A social media discussion with Chris Preston

So you were saying that you got it was at about 2000, you started taking it seriously and you looked at other accounts and see that they were posting multiple times and the hashtags and all of that. So. And now from 2000, you started taking the business of Instagram seriously. From the time you hit 2000, now you did half a million.

Almost. Yep. Yeah, almost there now with that one page or with one account. Yeah.

Success diaries.

Yes.

Namaste, everyone. On today's show, Chris Preston, ladies and gentlemen. This young man started with no predetermined vision board. He had no million dollar agenda at all. All he wanted to do was to inspire people, and he just kept his eye on the next step. Rather than look for the whole staircase, he kept building, kept inspiring one post at a time. His audience grew, but he needed multiple strategies, which he got from watching, observing others in their accounts. And he learned a lot from what they did and grew his account. And today, just one of his accounts is at half a million followers. And he is one of North America's most respected names in Instagram marketing. The best part of the interview for me was when he said, my wife is my biggest fan of he and supports me throughout what made me what I am. She is the force behind the man. With a supportive family backing, you can get there anytime you want. And there is no stopping anybody from becoming the Internet mogul they want to become. Ladies and gentlemen, a respected colleague, a good human being, and now a friend. I bring to you Internet mogul Chris Preston, as he shares his strategies for Instagram and social media success.

So give us help people who are listening to this with a few nitty gritties on nuances of how to tweak an account to take it to that next level.

Sure, yeah. So the big thing that I did when I changed at that point was I started to take it really seriously, where I changed from just doing a bunch of random things to creating an overall theme. And that's where actually Success Diaries was created. I changed my profile picture to an actual logo and I said, I want to do only motivational posts with like the similar font with the quotes and similar types of pictures and that kind of thing. And so when you look at my page, it's kind of like an overall theme or where I wanted people to actually look at a post somewhere else. If it got shared somewhere else on the Internet, I wanted them to think that's a Success Diaries post. So I really started branding and that was a huge, huge thing, was being really consistent with the brand instead of being really random and just like everyone else, where I wanted to stick out from everybody else. So I started creating my own brand. And that's when I started seeing my page really start skyrocket and take it off was when I started doing that. And so really being consistent every day and kind of figuring out your own personal brand, you don't need to, like, copy somebody else, but just trying to be different than everyone else, which we're all, you know, if we share our story or we share, you know, just be ourselves. We're all unique. So we all will be, you know, very unique and stand out if we just share what our story is and just stay true to that and be consistent with posting. And that's what I did. And it's just really a thing about being patient and consistent and putting in the work every day, which most people don't. You know, lots of different people I've worked with or, you know, just people I've given advice to or that kind of thing. It's, you know, they end up realizing how much work it actually takes to do it. It doesn't happen overnight. You it's. I'm here after three years, you know, it took me quite a while to do it. And it's been every single day for three years doing this. So it takes some time. But, you know, if you want it, you can do it. If you, you know, put the hard work in and be patient.

Tell me, what's the, what would be the difference between a Success Diaries account versus garyvee account, where he blogs about his life and he gives advice along the way versus choosing a theme that you have chosen, which is, you know, mindset and entrepreneurship and motivation. And I would also think that sometimes it's human beings would fear or be insecure about taking their face away and putting a logo. Whereas you went and said, I'm going to put a logo. Because it's more about the theme. It's more about people who relate to the theme and it's not about risk. So what will be the difference between people who are looking at this right now and saying, I want to be my own brand versus I want to be a team brand?

