Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 2023 Instagram Growth Hacks with the Growth God Julian Walder

Starting point is 00:00:00 Cause now we're gonna do what you need now You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host, and today I'm pretty excited. One of my favorite fucking words is growth, and we got the growth god. We got Julian Walterord, your host, and today I'm pretty excited. One of my favorite fucking words is growth, and we got the growth god. We got Julian Walter. What's up, brother?

Starting point is 00:00:30 What's up? Thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really juiced. Hey, man. I'm juiced. Talking growth. We're talking, hey, everybody wants to know the trade secrets, all the knowledge, the good, good the bad the ugly of instagram growth hacking has always been fascinating to me at the end of the day i've always been fascinated with it because it's like why do we not want to get to where we want to go faster right as long as we're not breaking any laws or you know like so i've always really admired that mindset of of kind of getting there but let's set the table for everyone for your background. And, you know, anybody that's the growth god, I just realized like some of the

Starting point is 00:01:10 strategies I was in, I should just sell this as a service. And so I just started getting people to pay. There was this thing called Instagram. It was like the most awesome thing ever. You could follow and like people based on tags. And I grew it to got like 200 clients at one point and just kept going down that road, consulted some corporations like IBM. And I decided I wanted to build my own software, like start building these tools. Like I've been using these tools, like I want to build something better. Then kind of went down that path of building these Instagram growth tools, kind of always at war with Goliath. The algorithm slash the powers that be. Right. So like you started to get just used,

Starting point is 00:01:55 there was like a solid two years, three years where we've really dominated. And like there was maybe two to like 10 people that were like on the same level. But, you know, with growth hacking, which is why I'm so passionate about it, is when everybody under the sun starts doing the same thing to get attention, it doesn't really work anymore. And so when everybody starts to pick on like, oh, I can do this follow and follow. I could do this thing. So funny. That's the nature of it. Isn't it funny?

Starting point is 00:02:24 Yeah. The nature of like everybody wants to keep it secret. But, unfollow. I could do this thing. So funny. That's the nature of it. Isn't it funny? The nature of like, everybody wants to keep it secret, but you know. Right. And so, and so that's why I think it's awesome to be in this space because you can't really just put your feet up and like, think that everything's going to be cool. And like tomorrow there's not going to be a hurricane. So for me, it's always been like fun to find new little, little hacks that work. And it also allows you to be like innovative and disruptive and be able to beat some of these people that are just kind of businessmen.

Starting point is 00:02:53 You know, I like to make the distinction between like businessmen and entrepreneurs that like actually create or innovate versus people that, you know, have this source and, you know, they just are selling. The space is always changing. Instagram is just nowhere near what it used to be. It's a whole different animal. know have this source and you know they just are selling the space is always changing instagram is just nowhere near what it used to be it's a whole different animal not even an animal a monster there was something always aesthetically in ui that i just thought was brilliant about the platform and even to this day some things have gotten annoying and as bulky as it's gotten it's still

Starting point is 00:03:21 my favorite fucking platform and maybe it's you know maybe familiarity breeds sincere like or something i don't know but like it just feels right with my experiences i would say like yeah it's probably my favorite just because that's been like my life how i built like my business for a long time but there are certain things about it that have become like fatigue it's like you kind of see the same things that we were seeing like three years ago, the success pages, the flaunting, the wealth, like, you know, it gets old a little bit. I guess it depends on what you follow. And yeah, I mean, it's cool. Sometimes it's distracting. I'll just go on my explore page and there's just like a bunch of like half naked girls. And I'm just like, why? so yeah no i think it has it's it's definitely an amazing place to connect with people and that has been probably one of the hardest things

Starting point is 00:04:13 as like you get bigger it's like you cannot have the same attention that you were giving to everybody in your dms it's just it's insane. You know, it's madness. Give everybody a fair chance is what I'm also saying is really hard. Everybody likes life hacks. Everybody loves shortcuts, right? And as long as you aren't breaking the law, I think there's just a fascination and we should all embrace, you know, finding those loopholes. We got to push the limits a little bit and maximize our time. Of course. The rules for me are, it's not that they're meant to be broken, but if you're not really hurting people, I feel like the end justifies means. What's been the evolution of like Instagram growth? What people need to understand about

