Expert Advice for Boosting Instagram Engagement & Growing Your Following in 2024 w/ Brock Johnson

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. This episode is for the social media girlies, the business owners, the content creators, anyone that is actively using Instagram to spread their message, connect with ideal clients, or build their brand. Okay. This episode is so valuable. I almost considered gatekeeping it for my business clients only, but here we are. So you're welcome. Today I am joined by Brock Johnson. Brock has coached thousands of entrepreneurs and creators on how to grow on Instagram since launching his coaching business in 2018. In 2021, his personal following blew up thanks to his Reels strategies, and he has grown at a rate of approximately 1,000 followers per day since then. He now has over 600,000 followers, personally consults with Meta and the Instagram staff, so he has the inside know and intel, and he's an international keynote speaker. In this conversation, I ask all of the burning questions that I know my clients have around Instagram. So we talk about why your engagement will consistently be going down if you are not getting new followers. And then from there, the 5 proven growth strategies for Instagram that can help you get those new followers. I ask him, you know, how to know if we're posting too much educational content and where do we draw the line. Brock tells us why he has stopped posting any face-to-camera videos on his stories and the other methods that he has used to significantly increase his story views. We talk about what's better right now, long captions or short. Is it worth it to get verified on Instagram?, and if you feel like your account is dead, should you try to revive it or just start over? And then Brock is also gonna share with us his Instagram predictions for 2024. So if you wanna boost your engagement or grow on Instagram this year, get your notes app ready. Here we go. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen Podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shift happen.

Okay.

Welcome to the show, Brock. I am so excited to have you on. I'm so excited that you're here because I've been following you for years and I always find your tips and everything that you post online so helpful. And selfishly, I wanna get all of your guidance and advice, but I also know there's gonna be so many people in my community that can't wait to hear from you and learn from you. Like I said, I have so many entrepreneurs in my audience that are growing product and service-based businesses online, and a lot of us are using Instagram to grow and connect with our ideal customers., and this is like obviously something that you specialize in. And so, yeah, I'm so excited to just like have this conversation and bring everyone lots of information that I know is gonna be really, really helpful. So welcome to Makeshift Happen. We're so excited that you're here.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And, um, you know, I think I've been following you for a few years as well, so I'm excited to have this conversation and, uh, get to chat about all things Instagram. So it should be fun.

Yay. I'm excited. Okay. So I wanted to kick off with something that you shared recently because you said, like, a lack of new followers can contribute to your decreased engagement. And obviously you've probably been hearing this a lot. We've all been hearing it. Everyone's upset about the decreased engagement on Instagram. Reels are not performing as well as they used to. Views are lower, story views are lower, and everyone is kind of like panicking. What am— what are we doing wrong? What's happening? And this is obviously a trend across the board, and I know that you've talked about this a lot, and You might be tired of having the conversation, but it's like, yes, everyone's views are down. Like you're not alone, but also you have some interesting takes on like why that might be. And this was definitely one of them, just noting how if you're not adding new followers into your audience, the engagement over time is gonna go down. So can you just kind of explain why that is and speak to the, the overall like decreased engagement?

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been saying it for maybe almost a year now that like, hey, views are down for pretty much everyone. And initially I came to that conclusion just by asking my followers on my stories like, hey, what's going on with you guys? And it was like, depending on the exact poll, between 85 and 90% of respondents would be like, yeah, my views are down. But then a study came out about a month ago from Metricool that showed that the average Reels views in 2023 are 76% lower than they were in 2022. So that like validated what I had been seeing and what everyone had been saying. And I think that is hopefully a little bit validating to everyone listening is like, yes, it's, it's a bummer that they're down, but at least it's not necessarily that you're doing something wrong or that, uh, your Instagram or your content just sucks. It's just kind of like everyone's views are down. Um, and there's a wide variety of reasons for that. But the one that you specifically mentioned that I made a post about the other day, uh, was around this idea of new growth and new followers. And a lot of people, grew their following by a decent amount in 2021 and 2022. Because at that time, let's think about what was going on. First of all, in the world, a lot of people were still inside. People were going out less, going to school less, working remote still. So people were spending more time on their phones. You couple that with the fact that Reels were new, they were hot, not everyone was doing them. Now everyone is, like my grandma posts Reels, my grandpa posts Reels, but that just means there's more competition, right? And so now we're in a space where there's less demand because people are out and about, they're spending less time on their phones, they're back to work, back to school, whatever. And the supply is up because more people are posting. And a lot of us don't necessarily have new eyeballs. So if someone followed us in 2021, that was 2 years ago, and they've likely followed a few dozen, if not a few hundred people since then. And if they aren't consistently making it a point of engaging with your posts, they're not going to keep seeing your posts. And so a lot of what I see going on nowadays is someone went viral a few years ago, they got a couple hundred thousand or maybe even just 10 or even just a couple hundred followers from that post. But now a few years have passed and I think I made a joke in that post about this topic, which was like, hey, some of those people might not even be alive anymore. Like I can off the top of my head think of a few people who I know who maybe I knew in the past or I was friends with who aren't with us anymore, but their Instagram account still follows me, that is literally going to be a person who can never engage with my post again and thus quote unquote hurt my engagement. Um, and so unless you're constantly adding new followers or if your followers are just like super engaged and super loyal and they're super fans, your engagement will always be trending downwards.

Yeah, it's so interesting. So with that, then we, we kind of go to, all right, how am I going to make sure that I'm consistently getting new followers then, right? So if the goal is more growth is also gonna help me with my current audience and building engagement, we can kind of maybe dig into some like growth strategies. And you shared 5 of these that I really like. And so I'm, I'm like, okay, let's just go through them. I'll sh— I'll tell you them and then you kind of unpack them for me and give me like the deeper context. Perfect. So the first thing was sharing, like share-worthy content, creating share-worthy content. So explain, like, in your mind what that means. Like, what is share-worthy content?