Well, two things was for me, that's kind of what I wanted to do is step away and create like that, where it was not so much just me, but more of a brand where like Gary Vee, he's that personal brand where he is the brand. And so every day he's posting about his life and that kind of thing, where mine was more of my words and the captions, but it's branding where it's with the logo and everything like that on the side. So the two differences, I mean, he's doing his personal brand, so he is the brand, his face. And so he's constantly putting his face. Every single picture that he does with a quote is him or he's doing videos of just him, but he's constantly putting his face. So if you're wanting to do that personal branding, you got to have your face out there and you got to be the brand and the brand's got to be you. Where with me, I was constantly putting my logo out there, having that general theme of motivation, but it was more generic like with the background photos and that kind of thing where the quotes are mine, the words and the captions are mine, but it's more of the success diaries brand. So go ahead.

Now if you were to create a parallel brand or say that, you know, I want Chris to be as big as success diaries, different brands, so this theme brand of yours can help you leverage Chris and make another channel as successful.

Yeah, yeah, you can do that definitely. And the biggest thing would be getting like having that personal brand, having your face out there, that's a big thing. And having a lot of content where if I were to go ahead and do that, make like a Gary Vee type looking account, or if I wanted to have my personal page and have it as a motivational one, I would start taking a lot of pictures of myself and doing like my own quotes over the top of them, but being consistent with that, where I'm only showing my face and start posting every single day and doing that and getting my face out there more. So, yeah, different things with personal branding, doing interviews, doing other things, going on other channels, but getting your face, your face is basically the logo. Where like mine's the red book, you know, my logo. Where like Gary V. His face is the logo. So yeah, so if you're wanting to do a personal brand, you basically have to think your face is the logo. So you want to get that everywhere. And that's, that's definitely a key with building personal brand.

Okay, so, so we spoke about this section. Now when it comes to your social media consulting, because every stage you learn new things to go to that next level. You know, I'm sure that one learning did not allow you to go from 2000 to half a million. So there were things that you had to do. But at the same time there must be some things that you said I did consistently from January of three years ago till now. So can you tell us what are the things you did consistently and what are the new things that you found out along the way?

Yeah. So a big thing is every. Well, just about every day. I'm constantly trying new things, so I'm still looking at what big pages, like pages that are bigger than me. I still look and see what they do and if there's anything that they do that's differently. And I try to stay up on different trends and, you know, different tactics and that kind of thing. But the number one thing was once I started networking with people and started getting into different groups or creating different groups, where I started meeting other pages like mine or other people like me, and we started sharing ideas. So that was big because, you know, when you're just trying to do something on your own, you might not, you know, you only get stuck in your own bubble where once you start connecting with other people, then you start sharing ideas and you start realizing different things to do. But a big thing was the cross promotion. I still do that to this day. That's been like my number one tip that I still tell people. It's like a shout for shout you'll hear on Instagram where I'll do a post of somebody else's and say, follow Avi or whoever, you know, for more motivation. And then so my channel can actually see that person's content and then go over there and start following them and that person will do the same for me. So you try to reach out to other pages that are around the same size, or if maybe you're half the size, maybe you could do two for the price of one, something like that. But cross promoting has been the biggest thing that I've done from 2000 followers to today. I still do every single day. So it's called Shout4Shout strategy. But that's something that I've done every single day and that's been like the number one thing to do, but individually by DMing them. Yep. Yeah. So DM them. Otherwise, that's. Yeah, originally how it starts is you just reach out to someone. Like if, let's say you've got somebody who is a similar type of page and you notice that they're commenting on your stuff or they're liking, you know, your content, you can reach out to them and just say, hey, would you be interested in sharing a post of mine? I'll share yours. And we can, you know, cross promote. Will reach a bigger audience that way. And sometimes people might say, no, sometimes people will Say yeah, but I mean you just, you know, keep reaching out to people and see, you know, you don't want to go off and spamming everybody, but you just reach out and see and actually form general friendships. Like I've met so many different people through just doing that, that we're close friends now, but it all started with just a simple DM and we start cross promoting each other and, and there's several pages that I do that with now still to this day. And it, it's a daily thing that's been the number one thing that hasn't changed is doing that cross promoting shout for shout.

So every day you sit on your computer and you find new people with pages which are similar to yours and reach out to them.

