Does Instagram still seem like a mystery to you? With all the recent changes to the algorithm that rewards more views to video content over static images, it’s left the social selling industry in flux, not knowing what the next best move is. And that’s where our guest, Brock Johnson, comes in.
Brock rocketed to a 7-figure income by the age of 25 using social media, and here’s here this week with Kristen to dish about all things Instagram growth. Brock grew his IG account by 400k+ in a matter of months organically and sustainably and now teaches others how to do the same.
Here’s what they’re talking about this week:
- Why it’s not too late to jump into doing reels
- How to nix your niche drama (and it’s easier than you think!)
- The important distinction between fans and followers
- How having a smaller following can give you an advantage with engagement
- Ways to protect your time and energy from falling into content creator burnout
- What to do when the haters inevitably show up
The verdict is in: perfectly curated profiles are out, while authentic and genuine are in. Instagram doesn’t have to be scary. Commit to doing the work consistently and imperfectly, and you will see growth. Not just unengaged followers but fans who want to get to know you and trust your authority.
If you’d like to follow Brock on Instagram, you can find him here: @brock11johnson
And check out his podcast Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Do you have a business full of customers and almost no builders? You’re in need of a reboot! Learn the three skills you can learn that will completely change your recruitment game. Check it out here.
Transcript for Episode #125 Reel Talk with Brock Johnson:
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. Hey bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast with me. I have special guests, Instagram guru, Brock Johnson, with me to talk all things reels. We’re going to talk the reel deal about what’s going on with reels today, Brooke. So glad you’re on the show.
Brock Johnson (01:03): Kristen, thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here.
Kristen Boss (01:06): Yeah, my followers and my listeners are going to get a lot from this episode. I think they’re going to be really excited when they see it roll out. They’re going to hear it. Because I get questions all the time about reels and you know, I do the overarching, like, you know, there are some things that translate across all avenues, you know how to sell how to market, but there are some nuances that come with reels and I was like, you know what? Let’s get the guy on himself so he can share a little bit about what’s going on. And for my listeners who don’t know you introduce yourself to them a little bit.
Brock Johnson (01:34): Sure. Yeah. My name is Brock Johnson. I have grown by about 400 and some thousand followers in the last year on Instagram. So as of April, 2021, I had about 60,000 followers and today I’m sitting somewhere around 520,000 followers and that’s been all organic growth. And it’s been primarily through reels. I’m a big fan of reels and, and teaching how to use them specifically to grow your Instagram and your business. And part of that is also growing my own business. I’m a seven figure business owner at 25 years old. And we’re continuing to grow and I’ve actually owned a few different businesses in a few different areas. Also the co-host of a top 10 business podcast, but really I’m a guy just like everyone else. Who’s trying to figure out these algorithms, trying to figure out how to grow on Instagram and how to do it without losing your life to these apps and spending all day and all night on social media.
Kristen Boss (02:31): My people probably just did jazz hands in the air when they heard that because I talk a lot about sustainability and not burning out. And it’s very easy to look at the platform and look at creators and think they do this all day long and they dismiss using reels. They think there’s just no way for me to fit this other thing into my life. It can feel extremely daunting for somebody starting out. And I know for me when reels first came on the scene, I want to go back and like yell at myself because I was like, like, ah, that’s just a trend it’s going to pass. It’s fine. I don’t need to hop in on this. And I think I finally decided to jump on like August 20, 21 and sure enough, I was like, I’ll do you know what I’m going to do? 90 days consistently, one reel a day.
Kristen Boss (03:12): I’m going to measure the, the metrics. I’m just going to look at the insights and see what happens. And at the end of it was like, well does. Yeah. This is where the platform is going. You know, Instagram is now primarily a video consumption platform. It’s not the Instagram. We all may have known and started with for me, I’ve been on that platform since 2012. So I think we have a couple options as users and creators on the platform. It’s like one you can ruminate and reminisce over the days of what once was, or you can adapt and adjust with the times and I follow you on Instagram. I’ve actually, I’ve actually followed you since, before you became the Instagram growth guy. I think when you were primarily focusing on stories so I’ve been, I’ve been following you for a while. So, you know, what would you say to somebody who might be looking at reels right now and think isn’t it too late for me? Like, isn’t it overly saturated? How am I, how am I going to be relevant when it feels like everybody’s doing reels right now?