Great question. There's this viral post from— it was actually originated on like a blog, and then it made its way to Pinterest, and then it was posted on Instagram, and it blew up and went viral on Instagram. And maybe you've seen it. Tell me if you have. It's like a little single image infographic, and it says like, the best way to grow on Instagram, and it says Saves, comments, shares, and likes, and it kind of like lists them like that. And that post went viral a few years ago. I don't know if it's still floating around. I'm sure it is. But the funny thing, the ironic thing about that post is it was trying to get the point across that a save is a super like, and I'm pretty sure it even said that. But the reason that post went viral and was seen by so many people was because it was shared a million times because everyone was sending it to their friends and sending it to each other like, oh my gosh, this is new. We got to get on the whole save train. Um, and so I've been trying to dispel this myth for a while. And then finally, about a week ago, Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, on his Instagram stories said that if you want your content to get more views, if you want to reach more people, the best way to do that is through shares. And I was like, thank you for saying this. Like, I've been preaching it, but finally, like, when the CEO of Instagram says something, people really stick with it. Um, and so that confirmed, that validated that yes, shares are the best way to grow. There's multiple studies on this, but the number I usually stick with is that 1 share equals 400 additional views. And so you can think about like how that would multiply. I mean, if you get just 3 shares, you're getting 1,000, over 1,000 extra views on that post. So of course that then brings us back to your original question, which is like, what is shareworthy? And I think there's a few different categories of content that generally fall into like this category of, of shareworthiness. Um, but what I will tell you first and foremost is that Reels are the most shared kind of content. Um, it's, it's quite a significant number. I don't remember the exact statistic, but, uh, by far Reels are shared more than photos or carousels, especially within the DMs. Reels are, uh, very highly shared content. Generally though, what is shareworthy? First of all, it is relatable content, usually in the form of like some sort of meme or humor. Um, I think a post that's been performing really, really well recently is kind of a throwback to the good old days of Instagram when we would post just like a single image meme. Like those were doing great in 2014 and they're doing great in 2023, 2024. 'Cause they're really relatable, right? They're really share-worthy. They're funny. Oftentimes they're like self-deprecating or people can kind of like share it and say like, oh, this is me. So memes or kind of like relatable type of content. Controversial content can also be shareworthy. I do want to give people a word of caution here is I'm not telling you to like, you know, get canceled or like step on toes and like offend people intentionally, but get as close as you can. Exactly. Yes. That's a great way to think about it. I love that. Um, that's a great way to think about it. Honestly. It's like, hey, let's, um, everyone has things that they believe in, in their niche and probably things that might be like the quote unquote unpopular opinion. But when you share those things and when you're brave enough to post about those things, it gets very high engagement because either your most loyal, engaged superfan followers who agree are like, "Yes, absolutely," and then they share it. And the reason they're sharing it is because it's kind of like an easier way for them to express their opinion, right? Like they're not the ones saying this, they're just resharing that you said this. So they're kind of saying it, they're saying they agree, but they're not saying they said it. And then the other camp is like those who disagree. Who like get super loud and vocal and they tell you why you're wrong and they want to argue in the comments. And that's a comment. A comment is a comment and that's great for engagement. So controversial content. And then, uh, the third kind of share-worthy post that we often see doing really well is I kind of call it like a call to arms style post where it's kind of like an, I need your help. Like I need something from you. I'm encouraging you to hop in and share this. I'm encouraging you to help spread the word, help spread the message. Um, and I should also add that kind of maybe the fourth form of shareworthy content is breaking news. That's not always easy to do in every niche, but pop culture or breaking news. I mean, if you can be the first person to post the Taylor Swift Travis Kelce meme of the week, it's going to do well. If you post it 4 days late, you're gonna be behind the 8-ball there. But, um, generally speaking, those are the 4 kinds of content. And the one thing that I do wanna make sure people get out of that, is that value isn't necessarily shareworthy. So valuable posts with like, you know, tons of information and juicy tips and stuff, those are great, but they're rarely shareworthy because they're something that people consume and they hold for themselves. They don't necessarily like spread that sort of like valuable tip out to the world.

Yeah, probably more of a save if it's something that they want to come back to or something like that. But yeah, yeah. I also think like people can just like use themselves as a case study of like, what is the stuff that you're sending to your friends and family? Like, we're all sending reels all day long to our friends, our partner, whoever. Like, it's like you get to the end of the night and you're like, and I have 10 reels from my boyfriend that I need to now—

like, literally, literally.

So it's like, what, what is that stuff? You know, it's the dog videos, to be honest. It's like the, the funny stuff, the relatable stuff, just the life stuff. So I think that's a really good tip there. Okay, so we move into the second thing as we're talking about like ways to grow, growth strategies. The second thing that you mentioned was having a crystal clear ideal follower and creating every post to serve them. What is— what does this look like? Because I think people can get lost sometimes of like, yeah, there's so much of like, oh, but I'm so multifaceted, I'm so interested, there's so many different things about me. So for you, as someone who specializes in like Instagram growth and strategy, Where do you see us drawing that line and how important is it to like every post to be about the ideal client?