Yeah, so now I don't actually go out and find too many new people. Every once in a while I will but just because now three years into this I have such a big network, I can rely on, you know, couple hundred different people. I could just reach out and say, hey, you want to do one, you know, set up for later today or something. So now can I have so many people I've done this with that I don't need to go out and find new people. Oh yeah, when you're first starting out, I definitely would do that every single day. Reach out to new people until you start getting, you know, building genuine friendships or general connections with other people that you're doing it on a regular basis. And so yeah, one point a couple years ago I was doing about 10 a day, like 8 to 10 a day, which I wouldn't suggest now. So that's kind of changed where that would be a little bit too much I think for Instagram now. But if you're doing anywhere from posting four to six times a day, that's kind of the sweet spot I think right now with Instagram. So that's kind of something that's changed a little bit. Where before you could post more often it was better, but now it seems to do you grow more if you post a little bit less. So yeah, really reach out to if you're get a goal of having let's say two to three people that you're doing a shout for shout with every single day. I mean your accounts gonna explode just because you're getting a lot more exposure. And that's the biggest thing is getting exposure for your account.

But what, what do people do? So when you were at 2000 and most people who'll be watching this show will be at around that, you know, a Smaller number.

Yep.

If. So they reach out to other people with similar accounts because they can't reach out to a half a million dollar account, right?

No. Yeah. And so it's got to be an equal exchange of value. So if, let's say you're an account that's 500 followers and you have a cooking account, let's say you post about recipes or something, you want to look at other accounts in your niche that are around 500 followers that are in that same, you know, share kind of the similar types of posts and everything. And you want to do that where it's like a 500 follower count for 500 follower count, just because if, you know, like I get probably 20 messages a day of people asking me to share their content and you know, it just happens. But like, you know, there's got to be an equal exchange just because if I'm shouting out someone, they might get a couple hundred. Where if somebody, you know that has 500, I might get one or two. So it's not like an equal value exchange. But as you grow, you know, once you get to 500, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, you know the size of the accounts that you want to reach out to get bigger. And then every once in a while you can get lucky too. Or let's say you're at a thousand followers and you reach out to someone who's got two or three thousand followers and you ask them, hey, would you mind if I posted your post twice? You post mine wants to kind of give that equal value exchange. You can do that. And so, yeah, it's looking for accounts around the same size of yours to get started. And you know, it doesn't happen overnight, but as you continue to grow, then that's when you can do bigger and bigger accounts.

I love that. I love that. So tell me, is there any red flags? I mean, in terms of don't do this when it comes to hashtag strategy, but you see a lot of people doing and you feel like this is totally wrong.

Sure, yeah. One thing is not posting the same hashtags over and over and over. You used to be able to do that, but now you, it's like you get shadow banned or where you get the hashtags get overused and then you don't show up in the feeds anymore. So that's a big thing is to constantly be changing them up where you're not posting the exact same hashtags every single day for like a year. You know, I would, I would be rotating them and changing up different ones, and look for different, you know, hashtags that are in your niche, but not repeating the same ones over and over. So if you look at my accounts, like lots of times I won't post hashtags anymore just because I'm at a larger size now. But when you're first starting out, it's the best. One of the best ways to get more exposure is by doing hashtags. So I would definitely do hashtags, but just make sure that you're not repeating the same ones over and over. And then also hashtags that say like for like or, or follow for follow, those ones aren't good because they can get you banned if you end up doing too many of those over and over. And so you might get a couple followers right off the bat, but eventually those followers fall off and there's a lot of hashtags that get banned or that kind of thing. And so I would just stay away from those. Any type of spammy type of hashtags, just stay within your niche. So if you got cooking, for example, you might do like hashtag recipes or hashtag yum or something like that. You know, just that kind of thing. And you can go on Google, you can find different hashtags. Otherwise you can search right within Instagram and they'll give you suggestions when you're looking in the Explore page.