Brock Johnson (04:12): Yeah. So first of all, that’s a very valid feeling. And when you look around Instagram and you’re seeing reels everywhere and you’re seeing everyone doing these trends over and over again, it feels like you’re too late, but you’re not too late. And countless people, countless number of our students are growing tens of thousands of followers in a really short period of time. Actually just this morning received a message from a gal who started a brand new Instagram account in February of this year and has been focused, super hard on her niche and on her reels. And she’s now over 100,000 followers in what’s that about six months. So that’s crazy. That’s rapid growth, a hundred thousand followers in six months. that’s some serious, substantial growth and it’s almost all because of reel. So it’s not too late to get into the reels game.
Brock Johnson (04:57): And one of the really cool things which we might go deeper on later, Kristen is that there’s been a shift in reels recently. You mentioned how there’s been a change just between 2021 and 2022 what was really popular last year was recreating the trends. All you would see across Instagram was people recreating what other people have already done, right? They’re using sound bites, sound clips, little voiceovers. They’re using songs, song lyrics, and they’re just making these trending clips. But what we forecasted and what Instagram actually announced a few months ago is that original audios are the new hot thing. And it makes sense, right? Because when we first are new to something, we’re just doing the trends we’re doing. What’s easy, but now everyone’s kind of like a little bit over the trends., you know, largely speaking according to my audience people prefer original content that you have created four times more than the trending content and the trending content used to be the king of Kings. Like it, it used to be the best of the best. And now people are starting to get a little bit more into this original content. And so all of this to just say, this is good news. If you haven’t gotten started with reels yet, because not only is it not too late, you also don’t have to dance. You don’t have to lip sync. You don’t have to recreate the trends. You can be yourself, create original audios and actually have a lot of success on Instagram.
Kristen Boss (06:21): I’m really glad you said that because I was going to say, I think a lot of people think I don’t want to point and dance. I make a fool of myself online. Although I think it’s fun to make fool of yourself. Why not like I yourself too seriously? and I know you’re the same, but you know, I think it’s good for people to hear original audio like you being yourself. And I know for me, what I feel is maybe the easiest step for a lot of people that are just starting out is I encourage them to do what I they’re similar to TikTok videos, where you get on and you just talk, you do, you know, you do, you know, a 92nd clip now that we have 90 seconds, which is awesome or a 62nd talking about your niche, adding some value just with multiple camera angles, but still delivering the message without making it complicated with picking music.
Kristen Boss (07:03): Like you could just talk and that serves your audience and you can grow with that. And I feel like that’s a really easy like baby step for anybody. Like anybody can get on and talk for 60 seconds and say what’s going on. I’m really glad you also kind of honed in on the niche because I think a lot of people resist that a little bit. or they either resist it and be like, I don’t want to, or I feel like they have way too much drama about it. I’m like, listen, let’s not have, let’s not overly indulge in your drama. Pick something, choose something. Yeah. And run with it and go what are your thoughts? Like where do you see people getting the most hung up when it comes to niche? Cause I, my people get really hung up.
Brock Johnson (07:43): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s absolutely essential because when we see a post that we love, what do we do? We click on their profile and we look for more of the same. But if we click on your profile after seeing, let’s say, for example, a great easy vegan meal swap recipe, you’re like, oh, this was a great reel. And you click on the person’s profile. And then there’s like a couple pictures of their kids and then them with their hubby and then their workout and then their dog on the couch. You’re like, well, I’m not going to follow this person because like, there’s not more of the same. There’s a wide variety of things, but I don’t know this person. So I’m probably not going to follow them. You’re only following people who can deliver on the promise that that first piece of content made that they’re going to show up and share more of the same content. So that’s why niche matters. But I think where people get really stuck is kind of like you were saying the, the drama around it. And I think part of that reason is that we, the educators, we say things like find your niche and discover your niche. And so it implies that it’s this like powerful, mystical, magical thing.
Kristen Boss (08:47): Finding the meaning of life.
