Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Brock Johnson: Is Instagram Dead? Unlock the Secret to Explosive Social Media Growth | Marketing | E377

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Brock Johnson was passionate about social media and surrounded by influencers, yet it took nearly a decade of consistent content creation before he finally went viral on Instagram. Through years of trial and error, he cracked the code for organic growth on the platform. In this episode, Brock shares his blueprint for Instagram success, breaking down how the algorithm works and debunking common myths. He also reveals the secret to creating high-performing content that will take your social media to the next level. In this episode, Hala and Brock will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:25) Instagram’s Algorithm in 2025 (08:23) From NFL Dreams to Entrepreneurship (14:53) The Hidden Path to Social Media Growth (20:52) Effective Instagram Growth Strategies (31:21) Overcoming the Unending Hustle for Followers (35:38) How to Monetize with a Small Following (37:47) Diversifying Revenue Streams as a Content Creator (39:54) The Attract–Nurture–Convert Content Framework (45:17) The Formula for High-Performing Instagram Stories (50:10) Content Creation Hacks That Work Brock Johnson is an Instagram growth coach, entrepreneur, and content creator, known for helping individuals and businesses succeed on social media. With nearly a million followers, he has mastered content marketing and monetization, regardless of audience size. In 2023, Brock began consulting for Meta on Instagram features and creator tools. He co-hosts the Build Your Tribe podcast and co-founded InstaClubHub, a top Instagram coaching membership with tens of thousands of members. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/PROFITING  Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting.  Quo - Get 20% off your first 6 months at Quo.com/PROFITING  Revolve - Head to REVOLVE.com/PROFITING and take 15% off your first order with code PROFITING  Merit Beauty - Go to meritbeauty.com to get your free signature makeup bag with your first order.  DeleteMe - Remove your personal data online. Get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans at to joindeleteme.com/profiting  Spectrum Business - Visit Spectrum.com/FreeForLife to learn how you can get Business Internet Free Forever. Airbnb - Find yourself a cohost at airbnb.com/host Resources Mentioned: Brock’s Instagram: instagram.com/brock11johnson  YAP E291 with GaryVee: youngandprofiting.co/E291  Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals  Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter  LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new  Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, SEO, E-commerce, LinkedIn, Digital Marketing, Storytelling, Advertising, Communication, Video Marketing, Social Proof, Marketing Trends, Influencer Marketing, Marketing Tips, Digital Trends, Online Marketing, Marketing podcast

Today's episode is sponsored in part by Shopify Indeed, Revolve, Intuit, Framer, Delete Me, Spectrum, Business, and Northwest registered agent. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. Attract, interview, and hire all in one place with Indeed. Get a $75-sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at indeed.com slash profiting. Shop the latest trends from today's top brands with Revolve.

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slash deals. Yeah, fam, I have to admit, Revolve takes all my money. I spent all my money at Revolve. It is by far my favorite place to shop. I've been shopping there for years. And I recently moved from Georgia City to Austin. And when I got here, I realized that I needed a wardrobe upgrade. In New York, I went out.

It was always like really fancy mini dresses and heels. Out here, it is cool girl Austin vibes. People are wearing baggy pants. They're more casual. and I seriously needed new clothes. I recently did a fall pant hall and I got all new pants and I just can't wait to wear them.

I totally fit that Austin girl vibe now. And I'm so obsessed with Revolve because they've got all the amazing trends and brands that you could ever imagine. They've got inclusive sizing from extra, extra small. And also they've got men's clothes. So I have been buying my man

a bunch of clothes on Revolve because I'm also trying to have him match my style. And since it's that time of year, you've got to check out the Revolve holiday shop They've got sparkly dresses, cozy sets, and the cutest gifts, and every holiday look that you need, all curated in one place. And for you young and profiting men out there looking to upgrade your wardrobe, you've got to check out Revolve for men.

If you don't think you have good fashion sense, just go and Revolve and buy some stuff, you'll be fashionable after that. Whether it's a weekend away or a big night out or a holiday party, your dream wardrobe is just one click away. Head to Revolve.com slash profiting, shop my edit, and take 15% off your first order with code profiting. Fast two-day shipping, easy returns. It's literally the only place you need to shop from. That's revolve.com slash profiting to shop my favorites and get 15% off your first order with code profiting. Offer available for a limited time, so happy shopping. The less time that you can spend between when this idea first pops into your head and the actual post being posted, the better.

The more time you spend editing, refining, thinking, critiquing, over-analyzing, you're just getting layers and layers away from that original idea. And I think that there's something in the subconscious of the audience that can perceive that. Today we've got a guest who has cracked the code on Instagram growth, Brock Johnson. Brock is an entrepreneur, Instagram growth coach, and co-host of the Top Marketing Podcast, Build Your Trot. My most viral posts are often the super relatable, simple, funny, easy to understand content. It's never the content that I worked the hardest on. I was most excited about. It's never those.

It's always the stuff that I just like whip up and post. Authenticity is this buzzword that everyone throws around nowadays. And then when you ask, how do you be authentic? Usually the response is, be yourself. Okay, great. That's like the worst advice of all time. How do you be authentic on social media? I think that you strategically eliminate.

And I know that you actually interviewed. Head of Instagram, yeah, Adam Moseri. Talk to us about what you learned about the Instagram algorithm and maybe what you knew about some of the shifts that Instagram is taking as a whole. I would say the biggest takeaway that I learned, if I had to summarize everything into one sentence, it would be... Yap, gang.

If you're into creator entrepreneurship and you want to go viral online, today's conversation is one you won't want to miss. Today we've got a guest who has cracked the code on Instagram growth, Brock Johnson. Brock is an entrepreneur, Instagram growth coach, and co-host of the top marketing podcast Build Your Tribe. He's grown on Instagram by nearly a million followers, co-founded Insta Club Hub with over 50,000 paying members, and even consults directly with meta on Instagram's features. In this

episode, Brock is going to break down how to grow and monetize on Instagram. He shares how the algorithm really works right now, the types of posts that go viral, and how to turn followers into loyal paying customers. If you've been struggling to grow on social media, this conversation is your roadmap. But before we jump in, make sure you're following us on your favorite podcast app if you're new here. You won't want to miss what's coming next. Brock, welcome to Young Improfiting podcast. I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I am so punt for this conversation. I've been following you on social media for so many years now. I've had my team take your courses and things like that.

