, that dude looks really good. And that's motivation to go train. Or, I mean mean that is value it's not as valuable as maybe some of what your idea of real value is but at least it has something at least it's not like a picture of your your fucking rolex watch or something which is utterly pointless yeah exactly so and then that's exactly what i mean in regards to you you know, is this valuable? Because now it's sort of getting to a point where my following has grown to the sort of extent that they sort of want to know more about what I do outside of fitness. Yep. That's what I get. And like people tell me to vlog and I'm like, okay, honestly, I'm going to, I'm going to be honest with you guys.

Like my life is not interesting. I follow, I fucking go to bed at 10 o'clock. I get up at 5am. I do the same thing every day. I work, I work, I work. I spend some time with my family.

I study, I go to bed. Like I'm telling you guys, if one vlog is every vlog and you know, it's funny. I was actually saying like, okay, so look,

if I was going to vlog, what I would have to do is treat it like a reality television. I'd have to make shit up. I'd have to actually script it in a sense. I'm surprised there aren't actually more people doing that. I see these vlogs that are just like, here's the other day. Here's me eating my thousandth bowl of oatmeal so we can go squat for the 9,000th time. I'm surprised that somebody hasn't looked at how popular reality TV is and be like, I should make a fake life for vlogs.

And I'm going to make sure that it's full. I'm just going to go take a script from the Kardashian. I'm going to take their formula and rinse, repeat, drama. I'm going to be dating girls. I'm going to be breaking up with girls. I'm going to have problems with everybody. I'm going to have training problems. I'm going to have to make it interesting, guys. Social you're gonna i mean social media is more these people are more

about being fake than anything else if you're gonna be fake be fake in a fucking better way god absolutely man it sounds like your project your next project is sorted so i've already let them now now i'll have to edit that out so then i'll come up with my blog and then people will be like oh wow look at mike's life dude that's crazy oh what's going to happen on the next episode is yeah yeah yeah and i'm sorry i just i'm hijacking the conversation no all good then all good all good so yeah i mean for the most part you know the majority of what i what i still put out or try to put out is still content it's still informative it's still educational in some aspect. But a lot of it now too is walking the walk, so to speak. So, you know, social media obviously gives you that opportunity

to broadcast a specific message. And you can obviously do that in a couple of ways, either through words or your actions. Ultimately, you know, it does get to the point now where, yeah, I mean I use the way that I look to enhance the message that I'm trying to portray yep but you know never do i really go out of my way to post a photo going geez i look good today uh as i lost motivation for selfies man talking about losing motivation i'm just like hey guys look i look the same as i always do because as you know i'm kind

of just maintaining my physique and I'm pretty happy with things. And there are things I would like to improve, but you're not going to really see them. Maybe for a year, you're going to maybe be like, oh, look, his lats are a little bit bigger or his shoulders are a little bit. He has a little bit more width up top. But that's otherwise. So, I mean, I like, again, before when I was looking through your stuff, I think you do a good job of that. Thank you, man. I appreciate that.

And I guess, you know, so over time, I learned more and more about the marketing process and creating funnels and, you know, creating free products and ultimately using those to sell paid products. Before we get into that, can I ask you a question? Something that you said, actually. With your message, so for you, what kind of message, I'm curious myself, do you have a simple

this is the kind of what you want to represent, this is what your brand is, this is how you feel that, you know, what do you have that makes you unique beyond just, you know, what, what do you have that makes you unique beyond just, you know, your looks and your physique? Yeah, absolutely, man. So anyone that's hard to compete just on looks and physique alone. I mean, yeah, you are obviously top tier, but there are a lot of other guys that are top tier too. So if that's all that you're

trying to do, you know, I think that you wouldn't be as successful as, as, as you are. Thank you. Um, I think on that point too, uh, if you see this as a competition, you're probably not going to give yourself a chance of it, of ever winning. And I think that's like probably the biggest thing that I've taken out of training myself, competing on stage, both myself and with my clients and in life in general. If you're constantly looking at your competition and worrying about what they're doing, you're only detracting from the time you can actually spend improving what you're doing and yourself. I agree. It also can just be demotivating because there's always that person, whatever, no matter what your metrics are, however, your, your, whatever that touchstone is, someone's always better. And I think it's fine to, I think it's smart to always try to be stretching and improving. But to your point, if it's, if there's a point where it goes too far and like, you know, it can be, especially on something where like, you know, I, I don't, I couldn't look as good as you, even, even if I had your size, we're probably around the same height. I'm six,

one, six, two. Uh, but you have better muscle insertions, you have better genetics. Um, and that's not, I mean, I'm not making excuses in that, but I'm not saying, Oh, it's just genetics or whatever. But just if that's all, if that's what it was, if I was just like, Oh, I'm going to, you know, I, I'm going to try to compete with, uh, with Nick in terms of looks and that try to make that my thing, I'll never get there. So, uh, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's like, uh, I think the best way you can do that is look at maybe those people and use that as motivation and inspiration for yourself. Yeah. You know, I mean, I see, uh, become your best self, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, I certainly haven't sold a 500,000 copies of a book, but you know, I hear, I

hear things like that and I think, awesome. Like that is like, he's obviously put in a lot of work because I know how much work goes in behind the scenes to create something like that, to get a result like that. Yeah. Um, and for me that, that just sort of adds fuel to the fire. That's, that's, well, that's what can be achieved. Yep. me that that just sort of adds fuel to the fire that's that's well that's what can be achieved yeah how can i use that and repackage it and repurpose it for my own um and i think that's

a that's an important point just on how because it's all just in how you view it like i think it's it's a good just character trait if instead of envy you can use that as like be legitimately happy for somebody else you know what i mean like that's great that he did that yeah absolutely and then and then and then it can be a positive thing for you you know i mean i think it's great that you've achieved what you've achieved with your physique and i mean you look fantastic that's awesome it's but instead of being like oh yeah fuck that guy for this that and whatever you know what i mean it's totally just how you choose to view it yeah exactly right exactly right yeah i mean that's the thing in how you choose to view it. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I think the more time that you can spend focusing on your own process, ultimately, the more successful you're going to be in whatever it is you're trying to set out and achieve. Totally. So you were talking about funnels. That's when I derailed it because I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. But that was where you were. Yeah, no.