Brock Johnson (08:48): Right? Absolutely. And people are like, I don’t know my purpose. I don’t know my niche when you’re not getting married to it. There’s no soulmate niche. You’re not getting it tattooed across your forehead. You’re just picking it for like 90 days. I love that you did that test where for 90 days straight, you were consistent, you were posted one reel a day. That’s a great benchmark for people. Pick a niche, post a reel a day about that niche for 90 days. And at the end of three months, if you don’t like it, change it. That means you could have four different niches this year alone. And you could just keep changing. You could keep pivoting, you could keep reinventing yourself. But the only way that you’re going to find the wrong quote, unquote niche is by just picking one. So just pick and just get started and just run with it. And you can always change it in the future.
Kristen Boss (09:33): So good. I do see, I do think people get hung up on like, well, which niche will give me the most growth? Like they like a certain topic and this drives me absolutely bonkers. like, maybe it’s just me. But I think a lot of people think I need to be an IG, like Instagram, reelcoach growth coach to grow my account. And I’m always like, no, is that what you’re about? Is that what you do? Or are you just doing what you think is going to give you growth? Where in my mind I’m like any niche you can grow with any niche. If you stick with it, provide phenomenal value and keep showing up. It’s a matter of consistency. It’s not a matter of the what. And a lot of people get hung up on like, there’s got to be a profitable niche and be like, there’s, there’s actually not.
Brock Johnson (10:17): Absolutely
Kristen Boss (10:17): Because I follow really obscure ones and I love it. I’m like great. And they do a great job because they stay within their microcosm of influence and with their value and it, and it’s fantastic. And there’s nothing more devastating than when you stray from your niche one day and you jump on a trend because it’s fun. And I get it. I have had foam on myself sometimes being like, I really want to do that trend, even though I cannot figure out a way to make it relate to my niche. And then it goes viral and you got nothing literally. No, one’s, it’s not going to convert there’s followers. And then there’s fans. And I’m more about building a fan base, like purchasing customers than just a random follow. What are your thoughts on that? I know you have thoughts.
Brock Johnson (10:54): Yeah, I absolutely agree. And that’s another reason why niche is so valuable because like that example you just gave you hop on a trend, because it’s funny, you think it’s innocent, it’s cute. But then that one actually ends up doing well and going viral. And so now you have thousands of followers who followed because they just saw a great piece of content. They didn’t put much thought into it. They didn’t even click on your profile. Like most of us do. They were just like, oh, this is funny follow. And then here they are a few weeks later and they’re like, wait, I don’t actually care what she does. I don’t actually want to be a customer. I actually don’t really care about this niche or this topic at all. And so then either your engagement starts to dip and go way down because they’re just not interacting or they unfollow you. And so then all those new followers that you got unfollow you. So either way, it’s a lose, lose situation. And that’s why either way you should stick with posting about your niche. Even if it’s a real, even if it’s a fun trend that you see everyone doing should stick with your niche.
Kristen Boss (11:49): Which goes back to Hey, original content is what’s getting rewarded, what people are preferring right now anyways. So you’re likely to better, more likely to stick with your niche when you’re doing original content anyways. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about this concept. Cause I do think people get caught up in like when I have a certain number of followers, then I can make a certain number of sales and I’d be curious, your thoughts because my thoughts are and I, my business, my company surprises people all the time. my company’s brought in 10 million in two and a half years and I have less than a hundred thousand followers. In fact I have 55,000 followers. so when peop so this, and I love telling people that because I think it really messes with their brain of like, wait, hold on. Are you telling me that sales are not directly related to the size of my following more the quality of my following, because I would rather have 55,000 people that are totally committed to my niche here for exactly what I provide than 300,000 that you know, where only a tiny percentage of them are really engaged in my niche. And then we have an engagement problem too, because they might not even be seeing it. So what are your thoughts about like size of audience determining your success in your sales?