And so huge fan of your work, just really excited to go deep on Instagram and the Instagram algorithm today. So just thank you so much for your time. My first question to you, because you've accumulated over 800,000 followers on Instagram. You've got your Instaclubh courses and things like that. And you've even consulted with meta

and have supported them on their new features and things like that. So talk to us about what you do today, in your own words in case some folks are not familiar with your work. And also why Instagram is still a huge opportunity in 2025. What I tell people who have never met me what I do before is I help brands, small business owners and creators grow organically on Instagram. So basically, I help them turn their Instagram into a way that they can get more customers, more eyeballs, and more sales for their business. I think followers are great. And I can definitely help people go viral and get

views, but at the end of the day, I really want to help people turn their posts into profit. That's what I geek out over. That's what I spend all of my time doing. I've been really, really lucky to build an awesome team over the last almost decade that I've been doing this for a living. And I've gotten some really cool opportunities, like getting to interview the head of Instagram and speak on stages all over the world. So I'm really blessed to be in the position that I'm in. But I obsess over this stuff. I geek out over it. And really everything that I do is very data driven. So I love looking at the actual numbers, finding all. all the stats and studies that I possibly can, because I think that the average business owner,

even the average creator, doesn't want to spend hours a day on Instagram. They want to be able to get in, get out, see results, see growth, and not have to spend 17 hours a day as a slave to the Instagram algorithm. So that's my focus and that's what I'm doing with all my time. And a lot of people, you know, say that Instagram is dead. They say that there's no more opportunity. You can't get organic reach on Instagram anymore. Tell us why that's wrong.

That's absolutely incorrect. I understand that it feels that way, and so I don't want to gaslight anyone and say that they're wrong for feeling that way. I understand why it feels that way, because on one hand, it is tougher than ever before to get views. And it's not because the Instagram algorithm is out to get us. It's not because they want us to pay for advertising. It's simple supply demand.

As plainly as you can imagine it, a recent study was just put out that showed that there were 34% more reels posted this year in 2020. than there were in 2024. So 34% more reels. But there are also numerous studies that are showing that we're not spending more time per day on social media. In fact, the average time spent per day on social media and on Instagram peaked in like 2022, and it's kind of been slowly going down just a little bit since then. So supply demand, the supply is way up and the demand is either plateaued or slightly decreased in many cases. But with all of that being said, There is absolutely still organic reach to go around.

And I can say that because we've had over 40,000 people take our Insta Club Hub, which is our membership where we coach people on how to grow on Instagram. And we recently completed an internal analysis of their data and found that our average club member is growing by almost 16,000 followers in their first year. So it's absolutely still possible. It's definitely still doable. There are still people going viral and growing. It's just not as easy as it was in 2021 or 2020.

22, and it has a lot to do with what's called the TikTokification of social media and really a change from social media to now what we're in, which is interest media. It doesn't matter as much today how many followers you have. Yes, followers do matter to a certain extent, but they matter a lot less today in 2025 and heading into 2026 than they did a few years ago. Totally. I had Gary V on the show, and he talked about the TikTokification of social media. And back in the day, when there was early LinkedIn, early Instagram. It was all about how many followers you had. And that dictated your actual distribution. And it was all based on how many followers you accumulated. And it was kind of like the rich got richer on social media. But now you can have zero followers and literally go viral

with these interest-based algorithms. So new creators are really lucky because as long as you have really great content, it's engaging, people share it. You can go viral even if you haven't really accumulated a lot of followers so far. Another way to think about it is the playing field has never been more level, which is a very exciting thing. It's not just the rich get richer. In many cases, my DMs are now filled with people who have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers who are like, what the heck is going on?

So it's not just you automatically get views because you have followers. So the playing field is more level, but that also means that the playing field is very crowded, right? Whether you have 300 followers or 300,000 followers, or all the only. on a level playing field. So we're all fighting for the same attention. There's definitely pros and cons, but I think it's 1,000% still possible. And there was a recent study put out by Carrot Financial, which is a financial institution that looks at the average customer value per follower. How many followers you have on each platform, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,

whatever, how much money are you realistically making from one follower? And they found that Instagram was by far the highest amount per follower. They found it was, I believe, I believe seven times higher than YouTube, 11 times higher than TikTok. We can get into why I believe that is. But not only is it still possible to grow on Instagram, it's definitely still possible. And I would say it's probably still the best place to convert followers into customers. I definitely want to ask you that question, but let's put a pin in it. I want to go super deep on Instagram.

But first, I want my listeners to know a little bit more about you. So I learned that your mom was really big in the business space. You've partnered with your mom with your podcast and different business endeavors. that you're doing. Talk to us about what it was like to actually grow up with somebody who was a business influencer and how that shaped your entrepreneurial spirit. I come from a very entrepreneurial family. I feel very lucky that a lot of people had to convince their parents that they could pursue this entrepreneurship thing and not go to college or drop out of college or not do the traditional nine to five route. My parents from day one were like, hey, don't go to college unless you have to.

don't do the nine to five rally don't work corporate start your own business but growing up it was very monkey see monkey do so my parents have owned dozens of businesses throughout my life and in a wide variety of verticals fitness businesses certification businesses apparel businesses and so growing up we weren't sitting around the dinner table talking about kpIs and revenue goals but we were able to watch my sister and I were both able to just soak up a lot of lessons from my parents and see the pros and the cons of what it's like to own your own business. But yeah, my mom's like an OG in the business influencer space. She had hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers before anyone knew what an Instagram influencer even was. And so it was definitely a unique way to grow up with a mom who was

in the spotlight and who was on social media and who own these businesses. But I'm so lucky because I was able to learn through her and through watching her and just so much growing up in the family that I did. But you didn't really plan on becoming a business influencer as well. you thought you were going to become an NFL player. That was the goal. Yeah. So what happened there? And what kind of identity shifts did you go through?

And how did you find fulfillment and happiness, even though you didn't end up doing what you planned on doing as a child? Yeah, this is such a great question. And I appreciate how much research you've done. It was my goal. It was my dream to play in the NFL. I definitely was raised in an entrepreneurial family. But even more than that, I was raised in a football family.

My grandpa is the winningest head football coach in Southern California high school football history, which if anyone knows Southern California high school football, it's pretty legit. He has always been a big name. My uncle played in the NFL. My dad played professional football. And so I was raised not talking about business at the dinner table, but talking about football at the dinner table. I was very fortunate to have a great football career.

I got to play college football, but that was really where my career ended. I didn't play very much in college. I wasn't skilled enough to play in the NFL. I wasn't big enough, fast enough, strong enough, whatever. And in addition to that, my senior season never actually happened because it was the COVID year. And so I decided to retire. I had graduated college at that point. So I had this option of do I come back and do the grad school thing for my one last year

or do I get my life started, so to speak. And I decided to retire from football at that point. But like you said, I never thought I would be an influencer. I never thought I'd be a business coach. It was something that I started because of football. My freshman year of football, I was going to school across the country, East Coast, West Coast sort of thing, and I couldn't work a normal nine to five because as a student athlete, you just don't have the time to. And so I knew that entrepreneurship was going to be my only way to be able to financially separate from my parents and to become my own person and to be able to provide for myself. And so back then, I created my original first real business, which was helping moms keep their teens safe on Snapchat.

It was like an online course community helping moms back in. I think it was 2016 that was. So I was my first real venture into business for myself. And this was before the days of NIL. So as a student athlete at that time, I couldn't make money off of endorsements in my likeness. I had to create something that was going to be sold. And so that's what I did way back then.

And the business is very much grown. Obviously, it's evolved. I'm not doing Snapchat snitching anymore. But there was definitely a lot of identity shifts that had to take place. There's a lot of growing pains throughout my college experience as it started to become more clear that my future was going to be in business and not in the NFL. It's so interesting how success isn't really a straight line, right? There's multiple avenues to success.