Not at all. So, yeah, I mean, ultimately, I now use social media for the most part to drive traffic elsewhere. So I've just become a little bit more selective with the way that I put out my content. I get into a lot more sort of email, I guess what you consider to be email marketing. Sure. As well as creating what I would consider to be a fairly extensive blog. And from there, it's all about sending people around the appropriate places to try and make sure that I'm able to maximize

engagement as far as getting people on my list and being able to give them free content and then ultimately, hopefully have them buy something from me in the future. Totally. And a question that may be occurring to people listening is, how do you, because I've run across quite a few people that like, I can't, I would say my strength is, I mean, I'm, I think I'm a competent writer. I do a good job in that and that people, at least people it's received well, so I'm good enough in that regard. And i'm a pretty good marketer and in certain ways i'm stronger than others but where i'm not as strong i have other people that are strong or work with people or whatever but you know i i get emailed quite often actually from people that they're either not comfortable with kind of the marketing

like it makes them feel kind of sleazy even if they these are just ideas you know that that people that they have. It's their, you know, mental models of things of like anyone that does this is this or whatever. Have you, did, how, was that never a concern for you or have you kind of like, I just think that people might be thinking that. Like they don't want to be that guy that feels like, or that girl that's like always pushing shit. to be that guy that feels like or that girl that's like always pushing shit and and they you know that they have that reputation kind of thing of like oh just another person trying to sell his pdf or some shit yeah of course uh i think there's a couple ways to answer that so firstly i think it's really important that you figure out who you are and how you want to go about things

as an individual ultimately the way that you sell or you write should be a reflection of who you are. Now, there are multiple ways to go about doing that. And I think when I first began to get involved in the selling process, I probably got caught up in writing stuff that was a little bit too salesy for my liking. And it was actually my girlfriend that pulled me up on it at the time. She was like, did you write this? Or did someone else write this I was like that's not the message that I want to be sending you know I don't want people to be reading stuff that I've sent them being like did Nick write this or did someone else write this because you know that's that's the last thing you want yeah um and I think especially now you know people are waiting I mean I I at least I get this I don't know if you get this but where people I'll

get people that I wouldn't say they're reading this, but where people, I'll get people that, I wouldn't say they're rating this, but I get people that will just thank me for like not selling out in that sense of where they would have expected that by now I would be promoting 10 affiliate offers a week to my list. And, you know, I, I wouldn't still be answering people's emails or I wouldn't even be working. Like I wouldn't do a podcast and write articles and write books and do all this stuff because, you know, I could just be like, you know, driving a fucking Lamborghini around thinking I'm cool or something, you know what I mean? Instead of like actually working. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. But yeah, so I mean, for me, I try and do it in an authentic way now. In a similar fashion to the way that I put out my content, I try and always offer an unbiased, informative approach and allow people to make a decision for themselves.

And it's more about awareness rather than here's my thing. I'm just going to shove it down your throat. Yeah, or dangle it like, you know, you want it. Come on. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think there's a few gentle techniques, you know, in regards to scarcity and those sorts of things to sort of entice people into getting it. I think… Is there any books or any sort of trainings that you would recommend for people that have really helped you just kind of learn the basics? To be honest, I don't do much reading anymore.

Okay. I was just curious. I think I ended up learning a lot of stuff from the mentor that I first worked with. Okay. But in saying that, I love reading that sort of stuff. I just don't make enough time for it at the moment. Sure. I'll just throw it out there for people that want to know more about scarcity or social proof or uh reciprocity those big things read the book influence by robert cialdini i think

that's a great primer if you want to just know some of the real fundamentals of of influence of persuading people whether it be selling or selling you're selling people things or ideas or whatever and of course it can be used for good or evil. It just depends on, you know, yeah, as the individual, but I'll just throw that out there. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. You know, I think you asked before sort of how I go about the whole selling thing. I remember while I was working with said mentor, you know, at the time I had just sort of begun my email list and, you know, started the whole email marketing process and i remember i got to a point where she's like you've been doing this for uh five months now and not once have you put a call to action at the end of any of your emails oops i was like yeah but i don't

you know i don't i don't want to like make these people feel like i'm up like i'm yeah yeah shoving shoving shoving stuff down their throat. And she's like, if you never ask anybody for anything, they're never going to give it to you. And I think that was a pretty valuable lesson. So from there, it ultimately became about how can I ask these people to essentially part ways with their money in an authentic manner. So for me, it's...

And I think, I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this where as an individual, if you know that you're selling a good product or service and you're not lying and you're not misleading and you're going to get the results that you can say you can get and you're going to deliver the best possible experience that you can deliver to your customers, then you're coming from, I mean, you have grant, like you can, you can now, you don't have to feel bad. You know what I mean? It's something that you're the kind of person these people actually want to buy from. They want to spend money. They want solutions. And you know,

so, so if, if you don't do that, then the, the pushy asshole scammer is, is, is going to be doing it. And in a sense, you almost doing people a disservice. Um, I think if, if you're not, if you're not like not being hyper aggressive about it, but like you're saying, do a good job, educate them, give them all the information they need to make the decision and then give them a nudge and just say, here here it all is if this is making sense to you sign up now you know what i mean spots are limited yeah i only can take on so many clients uh but it's true yeah it's true so uh you don't have to just make shit up and have fake counters all over the place and say you know what i mean yeah exactly yeah you know, for the longest time in the same way that I was doing

with social media, I just saw, you know, email marketing as another opportunity to create more content. So when I first began doing it, that's all I was doing, just sending out more content. I use my social media channels to be like, Hey, I'm sending out this, you know, new article. It's only going out to my list though. So if you want to grab it, it's cool. It's all, it's yours for free. You just need to make sure you sign up yeah and ultimately what that has done is has allowed me in hindsight to build a marketing list like an amateur but um you know get me to a point where now i have you know a fair few people on my list who i can send stuff to and and ultimately sell to yeah you know um people you know marvel at you know these big numbers on social media, but when push

comes to shove, I would take a tenth of the following being on email rather than social media. That's smart. You're 100% right. On my social media, I don't know, maybe across my platforms, I might have a couple hundred thousand people max, but I have close to 400,000 people now on my lists. And it's going to be a million by the end of the year. And those are warm lists that we email regularly. So you're 100% right if you're looking at it in terms of bottom line results.