Brock Johnson (13:02): Yeah, so sure. It’s true that if you have more followers, technically speaking, you can reach more people. Sure. That’s generally speaking true. And that’s why so many people are after followers. But I also think so many people are after followers because there’s this misconception that quantity outweighs quality. Exactly. Like you were saying, I would much rather have far fewer followers, but have way higher quality of followers than have a super huge quantity and have them not really that interested, not really know me that well and not really, like you said earlier, not really be fans and loyal customers in my business. Studies have shown that the more followers you have, the lower your engagement rate is. So that means that the more followers you grow, the bigger your account is usually the less engaged those people become. So if you have a small account, I think you actually have a golden opportunity to build relationships with those people.
Brock Johnson (13:57): I get well over a thousand direct messages a day, I try to respond to just about every one of them. I can, I’ve actually hired a direct message manager to help me respond to those. Yes. Good. But, but with that being said, it’s tough to build a relationship with every single person who messages me in a day. If you have 1200 followers or you have 300 followers or you have 75 followers, you have this golden opportunity to actually build a really strong relationship with these people to actually really gain their trust and serve them. And studies have shown that the modern consumer cares about trust more than anything else. Besides price like price is of course the number one thing they care about. Like if they can’t afford a million dollar yacht, they’re not going to buy the million dollar yacht. But number two is trust. And if you have a relatively small following, that’s the advantage you have over everyone else is that you, you can build that trust so much easier.
Kristen Boss (14:53): Well, and also this supports the shift that even, I think Instagram, you just announced this, I think this well in your reel this morning, I’m sure you filmed it like a week ago, but.
Brock Johnson (15:03): It was filmed. I’m sorry to interrupt you. But it was actually filmed this morning in my car this morning as I pulled up to the gym. Yes. That’s what,
Kristen Boss (15:09): Okay, so you’re like it’s relevant. It’s it’s top news. This just in yes, but you were saying like Instagram is rewarding smaller accounts with engagement because, because the engagement is better on smaller accounts, they are trying to reward the smaller accounts and their growth. And I saw this from your mom on her account that bigger, bigger companies are kind of leaving giving, you know, deals to these huge influencers with like half a million followers and giving them to people with what we were going to call micro followers, micro followings. Right. So it actually is rigged in our favor.
Brock Johnson (15:42): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. A lot of these really huge companies like the Nikes and the targets of the world, they have million dollar ad budgets. They can go after the Kylie Jenners and the huge mega influencers who are charging literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for one single Instagram post. But what Nike and target failed to recognize is that the Kylie Jenners of the world, the mega influencers, their engagement is far lower in terms of engagement percentages far lower than people with a thousand followers or 5,000 followers or 10,000 followers. So again, if you’re one of these relatively smaller accounts, you have the leg up in reaching out to not the Nikes and the targets and the big box chains of the world. But all of the other companies, the companies that we love, that we use the products and services that we’re recommending to our friends every single day already for free, you can start getting paid for that, whether it be a direct compensation in exchange for a sponsored post or promoting one of their products in exchange for an affiliate commission, which is where you get paid for every sale that is made, you have the upper hand here.
Brock Johnson (16:50): And a lot of these companies recognize that and they’re starting to look for and reach out and search for smaller sized creators creators with less than a thousand, less than 10,000, less than a hundred thousand followers.
Kristen Boss (17:02): Yeah. And this just goes show like people need to learn, you know, Hey, have your brand kit have, have those things ready to go, your press kit so that you can say, here’s my current engagement metrics. Here’s what’s going on. Here’s what I’m about that way. And if you’re like, what on earth is that, there are plenty of resources for that. I don’t provide that in my programs. Maybe you provide it in your, in your Insta club hub. Do you do that?
Brock Johnson (17:23): Yes, we do. We provide those things. Yeah.
Kristen Boss (17:25): Yeah. Perfect. So I want to talk a little bit about content creator burnout, because I do think not just even content creator, burnout, I do think there can be a consumer burnout when we come to our platform. So, you know, how do you Brock, how do you protect your time and your quality of life so that you are not burning out with your own platform and what would you encourage others to do?