And even me, growing up, I thought I was going to be a famous singer. That was my goal. I was so good at singing my whole life. And then I realized in college when I really tried, I'm not a good enough dancer. I need to also be like a great dancer to become a famous singer. but now I have a company that's near eight figures annually. I have a top podcast, and the same things that I was hoping to have with a singing career I've accomplished with a totally different career and still been able to fulfill those desires

that I have. Do you feel like your desires have been fulfilled on the same things that you wanted out of a football career? Do you feel like you're getting that from doing your Instagram coaching and things like that? I do. I do. Find joy is my life. leading principle. And I absolutely feel like I've found joy in what I'm currently doing. I love

helping people. If you're familiar, if any of your listeners are familiar with the enneagram, but I remember in college, I learned that I'm an enneagram too, and the two is the helper. And I was like, yeah, that's me. I just want to help people. And I think as entrepreneurs, we are paid problem solvers. We're paid helpers. And so I really love what I get to do now. I get to interact with a lot of people. I get to coach and help and connect with people all over the world. And so it is very fulfilling for me. And I remember when I had the shift in my mindset. For me, it took place when I was in a literal therapy session when that shift of, okay, hey, maybe I'm not going to be an NFL quarterback. Maybe there are other options and maybe those can be fulfilling too and maybe that can be

okay. So I wonder for you, was there like a specific moment when that shift took place or was it just organic over time? When did you know, hey, maybe singing isn't going to be the thing, but maybe business and podcasting and these other things might be for me? It was me interning at Hot 97, which is one of the most famous radio stations in the world. I was Angie Martinez's assistant for three years. Wow. And I saw her having such an awesome career using her voice to impact people. And at the same time, I was trying to push my music and things like this.

And I was like, you know what? I could see myself being the next Angie Martinez and being really happy and maybe even happier doing something more like that. And so it was just seeing somebody else doing a career I had never even thought about and following in their, footsteps. So, Brock, I know from my research that it took you almost nine years to first go viral. Is that right? Approximately, yeah. It depends on when you technically say I started creating content. You could go back to my old YouTube videos when I was like 12 and then you might say it was 15 years until I went viral. But yeah, I'd say about a decade. So a very long time. Yeah, long time. Even though you had a famous mom. Your mom was already famous on Instagram. So talk to us about that

consistency and what it really taught you because it took you a while before you started getting traction. What did it teach you about consistency and what can you tell other people who are creating content in terms of consistency and putting in their reps? I love that you use putting in their reps because I view consistency on social media as practice. I view it as an opportunity to get better, an opportunity to refine my skills, an opportunity to reach new people. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and creators view each post as an end-all be-all, a representation of who they are in their deeper self. And it's got to be perfect and polished. And if it isn't well-received, that's a reflection of them and their worth. And for me, it's just like another practice. And I think that

comes from my background in sports, where in sports, you spend 99% of your time, if not more, practicing in the wait room, on the field, on the court. You're only spending a very, very minute, small amount of time actually playing the game in front of the crowd with people watching. And so that's very much how I approached social media. A few years ago, one of my good friends who's also in this Instagram coaching space, marketing Harry, is his username. He said that my superpower is hyper consistency. And I love that term. And I really have embraced that and continued using that since he said that. But that's really it. I think that the way I'm going to win is I'm not going to be more creative than other people in my industry.

I'm not going to be a better editor. I'm not going to be better looking. I'm not going to be funnier. All of those things, I am not. What I can control is my output. What I can control is my consistency. And so I ain't going to go anywhere. I'm going to keep showing up and just keep doing it day and day out.

And sure, over time, I'll slowly get better and better and better. But my staying power is really why I think I've been able to be successful in this business. Yap gang, here's the truth. In business, cash flow isn't. just numbers on a spreadsheet. It's the fuel behind every smart move that you make. Cash flow powers your business. At Yap Media, we've trusted Intuit products for years now, and I can tell you that Intuit QuickBooks is essential when it comes to our cash flow and ensuring that we have strong cash flow. They have powerful money tools that are built right into the platform that help you get

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provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated license as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Yeah, fam, I have to admit, Revolve takes all my money. I spent all my money at Revolve. It is by far my favorite place to shop. I've been shopping there for years. And I recently moved from Jersey City to Austin. And when I got here, I realized that I needed a wardrobe upgrade. In New York, I went out. It was always like really fancy mini dresses and heels. Out here, it is cool girl Austin vibes. People are wearing baggy pants. They're more casual. And I seriously needed new clothes. I recently did a fall pant hall and I got all new pants and I just can't wait to wear them. I totally fit that Austin girl vibe now. And I'm so obsessed to revolve because

they've got all the amazing trends and brands that you could ever imagine. They've got inclusive sizing from extra, extra small. And also, they've got men's clothes. So I have been buying my man a bunch of clothes on Revolve because I'm also trying to have him match my style. And since it's that time of year, you've got to check out the Revolve holiday shop. They've got sparkly dresses, cozy sets, and the cutest gifts, and every holiday look that you need, all curated in one place. And for you young and profiting men out there looking to upgrade your wardrobe, you've got to check out Revolve for men. If you don't think you have good fashion sense, just go and Revolve and buy some stuff, you'll be fashionable after that. Whether it's a weekend away or a big night out

or a holiday party, your dream wardrobe is just one click away. Head to Revolve.com slash profiting, shop my edit and take 15% off your first order with code profiting. Fast two-day shipping, easy returns. It's literally the only place you need to shop from. That's revolve.com slash profiting to shop my favorites and get 15% off your first order with code profiting. Offer available for a limited time, so happy shopping. yep, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel

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with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. So something when I first started in this world, I focused on LinkedIn, and I'm actually one of the biggest LinkedIn influencers. I didn't post on Instagram for like years, like three years. And all I did is every day posted on LinkedIn, really focused on LinkedIn learned how to hack that algorithm and became a top voice on that platform. Do you recommend that people really just focus on one platform before they go and try to

experiment on other platforms? Or what's your opinion on that? You know, I do. I think that the way you did it is what most business owners, most content creators should do, is go all in on one platform. And sure, if you're making short form videos, you might as well also post them on TikTok and YouTube shorts. Maybe you'll pick up traction there. but put your energy and your focus into one platform primarily so that you can really master that platform otherwise you're just going to be spinning plates and trying to keep up with each individual algorithm and it's probably not going to be effective so go maybe not all in but almost all in on one platform and then just have your content repurposed onto the other platforms and then once you get that one

platform successful and rolling then you can start to reinvest or you can start to dabble in those other platforms and bring those up as well. So something that I feel is that video, especially right now, is really the heart of the creator economy. So like vertical videos, reels that go on TikTok, that go on shorts. That's really the heart of everything right now in terms of what's going viral, what's working. And you already mentioned the TikTokification of social media, how things are able to go viral and things like that. And I know that you actually interviewed, was it the CEO of Meta? The head of Instagram, yeah, Adam Moseri.

