611: Build Trust To Sell More on Instagram with Brock Johnson

Tired of hearing the same old Instagram advice and not seeing the results you want? 

In this episode, Brock Johnson joins Samantha to share refreshingly real, proven Instagram growth strategies. From mastering IG stories, connecting in the DMs to creating share-worthy content, this conversation is packed with tips to help you build trust, drive sales, and finally stop overthinking every post.

Brock also busts myths, shares his controversial take on hashtags, and lays out how you can turn followers into revenue, even with a small audience.

Whether you’re a seasoned creator or starting fresh, Brock’s insights will change the way you approach Instagram growth.

Remember, you don’t need perfection or millions of views.  Just a plan, a little courage, and solid consistency. 

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• Why sometimes the wisest move is starting over (00:00)
• Lessons from Brock’s first business (02:10)
• How to create high-quality content that stands out (08:10)
• Why going viral doesn’t equal success (10:56)
• Two tools you need to build real relationships on Instagram (16:42)
• Growth vs. relationship-building on Instagram (19:21)
• Biggest mistakes people make on Instagram (21:28)
• 5 types of share-worthy content (25:31)
• Controversial content vs. authenticity in building stronger personal brands (27:55)
• Instagram trends to watch for in 2025 (31:07)
• The one Instagram resource you’ll ever need (37:58)

RESOURCES

Sign up here for InstaClubHub

QUOTES

• “Where is there a need that people would be willing to pay for? And really, ultimately, as entrepreneurs, I believe that we are just paid problem-solvers.” – Brock Johnson
• “Quantity creates quality. You can’t have a high quality piece of content without having a super large quantity of really bad content that came first.” – Brock Johnson
• “The only way to get that data is by actually pressing ‘post’. So I am team quantity over quality all day long.” – Brock Johnson
• “So many people hold themselves back, thinking, ‘I’ve got to wait till it’s perfect.’ But it’s never going to be perfect. So you may as well just get on and do it today and get those lessons and get the data that you need to be able to change it up as quickly as possible.” – Samantha Riley
• “Your reels, your photos, your carousels, the things you’re posting to the feed, they can definitely build relationships. They can definitely tell stories, they can definitely allow people to connect with you. But the deepest, most intimate form of connection is through Instagram Stories. That’s why they were created.” – Brock Johnson

​​SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW THE INFLUENCE BY DESIGN PODCAST 

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If the information in any of our conversations and interviews has helped you in your business journey, please head over to Apple Podcasts, click the 3 dots in the top right corner of your smartphone screen, follow the show, and leave us an honest review. Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver valuable content but will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you!

BOOK A BUSINESS ACCELERATOR CALL

If you want to be known as the leader in your industry, book a quick 15-minute call and we’ll work together to identify:

Your current situation and immediate opportunities for growth

Uncover the #1 thing holding you back from not being booked as an industry leader

Develop a 3-step implementation plan to increase your visibility

Click Here to book your no-charge Business Accelerator Call.

WHERE TO FIND BROCK JOHNSON

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brock11johnson/ 
• Website: www.Brock11Johnson.com
• Website: https://instaclubhub.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brock11johnson/ 
• Apple: Build Your Tribe Podcast
• Spotify: Build Your Tribe Podcast
• YouTube: Build Your Tribe Podcast
• Apple: Social Media Money Makers
• Spotify: Social Media Money Makers

CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY

Facebook: Samantha Riley

Instagram: @thesamriley

LinkedIn: Samantha Riley

Twitter: @thesamriley

TRANSCRIPTION

Samantha Riley  0:00  

Welcome to today’s episode. I’m super excited because today we’re going to talk about how to grow and make money on Instagram. Now I’ve wanted to cover this topic for a long time, and I have covered or have interviewed a few people on Instagram, but when I chatted with Brock a couple of weeks ago, I’m like, it has to be you. You are absolutely crushing it. And to be brutally honest, I’m in a very expensive business coaching course, and you gave me a piece of information that absolutely blew it all out of the water. And I’m like, we have to have you on the show. So Brock, welcome. It’s great to have you here on Influence By Design. 

Brock Johnson  0:42  

Thank you. I’m so excited to be here, and what an amazing introduction. I want to know what that amazing piece of advice was, what I don’t even know what I said.