Yeah, great question. I think first and foremost, your account is a great example of someone who has a very clear ideal follower. Whenever I see your posts, I'm like, this isn't for me. Like, I know it's not intended for me as a 26-year-old married man. Like, I like this. This doesn't— it's not for me. But I still follow you because I appreciate the value and I appreciate your content. But I will say like, and I don't mean this at all, I mean this as a compliment. That you have a great, very clearly defined avatar or niche or ideal follower, whatever you want to call them. And so when you do that, when you get crystal clear on this person or this topic or preferably both, those people can find you. They're going to resonate with your content so much more strongly. And the other people like yours truly who might not be that exact fit but might still appreciate the value you're putting out, they're still going to follow, but that person who you're perfect for, they're gonna love you. They're gonna know right when they found your profile that you are right for them. Uh, but for that person who's like, I'm multifaceted, I have so many different interests, passions, and hobbies. First of all, we all do. Like we all do. The way I like to differentiate it is on my feed, it's almost exclusively niche content. So on my Instagram feed, so my photos, my carousels, my reels, all about growing on Instagram, tips for growth and all of those different things relating to growing on Instagram and building a business online. And then my stories is where I like to, you know, let my freak flag fly a little bit. I can diversify my content. I can talk about all those different things I'm into. I can post videos of myself snowboarding and I can post myself putting up the Christmas tree. I can post my dogs, like I can share all of that on my stories. And the reason for that is that when someone initially follows us, they don't follow us because they're like, oh, this person's into these 17 different things. I want to follow along on their life journey. No one wants to follow along on anyone's life journey anymore. Like, unless you're already a celebrity, no one wants to follow along with another mom blogger, another lifestyle influencer, because everyone is a lifestyle influencer nowadays. Everyone is posting about their life. Like I said earlier, my grandma posts regularly about what she's doing on her day-to-day. You could call her a lifestyle influencer. So the days of, I'm just going to post about everything and people will follow me if they love me. They're not going to know they love you until they follow you first. How do we get them to follow? We clearly talk to them. We clearly solve their problem, address their need, uh, offer something, encouragement or something that they're looking for out in the world. Then once they follow us, I can use myself as an example, right? They follow me because they want to grow on Instagram, plain and simple. They're like, I want to build a business on Instagram, so I'm going to follow Brock. Then they watch my stories for a few weeks. They interact with me in the DMs. They get to know me a little bit more. They see more of the behind the scenes. Then they can fall in love with me. Then they can become a super fan, but they're not going to become that right off the bat. If I'm just like spewing all of this information at them, there has to be something that initially grabs them and hooks them in.

And I think that distinction between like feed and stories and the, and the different spaces that we can utilize within Instagram itself is helpful for people because they do want to be able to share those different elements, but like how knowing when and where and why is really helpful. And then they kind of, you know, as they get more into following you and watching your stories, they get to also meet the other characters in in your life. They get to meet Tay, they get to meet the dogs, um, they get to meet Shaleen. Like, and then it's a whole— I call this the reality TV effect, you know, when then, yes, then people feel like they're part of your reality TV experience of like knowing you and knowing your life. But the important distinction there being like, no one's gonna follow you from that type of content. You've got to give them a reason initially, and then they can kind of get into that. So that's really, really, really, really helpful. Okay, so the third thing was repurposing and reposting your best content from, from the past, which I love this tip. So underutilized. I myself even have to remind myself to be like, all right, just post old shit. Like it still works. So what are some of your favorite like versions of repurposing? Because I think people hear repurpose and they're not always completely clear on like what that actually means.

Yeah. So I hope this gives everyone permission, what I'm about to say. But about 70 to 80% of my posts are things I've posted in the past. Very rarely are my posts new or fresh. Um, and oftentimes it's the new and fresh ones that end up not performing as well. It's the ones from the past that end up performing even better. So what I'm doing is every 3 months or so, I'm just looking back at my old posts and being like, well, what did well? So right now, as we're having this conversation, beginning of December, end of November, and I'm like looking back at the summer and I'm being like, hey, what worked in July? What was my best post of June? What post got the most saves or shares or likes? And then I'm able to take that post and either just directly repost it, like save it to my phone or find it in, you know, Dropbox or wherever I have it saved and post it again. Or I can take it and like put a new spin on it. Maybe I'll rerecord it. I moved in June, so maybe I'm going to go back to May find a video that I recorded at my old place and it would be weird if I reposted it now because everyone would be like, that's not your office. Like, that's your old, you know, so I'll just take that old video and I'll just say the exact same script again. Like I'll literally record word for word what I said back in May, have it re-edited and posted again. And it's essentially a new post, but it's something that's already been proven to work. It's something that's already been proven to perform well. And so by posting it again, I can almost guarantee good results.

Have you ever taken something that you posted as one style of content and just converted it to something else? Like let's say you had a reel that did really well and then you're like, I'm just gonna make it a carousel. Do you kind of do that as well?

Absolutely. All the time. All the time I do that. Um, and it's so easy to do is I can like take a reel, the hook of the reel becomes the first slide of the carousel. The second sentence of the reel becomes the second slide of the carousel, so on and so forth, or vice versa. Like I'll take a reel that I, or a carousel, excuse me, that did well. A couple months ago and I'll rec— I'll use it as the script or I'll take a caption. Like maybe I wrote a long caption with a couple paragraphs and I'll use that as the script for my Reels. There's so many different ways that you can kind of plug and play.

Okay. Number 4 in these like growth strategies was doing one collaboration a week. Mm-hmm. And this is something that I really wanna hear you talk more about because I think it's one of the least well-known or talked about ones. So tell us like why collaboration is important and why you think people should be doing as much as one per week if they can.

Okay.

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Yeah, I should say one per week is my goal. If you're also hitting my other goals of like staying consistent with maybe one post a day. If you're only posting 3 times a week, if one out of those 3 is a collaboration, that might be a little bit too much. Maybe you want to scale back to like every other week or once a month. But overall, I feel like collaboration posts are super underutilized, and yet Instagram is yelling at us, sending signals that like, this is important to them. They keep expanding the collaboration tool. Earlier this year, they made it so that 3 people could collaborate on one post. Now I think it's even up to 4 or 5 people can collaborate on one post, and it's just a great way to get exposure to other people's audiences. Even if that post doesn't necessarily perform as well as your average post, like let's say your average post gets 100 likes and this post ends up getting like 60, those 60 likes might be half from that collaborator, which is 30 new people who have just discovered your page, which if you are collaborating with someone who's also in your industry or in your niche who does what you do, they most likely have followers who are interested in the same topics. And so now you have 30 prime candidates, perfect ideal followers who have just discovered you. Um, and it's also just such a great way to connect, make Instagram more enjoyable, bring some actual like fun and positivity and networking back to Instagram. So it's not just like a solo monologue of you yelling at the wall. Um, and there's so many people who feel like they don't have enough followers to do collaborations, but that literally means that there's so many other people who are in that exact same boat. Like, you don't need 100,000 followers. If you have 200 followers, find someone else who also has 200 followers who also does what you do, posts about what you post, and plan out a post together. Do a reel or do a collab on a, a, a carousel post or something like that. And it's such a great way to just get exposure to new audiences. Um, and it's, it's also just really fun.