And I don't think just money, but I think like staying engaged with your following and and and just having your finger on the pulse of your people you can't i mean email you just can't beat it i still get you know i still spend time every day answering emails from people and it's just it i mean i i really like it for for multiple reasons not just selling stuff absolutely and i think if you think about it logically instagram or i mean the way that the Instagram feed works now is a little bit different to what it was, but you could liken it to putting up a message in a shopping center on a notice board that just sort of sits in one corner. And some people might walk past a couple of times. Facebook is a little bit different too because they've got all these algorithms in play. You might put that message up on a notice board, but that notice board moves around the shopping center, which means some people might see it 10 times and other people probably won't see it at all.

Whereas an email marketing list gives you the opportunity to get that message and just stick it in someone's pocket so they can open it and read it whenever they want. So it's invaluable as far as getting your message out there is concerned and as you said conversing with your people because uh you know it gives an opportunity to read that message whenever they want there's no sort of time limit on it like there is with social media yeah um and i think um you know something i didn't answer before going back to uh the question you asked was what is my my message you know how do i see things um compared

to you know other people in the industry? And for me, it's all about training and nutrition and a lifestyle with personal preference, practicality, and sustainability in mind without neglecting enjoyment. For me, there's a lot of people out there preaching like you have to eat this, you have to train this way, you have to do certain ridiculous things. And more and more in the fitness industry these days, we see those extremes come to play. And unfortunately, a lot of people, particularly the ones starting out, see that if they aren't able to do that extreme, then they might not as well even try.

didn't try so for me because of the way that i i guess i ended up getting to where i am through training and nutrition i feel quite strongly about the way that there's a lot of people out there that are giving the wrong message and that you don't have to be quite so strict you don't have to be so damn extreme in order to look the way you want yeah and you know like obviously there's a lot of people out there bagging flexible dieting and if it's your macros again because of those extremists that take it to the you know the far end of the scale and they only eat protein shakes and pop tarts but um you know if we can use the science behind that to our advantage and make intelligent decisions regarding the food we eat then um you know this whole long-term training nutrition thing becomes ultimately very simple rather than this complex, I don't know what to do. Is this the right thing to take? Should I be eating this?

When should I take this? It goes out the window. If we focus on the why, why things happen, why we lose weight, why we gain weight, then all of a sudden the whole, the actual process of doing that becomes so much easier. And for me, that's always been my message. That's, you know, that's why I post photos of me sitting in front of five burgers, because you know what, if you want to eat five burgers every so often, there are ways you can actually get away with that without gaining four kilos, you know? Totally. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are all the things that I talk about all the time in my work and absolutely agree on all counts. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread

the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Something we were talking about before we started recording I thought would be worth diving into, and that is how much work actually goes in behind the scenes to produce what people see just in terms of your social media. Not even talking about all the rest of your business that you have to do.

I think that's worth just discussing, just to give people a little behind the scenes. Because things always look way easier when you're on the outside looking in and you're like, yeah, how fucking hard is that? It's just, he just, he just like, I don't know, he pulled his shorts up and took a shirt off and took a picture and moved on with his life. Right. I mean, yeah. And you're on sometimes that is the case.

Um, but yeah, more often than not, I mean, social media is very time consuming, particularly the way I try to do things. I think one of the most important things you can do is engage with the people that follow you i see a lot of accounts particularly a lot of followers post their stuff and i never ever engage with anybody that likes their photos or comments on their photos and i just think if it weren't for the people that are actually engaging with your stuff you wouldn't be where you are so i always try and engage as much as possible with the people that do follow me and

that in itself is a seriously time-consuming process particularly considering for the most part you can't actually do it on a computer you need to sit on your phone and i assume you you use might as well throw it out there do you have any apps that help you with that like uh like web apps you know uh are you like iconosquare for example is is not bad for managing comments to some i mean i think it's like limited in terms of it's like your last x days or posts or something but yeah to be honest i've actually shied away from those because i've heard some horror stories in the past where instagram in particular is very uh ruthless in regards to use of third-party applications so okay I just,

I just sort of like whatever people have lost their accounts and stuff over it. Correct. Yeah. So then, so then you should, I mean that also then would include like those things that go out and like stuff for you and whatever.

I mean, I'm not, I'm not super familiar with it. I just know that's out there. Yeah. I know that's out there too. And I would absolutely recommend you stay away from that. I'm pretty sure the way that the Instagram guidelines are set up so that –

Yeah, I mean, they don't want that, I'm sure. No, if they find that, I'm pretty sure they just shut your account straight up. And the only reason I know that is because my girlfriend's actually had her account disabled twice now in the last four weeks even for violating the community guidelines. So I'm quite wary of what they say in there. She didn't do anything wrong, by the way. She got her account back. But yeah, I mean, obviously social media does take a long time. So give people a little snapshot.

Like where does that time? So there's time in obviously responding to people that comment on, I mean, as many as you can probably on images. Do you go like, what's your routine? What does it look like? What works for you? Yeah, okay, it's cool. So typically my average day I would get up and clear my email inbox or get as close as possible to doing that. And then from there, my time would probably be spent on creating and scheduling a newsletter for that day if I'm going to do it. And then from there, my attention typically turns to social media.