Samantha Riley  0:49  

Oh, my goodness. So all right, so let’s give it, so hopefully by the time this airs, I will have done what we discussed. But I’ve had a problem that years ago, a marketing firm reached out and said to me, We will help you get followers on Instagram, and we won’t use bots. And silly enough, I didn’t actually question that, because, of course, what were they going to do? Couple of months in, I realised, oh my goodness, they’re using bots. I reached out and said, No, we’ve got to cancel this, but have not been able to grow my account ever since. Like, it is shocking, and everyone’s like, No, you just need to re-engage, and you just need to do this, and you need to do that. You looked at it in seconds and went, you need a new account. It’s that simple. So we are in the process of setting that up, which is actually quite funny, because just a little behind the scenes for everyone that might be listening or watching, I was just telling Brock that where I’m sitting right now is the only part in my whole entire house that’s still up, because we are literally, like two hours of having removalists come and taking everything. And then you shared that you’re in exactly the same thing in reverse, that you’ve only got your little piece of world there, and you’re about to do a move as well. So you know, this is what content creators do, right? We show up no matter what’s happening.

Brock Johnson  2:03  

Absolutely, we figure it out. Everything is figureoutable. And those who approach it like that, they’re the ones who ultimately will figure it out. 

Samantha Riley  2:10  

Yeah, totally. Now you, I believe, got your first, or, you’re from an entrepreneurial kind of family, but your first, I’ll put in the air quotes, real business. And I took this from something I saw online, was Unwrap Snap, back in 2016. Take us a little bit on the journey of sort of what happened there and how you transitioned to where you are now. With InstaClubHub, your membership?

Brock Johnson  2:37  

Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said, I was raised in a very entrepreneurial family. So both of my parents have been entrepreneurs my entire life, and my sister and I both got to watch them and learn from them growing up. And so when I was a freshman in college, I had a lot of entrepreneurship knowledge, and I love that you put that in air quotes, because as a child, growing up, I started a bunch of, I’ll use air quotes myself, little businesses here and there, but really it was just a step above a lemonade stand, just a step above that, never really lasted very long. But then my freshman year of college, again, I had this knowledge of entrepreneurship, but I’d never really done it seriously myself. But just to paint the picture of where I was at in life, at that stage, I was a college football player, so I played for my university, and because of that, I had very, very limited free time. I was, you know, working out and practicing for hours every single day, plus class on top of that, plus additional meetings and, you know, all the other things that come with going to college. So I knew I wasn’t going to be able to work a traditional job, at least not one that, right off the bat, as my first job, I’d be able to make enough money to provide for myself, and that’s really what I wanted to do. My goal was to financially cut the umbilical cord, so to speak, and to create some financial independence between myself and my parents. I wanted to stop relying on mommy and daddy’s money. And so really, I very quickly came to the realisation that the only way I was going to be able to provide for myself in the way that I wanted was through entrepreneurship. And so I looked around and I asked myself, Where is there a need? That was my first question is, where is there a need that people would be willing to pay for? And really, ultimately, as entrepreneurs, I believe that we are just paid problem solvers. And so I just looked around and I looked for a problem, I looked for things that were frustrating people, or that people were angry about, or whatever. And then the second part of that was, what skill set do I have to solve this problem, or what unique tools had I learned to use to solve this problem? And when I looked around at that time, it was the summer of 2016 and so one of the really big news stories, the things that everyone was talking about was Snapchat. This was back before Instagram stories even existed. This was years before Tiktok existed, and the most popular social media at that time, especially amongst teens and pre teens, was Snapchat. And because I was 19 years old, I kind of represented this, like middle ground where I wasn’t, you know, a 14 year old freshman in high school, but I also wasn’t a parent, so I understood how the teens were using it, and I also understood how to teach an adult to use it, because I had literally just taught my parents how to use it, because I was like, I don’t want to text you every single day. I’m just going to Snap you about what I’m doing at university. So that’s where I recognise that there was a problem. I recognised that I had this unique skill set to solve the problem, and that’s where Unwrap Snap came from. So Unwrap Snap was really just a way to help parents learn to use Snapchat, and thus keep their kids safe on Snapchat. But it wasn’t something that I was necessarily super passionate about, and I think that’s important for people to hear, is that oftentimes the first thing you do, your first experience with entrepreneurship, it might not be the thing you’re super passionate about. It might not be the thing that you’re destined to do for the rest of your life, or the thing that is your ultimate calling. It might just be a way for you to learn the skills, or a way for you to build an audience, or a way for you to practice, and that’s really what Unwrap Snap was for me. So very quickly, after only, I would say, less than a year Unwrap Snap transitioned from a course that was teaching parents how to keep their kids safe, and instead to a course that was teaching business owners how to market on Snapchat. So it was a lot of the same principles. It was a lot of the core, same foundation of how to use Snapchat. But then instead of focusing on, you know, here’s what your kids are doing sneaking around, here’s how you could do marketing on the platform. And from there, it very much organically grew, and eventually it grew into Instagram stories, and then it was all Instagram and Snapchat has kind of died off since then, but it’s been a very organic progression that would have never happened if I hadn’t made that first leap to create the course in the first place.