Yeah, I love that. And it reminds me of— look, I just remember when I was first starting out, I always wanted to collaborate. And then I think you get further along in your journey and you get comfortable with the way that you do things, and maybe you don't do it as much. So I think it's even a challenge for me to be like, yeah, I should, I should do that more. Like, I should go out of my way more to collaborate with other creators and coaches and people within my niche on, on Instagram, because I do it all the time via podcasting, of course. But to then like expand that into Instagram content is a good challenge for me.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a challenge for me too. Admittedly, it's something like part of me saying your goal should be one a week is that like a month ago I was like, hey, my goal should be one a week. And so I'm kind of pushing myself to say, hey, even if this post isn't going to get as great of engagement, or I'm going to collaborate with someone who has less followers than me, That's okay because at the end of the day I'm reaching new audiences and it's really rewarding to get to put your brain together with someone to think up a post. So yeah, it's a challenge for me too.

Do you normally do this with people that you kind of know in your industry? You, you guys follow each other, maybe you have some— we all have those kind of like business friends where we're like, hey, we're kind of doing the same thing. Um, and then do you just kind of like reach out and say like, let's collaborate on a post? Or what's your approach? Do you look for people that you aren't kind of friendly with yet and that are more strangers, or is it, is it built first from relationships?

It's, I think it's built first from relationships. Like I try to keep my ear to the ground and stay super like on the pulse of Instagram coaching and all of the Instagram coaches out there. And I try to follow them all, especially once they start to like gain traction and have their own success. And then if I follow them and I'm like watching their stories and I'm like, hey, I kind of, I like this person's values. I dig what they're talking about. We're aligned in what we teach. Then I'll build that relationship. And it definitely starts with the relationship first. Like I'm just having conversation with them. I'm responding to their story. I'm saying like, oh my gosh, your dog is so cute. Oh my gosh, that dinner looks so good. And then after a few months I'm like, hey, if, if you'd be down, I'd love to do a collab post. And it just kind of really start simple. Um, and then my kind of pro tip is if you are the person reaching out to do the collab, make it as simple as possible for the other person. Like don't just be like, hey, let's do a collab. What do you got? And then put it all on them to come up with it. Like, be like, hey, I think we could do a collab. I know you post a lot about, uh, you know, weight loss by doing leg workouts, and I post a lot about weight loss by doing arm workouts. And so like, let's collab together and do a post on, I don't know, something, something where you can work out in the middle. Yeah, full body, a total body blast, 30-minute workout, whatever. Um, but like, come to them, have the script ready to go, be open and flexible for feedback, but on my end, when people reach out to me and they like have everything already planned, I'm like, okay, yes. Like Marketing Harry, he's the best example I can give of this. Him and I collab probably more than anyone else I collaborate with. Um, and when he reaches out to me, he's like, hey Brock, I would love to do another collab if you're down. And I'm like, I love you. Yes. I should also say he is literally my number one most engaged follower. So he himself has like a couple hundred thousand followers. He's got a massive platform. And yet I've literally looked at the statistics. He has commented on my page more than anyone else. So you wanna talk about a relationship, you wanna talk about putting in the work, he has done it. But when he reaches out to me and he is like, you know, let's do a collab. And I say, yes, he literally will send me like 3 carousel ideas that have already been designed. They've already been written out. They've already been like fully made. And he's like, let me know if you wanna add or change anything to these, but I'd be more than happy to like slap your face on it, slap your name on it. And we can, post it as, as our post. And it makes it so easy. It makes it so simple. It's like a no-brainer. And so every time he asks, I'm like, yeah, let's do it.

Yeah. I love that. I think that's, um, a really, really good tip. And the thing about that is like, if you reach out and you're looking for collaborations and people say no, for whatever reason, you just have posts that you're, you were already going to post anyway. So you don't lose anything by doing it in that way. So I love that. It's a really good tip. Okay. So the last of the 5 growth strategies was improving your hooks, which this one is my favorite because I talk about hooks all the time, and it's one of the main things that I teach my clients that really, really helps them in their business. So from your perspective, you know, because like hooks for me are, they go so far beyond Instagram. It's not just the first thing that you say in a video or the thing that's on the, you know, first slide of the carousel or on the COVID of your reel, but it's also your email subject lines, your podcast titles. Like, yes, I always say everything should be a hook if you're being an intelligent marketer. Like, everything should be a hook. The, you know, the intro to a sales page, the first thing you see, everything should be a hook. So from the Instagram perspective, how can we give people some sort of tip or idea of where and how they can be using, should be using hooks and what that might look like?

Yeah, you're absolutely spot on. And like, I think it's more than even like marketing. It's like life. Like when you're looking for a partner and you're like at a coffee shop or whatever, like There was something about the person you saw across the room that hooked you, right? That grabbed your curiosity, grabbed your attention.

That was like pickup lines back in the day. That was like—

exactly.

Or nowadays on like your Hinge profile, people have all these opportunities to say like funny cheeky things in like really short ways. Like, that's a hook. So yeah, it's just everything in life because attention is our economy now. So being able to grab someone's attention is the most valuable thing that you can do. Hey, don't forget that every month we are picking a Listener of the Month to win $50 in cash just for showing love to the show. All you have to do is leave an epic review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, screenshot the review before you hit submit, and DM that screenshot to us on Instagram @makeshifthappenpodcast. And that's it. I want to thank you for being such a loyal listener and show my appreciation by putting a little extra cash in your pocket. I know it's super easy not to do it, but every single rating and review seriously helps the show rank higher and reach new people, so we appreciate them more than you know. We'll announce the next winner at the end of the month and slide into your DMs if it's you, so keep an eye out and good luck. Love you guys and thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen.