Talk to us about what you learned about the Instagram algorithm and maybe what you knew about some of the shifts that Instagram is taking as a whole. I would say the biggest takeaway that I learned if I had to summarize everything into one sentence, it would be

everyone just chill out. One of the biggest things that came out of that interview was I would ask him, what about this hack, what about this strategy, what about this thing, what about this myth?

And almost every time he would say, no, that doesn't really matter. Or he would start laughing at me and be like, how did someone come up with this? And so there's so many things that I think we can get bogged down by. And I think the average creator and business owner feels like, oh my gosh, how can I keep up with Instagram? It's changing every day. There's a million things I have to do. When in reality, a lot of those things you have to do are just random ideas that were come up by some random person who is now telling you that you have to do this. And those go viral because it sounds like a new hack, a new strategy, but it's

not really going to be that effective. There was so much that we talked about in the interview that was really eye-opening for a lot of people that they no longer have to worry about. They no longer have to think or care about. And so I think that those were some big takeaways. The biggest things that were changing that were coming were things that we actually talked about off-air. There was not too many things that he could disclose on air, but he did show me quite a few updates that are coming soon to the edits app, which is Instagram's version of Capcut. It's Instagram's editing app and some new layout changes. They had Instagram, have figured out that the three biggest drivers of their growth have been recommendations,

you seeing a post from someone who you don't already follow, direct messages, and then reels. Those are the top three things that are driving their growth, which they're now over three billion users across the world every month, which is insane. And so they're planning very soon to reorganize the layout of the app to make it easier for us to get into direct messages, get into recommendations, or get into the Reels tab, because they basically say, if that's what's driving our growth, let's reorganize the layout of our app to make those things more front and center. Okay, I feel like this is a perfect time to play a little game. It's called growth or ghost.

I'm going to give you a list of things that people often think is going to work on Instagram, and you're going to rate them one through 10, one being not very good, 10 being a very good strategy. All right, first, using trending audio. Six and a half. So it does kind of work then. It does kind of work, but it's not really like a make or break. I think most people think it's like a nine or ten, and I think it's more like a six and a half.

Like, it could kind of work. Maybe we can even call it like a four and a half if the five is the dividing middle line. We'll call it a four and a half. Yeah, I agree. Because I feel like a lot of the trending audio stuff, people use it as a trick. They'll use it even if they're not following the trend. The audio has to do it.

It's kind of like putting like a really clickbaity thumbnail that has nothing to do with the video. That's how I think of it. A thousand percent. And they spend so much time looking for a trending audio and searching for a trending audio. And it was like, I always say, just use that time to make the content better, not to find the perfect Taylor Swift song to go with it. Posting trial reels to reach non-followers. I'll say eight and a half.

I would have said 10 a few months ago. But Instagram, I've been the biggest proponent of trial reel since day one telling people spam and abuse those things because Instagram gave us a gold mine and they're going to take it way eventually once they figure out how we're actually using it. And they have, they've limited or put a cap on a lot of accounts in terms of how many trial reels you can post. But I still think that even if the cap is as low as five a day, posting five trial reels a day is an excellent way to reach new people. Boosting your content with paid ads. That one is actually an eight. If you have great content, turning it into an ad, excellent. If you have average or below average

content, boosting it so that more people see it, absolute waste of money, that might as well be a zero. Because if it's already bad content, why are you paying for more people to see your bad content? I would say there's definitely a distinction between advertising and boosting. I'm a big fan of ads. I'm not the biggest fan of boosting. Leaning into carousels. Nine. Nine. Carousels, massive, super underrated. Like I said earlier, there have been 34% more reels posted this year, but there are less carousels being posted, and yet the average carousel engagement rate has gone up, the average carousel view rate has gone up.

It's like, hey, suddenly everyone forgot about carousels. And so posting carousels and pro-tip, adding music to them, game changer. Music to your carousels. I never heard of that. Hashtags. One, very overrated, not a reliable way to grow on Instagram. That was one of the biggest aha moments. I've been saying that for years.

And actually, Adam waseri, the head of Instagram has also been saying that for years. But when he said it in our interview, it again, made people like go crazy like, oh my God, what hashtags? What? I think that if you have a local business, like a local nail salon or a farm pumpkin patch that you want people to visit, then sure, using local hashtags can help with searchability and discoverability. But for most creators who are not just trying to build a following within their local city or county, they're not really going to be very effective. This is one that I always see reels about. And I'm always like sending it to my team, but I don't know if they do it.

Changing settings like location or categories in your post or reels to get more visibility. One, that's the new way of growth hacks. It's like, turn on these seven settings on your profile. And like the settings are usually like HD videos. Like we all already have those things turned on automatically. And it's just, no, it's overrated. Okay, posting at certain optimal times of the day. Three, I think that there are definitely better times and worse times.

but if you're trying to build a global audience, then why are you not posting for 23 hours out of the day? I think that a lot of people can get really bogged down with trying to find like the perfect time or the perfect day. Who gives a shit? It's like if you're exercising and I'm a 28-year-old male, what I'm about to say is made up. Maybe my testosterone peaks at 4 p.m. And so theoretically, I'm supposed to do my lifting workouts at 4 in the afternoon. I shouldn't skip my workout for the day just because I'm busy at 4 p.m. I shouldn't be like, oh, well, today's workout isn't going to be optimal, so I'm not working out. But I think that's how a lot of people approach posting. Oh, I missed my perfect window, so I'm going to wait till

tomorrow. No, post it. And then you never know if you're going to reach people. You never know if you're going to go viral. You never know if you're going to reach an audience that's on at a different time. So I think it's mostly overrated. Such a great advice. Thank you for playing growth or ghost. So what is actually working? What are your top strategies in terms of what people should really lean into to go viral on Instagram. Yeah, absolutely. I think if I were should really distill it and make it super simple, the way that you grow on Instagram is you post a lot of good content.

You post a high quantity of high quality content, and it's got to be both. Ideally, if you want maximum growth, it's a hyper consistency of really good posts. With that being said, the best way to get more views, the best way to create good posts is to create shareworthy posts. And shareworthy posts are simply the posts that are worthy of being sent from one person to another or from one person to a group chat

or one person to their stories. Those sorts of shareworthy posts are the ones that go viral and they're the ones that go viral the right way, so to speak. They're the ones that go viral with targeted viewers. Hey, I got 50,000 viewers, but I also got 2,000 followers from this

and I got 100 new customers because it was all being sent from one ideal viewer to an. another. So share-worthy content is really the best. Shares are disproportionately the best form of engagement on Instagram. That also goes for LinkedIn, too. Things that get a lot of shares go viral. A lot of people think likes and comments are what matters. And they hyper-focused on the amount of likes, the amount of comments. They get bots for comments and things like that. Shares is something that I think you can't fake. You can't really fake shares. I mean, I'm sure there's

some service out there that is going to hear you saying that and jump on that opportunity and try to do bot shares, but you can't, right? It's a human to human interaction. And if I think about while we're talking, I bet you my wife is sharing and sending reels and TikToks my way. I bet I'll have a bunch to watch when we're done with this conversation. I'm the ideal viewer, right? It's not an algorithm guessing, oh, hey, maybe Brock would be interested in this content. My wife knows exactly what kinds of posts I want to or need to see. And so I'm the perfect viewer for any post that is shared with me, and that's another reason why shares are so powerful. Walk us through your most viral posts and why you think they were shared so much.