Samantha Riley  7:04  

I think the really important thing, or the really important piece that I take out of that is, you know, and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn founder, said it, if you wait long enough, long enough to, and I’m making this up in my own words, if you wait long enough to feel comfortable it’s too late. And really, if I think about everything that I’ve done in business, I’ve always just gone, because you know that as you go, things will change, like you never go and have it perfect. So many people hold themselves back, thinking, I’ve got to wait till it’s perfect, but it’s never going to be perfect. So you may as well just get on and do it today and get those lessons and get the data that you need to be able to change it up as quickly as possible, which I feel leads into creating the content itself. Because it’s the same, I’m thinking it’s the same principle. I want to talk about, or I’d love you to talk a little bit about quality versus quantity, because I think that this is the same kind of topic. What can you speak to that?

Brock Johnson  8:10  

Yeah, there’s this big debate about quality versus quantity, and I think that there’s a lot that gets kind of mixed up and lost in the conversation within this debate, because we all want quality, and I myself want quality, and I recognise when it comes to content, it is the quality content that is ultimately going to go viral, that’s going to get the most views, that’s going to generate the most sales, that’s going to lead to the most followers. All of those things that we ultimately want comes from quality content. What I say then is, okay, that’s true. So let’s ask the next question. Where does quality content come from? It comes from practice. And said another way, quantity begets quality. Quantity creates quality. You can’t have a high quality piece of content without having a super large quantity of really bad content that came first. When I was in school, I remember I had this writing professor that preached on writing. I don’t know if I can swear, so I won’t. I’m also not someone who swears a lot, but on bad first drafts, and you can replace the word bad with whatever curse word you want, but bad first drafts, and that was the idea, because there are so many people who, you know, let’s take writing as as the analogy, who will just sit there with their pen on the piece of paper, or, you know, that cursor bar that’s just blinking, and they’ll never take the first word because they want to make it perfect, when in reality, the best final products, the best books ever written, were not written on their first draft. They were written on their 15,000th draft. And that’s the same way with content, too, is so nowadays, people will look at the things that I post. They’ll look at a hilarious video that I create, or a super engaging post, and they’ll be like, Wow, that’s amazing, such high quality. How do you make that? That’s seemingly impossible. And I’ll say, Well, I have 15 years of experience creating content. Yes, I got started as a business owner. You know, what was it seven or eight years ago now, during my freshman year of college, but I had been creating content long before that. I was making YouTube videos when I was just a kid, already practicing with video editing and hooks and script writing and planning videos and content. So I’ve been doing this for a really long time. Fortunately, because I’ve been doing it for a really long time, I’ve gained a lot of tips and a lot of shortcuts, and I can, you know, help people alleviate a lot of the failures that I’ve experienced along the way, but at the end of the day, creating great, high quality content comes from getting in the reps, and ultimately it comes down to creating a high quantity of content as well.

Samantha Riley  10:56  

You said then that that’s the quality that goes viral, but my brain immediately went to, and I cannot remember this content creator’s name, but it’s the content creator that was, he was in the car drinking the cranberry juice with the … I can’t remember. 

Brock Johnson  11:12  

I know exactly what you’re talking about. Yep, right. I know just the story of …

Samantha Riley  11:17  

That was, he was just, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, that piece of music went viral again and went back on the charts, and he nearly didn’t post that, because he hadn’t created any content that day. And he was just like, I’ll just do this thing. And he nearly didn’t post it. And he thought, I’ll just post it, because what the, and it went super viral. There was no planning, there was no, you know, there was no hook, there was no script writing. So I feel like that, yes, most viral content is quality. But also, who knew that on Tiktok, you know, a bowl of strawberries was going to be one of the most viral videos ever. Like, there is a bit of luck involved. 