Absolutely, and it's the most important part of your content on social media. I don't care how well-designed, well-written, thought-out, pre-planned your reel or carousel or whatever it is, if the hook sucks, it's not going to get watched. People aren't going to view it, or at least not as many people as should be viewing it are going to watch it if your hook sucks. So generally what I would say for your hook is focus on the known problem that your post is addressing. Of course, not every post is addressing a problem, um, but the known problem, and that's a key, the keyword there is known. 'Cause a lot of times we try to address problems that we think our followers have, or we try to address problems that we know that they have, but they don't know that they have. Or we try to address like step C in the process when they're so focused on step A. And so focusing on that in your hook. So for example, I could say, you know, here's 3 ways to improve your, um, alt text SEO on your Instagram posts. And it's like crickets because people are like, what's alt text? What's SEO? Why do I need to improve that? But I'm like, but if instead I focus on the known problem, which is low engagement, I say, if you want to boost your engagement on Instagram, here are 3 quick tips you need to know. Then it's like, oh, okay, he's addressing a known problem. And then the great second step there that I added on, kind of like the second half of that sentence, is here's 3 quick tips you need to know. So I'm kind of piquing their interest in telling them what I'm about to tell them. So I'm about to share with you 3 quick tips. I'm about to share with you a strategy that takes you less than a minute. I'm going to show you the exact formula that I use. So I'm telling them what I'm about to tell them. So I think that's really important with your hooks. And then another thing that we have found is negative hooks. Now I want to add a disclaimer that like, I don't want anyone to overuse negative hooks because there are literally studies that have shown that overusing negative hooks Uh, can lead to lower engagement, but in moderation, a healthy amount of negative hooks can be really helpful. And what I mean by that is things like, don't do this, avoid that, stop this, stay away from that. When you tell people— exactly, top mistakes, biggest don'ts, biggest pitfalls, all of those things, those grab people's attention. Even if it's the exact same content, like whether I'm telling you don't do these 6 things or do these 6 things instead. It's essentially the same post, but the one that I'm telling you what not to do is going to grab more attention because, you know, our cave people brain doesn't really care about all the pretty flowers and butterflies. It cares about like the one tiger that we have to pay attention to or it's going to eat us and we're going to die. So when I hear what I'm not supposed to do, I'm going to be like, oh, I need to pay attention. Like even if I see someone make a post in my industry, another Instagram coach, like the top 6 things you need to avoid on Instagram. I'm probably gonna sit and watch because I'm like, the curiosity. Yeah, like, what are they gonna say that I shouldn't be doing, you know? Um, and so yeah, I think that that's a really helpful strategy to occasionally use with your hooks.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just the, the negativity bias that we have as humans, so we're drawn towards that. Absolutely. That's a really effective style of hook. I did a podcast episode once that was like, stop doing these 10 things ASAP if you want something something, I can't remember the rest of it. But it did really well because people were like, shit, I might be doing one of those things and I need to make sure that I'm not. So yeah, I love that. Okay, what is your feeling? I wanted to ask you about this personally. What's your feeling about having too much educational content? Because I've heard some people have conversations about this as it relates to Instagram specifically and just kind of like what is the mix between like that fun personal brand or lifestyle content and actually teaching and educating. And I've heard this argument of like, you know, if you have too much, if you're too heavy on the educational content, you just become like a resource for people and they know that it's always going to be there and it's always free and then it's kind of dry. Like, so in your view and what you've seen to be true, what's your perspective on that?

I think I kind of agree with what you were just saying and I wish I had like a perfect rule for this, like, you know, 80% this, 20% that, but it's something that I admittedly still work through. We work through with our team. We literally had a meeting last week to kind of revisit this topic of how much are we giving away for free in terms of education, especially for people like us. Like, you know, we're in the education space. What we're selling is essentially more education. Um, so we have to learn, you know, how much education is necessary to establish credibility. How much free stuff is necessary to build and establish your audience? And then when do you cross that line into, like you said, people are like, man, I don't need to buy their course. I can get everything for free on Instagram. The approach that I try to take is the majority of my content will tell you what to do, but when you need to figure out how to do it or why you're doing what I'm telling you, but it's not working, that's where the next step comes. That's where the, the course, the membership, the coaching, that's where that comes in. But it's something that we, we definitely still struggle with all the time. Um, it's like figuring out when there's breaking news, when do we break it? How do we break it? How much do we tell about what's going on with Instagram? Um, it's definitely still ongoing, but what I do think, going back to something I talked about earlier, that purely educational content fortunately is not performing as well nowadays as it was a few years ago. Now the posts that are performing the best are the relatable memes. The things that are lists of ideas, right? So if I'm to say, if let's say this, I make one post about how to come up with hooks, it's super valuable. It's giving all my top tips for how to come up with a million Instagram hooks. And I make another post that is literally just, here's a list of 20 hook ideas. The list of 20 hook ideas will perform way better. And honestly, that's probably a lot easier for me to create. And I'm not like putting as much time into breaking down the strategy. But when people realize that they've used all 20, or they can't figure out which of the 20 to use on their post, that's when they come to me for those next steps. So it's, it's a balancing act, and I don't think there is a perfect answer to this question, um, but I think it's something that's like each one of us has to kind of figure out as we go.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that a lot of like giving the what but not necessarily the how. But I also am kind of like, I feel like you could literally give away everything you know on Instagram and people would still want the, the implementation support. And I think for anyone who is a service provider, like, that is something that you can always remember is like, that's essentially what we're paying for when we buy into courses, programs, mentorship, memberships, whatever it is. It's like, I want the accountability, I want to feel like my hand is being held, I want to feel like if any question pops up there's a resource for me, I want to have skin in the game so that I feel like for the next 3 months or the next 12 months or whatever it is, like, I'm going to be really focused on this thing and I'm going to be using strategies every single day. Instead of just sitting on the toilet scrolling past a reel and being like, oh, that's a good idea. Like, and then what, right? Most people don't even do much with that information anyway. So I think that's another thing to remember too.

Absolutely. And I think the, the order of events is also important, right? Like that's oftentimes the beauty of a course or coaching is I'm gonna walk you through step one at step one, step two at step two, and so on and so forth. If you, if you follow me on Instagram, exactly like you just said, today you might get a post about collaborations and tomorrow you might get a post about niche and the next day you might get a post about hashtags. And you're kind of just like throwing stuff against the wall, not doing things in the right order. It's like building a house and starting with the roof and then painting the walls and then laying the floor. And then like, it's— you're going in the wrong order. It's not going to work. And so I think you're absolutely right, is like, even if you are giving away all of that, people still don't know what order to do things in. And that's kind of where the next steps come in.