Brock Johnson (17:47): Yeah. So great question. And first I’ll speak on the creator side. First of all, I think way too many people stress out way too much over trying to be perfect. Perfectionism is a plague. Perfectionism is killing people. I am a recovering perfectionist myself. I was a hardcore perfectionist for probably the first 22 years of my life. And most of us are trying to make a plus level content, trying to hit a home run with every single post. When in reality CS get degrees. When in reality, a base hit will get you into the hall of fame. In reality, your audience has a much lower bar for you than you would expect. We have really high bars for ourselves. We set the standard really, really high and in some ways that’s good, but in many ways that’s also bad because we’re so hyper critical of everything we post like that reel that I shared this morning with the quick news about, Hey, Instagram made this announcement and here’s the news.
Brock Johnson (18:43): I’m in my car. Like the background’s messy. I’m sure that there’s stains on my shirt. I did not comb my beard beforehand, but my point is your audience is focused on the value that you provide rather than the vanity. They care way more about the education, the inspiration, the humor, the relatability that you’re sharing rather than if you’re looking perfect. And in fact, a lot of studies have shown that people don’t like the perfect looking feed. They don’t want the pre-made polished hyper curated, hyper edited looking profile anymore. That used to be really effective because that used to be really hard to get it used to be really challenging to get a perfect looking feed. Like you used to have to have photo shoots and hire the professional editor. Now anyone can download a free app on the app store and make their profile look like that. So it’s no longer, it’s no longer a sexy or appealing people want real. They want raw, they want authentic. So my first recommendation for how to avoid burnout is lower the bar a little bit, stop trying to make such amazing quality content. Honestly, you don’t have to hit a home run or knock people’s socks off with every single post.
Kristen Boss (19:54): Yeah. So good. and how, what about, tell me a little bit about creator burnout. Like what are your systems or methods to prevent feeling like fatigue of creating all the content and being like, I have to show up every single day because I know, I see people, they fear that they fear burning out, being, you know, constantly creating content. So what is your like, and you have shared it, I think on your platform, like, Hey, here’s my schedule. I always love your disclaimers. And I appreciate it because you say I don’t have kids. I am not a mom. This is my fulltime job. So also I think expectations are healthy in there. Like, Hey is growing your Instagram, your full-time job. I know for me, I run a company full-time so me running my Instagram full-time it’s not in my bandwidth. So I, my expectations are sustainable growth at 2,500 qual qualified followers every month. And I’m happy with that, but those are my standards of metrics for success because I’m like, I have a multimillion dollar company I need to run. Yeah. And I’m actually hiring a content team, but for somebody who doesn’t who’s maybe not, you know, has running huge companies or working Instagram full time. Like what’s a sustainable way to go about this for the average person who wants to start online.
Brock Johnson (21:06): I think that question is best posed, not for me, but rather for every single person listening. And this is what I recommend for people. Yeah. Ask yourself, what can I sustain? Not how much is Brock doing? Not how much is Kristen posting? Not how much are they growing? Just what can you sustain? If you can sustain one a day. That’s great. If you can sustain four a day posts, that is that’s great. If you can only sustain one post a month, that’s totally fine. Start with what you can sustain. And then the key part here is to challenge yourself, to do a little bit more, right? Because that’s where growth comes. Growth comes when we’re pushed a little bit outside of what we’re comfortable with and what we can sustain. But if you are fearful of burnout or you’ve experienced burnout before, it’s likely because you’ve tried to meet goals that were set by someone else.
Brock Johnson (21:52): So yes. Stick with what you can maintain, stick with what you can sustain. It’s talking specifically about systems and things that I have implemented is first of all, I am constantly posting things that I have posted in the past about one out of every three of my posts on Instagram is something that I have literally already posted, not like remade, not like, oh, I, I took this idea and I made it something new. No, no, no. Literally I took a post from April 3rd. I downloaded it and I posted it again. I took a post from March 24th. I downloaded it and I posted it again. That’s one third of my content. Another one, third of my content is things that I’ve already posted. And now I’m just going to recreate the idea. So it’s the same idea. It’s the same topic. It’s the same whatever the same material.
