Brock Johnson: Is Instagram Dead? Unlock the Secret to Explosive Social Media Growth | Marketing | E377

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:09Speaker 01

  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, overanalyzing, 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.

• 1:29Hala Taha?

  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.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  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 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 the worst advice of all time. How do you be authentic on social media? I think that you strategically eliminate

• 2:12Hala Taha?

  And I know that you actually interviewed-

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Head of Instagram, yeah, Adam Mosseri.

• 2:16Hala Taha?

  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.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  I would say the biggest takeaway that I learned, if I had to summarize everything into one sentence, it would be-

• 2:41Hala Taha?

  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.

• 3:22Hala Taha?

  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 and Profiting Podcast.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 3:40Hala Taha?

  I am so pumped 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 Insta Club Hub 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,

• 4:22Hala Taha?

  and also why Instagram is still a huge opportunity in 2025.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And really, everything that I do is very data-driven. So I love looking at the actual numbers, finding 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.

• 5:37Hala Taha?

  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.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  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 2025 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

• 6:33Speaker 01

  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 2022.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  And it has a lot to do with what's called the TikTok-ification 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.

• 7:39Hala Taha?

  Totally. I had Gary Vee on the show and he talked about the TikTok-ification 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.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  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, we're all 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

• 8:58Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 9:29Hala Taha?

  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.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  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 route. Like, 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

• 10:39Speaker 01

  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 owned 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.

• 11:05Hala Taha?

  But you didn't really plan on becoming a business influencer as well. You thought you were gonna become an NFL player.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  That was the goal.

• 11:14Hala Taha?

  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?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  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,

• 12:10Speaker 01

  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

• 12:50Speaker 01

  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 that 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 and 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 has 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.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:42Hala Taha?

  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?

• 14:25Hala Taha?

  Do you feel like you're getting that from doing your Instagram coaching and things like that?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I do, I do. Find joy is my life's 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 two. 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.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  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?

• 15:30Hala Taha?

  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.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 15:39Hala Taha?

  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?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  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 till I went viral. But yeah, I'd say about a decade.

• 16:21Hala Taha?

  So a very long time.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, a long time.

• 16:23Hala Taha?

  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?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  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 weight 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.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  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 loved that term. And I really 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 in and day out. And sure, over time, I'll slowly get better and better and better.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  But my staying power is really why I think I've been able to be successful in this business.

• 18:17Hala Taha?

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• 20:09Hala Taha?

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• 21:41Hala Taha?

  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?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  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

• 22:54Speaker 01

  platforms and bring those up as well.

• 22:56Hala Taha?

  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 TikTok-ification 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?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  The head of Instagram, yeah, Adam Mosseri.

• 23:27Hala Taha?

  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.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  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 at 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.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Those are the top three things that are driving their growth, which they're now over 3 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.

• 25:26Hala Taha?

  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 gonna work on Instagram, and you're gonna rate them 1 through 10, 1 being not very good, 10 being a very good strategy. All right, first, using trending audio.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Six and a half.

• 25:49Hala Taha?

  So it does kind of work, then?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  It does kind of work, but it's not really like a make or break. I think most people think it's like a 9 or 10, and I think it's more like a 6 and a half, like, eh, it could kind of work. Maybe we can even call it like a 4 and a half, if the 5 is the dividing middle line. We'll call it a 4 and a half.

• 26:05Hala Taha?

  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.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  1,000%. 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.

• 26:32Hala Taha?

  Posting trial reels to reach non-followers.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  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 reels since day one, telling people spam and abuse those things because Instagram gave us a goldmine and they're going to take it away 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.

• 27:05Hala Taha?

  Boosting your content with paid ads.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:32Hala Taha?

  Leaning into carousels.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:57Hala Taha?

  Music to your carousels. I never heard of that. Hashtags.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  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 Mosseri, 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.

• 28:36Hala Taha?

  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.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  One, that's the new wave growth hacks is like turn on these seven settings on your profile and like the settings are usually like HD videos like we already have those things turned on automatically and it's just no, it's overrated.

• 29:01Hala Taha?

  Okay, posting at certain optimal times of the day.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  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 4pm and so theoretically I'm supposed to do my lifting workouts at four in the afternoon. I shouldn't skip my workout for the day just because I'm busy at 4pm. 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

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I'm gonna wait till tomorrow. No, post it and then you never know if you're gonna reach people, you never know if you're gonna go viral, you never know if you're gonna reach an audience that's on at a different time. So I think it's mostly overrated.

• 30:00Hala Taha?

  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?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I think if I were to 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 gotta 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 share worthy posts. And share worthy 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 share worthy 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.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  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 another. So share worthy content is really the best, shares are disproportionately the best form of engagement on Instagram.

• 31:13Hala Taha?

  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-focus 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.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm sure there's some service out there that is gonna hear you saying that and jump on that opportunity and try to you bought 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.

• 32:07Hala Taha?

  Walk us through your most viral posts and why you think they were shared so much.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Hmm, 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 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.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  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, critiquing, over-analyzing, you're just getting layers and layers away from that original idea and who you really are and what you really thought and what was really inspiring for you. And I think that there's something in the subconscious of the audience that can perceive that.

• 33:37Hala Taha?

  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 viral, 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

• 34:16Hala Taha?

  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 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?

• 34:41Speaker 01

  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 offseason, 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 seeing 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

• 35:25Speaker 01

  more. Well, then all of a sudden the Lakers, who I've followed this whole time, their post starts 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 and the Lakers during the offseason. 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 offseason, we won't be seeing those posts.

• 35:57Hala Taha?