Yeah, that's so true. I've never really thought about the order thing, but that's like so true too. I love that. Yeah. Okay. So we've got to talk about stories because we mentioned a little bit earlier, like stories is kind of where we get the reality TV effect. We see more of who you are, your personality, your life. What is the best way for people to be utilizing Instagram stories today? Something that I saw you share recently that was helpful for me too. And I think about often is they've extended the length that you can record an Instagram story for. And we remember the days when it used to be 15 seconds. And that motherfucker would cut us off every single time. It was the worst. It was the worst. But like, actually, it forced us to be like more concise. And sometimes you would get almost to the end of what you were gonna say and it cut you off, and then you're like, all right, I'll just finish there. And I'm like, you know what, it's not that bad. I feel like maybe 30 seconds is a sweet spot. But even so, we just— when you're in the mode of watching people's stories, I feel like your thumb is just subconsciously tap tap tapping. And so you said like, don't talk for the full 60-second limit that you have on your Instagram stories. What are some other like IG stories tips? Or like, can we expand on that? Like, how should we be using them today so that we're really using them to the best of what they can do for us?

Yeah, great question. Great question. I think first of all, like you said, I just want to reiterate, be concise as possible. Like the 60-second thing, I suck at it myself. Whenever I press that record button, I'm going to say the same sentence 3 different times in 3 different ways, back to back. And then I'll rewatch it and I'll be like, I said what I wanted to say by the 12-second mark. And then I just kept blabbering. So make it concise. Personally, what I've been doing, I don't even use the video feature on stories anymore. Like I don't do video stories unless there's something really heartfelt that I just like need to get off my chest or I want to go on a rant. For the most part, I don't though. What my current approach to stories is and what I see working really well right now is less is more to the most extreme. So where I used to say 10 stories a day, 5 to 10 stories a day is your goal. Like the more the merrier, you more, the more you post, the more views you're gonna get, all of that good stuff. What I've seen recently, and recently I've, my story views have 5x. I was really frustrated with my story views, really like over the summer. I kind of just noticed they like, even if I was growing my following, my story views were stagnant or going down. And I was like, this isn't right. I don't want this. I, I, I want to strategically bring them back up. And now they're— they originally went like, I think I'm trying to do quick math here. They like doubled within a few months. And then within the last 3 months they have 5x'd from that number.

All right, give us the tips. Come on, Brock.

Okay.

So literally I'm like, I need to know this shit.

So stop recording videos. I'll tell you all the things to stop doing. Stop recording video stories. Stop sharing your feed posts to your stories. Stop posting links on your stories, which are all things like those 3 things are the 3 things that pretty much everyone does every day. But here's the problem. Someone's watching your stories, like you said, quick, they're tap, tap, tapping through. If they want to receive a link, I would much rather that someone use DM automation rather than having the link sticker for a million reasons. Um, if you're sharing a feed post, again, this came from Adam Mosseri on his Instagram stories. He said, that according to their internal studies, they found that the average Instagram user doesn't really like seeing feed posts on stories. Because when I go to stories, I'm going to see your stories. And I know people will be like, well, I appreciate when I'm watching stories and I see a feed post because that reminds me to go look. Sure, but that's not the general population. The general population goes to stories to consume stories. They go to the feed to consume feed posts. So stop sharing your feed posts, stop posting links, stop doing those 60-second stories where you're blabbering on. And instead what I've been doing recently is literally 3 stories a week, a week. It's like maybe every other day and text post stories with like 3 paragraphs worth of text. What happens there? Someone opens it and they hold down their finger, that tap, tap, tap finger, it holds down. And so now Instagram, which says in Instagram's algorithm's brain, it's like this story lasts 5 seconds. So, you know, we base the, the completion percentage off of that, which usually if you just post a really long story and someone watches 3 seconds and they tap, that's 3 seconds out of 60. That's horrible. But now you have a text post story so that, that image, that text post, I think it lives for like 5 seconds. That's how long it's visible. But now someone's holding on their finger and they're reading that paragraph or those 3 paragraphs and it's something engaging, right? Like we're not just, writing super long blabbering on paragraphs. Like it's something that's, that's going to matter to our audience or it's insightful. Um, so they're holding down to read and that took them 25 seconds to read. That story was supposed to last 5 and now it lasted 25. And then maybe you added at the bottom, reply with the word guide and I'll send you my free guide. And so now people are replying to that story as well. The Instagram algorithm is like, holy crap, this is the most hot story. People are loving this. It's so good. People are spending, 5 times the amount of time they would normally spend on it. And that's what's skyrocketing views. So I'm sure this will change within the next few months once everyone starts doing this. But right now that is what is flipping crushing. And I should say, going back to what we were talking about earlier about like letting your freak flag fly and, you know, forgetting the niche on your stories. I was looking through some of my top stories the other day and I think of the top 15, all 15 are heavy on the text, multiple paragraphs., but only about half are related to Instagram growth. Some of them are about like my newfound appreciation for Taylor Swift. One of them was about like putting up my Halloween decorations too early according to one of my followers. One of them was like a heartfelt message. So like they weren't all about Instagram, they were about everything, but because they all followed the same strategy, the views are literally blowing up. Like I am rapidly increasing my, what I'm charging brands to pay for my stories because like it's working and it's consistent.

Yeah. Okay. Amazing. So I've been doing no more— I've been trying to avoid links and do the DM automation, which is something we can talk about if we have time, but I probably need to talk less on my stories for sure. And I've noticed the same phenomenon with text on stories. I have done something in the past several times where I'll kind of like have one of those days where I'm going back through my camera roll. And you see like really old pictures or things of like when you first started your account or when you first started your business or whatever it is in relation to your niche. And I just kind of like go on this journey of like pulling photos from all these different eras and kind of like basically detailing a summary of like my business journey from let's say 2019 to now and like pulling old photos and putting text on top. And I just remember like that day sharing a story like that, which was probably like 8 to 10 slides photos, but they all had text over the top kind of explaining these different versions and iterations and significant moments throughout my business journey. Like, my story views probably doubled in that day, and it's because so many people are holding it down. So it definitely works. So you guys use that tip. That's an amazing one. We need to do that more often. Um, okay. Long versus short captions. What's your vibe?