Starting point is 00:05:08 marketing is it's about attention and it's about getting attention in a place where everybody's trying to get attention. And so that is what makes it harder. It used to be a little bit easier to get somebody's attention because you could have liked their first. But I guess I would say there is this misconception that psychologically, when we look at it and we see the people that we look up to that have 5 million followers, that's a lot of people. 50,000, when you look at it, it's a massive amount of human beings. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:42 And you're talking about 100 times that. 5 million, right? Am I doing my math right human beings. Yeah. And you're talking about 100 times that. 5 million, right? Am I doing my math right? Exactly. Yeah. Just imagine 50,000 people yelling at you or like commenting on you, on what you were wearing. So a lot of those are not real. And so sometimes it's more important about getting in front of the right people to get the attention from.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And really, I hate to say it, but sometimes faking it till you make it can help you. Perception is reality. It is what it is. The thing that I tell people is I don't tell people to fake it till you make it. fact that perception is reality and that you may need to growth hack or do things in the beginning to create the momentum. And look, you got to have substance. I always tell people, and this is kind of where you were headed, like you better have some substance behind it. Because if you're faking everything, then this is not where I'm telling you to go. But if you've got the goods and you've got a story to tell, no matter what that is, it can be a million different things. As long as you have that substance behind you, then you have to play the game a bit to get the ball rolling.

Starting point is 00:06:55 It was the word you used, the purpose. But what rings in my head is like the memes of Gary V impersonators are like, content, content. You got to have good content, post more content. I think that's really what it is. It's a combination of first, you need to be a pretty girl. Like if you're not a pretty girl, people are going to, yeah, people aren't going to look at you, but more so like, I love the pizza analogy.

Starting point is 00:07:20 I use it all the time. But if you have great pizza and it's really good pizza and you pay a hundred people to wait in line, the people that walk by are like, whoa, like what is that place? The pizza must be good. So that being said, the pizza has to be good. When people go into that line and they go into that pizza store and the pizza is not good, it's not going to work. You got to have substance. Substance is a word. That was the word. It was substance. So once you have the substance or what I'm driving traffic to is what we would say.

Starting point is 00:07:52 Yeah, if you're a knowledge expert, you have knowledge. If you're a marketing person sharing marketing knowledge, it better be real. If you're a wedding expert, you better have wedding knowledge. If you're a pretty girl, you better have bikini photos. Like you got to have the sauce once we get you in the front door, right? A hundred thousand percent about driving just massive traffic. I think that's why I love growth hacking is because just sending 30 million DMs, like knocking on. You can't do that.

Starting point is 00:08:22 Like you cannot knock on a hundred million people's doors like and that's why the internet is the most awesome thing ever because you can email like to think that facebook is going through what it's going through because he can't get more users it's hilarious it's like there's no more people on the planet to get yeah he's got 50 of them and i mean the rest don't probably have a computer right and it's like it's like he's got like shareholder meters like yeah you know we're gonna have to get more users we're gonna we're gonna build satellites in africa so that we can get them internet and we can get them more users and it's like man like but i guess i guess i'll lead it back to the whole content thing which is funny to me because I just see it as like this charlatan opportunity to make money.

Starting point is 00:09:11 And that's kind of what the world is. It's like we have these secrets and we want to be compensated for them. But it's funny because Gary Vee is one of the reasons why I took this leap of entrepreneurship. I remember I was in school and it was so hard to continue because I loved the philosophy and all the stuff I was reading in the school. But I had a business that was like rocking. It was rocking. And it was taking a lot of my time. And my mom said if I dropped out, she wasn't going to help pay with rent and I was going to end up working at McDonald's.