  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, 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 game thinking is actually being thankful and realizing how far you've come. You went from 0 to 3,000 followers. That's still a lot of growth and you can't compare yourself to other people. You should just

• 36:41Hala Taha?

  compare yourself to where you actually started. Now with you, you're huge on Instagram. You've got 800,000 followers, but there's OnlyFans 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?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  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

• 37:50Speaker 01

  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 happening is I bring myself back to reality. Cause 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.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  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's 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 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. Or with a long YouTube video when we're at the gym.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 39:56Hala Taha?

  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?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  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 1,000 followers. And that's because

• 41:06Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  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 waitlist 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 followers and having those one-on-one conversations, because I miss the good old days when I only had a couple thousand followers and I knew them all by name and I knew intimately

• 41:50Speaker 01

  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.

• 41:58Hala Taha?

  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 DMing 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.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  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

• 43:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 43:54Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys

• 44:38Hala Taha?

  know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting. That's H-E-Y-G-E-N.com/profitting. Heygen.com/profitting.

• 45:06Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap fam? You guys know we love reading on this show, so I'm always excited when I find a book I genuinely think is worth sharing. "Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love" by Mark Pincus is one of those books. Mark is a legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, and this fast-paced 170-page book is his playbook for testing ideas quickly, navigating uncertainty, and figuring out what's actually worth pursuing. One of my favorite concepts is what he calls "the abyss," those moments when you feel stuck or unsure of what's next. Instead of fearing uncertainty, he shows you how to use it as a tool for discovery. Right now, Mark is doing a buy-one-get-one offer for Yap listeners.

• 45:51Hala Taha?

  Go to getmarksbook.com/yap, buy one copy for $32, and get a second copy free, so you can keep one for yourself and give the second to a friend, future co-founder, or someone who needs a little push.

• 46:07Hala Taha?

  Hello, young and profiteers. If you're running a business, getting website traffic is only half the battle. The real key to profiting is turning those visitors into paying customers. And I know checkout friction can quietly kill your sales. That's why I always say, "serious entrepreneurs build on Shopify." Shopify is a commerce platform that helps you launch and run an online store without needing to be super technical. You can build your storefront, manage your business, and make it easy for people to buy. And here's the major advantage: Shopify Checkout with Shop Pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. With Black Friday coming up, now's the time to get your store ready and simplify your checkout experience. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday,

• 46:51Hala Taha?

  go to Shopify.com/protting to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/protting. Go to Shopify.com/protting today to hear your first

• 47:04Hala Taha?

  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 gonna launch a podcast course. Cause I know I'm just gonna 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?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  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

• 48:31Speaker 01

  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 content so 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 waitlist link. And then of course, there's the actual conversion content, which is what gets people onto your email list

• 49:13Speaker 01

  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 share worthy 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. They were all sales posts. Basically, they were all conversion oriented.

• 49:47Hala Taha?

  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 many chat, right? So talk to us about what does your many chat 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.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  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 am 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

• 51:03Speaker 01

  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,

• 51:43Speaker 01

  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 Insta Club Hub 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.

• 52:20Hala Taha?

  So interesting. I love webinars, right? And I think my price points are different from my LinkedIn Masterclass. I charge 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?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 53:02Hala Taha?

  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 posts 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?

• 53:20Speaker 01

  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 as 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 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.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  STD 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 your, 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.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  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 in 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.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  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

• 56:13Speaker 01

  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 a 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 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.

• 56:57Hala Taha?

  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 they're so much more important and that it's really people connecting with me. Is that the right way to think about it?

• 57:19Speaker 01

  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. Adam Moserius 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.

• 57:54Hala Taha?

  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 gonna 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?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  My advice to you is gonna be a tiny bit different, just because you have a team already and you have so much content already. 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 gotta do the whole thing over again tomorrow. That's gonna 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

• 59:22Speaker 01

  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, but 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

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  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 reel, but because it's in this unique 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 yeah, definitely do those if you aren't already.

• 1:00:41Hala Taha?

  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 or where to even start. So what do you recommend equipment wise?

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Your fricking iPhone. Your phone in your hand is literally all you need. I remember I had reached over half a million followers and I had had no equipment besides a ring light 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 he like tossed me like this little like $15 plugin microphone that I still have and use 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.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Your phone is a million times more than good enough to get started.

• 1:02:05Hala Taha?

  I always tell the story with my podcasting that I started with a USB mic, a webcam and a ring light. And literally I was interviewing Matthew McConaughey virtually in my basement with a hundred dollars worth of equipment.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Insane.

• 1:02:20Hala Taha?

  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 improfitters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:03:17Hala Taha?

  What are the ways that you understand your audience, who they are, their pain points? What are the things that you do?

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  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 comment 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?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Everyone's posting on the internet nowadays. And so if you want to find what people are saying, you can hunt for it. And whether it's on Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, wherever, you can find it.

• 1:04:17Hala Taha?

  Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you think creator entrepreneurs should know?

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:05:03Hala Taha?

  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.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  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 da, da, da, da, 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.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  I'm going to stop working every day at 5:00 PM. 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.

• 1:06:24Hala Taha?

  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.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was amazing. Thank you so much. You're the best.

• 1:06:47Hala Taha?

  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.

• 1:07:29Hala Taha?

  First, create share-worthy 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

• 1:08:13Hala Taha?

  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 into 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.

• 1:08:58Hala Taha?

  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 Hala picks, 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 of 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 Profit, and you'll find all of our episodes uploaded there. You can also connect with me on Instagram, @yapwithhala. Today is the perfect day to find me on Instagram. Again, that's @yapwithhala, or LinkedIn, just search for my name, it's Hala Taha.

• 1:09:41Hala Taha?

  Until next time, this is your host, Hala Taha, AKA The Podcast Princess, signing off.