Brock Johnson (22:40): Yeah. I’m just presenting it in a different way. Maybe a different format, a reel versus a carousel versus a photo. I’m adding a little bit of an updated tweak to the video. So that’s two thirds of my content that’s basically already been made. And then the final one, third of my content is new stuff saved for things like today where Hey, Instagram made a news announcement. So I’m going to make an update about it. Everyone’s freaking out about this new bug. So I’m going to talk about that bug. You know, I’m just kind of making new new content only a third of the time. So that means 67% of the time I’m kind of on autopilot. I’m kind of just relaxing, hosting things that I’ve already shared in the past. So that’s one strategic way that I’m able to avoid burnout yet. Still post on average 2.4 times per day.
Kristen Boss (23:29): Yeah, that’s really good. And I’m glad you talked about repurposing it and I’m also glad earlier you talked about our audience. Isn’t paying nearly as close attention as we think they are, but it’s so interesting because I think a lot of my students, they think surely my audience is tired of hearing this mostly because they’re tired of saying it they’re bored. They’re, they’re projecting it on their audience and being like, I’ve said it a million times. There’s no way this is still interesting. There’s no way this, which is why sometimes I think they’re tempted to switch their niche because they’re, they assume their audience is bored because they’re bored. It’s just, don’t make that mistake. And I think one of the most valuable things a coach had ever taught me was I was, there was a season where you know, I was selling to my email list and I was like, I think my email list is really sick of hearing from me.
Kristen Boss (24:13): I don’t want to do it. And she’s like just so you know, your audience isn’t paying nearly enough attention as you think they are repurpose old emails from a year ago. Sure enough. I did. And I still had people being like, these are great emails. yep. I was like, okay, great. We’re going to repurpose and reuse. And that is really sustainable. And I love the idea that, you know, only a third of the time you’re generating new things because that is where I do think it takes a little more of our energy is like coming up with new. But I think that’s where people burn themselves out is thinking, I constantly need to be thinking about being new and, and also cha chasing, being viral. and you have a great point about this too. You talk about viral for me. Yeah. Versus just chasing like a million, you know, having a million views. Talk a little bit about that concept because I do think my listeners really need to hear it.
Brock Johnson (25:06): Yeah. Yeah. So there’s this comparison game that so many people fall into on social media, especially with the public view, count that TikTok and Instagram provides where it’s like, Hey, I might’ve gone viral, but this other person got way more views. Yeah. I went viral. I got a million views, but my friend got 1.3 million views. And just yesterday I was watching this video of a YouTube creator and he was talking about burnout, that YouTubers experience. And one of his major points was that views, fluctuate and views are always changing. And it’s easy to stay consistent when you’re consistently getting more views than you did in the past. Like when all of your videos are hitting, when you have three in a row that are viral, it’s easy to wake up and feel inspired, but it’s tougher when your views are dipping a little bit. So the first thing I want to say is that it’s very common for views to fluctuate because that’s life, life fluctuates.
Brock Johnson (25:58): It goes up and down. It moves in waves, there’s peaks and valleys. So that’s very normal. It’s very, very normal to have a viral video followed by your three worst videos that you’ve ever posted. But most importantly, that word viral. I want you to take it out of your lexicon, like remove that from your vocabulary because viral should not be the goal. Instead, as you already said, VFM viral for me is the goal. And what is viral for me? I don’t know it’s whatever viral for you is. Because for me, I average about 150 to 200,000 views per real. That’s like my average views on reel in a 24 hour period. But I have plenty of friends who, if they got 200,000 views on reel, they’d, that’s crazy. Like that would blow their minds. Justin Bieber, if he got 200,000 views on a reel, he’d be like, what, what hasn’t been up for five minutes? Like what, what happened? Did Instagram glitch. So we all have different definitions of viral. So you need to figure out just like asking yourself the question of what can I sustain? Ask yourself the question of what’s viral for me. What’s my average video doing? What, what, what view rate would I be happy with?
Kristen Boss (27:02): Yeah, that’s so good. I know for me, like my average view rate is anywhere between mm, 15 and 30 K and I’m like, for me, I’m like, Hey, we’re, we’re holding steady. If it drops below 10 K I’m like, all right, whatever we missed the mark might not do that one again. And viral for me is like 200,000 followers, which for me with a 50 K 50 K plus account, I’m like, that’s fantastic. Yeah. But again, I think what allows Instagram to be enjoyable for me where I’m not getting burnt out. And I think everybody needs to hear this is, you know, I don’t weaponize the metrics against myself or take them personally ever. I don’t look at the views and think I suck at life. My audience doesn’t like me. I don’t have a good niche, but a lot of times we tend to, and I think this is maybe this comes with our childhood of looking at our grades and like letting it define our identity and our worth in the world.