Uh, I'm a short caption kind of guy just because I don't like writing long captions. Uh, but the bottom line is whatever your audience prefers. I know that like one super popular kind of post that I'm not a fan of, but that's my personal opinion. Objectively speaking, it is working. Um, and that is, uh, the posts that are like 6 seconds long and they start with like the hook of whatever the content's about. And then at the 3-second mark it says, read the caption. And then the caption is like 19 paragraphs. It's a, it's a similar idea to the whole stories thing, right? People are reading this really long caption. The 6-second reel is just looping and looping and getting a ton of views. But not every audience prefers reading long captions. Not every audience is trained to read long captions. I know my audience, they don't, they don't really like reading long captions because they've gotten used to years of me not doing long captions. Um, so yeah, but there's no necessarily, uh, you know, perfect length of a caption. It's just kind of like whatever it needs to be for the post. But what I do like to say as a general recommendation, is your caption should be the opposite of the post. So if the reel is 60 seconds long, the likelihood that someone's gonna watch a 60-second reel and then read a 19-paragraph caption is pretty low. So if you do a long reel, keep the short caption. If you have a 10-slide carousel with lots of value, keep the caption short. Like make the caption just a call to action. Like don't forget to like this post or save this for later, something like that. If it's a 6-second reel or if it's a single image, single image post, maybe you're going to write a longer caption to kind of balance things out.

Yeah. And I think that happens naturally too. Like if I've created a long video with lots of value or a really long carousel, I'm like, what am I supposed to write for this caption now? And it's like, that's the point. Just don't. Honestly, you don't even, you don't even need it at that point. So, and I literally wrote on my notes, I'm like, does putting read the caption on the screen help or are people annoyed by that? Because I like, it works with the attention thing, but like I think some people are like, like, ugh, again, seriously, just read the caption.

I'm annoyed by that. And when I polled my audience, cuz I asked them the other day, um, they were annoyed by that. But yet the, um, you know, oftentimes what people say they feel isn't always reflected in how they act. And, uh, even though people tell me that they don't like that, they still continue to engage with those kinds of posts. And those posts do continue to go well. Like if you scroll through your Reels tab, I guarantee you won't get more than 5 Reels deep before you see one that is literally what we just described. So it's working. It's just kind of up to personal preference whether that's a route you want to go down.

Yeah. And maybe just like sprinkle it in. Not every single— don't, don't do that as a strategy for every single reel.

Yeah.

Okay. Let's circle back to this DM automation thing because ManyChat has been super helpful for me. How has it helped you? Because I know you've talked about it actually helping with your engagement and probably inevitably Sales. What's, what's been helpful about it for you? And what do you think people should, you know, at the very basics, if they'd never used it before, like what's the most basic thing they can set up that would help be helpful for them?

Yeah, dude. It's a flippin' game changer. I, I cannot talk about this enough. I've been shouting about it from the rooftops. I'm so thankful that like I've been doing brand partnerships with them for like 3 years now. And like, we have a really tight relationship cause I would never shut up. I would never shut up about ManyChat even if they weren't paying me.

Um, you're an early adopter.

I am an early adopter. I literally said that in, uh, I recorded a podcast yesterday about ManyChat and I called myself an early adopter. But anyways, what it is, first of all, let's start with what it is. It's when we post on Instagram and we say, comment the word guide and I will send you the link or reply to this story with this specific keyword. And I will send you this specific thing. That's what DM Automation is. It's automating responses. What I've seen on my account, I just did a study over the last 60 days. I compared when I was using DM Automation versus when I was not using DM Automation. So when I was using it on my reels, I received on average 71% more views, 141% more likes, 1500% more comments, So like that alone, like more views, more likes, more comments. Boom. That's awesome. 46— this stat does not make sense to me. I stopped doing math my freshman year of college, so like this doesn't make sense. Same. But ChatGPT confirmed that this is the right number. 4,600, 4,600. So 4,600% more clicks on the link when using DM automation versus when just saying, you know, click the link in my bio or tap on this link in my stories. So more views, more likes, more engagement, more link clicks. Like to me, that's a no-brainer. It's really easy to set up. And to your final question, which was like, where do people get started? Start simple. And honestly, you don't need to get more complex than that. The vast majority of my automations or my— they call them flows is what they call them— is literally follower says a keyword, follower gets a response and that's it. Like it's literally just like follower says this word, they get this link, they get this landing page, they get this PDF, whatever. And that's as simple as it is. It's really, really easy to set up. They make it very, very easy, at least on ManyChat. I'm not familiar with, uh, very many of the other DM automation tools, but it's ManyChat is an approved partner of Instagram, so it's totally legal. It's a really efficient way to deliver people what they already want., and to do so in a way that is actually going to help you reach more people with that post. And then thus it's just kind of like that snowball effect, right? So it's a game changer. I've been shouting about it from the rooftops and I think everyone needs to use it. And we're still in that early adopter phase. 3 years from now, 2 years from now, everyone will be using it. It won't quite be as powerful. Um, but right now, like I see influencers, I see every, I see big brands, like no one is using it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like freaking, I don't care if you have 100 followers or 100 million, if you use this, you will see significant results.

Yeah, I, it's been so freaking helpful. I, at one point it was, I think it was like last, I don't know, it was a couple months ago or something. I had a free event or masterclass coming up or something and I didn't have my ManyChat automation set up and I was like, I'll just, you know, I'll reply to people. Biggest mistake ever. First of all, the influx of people being like, send me the link, send me the link. I'm like, oh my God. Okay. Like use the ManyChat. It's so easy. And like, I basically just do exactly what you said. It's like if they comment on any post or reel, or if they DM you those keywords, they're gonna get, um, a response. And the cool thing is you guys probably see this happening in people's comment section. You see that automated comment that populates as well. So not only do they get the direct message that says, hey, here's the link to my free guide with the button for them to click it, but they also, if they had commented on the post saying, whatever the keyword was, they'll get an automated comment reply from you saying, "Check your messages, I just sent you the link." And you can pick like 3 or 4 different versions of that and type it out yourself with your own emojis, your own language. So it feels really natural and native to how you operate on Instagram and how you would reply to a follower anyways. Love it. Chef's kiss, highly recommend. And I didn't know, I didn't know that they were an official partner with Instagram. Yeah. Because that was always a question that I had, like, Is this like a third-party thing that is then gonna like influence whatever? But like, it's cool to know that they are, they're partnered and kind of like integrated really nicely in that way.