There was a time in the past where I tended to prioritize social media above other things. And I think as a learning experience, if anything, as talking anything, it's, you know, you need to make sure that you're looking after the people that are actually paying you before the people that are simply just absorbing your free stuff and probably never going to give you a dime yeah so for me that's the way i tend to work things now typically the content that i put out will you know align with a certain experience that has happened to me at the time or i may look at doing some sort of series type thing i won't't sort of reveal that series, but I'll know in my head,

like where the direction is going. At the moment, I tend to only post once a day on Instagram, simply to try and keep it more relevant and more scarce. That's funny though. I mean, that's still like, that's good,

right? I mean, again, I'm coming from like, I'm the dude that won't post for like two weeks, which is, yes, it's terrible. But yeah, I think you need to post regularly enough to stay relevant. Like, were you doing more than once a day previously? Yeah, I used to do up to two or three a day, but ultimately like, and so, I mean, actually just legitimately asking. So would you

kind of plan that out even like in advance? Would you, would you kind of look at your, and even whether it's by the week or by the month even and say, okay, so like, so we avoid posting the same kind of shit over and over. What are we going to do? We're going to do this week, you know, it was a brainstorm thing or did you just go off the cuff? Like, Hey, I'm doing this right now. Picture. I'm doing that right now. Picture. To be honest, I've tried both. And for me, the off the cuff like hey i'm doing this right now picture i'm doing that right now picture to be honest i've tried both and for me the off the cuff works far better simply because i mean that they might yeah they make they may come times where all of a sudden i have a great bunch of thoughts but whenever i have a great thought i tend to write it down at the time okay um without

necessarily scheduling it so for you it's more about the thought and what so you're talking more about what the caption is than than the visual yeah so most of the time the visual is i mean realistically largely irrelevant yeah um you obviously you obviously like i thought honestly it's the other way around that it was more about just having kind of pretty pictures and yeah ultimately i mean you want to make sure that every picture is as good as possible and there are certain photos that i'll take and i just think I can never really post that. Yeah. Because I'm with it. No one's going to engage with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as I said, I did try the whole like, okay, I'm going to start scheduling posts and like creating stuff for the future. But particularly with the length of some of my content, like it just became impossible to sort of sit down and think, I'm going to do 10 posts right now. So that'll take me six hours. Yeah. like um it's not it's not gonna happen so for me i tend to as i said i wing it somewhat but i obviously dedicate time each day to creating said content sure and now it's to the point where if i don't get that time i probably won't post right because i don't really see any that That's kind of like what I am again.

It's just I've not. I mean, sometimes a little better than other times. But if I'm not posting for a week or so, it's just because I feel the same way or I'm like, I don't know. I'm sitting here in my office. Like, I'm just I'm holed up like a hermit for the next week. I don't even know. So I'm just going to post nothing. I don't I don't have anything.

I don't know. I know. You know, I get that, too. You know, and I work out by myself. So I would I do a selfie in the mirror like everyone else? I don't even care. On that note, I would urge everyone to try both approaches and see what works for you. I know a few friends that do similar things to me that they love to sit down and just schedule everything so they know that when the time comes, all they're going to do is copy paste select the appropriate picture and go from

there yeah and if you have the time to do that maybe that's going to work way better for you but i think um with instagram in particular um simply because instagram these days tends to be more of a blog of what's sort of happening at the moment i tend to find it's hard to schedule those sorts of things facebook obviously is very very hard to schedule those sorts of things. Facebook obviously is very, very easy to schedule posts in the future. And there will be times where I certainly do that, particularly considering my following on Facebook tends to be all over the world. So I want to try and cater for different time zones. But to be honest, I use Facebook more now as a bit of a hub, which sort of connects to every piece of social media so i'll upload things from instagram through facebook and you know upload links to youtube videos and

upload actual videos straight into facebook to try and keep some content native just like kind of like a centralized this is everything that's going on exactly like this is it's like my uh it's like the rss feed type thing just pulls from everything right yeah i think i think for me like you know i'm still talking like anywhere from one to two hours a day just trying to figure out figure out and think about what i want to post and then actually getting that content together there will be times where maybe i am able to just literally score a quick snap and then shit i can use that yeah awesome let's use that yeah but yeah for the most part if uh if i'm trying to create meaningful content there'll be you know research into it and

i'll make sure that i've got a more often than not i'll make sure i've got a research article or a um a journal behind it just because i don't want to be in a position where a troll has me on the ropes yeah which is that us that's a learning experience as well don't post stuff that you know maybe isn't 100 fact because someone just because you like read it read it on youtube comment you're like yeah that's probably not exactly yeah if you can't defend what you're posting then you shouldn't be posting it yeah and yeah as i said i learned that the hard way but yeah i mean it certainly it certainly takes a lot of time that, you know,

every situation I'm in now, I think, Oh, is there a photo opportunity here? Cause if so, like, that's a good point too. So I was actually was to ask you, does it, did it, does it get there where you're like, now it's like in the back of your head, basically. It's almost like you have the eye of a photographer in a sense, like where's the picture opportunity? Where's the. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think things like snapchat and instagram stories have sort of helped that because um a lot more people are now sort of you know essentially vlogging on the go all the time and so you know you get your snapchat out you're you're doing your thing and and you know i find snapchat tends to work the best if you sort of update it fairly regularly so every hour or two to make sure you're sort of staying at the top of that feed and people are constantly engaging with what you're posting but as a consequence like you know you're also looking for okay if i'm like constantly taking photos and constantly taking videos of myself like what what else could look good or good enough that i could actually share that on my story as well on my feed as well yeah can you

can you do that can you share from from like Snapchat or Insta story? Not directly, but if you post something to Snapchat, you can obviously save it and then repost it at a later date. Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah. But, you know, the way that social media works now is obviously you've got all of what, particularly on Instagram, all of maybe three seconds to engage with somebody as they scroll. Yeah.