Got it. And when it comes to digital marketers, because millions of digital marketers, everybody says, I'm a digital marketer and wants to grow their own personal brand as a digital marketer. So now this is, this is a theme within social, which had, which has social media search, all of that. So how, what advice would you give to digital marketers who are listening to you right now on how they should grow their brand? What theme do they come under and what hashtag should they use?

Say it again. What was the last thing you said?

What theme should they come under and what hashtag should they use?

I would really just stay within your niche. And so whatever type of theme account you have or whichever you're trying to go for, don't try to be like everything. But if you're trying to be like a digital marketer, let's say doing ones that are social media, social media marketing, digital marketing related, that's really good. And staying within your niche is better because if you can really get more focused, then you'll grow a lot faster. Because instead of you being kind of like everything, if you can really focus on a specific niche, then people start recognizing this person or that person as the social media guy or the, you know, cooking recipe account or whatever, you know, your niche is, or the basketball account, you know, people look for. So if you really start focusing on specific niches, that's what I would do. And the hashtags and really focus on a theme for the page.

Got it, got it. So, so, so we spoke about hashtags, we spoke about what not to do, we spoke about, you know, staying in your own lane. So, but as, as we get into 2018 and you know, when you work with companies, when you know, if there are companies who are looking at this interview and they want to reach out to you, how do you, how do you go about helping entrepreneurs and corporations both?

So it depends. What I do is I try to get an overall background and story about what they're currently doing and where they're focused on what they want to do and why they're wanting to. If they're just getting onto Instagram, let's say, for example, for the first time, like, why do they want to get on Instagram? Some people want to get a lot of followers and they just want to have a big following and be kind of like a celebrity, which that's a certain strategy in order to try to gain followers where somebody else might say, I don't care about having 100,000 followers, I just want to generate book sales. That's a different type of strategy or, you know, whatever. So I basically try to figure out what's their end goal, you know, are they, because some people might not say right away that I want to make money or I want to, you know, I've got a book release coming up in six months. That's what I really want to do. Where you try to find their end goal first and then you reverse engineer, you go backwards and you say, okay, here's how we can get to that point. So maybe it's gaining more followers, maybe it's focusing on a tight knit community instead and being more active with, you know, your followers and your comments, that kind of thing. So really figuring out what their end goal is first and then going backwards and figuring out a game plan from there.

Got it. So what's the, what's what's the best place? What's the best place to find you on what's your handle?

Success Diaries. I mean, I'm active constantly on there. So on Instagram, yes, Success Diaries, that would be the best.

Hi, are we back?

Yep, I think we're still back. Perfect technology. Sometimes it's.

Yep, I know, I know, man. It's.

Yeah, yeah. So reaching out to me on my Instagram, that's the best way. I'm pretty active on there all throughout the day, so.

And so tell us, what is Next? What is 2000? Where do we see you in 2018? What are your goals and game plans? Have you already done your goal setting? Because, see, the idea, like I said, is most of the audience that's going to watch this is Asia and the youngest population in the world. You know, working, hustling, hustling, hustling. I don't believe in that so much, but there's a school of thought which says work, you know, your face off and all of that. That's all right. But there are a lot of those people who will be listening to you when the show goes live. And everybody said, 2018, do your goal setting, right? And, you know, choose one channel, because a lot of people don't have the resources or the time to go all over the Internet and have to be omnipresent. And also a lot of people who are young today are very automatically active on Instagram, and it's all second nature for them, but they're not able to generate a livelihood out of that. So what would you recommend as the first steps? Is it first creating a brand and then being able to create a livelihood? Because, see, in India, what's happening, like in every other part of the world, there's a lot of bloggers with 20, 30, 50,000 people followers on Instagram, but they're very solid, loyal followers. So they charge anywhere. They charge a couple hundred dollars for posts and they targeted posts. So when people see that happening, then everybody else wants to become an influencer who is charged a couple hundred dollars per post. So what do you think? What would be your suggestion? What is the right strategy? If the end goal is to say, I want to leverage Instagram to make. To make money, what would you say are the steps?