Kristen Boss (27:52): And this is, you know, part of what my book was about pivot to purpose was letting go of metrics to define your worth. But that’s when Instagram can get really exhausting, because if you’re feeling good about yourself on days, when you have high views being like, I crush it, everybody loves me. There’s, you know, potential for my future and on a bad day, which we all inevitably have. If you’re like, I suck, I should maybe quit. I don’t know why I’m in this business. Maybe I should just go over to TikTok. Because Instagram is dying. As I say in air quotations. yeah, but it’s just, you know, don’t weaponize the metrics against yourself, tap into them as useful data and information to understand, okay, what are my next steps that I want to take? And that’s just healthy business. It’s how we look at our profits and our expenses. It’s how we look at like all of those things. So, you know, I think that’s a really important thing for people to do.
Brock Johnson (28:41): Yeah, absolutely. I one hundred percent agree we have to learn to, to detach from the results, right? Because the results are not an indication of who we are. We have to recognize that we are not the number of views or likes that we got. I saw this great video recently where this guy he pointed at someone in the crowd and he said, your blue hair looks ugly and the person didn’t have blue hair. And so the person just kind of like shrugged and looked around and he pointed at the person next to him and said, your blue hair looks ugly. And the same thing, that person didn’t have blue hair. So they kind of shrugged and looked around. And he’s like, my point is, when I tell you that your blue hair looks ugly, you don’t get offended or upset if you know that you don’t have blue hair. So if you know yourself and you know that you are not tied to something or you know that that’s not true about you, you know, that you’re worth is not defined by these vanity metrics that we see on social media, then you’re able to stay more consistent and kind of let the water flow off you like a Duck’s back and just keep making content, keep serving your audience and keep plugging along.
Kristen Boss (29:37): That’s so good. It’s, you know, words only hurt when we give them meaning. And I think I was watching a similar, it was a celebrity and I can’t remember which one it was, but she was it Wassel Hayek, I think. And she was saying something in Spanish and she’s like, I just insulted you in Spanish. Were you upset? And they were like, no, she’s like why? And they’re like, I didn’t know what it, I didn’t understand what you were saying like, yeah, I didn’t have meaning. And then she said in English, and as soon as the person heard it in English, they’re like, oh, that hurt. She’s like, but I said the same thing to you in another language. It only hurt when you gave it meaning and you internalized it. And so even if like, you know, someone did have blue hair and say you have blue hair.
Kristen Boss (30:15): I mean, the person that doesn’t have blue hair be like, you’re crazy. But the person that does have blue hair could be like, okay, you think it’s weird? So, so true. Carry on, move along. Like I don’t have to assign meaning to your words and why on earth would I give you? Why on earth would I give you power? Speaking of not assigning too much. Meaning to words I think with comes growth comes, you know, vulnerability and exposure, letting yourself be seen online. And I do think that can be a hang up for some people like letting themselves be seen online because there is a chance haters are going to come knocking for me. I’m just like delete block, move on. Sometimes I laugh, have a chuckle but like, what do you say to your students when they’re like, I just had 15, 30, 40 haters? Just totally obliterate my comment section. you say to someone like that?
Brock Johnson (31:01): It’s very easy. I think to get hyper focused on those comments when in reality, most of the time they’re going to be in the minority even today. Again, we keep talking about that post for some reason, the one that I made about like, here’s the Instagram news, 99% of the comments are like, yay, this is great news. And then like 1% are like, yeah, yeah, we’ll see if this actually happens. Or like, okay. But like define what a small account is. And for whatever reason, even myself, there was a little bit where I was like focusing on those 1%. I was like, why are, why are these people being so negative? Like they’re focusing on, on the, the bad outcomes. And then I had to pause and step back and I was like, wait, I’m literally focusing on the negative by continuing to read their comments and look at them over and over again and be like, why are people responding so negatively when in reality was probably like 1%.