So chances are I would probably now, i rarely post an iphone photo in that i would rather use the camera that i bought specifically to take beautiful pictures to post those photos because the cleaner and the clearer and the more crisp those photos look i mean the the better chance you have of somebody engaging with it so and what what camera just so people i mean is it is it it's probably it's probably more expensive like dslr is there was there a more inexpensive one that you used along the way that you liked or yeah so i first started off with a sony a5100 i think which was just a like a small compact thing but now i use a sony a7 mark ii okay which more professional type deal yeah yeah yeah so like you know cost me a couple of grand but yeah when the first one was about a few hundred dollars or something yeah first one

was like three or four hundred bucks yeah i think and obviously it's a good it's a good point and that's something even cory who handles social media for legion um i mean i like that from a business perspective social media is great and she does a very good job and she's like super into social media she wants me to be better and do more social media she may we actually just need to get someone to help her at this point take some of the workload some of the stuff you're talking about the time intensive stuff of engaging with people and you know there's just no way to really shortcut it take that off of her plate and then she wants to get more involved in my stuff but that was one of her things is she's like all right so i'm gonna start coming to the gym with you with a fucking

camera we're gonna get some real pictures so we've done that a few times and that's like a thing now she's like no more no more phone pictures we're gonna get real pictures yeah yeah well yeah that's it and you know now i've got a videographer that i work with and um yeah the good thing is i actually sort of um was able to mold him because he didn't have any experience with a camera but he has spent a lot of his time training. So he sort of knows more about like the angles that would work and, you know, about the stuff that I'm doing so that he can sort of think about what would

look best. Yeah. But now it's to the point where he'll be like, dude, hold that pose. And he'll just like, all of a sudden be like, you know,

snap five photos. And then all of a sudden, maybe I've got five photos for the next, you know, that I could use over the space of the next five weeks it's five sure one day after the other but yeah yeah I mean that obviously helps and having a girlfriend that's also involved with social media helps as well because you know if we're both out and we'll just be like I think this would be a good photo can you take it yeah but yeah ultimately you can never have enough content even if you think it's going to be a good photo. Can you take it? Yeah. But, yeah, ultimately, you can never have enough content.

Even if you think it's going to be a crappy photo, take it anyway just in case because you never know. It might be fire. Sometimes the best photos are those spur-of-the-moment ones. I remember one time I was traveling the U.S. I'd never been to Chipotle. And I finally decided, I was like, I'm just going to go check out Chipotle. And so I literally asked a passerby.

I think it was like this old guy, like a 60-year-old 60 year old man he's like mate would you mind taking a quick photo and i just literally just like front double bicep out the front of chipotle and i was like no longer a chipotle virgin it went like semi-viral it was ridiculous you know like that's sort of that's sort of stuff like yeah who would have known for you you're just like yeah whatever fuck it right here i don't know yeah absolutely you know adds value, but at the same time, people are like, yeah, that's pretty funny. I'll engage with that. And that continues to build the relationship.

It shows people who you are. It gives them a bit of an insight into how you tick sort of thing. So I think those things are important too. And going back to that, I think if you pretend to be someone that you probably aren't on social media, that's probably going to come out sooner rather than later. So if you can be as realistic and as relatable as possible and allow your own personality to shine through in the content that you put out, ultimately, I think the following that you build is going to be far more engaged and far more interested long term as well. I think you see a lot of people um particularly i don't know how in junior i was socially there were a few guys sort of exposed not too long ago

for uh being sort of less than real um and also the shreds the shreds guys or something else yeah yeah yeah i i saw what was it was like i saw something about a coaching service that was like bullshit and then it was like a bunch of photoshopping and stuff yeah yeah ultimately if you're if you're gonna do that it's gonna bite you in the ass yeah later yeah so um yeah and and on that note you know a lot of people i think look at social media and think like oh well you know i don't quite look the way that i want to look yet, so it's probably not for me. Honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth because I can tell you now the posts that get the most engagement on my page

are not the ones where I look the leanest or the biggest or the most jacked. Oh, interesting. So what are they then? What do you say? What are the ones that generally get the most engagement? The ones where I am being as real and as honest as possible. you say what are those what are the ones that generally get the most engagement you the ones where i am being as real and as honest as possible and can you give an example like how does that manifest so you have like chipotle as an example that's you just kind of being goofy that's crap

yeah yeah but um well no but still but that's an element of your personality if you're kind of like a playful dude and you're just kind of messing around i mean it's something right absolutely yeah um and people appreciate people that don't take themselves super seriously. So I think that's like a, you know, it maybe shows a little bit of that. Absolutely. Um,

yeah, I think, I think the best thing you can be is relatable. Um, you know, people should be able to look at you and think, shit, this dude is real.

Like I, I go through that. Like, I think that he thinks that like wait so there's there's a bit of vulnerability where he is sorry sorry i was saying there's a bit of like vulnerability almost of absolutely of showing who you really are and and that makes sense um yeah yeah so like recently i put up a post about you know talking about the way that i first felt when i first started training.

It's not groundbreaking stuff. It's probably the same sort of stuff that everybody thinks about when they first start to train. I don't feel like I belong here. But when people hear that I've been through that, considering that I'm now considered to know, figure that has obviously spent some time in the gym to feel that, you know, to hear that I've actually been through those initial, you know, sort of feelings as well. I think people can relate to that far better and think, well, hang on, maybe we aren't too dissimilar.