Interesting. I think my most viral posts are often the super relatable, simple, funny, easy to understand content. It's never the content that I worked the hardest on. It's never the content that I was most excited about. It's never the content that I had a great idea for, that I spent a bunch of hours editing or that I had to spend the most money on, which I rarely spend money on my content creation. But it's never those. It's always the stuff that I just whip up and post. I post without thinking. I post without over-editing. And I think the reason why that is is is the more time you spend editing and refining and planning and thinking about your content, the less authentic it becomes. Authenticity is this buzzword that everyone throws around nowadays.

And then when you ask, how do you be authentic? Usually the response is, be yourself. Okay, great, that's the worst advice of all time. How do you be authentic on social media? I think that you strategically eliminate the time between idea and post. The less time that you can spend between when this idea first pops into your head or this inspiration first strikes and the actual post being posted, the better. The more time you spend editing, refining, thinking, patiquing, over-analyzing, you're just getting layers and layers away from that original idea and who you really are

and what you really thought, what was really inspiring for you? And I think that there's something in the subconscious of the audience that can perceive that. Something that was really eye-opening for me is that I recently launched this volunteer project called Four Piece Media.

So I'm Palestinian 100%. And I've got this business brand and I was really passionate about that topic, but I was like, it just doesn't feel like it's right for my brand. So I want to start a new social media page just for that. And I'll keep posting my business content and things on my own page. I've never been huge on Instagram, but I've been really trying, trying to go vile, trying to grow my page.

And then I started this four-piece media page and with 200 followers, the first post went viral and got like 100K views. And then all my posts are going super viral on that page. And I'm thinking, man, it's really all about the topic. You really have to be realistic in terms of your niche and your cap for going viral or the shareability of, of something like an entrepreneurship podcast versus the shareability of a topic that people are so passionate about and obsessed with, right? So what are your thoughts on that? I think that's absolutely the case. That's how social media has become interest media. I'll give you an example. I'm a Lakers fan. I'm a lifelong Lakers fan and I follow the Lakers

on Instagram. But during the off season, I don't think I see a single Lakers post unless there's a super hilarious moment with LeBron or something that's going viral, I'm not going to see a single Lakers post. They're posting probably every day, multiple times a day. I don't know because I don't see it, but I don't see it because I've been signaling to the algorithm all offseason that I'm not interested in basketball right now. I'm interested in other sports. I'm interested in other things. And so I ain't seen the Lakers post. But then when the season starts and suddenly I start being interested in basketball again, I start watching basketball content more, I start searching out basketball terms more, well, then all of a sudden the Lakers, who I've followed this whole time,

their posts start showing up in my feed again. And so that's really why, like we've been both saying, followers matter so much less and creating content that people are actually going to be interested in matters more. And that's also why consistency matters, because there are people who are still interested in basketball in the Lakers during the off season. And so those people are still going to be seeing those posts. It's just the fringe people like myself who aren't invested in basketball in the middle of the off season, we won't be seeing those posts. Something else that I think is important for creators to understand is that it's a long game and it takes a long time to kind of build your followers and those overnight successes are

really rare. And often on social media, you'll compare yourself to somebody who has 2 million followers, 3 million followers, whatever it is and you might still have 3,000 followers even though you've been posting for a year or two years or something like that. So it reminds me of something that Benjamin Hardy taught me about the gap and the gain. The gap is where you're always comparing yourself to where you want to be or comparing yourself to somebody else. And practicing gain thinking is actually being thankful and realizing how far you've come. You went from zero to 3,000 followers. That's still a lot of growth. And you can't compare yourself to other people. You should just compare yourself to where you actually started. Now with you,

you're huge on Instagram. You got 800,000 followers. But there's only fans girls that have 10 million followers, right? And you could, if you wanted to, feel bad that you haven't hit a million followers or something like that. So do you ever deal with being in a gap mindset and how do you snap yourself out of it? Yeah, I think this is such a great question, and I totally agree. And I think that no person listening to this will ever reach a level of followers that feels like enough if they don't feel like their current level of followers is enough. Yes, sure, strive for more, create good content, reach more people, grow your business. Yeah, absolutely.

I love all those things. But I also believe that if you can't be content with what you've achieved so far, if you can't be proud of how far you've come, then you're never going to reach that level where you are proud of where you're at because there's always going to be someone with more followers out there. There's always going to be that next level. Think about the biggest creators in the world. Think about Mr. Beast.

I guarantee you, there are still people who he's like, I don't have that. sort of distribution. I don't have that many views. Or I bet he's looking at like, oh, I got this many views on this video, but this one a few months ago got more. That comparison game is so problematic. And so I think that I really try my hardest to stay away from it, but we're all human. And so from time to time, I'll catch myself getting jealous of someone else's growth or someone else's views. What I do strategically when that's happening is, I bring myself back to reality because this little black box that our phone is is so problematic. And so if you can just bring yourself back to literal present day, set your phone down, it's helpful. I think also

unfollowing anyone who consistently makes you feel that way, whether it's you just can't stop yourself from comparing yourself to them or something in their content is fueling that comparison. Maybe there's some way they're speaking or something that they're always talking about. They're always stroking their own ego and it just fuels that comparison in you. Mute them or unfollow them or heck block them if they're just showing up in your recommended posts all the time so that you don't fall victim to that game. And then make sure that you are surrounding yourself by people, and this is my personal opinion, surrounding yourself by people and by content creators and podcasts that don't preach hustle culture. Because I think, you know, we're all familiar

with, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Well, nowadays, think about how many of us are spending the most time with a three-hour podcast on the way to work, with a long YouTube video when we're at the gym. Those content creators and those influencers who were binging their content and spending hours with it every week, a lot of them were spending more time with their posts than our friends and family,

and we need to recognize that they are influencing us just as much, if not more. And if what they're spewing out is hustle culture, toxic work environments, become a slave to your work, burn the midnight oil, neglect all your priorities in life and just focus on grinding and hustling,

and more money and more, et cetera, whatever, I think that's really unhealthy. And so I think that that's something that not everyone would agree with. I know that there's lots of people who have great success with hustle culture and make a lot of money, but that's just not me.

That's so eye-opening to think about that phrase that you're the accumulation of the five people that you spend the most time with. It's so true. If you listen to a lot of podcasts or if you're obsessed with certain influencers, those people are influencing you

in terms of how you think and approach the world. So you've got all these students, like thousands of students that have taken your courses, and not everybody is this mega influencer. Some people might have 20,000 followers, 50,000 followers. Talk to us about the ability to actually monetize your account without having hundreds of thousands of followers. What have you seen from your students? It all comes back to trust.

And that's the really cool thing about the smaller accounts, is the less followers you have, that can be your superpower because now if you only have, let's say, 150 followers, It is realistic that you could maybe not memorize all of their names, but you could get to know almost all of them on a personal level and have conversations with them. And that's going to build trust. I had a woman on my podcast who was one of our students a few months ago who had, I think it was a $30,000 launch and then a few months later, another $30,000 or $40,000 launch with less than a thousand followers.