Brock Johnson  11:59  

Yes, yes, you are hitting the nail on the head, absolutely. And I am so glad you brought this up, because that’s another argument that I would make in this whole debate of quantity versus quality. Is even someone like myself who studies content, and I can tell you what’s a good quality content versus what isn’t, I don’t care if you make the most high production value, high quality content possible. At the end of the day, usually the stuff that you create super quickly, in just a matter of seconds, and you don’t even think about it, that’s the stuff that’s going to do the best. And so that’s even more to the argument of quantity versus quality, rather than stressing yourself out, which I know, Samantha, that so many of your listeners are killing themselves trying to make like the highest quality thing ever. They’re trying to make the perfect post, the perfect edit. They’re trying to, you know, include a great hook and a storytelling and a call to action and all these different components. Stop stressing yourself out. Stop overthinking your post, trying to make it perfect, and instead, just post it. Maybe it will go viral. Maybe it will do really well. If not, you can learn from it and apply it to the next post, but kind of, as you mentioned earlier, Samantha, the only way to get that data is by actually pressing post. So I am team quantity over quality all day long.

Samantha Riley  13:14  

I love it, and we’re talking here about going viral, but you don’t need to go viral to make sales. And I think that content creators that purely their work is creating content, for them, they want to go viral, but as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we don’t need to go viral, but we do need to make sales. What’s the difference here, besides obviously, making sales. 

Brock Johnson  13:42  

Absolutely. Yeah, this is so true. This is so true. We often talk about going viral, but I’m not a fan of going viral, and I don’t really teach people how to go viral. That’s not one of my goals when I’m creating content. That’s not one of my goals with my students when I’m helping them create content, because going viral can actually be really problematic for a business and really harmful for a business for many reasons. The most obvious one is you could, and oftentimes you do when you go viral, reach millions of people who have no interest in your business. They have no interest in becoming a customer, no interest in ever purchasing or anything like that. And so it messes with your algorithm. If those people follow you, it’s really going to throw off your future posts. If those people don’t follow you, because your post ended up in front of them for whatever reason, they might become trolls and haters, and now you’re dealing with like your own mental health, because you reached millions of people who didn’t, who was, who your message was never intended to reach in the first place. So I’m not a fan of going viral. There’s also a lot of challenges that happen after you go viral, where your future posts are affected. Your future engagement is affected. And so yeah, I’m not the biggest fan of it. But when it comes to selling, it’s not about casting a wide net in most cases. It’s about casting a really deep net, and what I mean by that is forming a really strong sense of trust, a bond, a relationship, even, with your followers. I recently interviewed someone on my podcast who her herself, she’s never gone viral. She has less than 1000 followers. She’s got about 900 followers on Instagram, and she recently had a launch that in one weekend made almost $30,000, almost $30,000 with less than 1000 followers. That’s possible, not because she went viral and got a million views that weekend. That’s possible because she has a really deep understanding and a relationship with each one of those followers. Here’s an analogy that I’ve never shared before that literally just popped into my head. There’s only probably three people on the planet who could convince me to spend the amount of money that it would take to buy a home. My wife is one of them, maybe like my dad, and maybe like my mom, or like my mother in law, like those are the only people on the planet who have a close enough relationship with me to get me to spend enough money to buy a home, or to literally buy a home. They’re able to get me to spend that much because we have that tight of a relationship. I’m not letting anyone else get me to buy a home. Now, I could let some random guy on the street be like, Hey, do you want this popsicle? It’s only $1. Sure, it’s super inexpensive, we don’t need that good of a relationship. But for most of us, for most things that we’re selling, when we’re selling our coaching or our courses, or things that are more high ticket and need a little bit more explanation than here’s a $1 popsicle, then the relationship is really what matters most. And relationships take time to build. They’re not built through one viral video.

Samantha Riley  16:42  

So when we’re looking at Instagram specifically, you’re talking about relationship building, there’s obviously different ways to do it, you know, like, I almost feel like Instagram is like all these different platforms in one, you know, there’s stories, there’s reels, there’s carousels, there’s the DMs. What do we need to concentrate on to build that relationship? Is it all of it? Is it just reels like, what’s your take on that?