So I would definitely write down what kind of theme or what kind of niche you want to be in. Like, let's say the cooking, for example, or whatever your hobby is or whatever you love, because it does take time. And so you want to do something that you can continually create content for every day. And I really focus on building a community of loyal followers instead of just posting stuff up on there and just throwing random posts up there. Really engage with people and build genuine connections, because you're not going to be able to charge, you know, 100 bucks a post right off the bat. It takes, hey there. Yeah, I don't Know what's going on.

Okay.

But yeah, really focusing on building the community and getting. Engaging with everyone and building loyal brand, loyal followers. Where instead of just thinking, this is how I always suggest everyone, instead of thinking of if your end game is to make money from posting or social media, don't think about the money right off the bat because you need to gain a larger following first or just get more interaction. I mean, you can have a following that's smaller, that's like 5,000 or 3,000 followers and generate a lot of money from it. It's just how engaged your community is and what exactly you're selling and what kind of value you're bringing to people. So that's the biggest thing is provide as much value, do something you love and be very engaging with your community. Instead of just throwing stuff out there, actually engage and build relationships. And that's how you're going to build your customers if you're wanting to make money off of social media. So it's not all necessarily about the amount of followers, but the quality of followers. And so that's what I tell people to focus on instead of so much. Lots of times people like to get caught up in getting half a million followers, which, yeah, that's great, but if only 10 of them are interacting with you, then it doesn't matter, you know, so you want to build a really deep following and build the general relationships and bring as much value as possible to those people because then they'll come back to you. You know, if you do bring out something that. Where it's a. Let's say it's an ebook, or you have. You just want to do shoutouts or whatever you're selling, you know, if you have a product, that kind of thing.

So how does it feel, Chris, with half a million people? Is it. Do you ever feel lonely in the middle of the night, say your wife and kids are sleeping or you're alone, you're on a plane and you don't have anybody to talk to, you have half a million people who are always responding. How does it feel?

You know, it's. Sometimes it hits me and sometimes it doesn't because it was such a gradual thing that for me, like, I don't even consider myself like an influencer yet. Like, I realize I am, but, like, you are. Yeah, but it just, you know, it doesn't hit me all the time just because I think it was such a. You know, it's taken three years, which it really isn't that long, but at the same time it just you know, gradually grew. Every day it wasn't just like I was at 200 followers and then the next day it was half a million. So it still isn't like really fully hit me yet, but it's kind of cool, you know, it's, it's fun. I've been able to meet a lot of people. That's the biggest thing lately, the last, you know, six months or so is the amount of relationships that actually come out of it where, you know, outside of social media, I'm actually building real life friendships. I mean, you know, you still, there's still real life friendships on social media, but actually, you know, hanging out and stuff in person and everything.

That's how I met you with Brian and Tyler and all of these guys.

Yeah, exactly. And that was. The whole thing was actually that whole connection was all through Instagram. And a friend of mine actually had meeting with Brian and he asked if I could come with and they said sure. And we just kind of had seen each other on social media or whatever. And so I went with my friend up there and then later that day, you know, you and I connected. So that was all through Instagram. Which is pretty wild how, you know, just the chain of events can happen just from a simple message or something.

It is amazing. It is amazing. So tell me, do you feel the next step for you? Are you going to do your own conferences or. See, I'm just thinking about with how people do influence. Can you pretty much send out a few messages and say, guys, okay, I mean, like I'm in San Diego right now, you know, let's meet over and there'll be 500 people and you can do an event around it.