Maybe I can get to where he is because he used to be where I am right now. And, you know, the first time I started to learn this was I did a series of posts where I posted a picture of myself shirt off, not flexed and shirt off flexed. I was like, just so you guys know, like when most of us take photos on social media, we know the photo is being taken. Like we are doing our very best to make sure that we are looking as good as possible, as incredible as possible. our very best to make sure that we are looking as good as possible as incredible as possible yeah so but like what you need to understand is that you can aspire to look that way but understand that i don't look that way 100 of the time yeah for a moment in time at the right angle with the right lighting you too so yeah so literally i posted a photo i was like this is what i look like every

day unflexed versus flexed, no pump, no lighting, no angles, no photo editing. This is just what I look like. If you run into me in the street, the picture on the left is what you're going to see. If you meet me in the gym half an hour later, I might look a little bit more like the one on the right. But I can tell you now, I do not look like the one on the right, nor does anyone on social media look like the photos that they

post on the right unless they're a jabbing very hard or b lying to you you know it just doesn't work like that and i think i think aligning people's expectations and and being honest and open and real with people is where it's at and i think um another testament is that my girlfriend does a lot of social media stuff too her following following isn't quite as big as mine, but it is probably three times more engaged than mine is. And because she is like arguably the realist account on Instagram. She has a lot of, she talks about a lot of her insecurities and how she feels day to day and relates a lot of that back to fitness. Girls are good at that. Oh, dude, she's incredible at it. And ultimately, she's been responsible for sort of helping me

with that whole showing vulnerability thing. Because, I mean, you see so much image crafting, right, on social media. And you have so much where, I mean, we all know those people that we know in real life. And we look at their social media and we're like, what the fuck this person like this is so not this person at all i mean the best example for me is some guy he's just a guy i just know i wouldn't say he's a friend just some dude i would i know his name i'd say hi if i knew him or if i saw him kind of thing and his whole thing on social media is to pretend like he's rich and he's not he's just a normal dude but but he has

befriended various rich people and he has this game going where like he'll go in that dude's lamborghini and take a picture like of him driving his friend's car but pretend or he'll go to the watch store and try on the patek philippe and take the picture as if and then like i'd be like yo fam should i get the should i get the fucking should I get the fucking, whatever this is, you know, the, I don't even know the name of the watches, whatever, you know what I mean? Like, and that's like, that's, that's this duty. It's actually at this point, it's a mental illness in my opinion, but that's an extreme example, but there's a lot of that. So you're very much about doing the opposite. And it sounds like positioning yourself against that and just saying, Hey, if this is how I live and if I, and I'm trying to

help you and if that resonates with you, then follow me. Um, if, if this is not, you know, if it's, if I'm not, if we don't jive and you know, Hey, that's cool. But this is, this is who I am. Absolutely. You know, he's like a better approach for him would be like, today I got to drive in a Lamborghini. Yeah. Like for me, this is my number one goal. I hope like hell that one day I can work hard enough to earn enough money to

justify being able to buy this car. It was awesome to be in it today and to know like what it feels like. This is not yet mine. And like, I mean, so many more people can relate to that. You know, like who doesn't want a Lamborghini? Yeah like i want a lamborghini but you know like at the same time i

also don't want to post about owning one unless i own one right like i just i don't see any point to that that's just ridiculous i mean yeah i think i think it's better to transcend i think it's better to be at the point where you don't even care and you don't need the lamborghini that's yeah exactly well yeah i think yeah on that regard obviously there's um you know life is is life is all about priorities sure and so if um you know tangible items at one point or another are one of yours then you know you should you should chase that but um you're right you know like i agree there are a lot of things that are more important than those things i tend to think of them like i'll be i'll be honest i i love the idea of driving and buying a lamborghini because i do see that as a ticket or as a uh you know a tangible representation of success but more so because i know how much money they cost and the

sort of shit that you would need to have in order before you could even think about trying to buy one so right for me there's a lot of so so then i would ask you though why what why why do you want to have people look at you and be like oh that dude's successful 100 curious like if we're talking about lamborghinis i'm actually curious no okay so so i know i should be i should be. Do I want people to think that I'm successful? I don't really care if they think I'm successful. For me now, certainly not in the past, absolutely. I used to see a car like a Lamborghini as a, hey, look at me, hey, look how successful I am.

Yeah, like don't you wish you were me? Like, oh, look at this shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think when I first started social media, going back to that whole, those guys have a lot of followers. seems like a cool thing yeah story i think now for me it's more of a representation of my own hard work okay so for yourself it's something absolutely i see absolutely um and also i mean some legitimately some some people are really into cars i understand that too like if someone's really into cars and that's like my wife she's

really into fashion she'll spend amounts of monies on things that make no sense to me, honestly. But it makes her so happy. And it's not about showing off. She's not one of those girls like, oh, look at my Chanel bag. I'm so cool. She just genuinely loves like for her own, for whatever reason, it just fills her with joy. And so I've even like semi-jealous. I'm like, i can't get joy

that easy i can't just go buy something and and be like you know filled with the just have my heart you know exploding uh but some people for them that's the lamborghini because they just love cars there's something to it where it's not about you know again signaling your importance to other people but it's just like for them that's to drive that car it just they're just like a smile they can't get the smile off their face and so you know i understand that exactly yeah exactly and and then that's yeah i mean for me that would be the epitome i mean i've always loved my cars so that's um that's why i understand from that perspective as i said um there are certainly other things that are far more important

than that. And if that ends up becoming an opportunity in the future because everything else is aligned, cool. But if not, then I'm going to continue to focus on aligning everything else first. Totally. All right. So I have a last question for you. I know we're kind of, it's, the conversation's gone, but I mean, sometimes I don't like to have a hard stop. Like if it's a good conversation, I usually just kind of let it roll. But I have one more question. So in terms of building your following, so I think you've shared a ton of great information on how to serve your crowd and how to, more from a strategic perspective on how to go about social media. And I think it's a great overall strategy.