And that's because even though she had like 900-something followers, she had really built trust with all of them. And she had built this connection and this intimacy where they felt like they know her. They knew her values. They went along the journey with her to create her product. And so when it was time to launch and to make sales, they didn't have to be sold. They didn't have to jump on a sales call. They knew her. They knew the product. And they were like begging to get on a wait list and pull out their credit card. And so I think that there can be a real blessing in disguise when you don't have a ton of followers. And you can use that to your opportunity. I genuinely wish I could spend more time each day DMing my phone.

followers and having those one-on-one conversations because I missed the good old days when I only had a couple thousand followers and I knew them all by name and I knew intimately what each of them was struggling with. You know, there's pros and cons to growing your following, but there's definitely strengths that are hidden when you have a smaller following. I can definitely relate to that. It's so nice to be able to actually talk to people one-on-one, and especially when you're growing, it's so important to be the person that's actually damming with people and trying to understand. It makes you such a better creator as you grow because you're familiar with what people want and how your team should actually engage with people when they're doing it on your

behalf as you grow. So you have a lot of revenue streams. That's the beauty of being a creator entrepreneur. You've got courses. You're monetizing, I'm assuming, with brand partnerships and things like that. So talk to us about all the different ways you get to monetize as a creator entrepreneur. And then I want to talk to you about your funnels. I haven't gone. through this list recently, but between my wife and I, and we work together, she's my CFO. She is such a blessing for me. She's super organized type A and keeps our life running because I'm the type of guy who forgets his laptop on the plane. I've done that multiple times this year. Horribly disorganized. I digress. I think we have like seven or eight different revenue streams.

Brand partnerships is definitely one of them. So I partner with a lot of different brands and collaborate on advertisements and sponsored posts, that sort of thing. Public speaking is another one. I love public speaking. There's ad revenue that comes from our YouTube channel and Instagram Reels and things like that. There is the actual membership business, which I think represents the second biggest percentage of our annual revenue, which is a monthly reoccurring business model. Investments is absolutely huge for us. My wife and I try to invest every single penny that we can. So our investments, both in the stock market and in just brands that we love, if we find a business that I've been partnering with for,

a few years and maybe they're not a publicly traded company, but there's a way for us to invest in them. We always try to find a way to do that if we can. Courses, individual coaching, random digital products here and there. I'm sure I'm forgetting some revenue streams, but those are the big ones. Yeah, fam, of course before I built Young and Profiting, I had a million doubts. Every time I thought about starting, it just felt so daunting. I didn't know if I was cut out for entrepreneurship, but one day, I stopped putting it off and I turn my dream into a reality. Step by step, I built my dreams. And now I'm running a nearly eight-figure company. I bet a lot of you guys out there are thinking about starting a business, but you need a little push. Take this as your sign. It's time to

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endorsing them. They treat your data with respect. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash paid yap that's paid YAP and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash paid yap. Yeah, being a creator entrepreneur is so cool because you can turn off and on revenue streams as you want. For example, I want more cash. I have a social media agency. I have a podcast network. I have courses. And I'm like, you know what? I just feel like having more cash for growth. I'm just going to launch a podcast course because I know I'm just going to make a whole bunch of

cash just doing that and not have a lot of expenses. So being a creator, entrepreneur is so cool in that way because there's no ceiling and you can just decide what you want to do based on your needs and what's hot right now. So I want to go over your funnel. But first, I think it makes more sense to talk about your content framework as a whole. And you teach the attract, nurture, convert framework. Can you go over that framework and then let's dig deep on conversion? Yeah, absolutely. I think that oftentimes business owners fall into this trap of wanting their content to do everything at once, attract people to their page, get eyeballs, nurture their followers, bring them along, teach them what you do, build that trust, and then also convert and make the sale

all in one post. That's super challenging. I can't name more than a couple of posts that I've ever made, and I'm making hundreds of posts a month that have done all three. Like, it's damn near impossible to do all three. It's more of a luck than a strategy thing. So really just first and foremost, identifying that there are different posts for different goals. And you should align your percentages or how much you're posting different kinds of content based off your season. Like you said, if you're in a season where you really want to dial up followers and you need more eyeballs because you're about to launch something, Well, then maybe in the season leading up to the launch, you're going to focus more heavily on the

attraction contents that you can get more followers and their energy onto your page. Or maybe you're like, hey, I've got 30,000 followers. I know I have a launch that I want to do in three months. And so I just need to get these followers engaged. I need to get them paying attention. I need to get them interacting with my posts, engaging and just come along for this journey so that by the time I'm ready to convert them and make that sale, they're primed and ready to go. They're like itching. They're asking for the wait list link. And then, of course, there's the actual conversion content, which is what gets people onto your email list or into your business or whatever it may be.

And so my exact percentages vary, depending on the season I'm in. Two weeks ago, we were in the middle of a launch. So 90% of my content was conversion content. Now, there was still entertainment baked in. There was still all of the principles of shareworthy content and just creating good, captivating content baked in. But I didn't care. I wasn't trying to reach new people.

I wasn't trying to grow. I even wasn't trying to nurture, I was just during that week making, I think it was like 22 posts in five days that were all sales posts, basically. They were all conversion oriented. I say every post has a purpose. That's what I teach in my classes. Every post has a purpose. People think every post needs to go viral. And it's like, no, sometimes you actually want a lot of comments so you can retarget them in the DMs and start a conversation and things like that. So when you have some sort of offer or launch, From my understanding, you love ManyChat, right? So talk to us about what does your ManyChat funnel look like?

Are you taking people to a webinar? Are you taking them to a call? Do you change things based on low-ticket or high-ticket? Talk to us about your funnel approach. Yeah, absolutely. So biggest, biggest, biggest fan of Many-Chat ever. I will sing their praises until the day I'm dead. I am obsessed with Many-Chat and have been talking about it for about five years,

and I'm not going to stop talking about it because there's estimated 200 million content creators and small businesses who use Instagram, and there's only about a million who use many chat. So about half a percentage are using the tool that literally every single one of them should be using. So yeah, every single time I'm selling, I am never using a link. I am never saying go click the link in my bio or put a link on my stories. It's always DM automation.