Yeah, yeah, there's maybe not quite that many, but I mean, it definitely could. But there's been times where I've. I've done a couple like small meetups and I've said, hey, anybody want to meet? If I'm in San Diego? And I've met up with quite a few different people and I just haven't done that yet. I'm a really kind of more behind the scenes kind of person. And so. And that's kind of why I took the route of going behind the logo and building a brand more instead of being a personal brand, just because, you know, I love communicating, talking to people, that kind of thing. But I'm kind of shy at the same time where I don't like getting up on stage as much or whatever, that kind of thing. But yeah, you never know. Right now I'm focusing on a couple, like big projects and promoting those and kind of working behind the scenes on those are really teaching what I've learned to everyone else and then just trying to motivate as many people as possible with my brand. So that's kind of where I'm going right now. But I'm really focusing on helping a couple, like, big projects succeed and kind of replicate what I've done and that kind of thing.

So once you built this account, now can you confidently say that you can build more accounts like these for yourselves because you know how to do it or is. Or every. Every journey is a new journey.

Yep, Definitely. Everyone is new and everyone is different with every page. But I mean, I've done it with several other pages and I've done it over and over again. So it's. It's definitely. There's a science to it. And it's. The biggest thing is the daily habits with Instagram. You need to never give up with it. So, like, you can't just go a week of posting, then say, oh, I don't have half a million followers, I give up, you know, and then try posting again in a month or so. You definitely need to be consistent because we're at three years right now, and I've never taken a day off with it. And so posting multiple times a day, you know, doing it sounds like a lot of work, but you kind of get in those habits. Once you create those habits, it becomes easier and easier to do. So doing that, where you're doing the hashtags within your niche, you're staying really within your theme, posting every day and then reaching out to others and engaging with your community. Those are kind of like the general things I do every single day. And I have done those for three years. And it's a compound effect. So it eventually snowballs and takes off.

When somebody chooses to work with you or people who are listening here want to work with you. So they basically hand over their account to you, and if you take them on as a client, they can pretty much focus on something else, or does it have to be collaborated?

So I haven't done that as much just because it does get very time consuming if I do more and more. So I only actually do that for a few people right now. A couple bigger projects where I'm actually managing their account. But when people approach me, basically what I do is I advertise for them or I post their content on my page or pages to get them more followers that way. But I typically have the account management left up to them or where I'm working with them and kind of teaching them and saying, here's, you know, different steps you can do and working with them one on one, but where they're actually hands on, they're learning it and they're doing it themselves. So that's how I do it. Some people do the account management for me. I just, I just don't as much because I only do it for a few accounts. Just because it is, it does get time consuming when you start building out 30, 40, 50 accounts, you know, and that kind of thing.

So when you said that you help with posting their content on various. So is it only yours or you reach out to the other connections that you have and.

Yeah, well, I've got, I've got almost 2,000 or sorry, not 2,000, 2 million followers collectively across my pages right now. But then I have a network of.

How does it feel that you see that every day?

I don't know, it doesn't really hit me. It's kind of funny because I just, I don't know, maybe it's because what I've been doing every day. So I don't.

The feeling that I get is you just feel so loved. It's. I mean it's not, it's not, it's not ego, but it's like I connect. The world has got 7 billion people and 2 million people actually know who I am, that I exist, and that I'm doing some great work. I'm sure it's a great feeling at the end of the day.

Oh, it is. It's really crazy. I mean, some of sometimes, you know, you get messages from people that say, you know, like, I have a, you know, success diaries, mainly a motivational inspirational content. But I've had so many people message me and say, hey, your post, you know, I've come back to them every single day and they've really helped me through dark times and, you know, bounce me back out of depression or whatever. But I can't tell you how many people have messaged me about that. And that like really keeps me going and says, you know, like I'm. I realize there's a lot of people out there that they come and check on it every day. That's when it really hits me is when somebody actually says something like that. And you know, that's my biggest thing is really spreading positivity across the world and inspiring people that like chase their dreams and do what they want to do in life, you know, and go after their goals and think outside the Box. So that's, you know, if I can challenge people to do that, that's the biggest thing. And, you know, people come back to me a year later and say, hey, you know, I finished my degree or, you know, did whatever they did, you know, or started business. That's, that's what I like to see. So I get quite a few of those messages every week. And that's what actually, you know, the 500,000 followers or, you know, a couple million followers, that's great. But I really love when I hear that, you know, I've actually made a difference, you know, in someone's life.