Totally. It's a lot safer.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. Another thing that I got from you, which we don't have to go into, but you also talk about, um, the Instagram insurance and I got myself Instagram insurance from you talking about it, but then also we got the option to get verified. So I did that just quickly for anyone who's like wondering, should I get verified or not? Do you think that it's worth it now that we've had it for, I don't even know how long it's been now.

Mm-hmm. I do, because I don't think there's any downside to it. There have been reports anecdotally, there's no data supporting this, but there have been people who are like, when I joined Meta Verified, my views went down. And I think it's more like everyone's views went down and you just happened to join Meta Verified at that time. So from what we have seen, like actually statistically speaking, there is no downside to being Meta Verified and having the blue check. There are only upsides depending on who you are. You might think they're huge upsides, you might think it's a minor difference, but either way, um, I think it can only help you. And so I recommend that everyone gets Meta Verified.

Yeah, cool. It's been a good experience for me so far as well. So I think it's worth it, especially if you just want to feel really safe and if you're account is your business. Okay. The last thing that I wanna ask you about, well, I have two things. We'll see if we can get to them. If someone has a dead account, I have so many clients that have questions about this. They feel like they grew in a couple of years ago, maybe it was like a fitness account or something, and now they're doing something else and they feel like their community is not engaged. Their views are super low, but they have a lot of followers. So it feels like there's this credibility piece there., but they're like, what should I do? Do I start fresh? What would you recommend? Like just rip the Band-Aid off? Do you start over? Like, is it possible to revive an account that feels like it's really dead?

Yeah, it's possible. It's definitely possible. But I think that the more of those things that you have done or have changed, like if you have a new niche, if you've bought followers in the past, if you had a viral post in 2020, but you have had nothing since, all of those things can really hurt you. And so I think it's usually in most cases, honestly, best to just start over. Either way, there's going to be a suck. Like, you just have to pick which suck you're going to embrace. Like, either you're embracing the challenge of building it back up and revitalizing your dead engagement, or you're embracing the suck of like, hey, I have zero followers and everyone has followers, it seems like nowadays. So now I'm the, the person with zero. Either way, it's going to suck. But what I've seen is like oftentimes the newer accounts can grow faster. So I usually tell people to rip off that Band-Aid and start over. And you can always keep the old one too and like keep posting on that one. And if the new one takes off, then ditch the old one and stick with the new one.

Okay. Just had to ask cuz I know so many people are in that boat and they would love to know. Okay. Last thing, your top 2024 Instagram predictions. What do we think is gonna happen? Every year Brock comes out with his predictions. I'm sure he'll do a post, so make sure that you follow him for the full thing. But what are you thinking? Visualizing so far for 2024?

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. And I've been, uh, trying to build relationships with like some of these hackers who like actually know what's coming in 2024, cuz they can like see what Instagram's testing. I can't share any of that, but what I can say is that there's 3 big predictions that I have for 2023, and I'm still, I'm still formulating all of these and working on them. But I think the first one is, and this is kind of a hopeful prediction too, the rise of long-form content. Content. So I hope that in a similar way that TikTok has really embraced 2, 3, 4, 5-minute-long videos, I hope Instagram Reels and the Instagram Reels viewers do the same and we kind of move away from the 6-second trending loop and instead we move to let this more authentic content. And I hope part of that is that maybe Reels can be longer. Maybe Reels can be 2, 3, 5, up to 10 minutes. We'll see. I think another big prediction, something that's going to happen, and this one's a little bit more of a bummer, is I think there's going to be an increased view gap between the highest quality content and everything else. So I think that the content that's the best of the best, whether it's like very highly produced, highly edited, put together really nicely, or it's just like that funny, that engaging, but it's just like quickly recorded on your phone, on the subway, whatever, the best of the best content is going to be doing much better next year than it is right now. And the average content, the kind of just like trending audio lip sync, the behind the scenes thing, I think those are gonna really drop in views. We're gonna see like a big, uh, discrepancy between the top content and everything else. Um, and then the third prediction that I have is less is more. And we talked about that already a little bit when it comes to stories, but I think less is going to be more when it comes to followers. People are gonna get brand deals even if they have 1,000 followers. They're gonna start getting paid for posts, um, because they have less followers but they have more engagement. I also think in terms of feed posts, less is more might be true as well, where less feed posts but focusing on a higher quality of feed post, that might be the strategy to win, um, in 2024. So those are 3 of my big predictions, and that last one's kind of anti what I usually preach. So we'll see.

Yeah, I know you've, you've always been the guy that's like, every post doesn't need to be A+, like just post, post, post, post, post. So it'll be interesting to see if that rings true. I'll be following along to see how it's turning out. Um, yeah, make sure that you guys go follow Brock. Thank you so much for your time. He always so over-delivers on his content. You guys obviously have like the Insta Club Hub. Anything else you want to shout out in terms of how people can get more of the information and knowledge from you, work with you, the podcast, like pimp out all of your stuff?

Just follow me on Instagram. I appreciate that. No, honestly, um, yeah, we have a podcast, we have got a million things going on. The best way to get connected is just, just follow me on Instagram. And if you want to learn more, you can DM me about the podcast or DM me about the Insta Club Hub. But really, I just want to say thank you for having me on today. This is a great conversation. I'm glad we finally got to make this happen. Uh, so thank you for having me, and thank you so much to everyone who listened today.

Yeah, thank you so much, Brock. If you guys found this episode valuable, make sure that you take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, and tag me and Brock. Uh, let us know what you loved. And if you have someone who you know would find value in this, copy the link and send it to a friend. Let them know you were thinking of them so that we can all grow together in 2024. I love you guys, and we will talk next week.

Bye!