Brock Johnson  17:09  

Yeah, there’s really two main areas that I would say focus on the most to build relationships on Instagram. It’s your Instagram stories, because that’s where you can create the content that is meant to generate relationships. Your reels, your photos, your carousels, the things you’re posting to the feed, they can definitely build relationships. They can definitely tell stories. They can definitely allow people to connect with you. But the deepest, most intimate form of connection is through Instagram Stories. That’s why they were created. Going back to my old days of Snapchat, that’s why Snapchat stories were popular. That’s why Instagram stole the idea and added Stories to Instagram. It’s because Stories represent this momentary peek into someone’s life, a behind the scenes. It’s kind of like we all now have our own reality TV show, and so it’s a really powerful way to build connection with people through what you’re posting. So when it comes to the different kinds of content, Stories are the best for relationship. When it comes to just the most powerful tool in general to build relationship, it’s the Direct Messages. And that right there, the direct messages is why Instagram is, in my opinion, and many studies have shown, the best platform, the best social media platform, that is, for making sales and for generating customers. Yes, Facebook is great. Yes, Tiktok is good to go viral. Yes, YouTube has evergreen content that can be seen 10 years later. But at the end of the day, there’s not a social media platform that has figured out the DMs quite like Instagram. In fact, the Direct Messages are the most used area in all of Instagram. Like, if we were to show a pie chart of where people spend their time, it’s not watching reels, it’s not watching stories. The most time spent on Instagram is spent in the DMS. And so it’s a really, really powerful tool to build relationship, and at the end of the day, DMs are one on one conversations with people. You’re basically texting someone right there on Instagram. And so it’s such, such a powerful tool for interacting and answering questions and solving problems and serving people, and ultimately just building those relationships and trust that ultimately lead to customers.

Samantha Riley  19:21  

So Stories and DMs, Stories are only seen by the people that are or mostly seen by the people that are following you, so that’s how to build the relationships. But what about the growth piece? How do we bring new people into our audience so they see the Stories?

Brock Johnson  19:41  

Yeah, such a great question, and I think that hopefully this will kind of connect and make sense for everyone. Your feed posts, which, again, I listed them a moment ago, it’s the reels, it’s the carousels and the photos that you’re posting to your feed, those can, and oftentimes do, reach new people. Now it might vary from post to post. You might have one post that reaches a ton, one post that doesn’t reach a lot, but at the end of the day, your feed posts are what you’re going to use to reach new people. They are going to reach your existing followers. That’s something that’s important to keep in mind, but they’re also reaching brand new people who have never seen you before. Of those three reels, carousels, and photos, on average, reels will have the highest reach to non-followers. So if you’re in a season where you really want growth, you really want new followers, you really need more eyeballs, I would focus more heavily on reels than the other two, but don’t leave the other two behind. Don’t totally neglect photos and carousels because they can be really great kinds of content as well for reaching people and serving your audience. But to kind of put a bow on this, basically your feed posts are how you bring people in and how you serve your existing audience. Your stories are how you build that deeper connection with your existing audience. Because you’re absolutely right. Usually about 99, even more than 99% of your story viewers are people who already follow you. So really they’re people who have already made that decision. They’ve already made the investment. Now they just want to know more. So you use your stories to build that relationship, to deepen that trust, and then you ultimately use your DMs to reach the point where someone fully trusts you, and they’re going to become a customer, they’re going to purchase, they’re going to opt in, or whatever it is. That’s kind of the 123, of building a business on Instagram.

Samantha Riley  21:28  

Love it. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see when people are interacting with Instagram? 

Brock Johnson  21:36  

Yeah, there’s so many, so many big mistakes. In terms of the bio in the profile, the first big mistake a lot of people make is there’s this area that we like to call the name plate. It’s the bold texts right below your profile picture. And when you’re editing your Instagram profile, it says name. And so what most people do is they type their name or their business name, but unless you are Google or unless you are Kim Kardashian, people aren’t searching your name or your business name. So what we need to do is we need to, on that line, that name plate, write some searchable keywords that describe ourselves, that make our account more easily discoverable on Instagram and on the various search engines. So if anyone looks at my profile, you’ll see that my username is brock11johnson. It’s my first and last name. It’s a personal brand. So it makes sense that I have my personal name on there, but then on the name plate, it says Instagram growth coach. That’s a very succinct and searchable description of what I do. It’s basically a title for what I do, and so it makes me very searchable. So that’s one big mistake that a lot of people make and a very easy fix, like someone while they’re listening to this podcast, could open up Instagram and yeah, just go and do it straight away. Yeah, yeah. I think one of the really common mistakes is what we talked about earlier, with the whole perfectionism and trying to make their posts perfect, A plus, you know, slam dunk home runs, rather than just posting it. And I think another mistake that people often make is just neglecting the hook. The hook is by far the most important piece of your content. I would focus the majority of your efforts, the majority of your time, on just those first few seconds of the video. Or, if you’re a carousel creator, just that first slide, or the first two slides of the carousel, because that’s how you get someone to stop their scroll. That’s how you get their attention. And when the algorithm is seeing that the average person is scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, skipping post after post, not spending more than a second or two on each post. If you can get them to even just spend four or five seconds on your post, you’re going to be in the top five or 10%, you’re going to be doing great. If you can get them to spend 10 seconds, 15 seconds, heck, 20 seconds. Now you’re in the top 1% of posts. That’s how you’re going to get more views, that’s how you’re going to get more engagement. That’s how you’re going to get more growth.  