What does your wife think about all this?

She loves it. Yeah, she thinks it's pretty cool. So she's like my biggest fan. She tells everybody about my stuff all the time. So it's. Yeah, it's pretty nice. I mean, she's been supportive since day one. I've had a lot of friends. When I first started, they were like, what are you doing wasting your time on social media? So many people said that and she thought it was great. She saw my vision. She, you know, has been my biggest fan. So I got lucky with having her around.

Oh, my God, I totally second that. And you are lucky with that with a partner supporting you in exactly what you're doing. In this new age Instagram building world, it's very often.

No, not yet. Not at all. So it's. I've been blessed to have her in my life.

I just reverse back. We were, you know, I sort of, I sort of steered away. When I was asking you about how do you help with your two. You said you have a community of 2 million people.

Yeah, yeah. Are you saying if like, somebody wanted to come to me or whatever, that kind of thing or.

And you said you help them, you post their content to cross post. So do you cross post only on your pages or you reach out to your network of the hundreds that help you build your channel to say, hey, would you like to take this client of mine and help him do. Does that also happen or.

Yeah, Yep, that happens all the time. So lots of times, you know, someone will come to me with like a budget of how much they want to spend or know, they say, we want to get, you know, this many eyes on this content or whatever they want to do. Exactly. But lots of times I'll take it on myself between my accounts or if it is bigger, like a lot of companies will come to me and say, hey, we've got this big campaign that we want to do and I'll reach out to everyone I know in my network. You know, it's millions of others because they want to do something that's bigger than just what I have. So yeah, there's been several that have done that too. Or if they want to grow their account faster, that kind of thing, you know, do it in a shorter amount of time, then you need to use more resources. So, yep, I'll reach out to my network of other accounts and you know, we'll get them posted across the board on that.

Right. So is it only the large companies that can reach out to you or they're, you know, smaller entrepreneurs can also, you know, when you were watching this, can also reach out to you for. If they have a budget, they have a budget to work with you.

Yep. Yes. Smaller ones too. I work, I mainly, you know, I do a lot of like solopreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. Someone who's like, let's say writing a book or startups. So I generally do work with a lot of smaller, you know, personal brands or more solo entrepreneurs, that kind of thing. We're just trying to like get started building their brand. So I mean it's, it varies. I mean it goes to big companies, all the way down to smaller ones. But the majority of people I work with are like the smaller companies, the smaller businesses. Yep. So it's really a huge variety of accounts that I work with.

So this to this. So this keeps you busy the whole year round?

Yep, yeah, it does now. And so it's my full time thing that I'm doing now. And it was, yeah, originally something I did on the side and then it turned into kind of like a part time thing and then now it's a business.

So yeah, you know, I'm speaking this year or.

I don't right now. And so, you know, it might change. I mean, that's the great thing about this industry and just kind of being in business for yourself. I mean, every day brings something new and a new opportunity. I haven't like pursued to do that yet. I think if I were to say, all right, this is what I want to do, it would definitely happen. But for right now I'm pretty busy with everything I'm doing. So I haven't really given that a thought yet. But you might, yeah, you might see me doing it in the future here this year.

And you did mention that, you know, you showed me, I remember the first time I met you in San Diego, you showed me your analytics and you said that the huge percentage of your followers are coming from India.

Yeah, yeah. Let's see. I'll actually look at it right now. Let's see. It's pretty awesome. And that's why I love. You know, I can just tell India's growing there, everyone's hungry, and they, you know, you can just see the wave of people coming onto social media. So, yeah, right now, I'll see if you can see it. This is on Success Diaries. You got like 21%. Nice is India. So, I mean, 21% of. Let's see, 461 followers. Yeah. So we're talking about 92,000 followers on success Diaries are for. From India. So it's. It's pretty awesome to see. So that's why when. Yeah. You talked to me about it, I was like, I think it'd be great because, you know, there's always already a big base there.