It's always comment to keyword to get a thing, reply with a keyword to get a thing. And usually it's a free thing. We have like over 30 freebies and digital downloads or even $7, low-ticket things in our funnel. Because I'm a huge proponent of the email list. My family has had personal experiences with hacks and losing social media and losing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers in a day. And so an email list is, I think, still to this day, the bread and butter of any successful

business online. I don't care how many followers you have. I care how many email list subscribers you have. That will be a much better predictor of your bottom line, your revenue, and your numbers than going viral or having a lot of followers. So everything we do is driving people to our email list. I will say when I've done high-ticket offers in the past, we have used more consultation calls and more high-touch sort of things

to get people converted into actual customers. But the vast majority of what I sell is low-ticket. I think the most expensive offer that we've ever made of our Instaclub was less than $600. And that was for a lifetime purchase. Our usual offer is a monthly, which is $47, a month or a $7 two-week trial. So the majority of our leads are getting funneled from a freebie to the $7 trial into the $47 membership or sometimes straight into the $7 trial, but we rarely

even promote directly into the $47 membership. So interesting. I love webinars, right? And I think my price points are different from my LinkedIn Masterclass. I charged like $1,500 to $2,000. So because it's a higher price point, I feel like I need, like, an hour to really show my expertise and convince people. But for you, since it's low ticket, you can do a lot of content on your social media. You've provided $47 of value. So they're like, okay, what else could I get if I actually paid? A thousand percent. I love webinars as well. During that big launch that we had a few weeks ago, it was webinars because we were selling a $600 lifetime membership. And so that was something that we did an hour-long webinar and then sold into the membership at the end. So

thousand percent agree with you. Okay, another one of your frameworks, you've got this STD stories formula. So talk to us about stories in general. A lot of people use stories just to like share their post to the story and how should we actually use stories? Some people like document their entire day and have like a million stories. So what should we actually be doing with stories? I would say that for most people, most of the time, it's totally fine to just document your day and take people along for the ride. When you do that, your views are probably not going to be as high they could be because people are just not interested in everything you're doing throughout the day, but the trade-off is the people who are watching, they're getting to know you a little bit better,

they're building that trust. When it comes time to use your stories strategically, because you have a launch, you have a new podcast episode, you have something that you want people to pay attention to, to click on, to purchase, whatever. That's when you do the STD story. And the STD story is not posting your genitals on the stories. The STD story was named STD story. Was named to STD's story so that you remember the name. People are always like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you named it that. Yeah, well, you're not going to forget it now. S.T.D is how you get your maximum story views, and it stands for S single, meaning that you're only posting one story for those 24 hours. You're letting all of your existing stories either expire or you're deleting

them, and you're letting all of your future stories not be posted. So just one singular story for those 24 hours. The T stands for text heavy. A very common mistake, people make with their stories is, no offense to the name of this podcast, they start yapping. They yap away on their Instagram stories and they take up the full 60 seconds. And it's like, I'm not sure if you remember back in the day when Instagram stories were 15 seconds. And then Instagram made it 60 and suddenly everyone's like, oh, yay, I get to be long winded. But we are all so annoyed when someone posts a 60 second talking head yapping Instagram story. Unless it's just our all-time favorite person, we ain't watching the full thing.

There's no way to rewind. There's no way to fast forward. People forget subtitles. And so instead of doing a video story, instead of doing a talking head story, your T, the T and the STD, is text heavy. So I usually just do a selfie with my face in the bottom right corner where I'm making the expression that the story is trying to convey. Or sometimes I'll just do like a solid color. Literally, if you look at my most viewed stories of all time, I'm pretty sure seven of the top 10 have just a plain black background with, white text on top, as simple as it gets. And when I say text heavy, I do mean multiple sentences

of text. And the reason that that strategically works is that stories, story photos are usually only displayed for about three to five seconds. But when you put that text on the screen, people hold their finger down to pause the story, and then it extends the watch time. So Instagram, the algorithm is essentially thinking, hey, this story was supposed to be up for four seconds, but it was up for eight seconds. So it had a 200% watch rate. Compared to most other stories that are just tap, tap, tap through,

that's a huge difference, the T. And then the D is the most important part. I have a framed photo back here that one of my subscribers sent me that says this, which is that you can't have an STD without the D. The D is the most important part

of the STD story, and the D stands for what we were talking about earlier, which is DM Automation. Yes, you can do it, text-heavy story. Yes, it can just be a single, but you will not get maximum views unless you get people sending you messages. And so that's why all of my most viewed stories, I did at the math one time. It was like 35 of my top 36 stories all had some form of DM automation, telling people,

reply with the word blank, and you will get blank. So that's the STD story. Use it strategically. Use it when you have something that you specifically want to promote. Don't use it every day or your followers will get annoyed, but that's how you get max views. I don't know what it is, but for me, I'm still, like, obsessed with who's watching my stories. I'll never check who's liking my stuff. I'll never go through LinkedIn and who's liking. But for some reason, because there's, like, less views, I feel like there's so much more important and that it's really people connecting with me.

Is that the right way to think about it? Yeah, that's definitely a great way to think about it. Besides your literal inner circle or if you have paid subscribers or anything like that, your story viewers, those are the people who are choosing to watch your stories. Adamo's area is on record of saying one of the biggest indicators that they look at in terms of who sees what stories is what stories have you clicked on in the past? Because there's so many little circles up there, if you specifically click on someone's out of that lineup, they're going to be way more likely to be shown your stories in the future. And so, yeah, no, it's like an intimate. It feels like a

close circle. And absolutely, for sure. Okay. Let's talk about batching and content creation. I'm going to ask you a question selfishly. So I've been really focused on my business. And one of the things that I really want to do is just create more authentic content and create reels. Like a lot of the stuff is like my team's making it or it's, I do a lot of podcast content that gets chopped and fit into reels. But that's not going to like really work. I need to actually get on camera, talk and things like that and create original content for social media. So I bought all this equipment. and I'm ready to go.

What is your advice to me and somebody else who really wants to get into creating reels and things like that? How should we go about creating that content? My advice to you is going to be a tiny bit different just because you have a team already and you have so much content already. Okay.

For most people, what I would recommend is take two weeks off of posting because most people I work with, what we see is they're on this never-ending hamster wheel of, I wake up with no ideas, so I come up with an idea, I make it. I spend a few hours editing it. I post it. And then my backlog is empty and I got to do the whole thing over again tomorrow. That's going to lead to burnout. That's very tiring. That's very exhausting. So instead, what I say is take two weeks off of posting and use those two weeks to create as much as you possibly can so that when you can start posting again, you're able to hit the ground running and you have things scheduled. For you, since you already have a team, go ahead and keep putting the chopped up podcast clips up for those two weeks. And for you, spend two weeks just batch creating as much as you possibly can, and that should allow you to, when you actually

start posting, you have this backlog, and you don't have to feel the pressure of creating content every single day. But I think there's also a few other strategies we can get into with consistency and showing up more, but I will throw in one little pro tip for you with podcast clips. Two things that we've seen super effective with podcast clips recently is number one, first of all, posting it as a carousel instead of a reel. then making the first slide, a cover slide, almost like a headline, almost like Instagram expert shares key to going viral. And it's like a photo of my face and then they swipe and then it's a clip from the podcast. So I think those are really effective. And the other one that I'm sure

you've seen is where people do like a split screen and you're swiping through this carousel and it's just like freeze frame on top of freeze frame with the subtitles are put on top of the image. It's literally the exact same content that would be in the real. But because it's in this, you know, format where it's two screens or even I've seen people now do it with like three stacked on top of each other. It's almost like comic book style. I don't know why. It's just unique. It's engaging. And it seems to be a much more interactive and high performing way to promote a podcast. So definitely do those if you aren't already. I love that. We're not doing the cover side thing. We've experimented with that comic book style where it's me asking a question and then the person

responding with really good advice. And sometimes I think it's just sensory adaptation, right? People just get sick of these talking head videos and they just scroll. I don't want to watch this talking head video, but for some reason, just reading it might be something new, something fresh that they want to engage with. So that's great. What about equipment? What do you think for somebody just getting started? A lot of people overthink the equipment and they don't get started because they don't know

what equipment to start, where to even start. So what do you recommend equipment-wise? Your freaking iPhone. Your phone in your hand is literally all you need. I remember I had reached over half a million fallout. and I had had no equipment besides a ringlight that I stole from my mom. Shout out to mom. And that was it. I had no microphone. I had no fancy camera, no lighting, nothing. I had no setup, no office. It wasn't until I was having an interview with a good friend of mine who's a

big YouTuber. And he's like, dude, your audio quality on your reels is so shitty. And I was like, oh, it is? He was like, here, and you like toss me like this little like $15 plug-in microphone that I still have and used to this day. I think that as you grow and level up, you can start to invest in those things. But when you're getting started, I'm sure people have seen the new Zoom capabilities on the newest iPhone.