Samantha Riley  24:01  

It’s crazy. Like, three or four seconds, like, years ago, before you were born, Brock, three or four seconds was like, it was like that, and now it feels like an hour, really. That’s the way that people consume. It’s crazy.

Brock Johnson  24:18  

Yeah, absolutely. And this, this reminded me of one more mistake that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention. But in my opinion, the most common mistake on all of Instagram is failing to niche down. In my opinion, step one for growth on Instagram is to niche down, to say it another way, before you ever start gaining followers or even worrying about creating reels and posting stories, you need to identify two things. You need to identify who are you posting for, like the demographics, what are they like, what age range, what gender, what’s their religion, what’s their ethnicity, what’s their background, knowing all of those things about your ideal customer or follower is ideal. And then number two, what are you going to provide them with? What are you ultimately going to be promoting or selling? What are you ultimately going to be teaching them? How are you going to be serving or inspiring them. Knowing the who and the what, that’s foundational. Without that, you are building your home on quicksand. It’s not going to be very stable. It’s not going to last very long, and that’s if you can build it at all. So the biggest mistake that people make on Instagram is not identifying their niche before they even get started.

Samantha Riley  25:31  

Love it. Now, engagement is the key here. The more people engage, the more people will see your post. Share-worthy content is something that you’ve been talking about quite a bit, and this is like the king of engagement. Can you talk to us more about share-worthy content? What is it? What constitutes share-worthy content?

Brock Johnson  25:57  

Absolutely. So you’re absolutely right. Shares are the king on Instagram, there are a variety of ways you can engage. You know, we’re talking like, comment, save, share. Shares are the best. On average, one share will get you more views than one comment, than one like, or than one save. So if your goal is growth, if your goal is increasing your views, if your posts are not getting seen by enough people, the best way to make sure that they do is through a share. And the cool thing about a share is that it doesn’t just rely on the algorithm. Let’s think about something like a like, for example, if I like your post, I’m telling the algorithm that I like it, and I’m hoping that the algorithm then takes your post and shows it to more people who would like it. It’s putting all the pressure on the algorithm. And I know myself and a lot of other people are not a big fan of the algorithm, but a share, on the other hand, is me literally sending it to someone else. I don’t have to rely on the algorithm to show it to someone else. I’m going to take matters into my own hands, or to say it another way, your followers are going to take matters into their hands by sharing your post with a friend, with a family member, with a colleague, they’re going to share it to their own stories, so now more people are seeing it. So shares are the best form of engagement. In my opinion, there are five kinds of share-worthy content, and I’m totally happy to go into each of these five. The five kinds of share worthy content, number one, motivational content. Number two is what I call a call to arms. It’s the kind of post that like, get the community involved. They’re kind of saying, like, we all need to help each other out. We all need to spread the word. We all need to raise awareness. Those kinds of posts. The third kind of share worthy the content is relatable. Content, number four is controversial content, and number five is pop culture or news related content. Totally happy to go into all five of those, but those are the five main kinds of share-worthy content.

Samantha Riley  27:55  

From a personal branding perspective, how do you feel that controversial content plays into it? Because I, and the reason I ask this is because I could go on either side of the fence for this one, so I’d love to hear your take on it. 