Already a big base that you already known over there.

Yeah.

Isn't that amazing that, you know, you've never been to a country or many countries and you. There are people who already know you so intimately, so when you go there, it almost feels like. Feels like.

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty incredible. And it's like, even between different states here in the United States or different countries, you know, that's what I love about social media and the Internet is there are no boundaries where, you know, we've connected and other people have connected, you know, in other countries.

Yeah, sorry about that.

You're fine.

Yeah. I think the kids are back. So he got excited.

That's all right. But, yeah, that's about it. I mean, I love that about social media and the Internet is, you know, it mainly doesn't have any boundaries where you can be halfway across the world and we might not even need to speak the same language. But, you know, my message and what they're doing connects. Like, our messages connect, and so, you know, you can build relationships with that. That's what. That's what I love about it, you know, to see, you know, followers from all different countries. It's. It's pretty exciting. It's awesome to see.

You know, I send you. After this call, I send you a WhatsApp message on. On a Hindi quote. Hindi. In Hindi. So maybe later. Later, whenever, if you think it's a good idea. You want to post that later?

Sure.

I was just thinking, and I was actually talking to somebody, and so I was just thinking with your post that if you have a couple of Hindi posts, I could just imagine you're in new, I'm sure.

Yeah. And I haven't done Anything like that. But I'm sure, you know, it would be great. So I. Yeah, send me something. I'll definitely post it. That'd be good.

Yeah, because that would be crazy. I can just imagine because, yeah, 91,000 people just from India.

Yeah, I know. And so, I mean, that's, that's a big chunk of, you know, it's. It's a fifth of my following is from India. So. And you know, it's been growing steadily. Was, I think when we talked a year ago, it was probably my third or fourth highest or maybe it was my second at the time. But I've gradually seen, you know, on my analytics, the country India growing and growing. So, you know, I can tell there's a big movement happening. And I've heard it from other pages too, so it's pretty awesome to see.

Chris Preston, thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, thank you.

So much fun. I personally made a few notes on what I should do with my account as well. And this is really inspirational. It's like I said, why I do this show is basically to inspire other people as well. But I always get. I always, while I'm going through interview most interviews like this one, I become like a kid and I'm like thinking, I go, I went back January 2015 with you. When you said it started in January, I was just thinking, you know, you're in which part of the world and how you started and the fact that you're a good storyteller, by the way, as well. So it helps sort of take journey as well. And the most exciting see for me in my journey, the most exciting thing and that one thing that I shout from the top of every stage is stay close to the router. And I say the router is your family. And a lot of people have problems with their families. Like you said, people have depression, this, that, and I think it's mostly because they've lost human connections with people who actually care about you. So. And I always say in a social media conference where I've got 60 minutes, I give 10 minutes to staying close to the family. Some people don't understand where it's coming from, but eventually I feel that everything that you want to be successful at comes with the kind of people you're with. So having said that, one of the most exciting things about this interview with you was when you said that your wife is your biggest fan. I don't stopping any man whose wife is the biggest advocate. And if that's a big blessing you have and, you know, wish you all the success. And God bless you and your family. And thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, thank you, too. God bless. And yeah, I'll look forward to your next message.

100%.

All right.

Wow.

I hope you had as much fun as I did. As Chris bared his secrets to growing an online following. And he reassured many of us that you don't need to be flamboyant and be everywhere to create content. You could choose your own comfort zone and be an introvert if that works for you. And stay behind the computer and your studio and inspire a generation of people across continents. Follow this man online, ladies and gentlemen, because something tells me he is just getting started. Namaste. And thank you for listening to the Internet Vogel show.