Starting point is 00:09:48 And it was really hard. It was really hard. And I saw one of his videos and he was like, fuck everybody, man. And you know how it happened. It came up on YouTube and it was like if you're not willing to jump and just fail or take the risk and not just, all right, I'm going to put some chips on this bet. If you're not willing to just put it all in, you're not an entrepreneur. And I think with growth hacking, it's about just driving traffic from as many ways possible. And Instagram is already such a beast that it's like, you got likes, you got stories,

Starting point is 00:10:26 you got reels, you got shout outs, you got, it's already a lot to take in to drive traffic. Another thing that has been kind of working, I'd say it's pretty gray black hat is just having people tag you in their story. So you just have like a million people tag your account. And all of a sudden the algorithm is recognizing, whoa, this account is getting tagged a lot. The golden rule. That's what it is. It's the golden rule.

Starting point is 00:10:52 Do unto other accounts as you would have them do unto yours. And it's not just that. And it comes back, right? It's social media for a reason. Yes. We're supposed to be social. This is how we engage and we interact. This is how we engage and we interact this is how we connect with people this is how you get people's attention you like you follow you engage with them

Starting point is 00:11:12 you've just got to really know your shit to kind of get it to work or because you can you can waste some i you know we talked earlier and you mentioned i'm glad you did because i mean you're the growth hacker you're you're the growth god but you even mentioned pay to play you got to pay to play even with ads because they do work but you can also spend and waste a lot of money on ads if you don't do it the right way I really wish that there was more attention on that front because you you could only imagine how many Facebook ad campaigns have been created to not build some sort of statistically significant replicas of successful campaigns for somebody to you know click a button here say i'm in entertainment or i'm in selling doors and just kind of create an AI that runs these ads and has people win, you know?

Starting point is 00:12:07 What's the, you know, everybody says, okay, images don't perform anymore. Reels perform. Like, I've heard they've dialed that back a bit, but any perspective on is it truly just video or nothing these days? Yeah. The answer is TikTok is a monster. And Instagram has always made sure to stay in line with what's trending. And that's what people are doing on TikTok.

Starting point is 00:12:35 So they've changed their system to prioritize the reels. And I think what's really cool about it is that now you can be paid on them. And you can be paid on your Facebook page. Any final words of wisdom on just the gram in general? and to just continue putting out what you want to put out and not to let the pressure of this and how much to stop you from, if you believe in your work and if you continue and you're consistent and you go work with people like us on Instagrowth, that you will drive the right traffic. And not to get so sucked up into that, uh, that space. Cause it cannot be

Starting point is 00:13:26 good for your mind. You know, get off, get off your phone a little bit. You don't, you don't need to refresh your post every five seconds. Like just, you know, see how many people commented. Um, you don't need, like, if you post what you love and what you're doing, just post and move on. You don't need to be tweaking about that stuff. So that's my wisdom is that not to let it consume so much of what you think means that you're talented or good. Because I've seen and worked with people that have had, you know, a thousand followers and they've made some of the best music I've ever heard. Um, so Julia, man, I really appreciate it. You know, when you get into these episodes, we talk at such a high level cause we could talk

Starting point is 00:14:17 for three hours about some of this stuff that we'll make sure we're linking to articles and different points of view from, from team at Instagrowth. So excited, man. Well, thank you so much, Ryan. I had an awesome time. And yeah, if there's any agencies or people that are in the space, please reach out to us. I think you'd love what we've built and serve this for your clients. We want this for agencies because I know what it's like to have a house built and um

Starting point is 00:14:47 have a hurricane destroy it so so thanks tell me where where can everybody keep up with you and or instagram let's drop at least verbally some some links and stuff right verbally my instagram right now is it's the growthgod. It's the growth god. And yeah, the website is instagrowth.com. You can sign up there. And we do have an Instagram page. It's called instagram.com, like spelt out, like D-O-T-C-O-M. Well, hey, guys, go follow all these guys at Instagrowth.

Starting point is 00:15:23 You'll get a lot of knowledge and we'll have show notes and more information as we move along and you know where to find us the radcast.com i'm at ryan alford verified on instagram and i didn't pay for it right we'll see you next time on the radcast to listen or watch full episodes visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.

Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 2023 Instagram Growth Hacks with the Growth God Julian Walder

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