Brock Johnson  28:10  

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m glad that we’re digging into this one specifically, because this is the one that usually causes people to pause, right? Relatable content makes sense. If I’m posting a funny, relatable meme that’s no harm, no foul. It makes sense. If I’m posting an inspirational, motivational post, that makes sense. But controversial content is always where people get a little stuck. So here’s what I like to say. Number one, we talked about niche a moment ago. All of your feed posts should relate to your niche. So if the latest political news doesn’t relate to your niche, then you’re not going to post about it. Because yes, it may, it might be controversial, but it doesn’t relate to your niche, so you’re not going to share it. What you are going to share is when you have a unpopular opinion that relates to your niche. So we’re not being controversial just for the sake of controversy. We’re not being rude or crass or calling people out or trying to get canceled. But if there’s something that is, let’s say, a widely held popular belief in your industry, and you disagree with it, make a post about it. I’ll give you an example. I’m an Instagram growth coach, right? And for years, people have been obsessed with hashtags. What’s the perfect list of hashtags? Why are my hashtags not working? Hashtags, hashtags, hashtags. I’m not a fan of hashtags. I think they’re a waste of time. I think most people spend way too much time, energy, and effort caring about their hashtags, rather than trying to improve their content or build relationships with the real human beings who follow them. And so a few years ago, I made this post that said, hashtags are dead. Stop worrying about them. Sure they can help you out here or there, but they are not going to make or break your content. And that went viral. And since then, I’ve said that at least once a month, I’ve made a post about it at least once a month, every month since then, because yes, it’s controversial, yes, it’s quote, unquote unpopular, but it’s something that I believe, and it’s something that is important for me, and it’s part of a belief that I stand by with my personal brand. You brought up personal branding, a big part of my personal brand on social media is I’m going to give you the facts, I’m going to cut through the BS, I’m going to cut through all of the myths on Instagram. And so one of the big myths is that hashtags are a silver bullet to going viral and having success on Instagram. So I’m going to tear that down. I’m going to bust that myth and say, No, they’re not. And so creating that kind of controversial content very much fits into my personal brand.

Samantha Riley  30:38  

I love it. I talk about this with my clients is shift perspective, rather than always controversial, because I think that just by saying that, it helps them to understand that it still needs to be on topic, which is what you mentioned there, because it’s not just controversial, controversial for the sake of it, it’s, let’s get that ideal client and shift their perspective so that they come around to see your way. So, yeah, I love that. 

What are, just to wrap this up, we’re sort of at the end of the year looking into 2025. What are some of the trends and predictions that you see coming up in Instagram for the year ahead?

Brock Johnson  31:21  

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first one is that we’re going to see, speaking of share worthy content, a lot more share worthy content as people like myself and other, you know, coaches start to teach a share worthy content and talk more about this idea, I think there’s going to be a lot more share worthy content, which is great, but it also means that by the midway point in 2025 it’s going to be much tougher to get a share. If you’re the first person creating a share worthy post, everyone’s going to share it. If there is nothing in our feed except for share worthy posts, then, on average, each of us is going to be getting less shares. So I think that’s one trend that is going to take place in 2025. I also think in 2025, I hope this is going to be the case, at least, we’re going to see more financial transparency. I think there’s been a growing movement and trend that happened in 2024 where people were posting fake income claims and fake how many people they’ve helped and fake, you know, revenue numbers. And I hope that in 2025 and I, I think we’ve started to see this already a little bit on Tiktok and starting to take place on Instagram too, people just being more transparent and genuine and honest with revenue numbers and with, you know, their finances and their taxes and whatnot. So I think that’s going to happen in 2025 at least I hope it’s going to happen. I also, and this one is a little bit controversial. Again, we talked about controversy, but the quote, unquote death of faceless, generic marketing. And I need to make sure that I add a, you know, explanation to that. Add some context. When I say faceless marketing, I’m not referring to what Red Bull or Coca Cola is doing. I’m referring to people who are trying to build personal brands without showing their face as a person. They’re using generic stock footage of other people, and they’re slapping some like click bait, title or, you know, headline or hook on it. From what I’ve seen, a lot of people are very put off by that. They’re over it. It’s something that can be done right, it can be done tastefully, and it can be done effectively, but a lot of people are just doing it generically and inauthentically. And so I think that that trend is going to go away in 2025. And then the one, the one, final one, that I don’t know how I feel about it. I think part of me is excited. Part of me is really scared, is that AI generated content is going to be indistinguishable by the midway point in 2025. It’s already super close. I know I’ve been using some tools myself that can, for example, clone my voice, and it sounds just like me, like I think I could call my grandma with this voice clone, and she would genuinely believe that it was me on the other end of the phone. So I think it’s going to be really scary in some applications, but I also think it’s going to be really useful for some people who are really busy entrepreneurs and they don’t have the time to create as much content as the algorithms demand, but it’s going to allow them to create more content in less time with less work, less energy, less effort, and so indistinguishable AI content is going to happen in 2025.

Samantha Riley  34:32  

It actually makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach, to be honest. And I also wonder if that’s going to change people’s personal brands, like the level of trust that is going to be needed in the market. It’s so high now, I think it’s just going to be, it’s just going to rise so much.