Your phone is a million times more than good enough to get started. I always tell the story with my podcasting that I started with a USB mic, a webcam, and a ring light. Literally. I was interviewing Matthew McConaughey virtually in my basement

with $100 worth of equipment. Like, you know, you really don't need a lot. So, Brock, I feel like this has been such an awesome interview. I feel like we went through so much. I end my shows with two questions that I ask all of my guests. The first one is, what is one actionable thing that our young improfitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? Practice empathizing with your target audience. The better that you can understand their pain points, their struggles, what they're going through.

the better you can create content, the better you can create products that serve their needs, that you don't need to sell to them because they know that it's going to cure all of their problems. It's going to help them. It's going to be the solution they're looking for. That, of course, starts with knowing who your ideal audience is in the first place and getting super hyper-specific with who they are. But the more that you can really deeply understand what they're going through and what their challenges are, the better everything else is going to be because of it. What are the ways that you understand your audience, who they are, their pain points? Like, what are the things that you do? Listening, active listening is huge. And guys, we are

oftentimes, like, when I go and hang out with my buddies, and my wife's like, how's such and such? How's their new baby? How's their new house? I'm like, oh, we didn't talk about that. Stereotypically, guys aren't the best at asking questions or active listening. So it's a skill. But the more that you can listen. And listen means in the DMs, having conversations, reading comments sections. Oh, but Brock, no one comments on my post. Are you the only person who does what you do? Or is there some influencer or someone else in your space who does have a big following and does have an active audience? Learning the words that they're using, learning the questions that they're asking, the stories that they're telling themselves, all of those things. It's all out there, right?

Everyone's posting on the internet nowadays. And so if you want to find what people are saying, and you can hunt for it. And whether it's on Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, wherever, you can find it. Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you think creator entrepreneurs should know? Not necessarily. I think the biggest quick win that people can have from listening today is that you need to start posting your posts more than once. Way too often, people are like posting it once and then they forget about it. I like to say that every post you make should be posted at least three times.

Even if it performs poorly the first two times, you never know if the third time it's going to perform well. Wait at least 60 to 90 days in between each post, but every post you make should be posted at least three times. And I'm notorious for, I think about 75% of my content is not new. 75% of it is just something that I've previously posted and I'm literally re-uploading it or I'm slightly modifying it and then posting it again. That is such good advice. I'm so glad you talked about repurposing content because I had it on things to talk about, but we just didn't cover it. All right, last question to you. What is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond business, of course. I would say, so this is so

opposite what you normally hear from the bro marketers, which I am a bro and I am a marketer. But the whole idea of hustle culture, I've seen what it's like to be a workaholic. My mom has openly shared she was a workaholic and she struggled with workaholism. And so I've seen what that can do to a person. I've seen what that can do to a family. And so I'm so thankful that I have someone like my wife in my life who helps me disconnect and unplug. And it's really important for me to have a slow morning and not get up and meditate for an hour and then ice bath for 30 minutes and then like sauna, all this crazy stuff. I'm going to have a cup of coffee. I'm going to hang out with my dogs and my wife. I'm going to stop working every day at 5 p.m. I moved to Utah from California so that I could

snowboard as much as I possibly can. I think I'm going to try to hit 100 days of snowboarding this year. And like those things that fill up my cup, that's what life's all about. What's the point of making more money or getting more followers if you don't get to actually reap the fruits of your labor? What's the point of labor for labor's sake? I don't get it. So that's my answer. Brock, I feel like I learned so much from this interview. I'm going to have my team listen to it multiple times, make sure they're taking notes. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom, for not being afraid to share all the different secrets to help other creators grow. Thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

Yeah, this was amazing. Thank you so much. You're the best. I loved this conversation with Brock Johnson because he completely shattered the myth that Instagram is dead. He proved that with the right strategy, anybody can build a thriving presence and turn their content into real revenue, even in 2025 and beyond. I personally took away so many lessons today, but the one that's top of mind is his approach to authenticity. Brock said that the key to authentic content is strategically eliminating the time between

idea and post. The more that we overthink and refine, the further that we drift from our original inspiration. His most viral posts weren't the ones that he spent hours and hours on. They were simple, relatable content that he created without overthinking. Here's what I want you to focus on. First, create shareworthy content instead of chasing. viral hacks. Forget hashtags. Brock rated them one out of 10. Stop obsessing over perfect post times

or trending audio. Instead, ask yourself, would I send this post to a friend? Shares bring you targeted viewers who actually convert into followers and customers. Next, use the STD story formula when launching something important. Post a single story for 24 hours, make it text-heavy instead of a talking head video, and include direct message automation. Text-heavy stories achieve 200% more watch rates because people pause to read signaling powerful engagement to Instagram. In fact, watch time is one of the most important metrics across all social media, from Instagram to TikTok to YouTube. Finally, ditch the links and embrace many chat. Use DM automation to capture leads and build your email list. Even with under 1,000 followers, you can generate tens of thousands

in launches by building deep trust. Your email list matters more than your follower account for predicting actual revenue. Yap gang, there's so much process for new creator entrepreneurs. The playing field on Instagram has never been more level. Stop waiting for the perfect strategy and start putting in the reps. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you got value from this episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it. I know Brock would approve because shares are the new likes.

And if you enjoyed the show, I'd be so grateful if you dropped us a five-star written review on your favorite podcast app. Honestly, your words mean the world to me. In fact, I've got to give a huge shout out to Mustafa, who recently wrote us an Apple review. He said, I love the energy, the topics that hollipicks, the very fun way she runs her shows. It's great to see how the show has progressed over the years to be where it is right now. Continue the great work. Well, thank you so much, Mustafa, for taking a couple minutes out of your day to write a review.

This is the kind of feedback that keeps our whole team fired up and motivated. If you prefer to watch your videos, head over to YouTube, subscribe to our channel, Young and Profiting. You'll find all of our episodes uploaded there. You can also connect with me on Instagram at Yap with Hala. Today is the perfect day to find me on Instagram. Again, that's at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha.

Until next time, this is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast Princess, signing off. Thank you.