I'm just curious if there have been some more tactical things that have served you well for growing your following. So you mentioned engaging with as much as you can with your followers. That makes total sense. I'm just curious if there are any other specific things where you, because I'm sure you've tried a lot of things, paid things, free things, whatever, advertising, blah, blah, blah. I'm just curious, what do you say is like the 20% that has given you 80%, you know? Yeah, yeah. I think there are a few things. Obviously, you need to make sure you're posting good quality content.

You need to give people a reason to follow you, as I said earlier on. If you can encourage people to share it with their friends as well, obviously you can't get people to share directly through things like Instagram or Snapchat, but you can certainly ask people to do that on things like Facebook. So actually call to action asking for it. Like if you liked it, please share it kind of thing.

Absolutely. Okay. And if you are in the position where you can give them something for free to do that, then do that. You know, I used to put out a lot of call to actions on Facebook, are in the position where you can give them something for free to do that, then do that. I used to put out a lot of call to actions on Facebook exactly like that. Like there would be a few when I first began to simply try and increase engagement because ultimately the more people

that are engaging with your stuff on Facebook means the more people end up going to see it, which means in the future when you post something that you might be able to get back more people will see that so i used to you know put up like if i get x amount of likes then i'll give you guys a free workout or you know if this if this video gets to x amount of likes or shares or whatever then i'll post three more just like it or anything like that yeah tag of friends are a great thing too you know tag a friend and, you know, if you tag the most friends or whatever it is, then, you know, I'll give you my free 12-week training program, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, I like that. That makes sense. Simple and works. Yeah. If I had my time again, I would create more free products. You know, as we were talking about before we started recording,

people love free stuff. I think the more free content that you have, particularly if you make it, if you market it in a way, yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. If your free content is good, just imagine what you'll get when you pay for my content. That's a powerful psychological thing that a lot of people overlook because they'll think like, oh, it's free. It doesn't have to be that good, right?

No, wrong. Because there's a lot of free stuff out there. I would flip that around and say, okay, look at all your stuff and what's your best, juiciest content? Make that free. Absolutely. And you've set a standard now

that you have to meet, but you can create that effect now where a person downloads a free whatever and they're expecting it's like the same shit that every you know whatever and then they're like oh wow this is like way better than i thought it was going to be that's powerful absolutely absolutely yeah but you know i yeah as i was saying if i if i had my time again I would create more free products to entice more people in and then, yeah, I mean, I mean getting people to engage, asking people, you need to be able to ask people, you know, like even if it is just tag a friend or like this post or whatever.

Or do you like ask for comments? Like what do you guys think and stuff like that? You know what I mean? Like pose questions to them. I found those, unless you have a like seriously highly engaged following and people really care about like what's going on. I think certain people can get away with that. But for the most part, like simply asking like, what did you do today? Oh, no, not necessarily like that.

I mean, I was thinking like, what do you think? Because it sounds like you kind of, so you put this time into this content. Let's say you're, you know, you're expounding on an idea and you're sharing your kind of like, this is what I think about it. What do you guys,'t know i'm just again i'm just asking from yeah yeah no of course no of course yeah no um i would certainly get people to you know share a friend or maybe share their experiences absolutely okay um or even if you just get even just a very simple question with you know a yes no answer or whatever just to get people engaging with your stuff and can you can you quickly explain everybody why that's important, even from

an algorithm standpoint? It's not just about getting looking cool that you got 100 comments on your... I think there's something to say with the individuals, like the psychology of that and the consistency that it builds, that the more they engage with you, the more subconsciously it tells them that they like you kind of thing and then the algorithm absolutely absolutely yeah so i mean i mean that that's a great point as well as them obviously seeing that you're a real person you're not just a robot you're not you're just posting stuff and and letting whatever will be will be is there also something algorithmically too that like yeah i'm actually i actually don't

even know 100 i assume there is but that's why I'm asking like. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think anyone's cracked the code, so to speak. Sure, sure. It certainly seems like, you know, the more people that engage with you. The more your stuff gets served in general. Absolutely. You know, like it's not impossible for something, if it gets, you know, highly engaged with, particularly early on, for it to all of a sudden just go viral. And the way that the algorithm seems to work

is the more people that like and comment on it, particularly early on, the more people will tend to end up seeing it, which ultimately results in more and more engagement. Yeah, absolutely. That's another thing. For me now, I tend to post at the same time every day, simply because I know that from personal experience posting around certain times tends to receive more engagement. And whilst I think it is important every so often to experiment so that you aren't always reaching the same followers for the

most part. So that might be like if you were going to post twice a day intentionally space those out so you're reaching different people. the most part um so that might be like if you were going to post twice a day intentionally space those out so you're reaching different people yeah absolutely absolutely and until you figure out sort of when those times are in terms of the best ones to post like yeah continue experimenting see which ones go really well at what times and then if um if you can replicate that and see if there's a trend or anything like that. Right. I think Instagram now even give you, give you insights into when most of your followers are online. For some reason,

I haven't got that yet, but yeah, yeah, no, I've seen it on mine. I don't know. It's like, I think they call it insights actually.

I don't, I don't know. Did you have you, I'm sure you've upgraded yours to like a business page, right? So people can, it has like a contact button. I did that temporarily, but I lost the ability to upload directly to my Facebook page as a consequence.

So I just turned it back. But yeah, you're right. Like you can look at insights through that sort of stuff. So yeah, by all means, do that. Don't take them as gospel. You still want to play around with that. I know my girlfriend sort of had some issues at times with her timings or the suggestions through that. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, you want to give yourself every opportunity of getting as much engagement as possible.