Brock Johnson  34:51  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. More to the point we were making earlier about the power of Instagram stories. I’m sure some people will use AI for their stories. But again, most people, I don’t think, are going to go through that effort, and the DMS, you can’t fake a one on one conversation. Well, I should say you can fake it, but it’s usually pretty obvious. And I just think that nothing will be having real, genuine connections and relationships. It will be very scary, though, with the prevalence of this AI-generated content.

Samantha Riley  35:20  

Absolutely, absolutely. Wow, Brock, like I said at the beginning of the episode, you are definitely the person that I reach out to for all of my Instagram tips. You are just so on it. You just, you’re constantly testing and measuring, and that’s what I love. You’re not just sitting on your laurels and going, Yeah, okay, I’ve done this before. It’s just this constant testing and measuring. 

So, you know, I am a member of InstaClubHub. Have been for quite a while now. I don’t know for how long, but a long time. I’ll put the link below for anyone that’s loving what Brock’s talking about for InstaClubHub below, it’s a great membership. Also reach out and have a listen to your podcast, Social Media Money Makers and you’ve also got podcast, Build Your Tribe, they’ve got with your mum, which is cool. So good. So to wrap this episode up about Instagram. What is the one thing that you want to leave the listeners with today?

Brock Johnson  36:27  

Yeah, I would tell them that you already have enough, and you already are enough. From listening to this episode today, you have more than enough knowledge. You had enough knowledge and skill and ability before even listening to today’s episode. I’m proud of you for investing this time into yourself and into your own growth. But now it’s time to take action. Now it’s time to just press post. It’s going, it’s time to go out into the world hit record and start posting content, because at the end of the day, the entrepreneur and the content creator who will have the most success is the one who is just willing to keep showing up, the one who is able to keep pressing post, despite the challenges, despite it all, they were able to just get started and just press post. So you have enough. You are enough. Now it’s time to whip out that camera and start recording some content. 

Samantha Riley  37:21  

I love it. Thanks so much for coming on today, Brock, and sharing all that you have, and have a great 2025.

Brock Johnson  37:26 

Awesome. Thank you. 

EDIT POINT

Samantha Riley  37:28  

I’m just going to go back and re-record one bit and get my team to edit it, because I want to actually go back and talk about the InstaClub updates again. If that’s all right, also, I want to say a bit about it.

Brock Johnson  37:39  

Yeah. And if you’re not signed up to be an affiliate. You definitely should, because every conversion, if it’s a monthly conversion, I was going to, that’s why dollars and yeah, yeah. 

Samantha Riley  37:50  

So good, which I asked you about before. Okay, so I’m going to go back and the team will edit this piece in. 

So let’s talk about InstaClubHub. I’ve been a member for a while. It’s your membership. Can you just tell us a little bit about what, you know, what the membership is? Why would people want to be part of it? 

Brock Johnson  38:09  

Yeah, the InstaClubHub is the last Instagram resource that anyone will ever need. No more spending time, wasting money on courses year after year, working with this coach and that coach. The InstaClubHub is everything you will ever need to grow on Instagram. We give our members a monthly personalised content calendar. And I always get questions about this, like, what is it personalized like to my niche? So if I’m a real estate agent, I get the same one as every other real estate agent? No, it’s 100% personalized to you, every single member gets a new calendar every single month. On top of that, our annual members get a free profile review, and we have monthly master classes. So myself and other Instagram experts are delivering trainings on the latest strategies and trends on Instagram. We have pre-recorded lessons. So I mentioned, you know, never having to buy a course again. When you join the club, you take a quick assessment so that we can figure out where you’re at on Instagram. Because some people are brand new, and they’re still trying to figure out, how do you make a reel? Some people are advanced. They’re level five. They’re, hey, I’m crushing it on Instagram. I just want to maximise my sales. Those two people should not be in the same course. And so based off that assessment, we give you a recommended playlist of videos, a recommended playlist of trainings, to get you where you need to go on Instagram. We also have hundreds of post templates and memes and weekly updates and all that stuff. So it’s truly the last Instagram resource that anyone will ever need.

Samantha Riley  39:41  

Love it. Like I said, I’ve been a member. We’ll pop the link below wherever you’re listening so that you can join the membership. 

Thank you for letting me re-record that piece. 

Brock Johnson  39:51  

Oh, yeah, of course. No worries. No worries. I got you. 

Samantha Riley  39:55  

Oh, awesome. Let me just hit the stop there.