So if you think about the reason that maybe you would comment on something or maybe that you would engage with something, think about those sorts of reasons and then try and give your followers those exact reasons to do the same. Engineer your own psychology, basically. Exactly. You just went and liked something. Why? Exactly, right? So most of the time I will like or comment on something and I think it's either super impressive, super cool, or really relatable, or something about it stands out so if you can always try and think about doing that and appealing to somebody's sense of whatever it is that you're

trying to appeal to chances are you'll get more and more engagement and then if you can further engage them in conversation even better yeah rather just hitting with a comment saying thank you just going thanks very much i'm really glad you enjoyed that is there anything else you'd like to see you know ultimately more and more comments is going to help you with that algorithm and getting you up in the feed so yeah that's great plus two it's probably going to mean that that person in future is going to be more likely to engage with you because i thought well hey he entertained me last time like if i've got a question, maybe I can ask him something. And engaged and took his time to actually say something to me. I mean, especially when the wow effect of that grows, it seems, I mean, I've seen not so much social media.

I mean, I do the same thing. My social media following is just much smaller than yours, but I've seen it more with email and so forth where people are very surprised to get a reply from me just because they think that like, wow, you know what I mean? I understand they're cynical because there's a lot of people, once they achieve a certain level of success or whatever, they're just like, oh, and now I don't care. Go fuck yourself. You know what I mean? That's like the standard thing, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, like to this day, I still respond to every single email that i ever get yeah it's great yeah i mean it's time consuming but at the same time like i know how stoked i used to feel yep when i would leave a comment on someone that i deemed to be um yeah you admire or whatever successful yeah absolutely and if they hit me back with a comment it's like shit i just made my day yeah so if people can do that to me and I can give them the opportunity to feel like I've made them I've made their day, then yeah, I'll do that for sure. That's great. I did the same thing. It got up to like four to

five hours a day actually every day was just answering emails and social media messages. And now I have a couple people that help. They jump in because a lot of questions that get emailed are very simple. Like I've written so many articles and so many things where that really the answer is like, hey, that's a good question. Just go check out this article. And so like one of my coaches, he doesn't answer as me, he answers as himself, but he'll jump in and kind of go through the simpler stuff of like, hey, I'm Roger. I help Mike out. You know, as you can imagine, he gets a ton of emails. Good question. I think this is going to help. And it doesn't have the same effect, but people are still very happy to get a real response. And ultimately, if anybody,

we have a little system worked out where things get funneled. Things get through to me that are either directly to me or where if my guys aren't quite sure and so we have I still spend time on it every day it just got to where I was like I can't I can't spend five hours a day doing this in exactly but I don't want to just drop it I don't want people to not get responses I don't want to like not ask for engagement anymore so that you know that's the that's the new system yeah that's a good one that's a good one if it works and you should definitely keep up with that because it's important that people continue to get a response because you never know how much of an impact that single response could have on their day,

even if it's just to give them a smile. They're going to take that and it's going to improve their day. So if you can continue doing that, then by whatever means possible, I would suggest you do so, man. Yeah. A little anecdote I always share is charles darwin for i mean it was like for decades uh i mean this was after origin of species this is after he's charles darwin would spend two to three hours every night replying to people's letters and so yeah if darwin was willing to do it i mean who are we to say like are we too good for that you know okay exactly okay. Exactly right. Exactly. And, you know, at the end of the day, the people that are sort of tuning into these things do so for a reason. So, you know, even if it's just to say, you know, a brief thank you, then, you know, that's pretty awesome, I think.

Absolutely. All right, great. Well, I think that's a good point to conclude on. We've covered a lot of stuff, a lot of really good points. And I mean, I've learned things. And so I appreciate you taking the time. Personally, I appreciate it. And so let's just end with where can people find you and your work? And if there's anything in terms of like products or services in particular that you want people to know about that you think would best, you know, where's a good place to start? And, you know then then let's let them know yeah it's too easy so uh i guess um you know first and foremost nick cheetle fitness on instagram and facebook just the one word obviously for instagram three separate ones for facebook nickcheetlefitness.com is my website where i put out most of my blogs and you can obviously sign up to my mailing list

on there if you would uh appreciate that additional content that i do put out snapchat is nickshadle fit which gives you a bit more of an insight into that day-to-day stuff because uh as we mentioned before i'm not a huge fan or i'm not very good at the whole vlogging thing on youtube yeah as far as products go look at my idea and run with it i'm telling you it's a good idea you you have a girlfriend you guys can pretend like you get together break up and you can you can make it's true actually you know we've joked about that in the past actually we're like we're gonna get some better engagement maybe we should fake a breakup absolutely absolutely good idea it's more yeah yeah um yeah the only product that i really push now is um is the one that i'm sort of most proud of that i've created it's called

the flexible or the ephepitium macros haven't given a name change there, which is basically the book that I wrote to try and educate people on how to diet more sustainably, more enjoyably, essentially make their life less about dieting and more about actually enjoying themselves whilst also looking the way that they want to look. You can actually grab that on my website as well,

nickshadelfitness.com. It's pretty cheap. It's not very expensive at all. It should answer every question. Call to action. Go get it. That and it's pretty cheap it's it's not very expensive at all so cool if it should answer every question call to action call to action go get it that's it that's it you know it's it's super cheap it sort of takes you through the whole um the whole process of dieting basically everything you should ever need to know it took me uh sort of about 12 months to write because i wanted to try and make sure i covered every aspect of dieting from not knowing what a calorie is to uh to figuring out your macros and how to track

appropriately and figure all those things out in between, like what sort of style of dieting might work for you as well as how to carb cycle or what supplements do I need? All that sort of stuff's in there. So if you have any nutrition-related questions, chances are you can probably find the answer in there. Okay, great. Well, everybody, I recommend follow Nick. As you can see, he's a cool guy, a real guy. I like, I mean, I, I'm kind of picky with the guests I have on the show because I want to have people on that I feel okay introducing my crowd to and that they, you know, won't be, they won't be led astray. So as, as always, this is an endorsement of you and of your work. I like what you're doing and I appreciate you taking the time. Absolutely. Thank you again.

And, um, that's a wrap. appreciate you taking the time. Absolutely. Thank you again. And, um, that's a wrap. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast.

If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two, um, where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of four to

six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.