Brock Johnson (31:53): So the first thing that I’ll say is, is I want to address that fear, which is that most of the time online, it’s a generally positive experience. And the energy that you put out is the energy you get back. That’s one thing I will say, of course, though, there are those certain topics that get people going and there are those viral posts that just get the negative comments. And so try your best to not read through the comments. The more viral a post goes, the more it’s going to reach people who don’t know you already. And the more likely those people are to be mean and rude. So the more views you get, the less comments you should read, that’s definitely a, a tip and just try your best to look away. And like we’ve been talking about, you know, know that you’re worth, isn’t tied to those negative rude comments. And then also if you don’t want to block them, which you have every right to block them, if you feel uncomfortable, or if they’re rude, it’s free engagement. That’s something I always say when I get like a spam comment or a troll that, you know, leaves a comment that makes no sense it’s free engagement. So thanks for the extra comment. Thanks for helping me out with the algorithm.
Kristen Boss (32:58): I always, I always appreciate when people do those kind of like passive little knocks being like, Hey, I appreciate you being here. Thanks for bumping up the algorithm. Thanks for helping my visibility, which is great, you know? And it’s so I think that’s good. Just letting people under, you know, the bigger you grow, the more you put yourself out there and also that’s growth. You’re going to have people with opinions about your growth. You’re going to have people that are going to have things to say and be like, I’m sorry, what is it that you do? I’m sorry, this is lame. What I don’t understand. Yeah. But you know, focus on the people you’re serving, focus on the people you are giving value to, and it becomes a lot more enjoyable and try not to fixate on the negative, but that’s, you know, that’s how our brains are wired.
Kristen Boss (33:36): Our brains, like our most, the most primal part of our brain is trained to focus on the negative so that it could as a survival tactic. Like if I can look at the worst, assume the worst plan for the worst, this ensures my survival, but we don’t live in caveman days anymore. So just when your brain wants to go to that place, say, Hey, okay, we’re fine. It’s not life or death here. I don’t have to like ruminate on this. Look at all the worst case scenarios. It’s just going to add to my, an anxiety. want to like get off the platform. Yeah. I can choose to think about this differently. And you know, I really think for me, Instagram is a great place to be. It’s very fun. And I think it should, it should be fun. Why not? It’s part of the human experience where we’re connecting. Right.
Brock Johnson (34:16): I agree. 100%. Absolutely.
Kristen Boss (34:18): Yeah. And sometimes we just let the fun get sucked out when we are chasing, going viral, over being valuable when we’re giving too much drama to our niche, when we’re giving too much power to the haters, when we’re assigning our worth to the metrics or a bad day, when we’re thinking our future success is dependent on how big our account grows, it does not. You know? So I think once we, you know, address those stories, Instagram becomes a lot more enjoyable and a great honestly, is there ever a better time to be alive than right now when social media has given literally anybody the possibility yeah. To make income at home? Like, yeah. You’re a seven figure earner at a young age and it like, seriously, thank you, internet. Yeah.
Brock Johnson (35:03): Yeah. Honestly. I mean, we have an opportunity that no one else in human history has, has had, we have an opportunity that 0.01% of humans have ever had, which is the ability to reach almost anyone in the world by just tapping that little metal rectangle in your pocket a few times, like you just tap, tap out a few times in the right spots and you could have your voice heard around the world. You could grow a business, you could go viral, you could get all of these views. You could gain followers and customers, or you could just build one single relationship with someone on the other side of the planet and make their day, or serve them or connect with them in some meaningful way. That’s a really, really powerful opportunity. And also, you know, not even to mention that there’s things like reels bonuses or the TikTok creator fund where you don’t even have to have a business, you don’t even have to be selling anything just from getting a few views on your video. You can make money. Like it might not even be that much necessarily when you’re getting started, but $14 a month. Hey, okay. I got a couple free cups of coffee just for posting videos online. I mean, this, this is crazy stuff. This is stuff that is sci-fi for, for past generations to even consider. And it’s things that we take for granted so often. So I think remembering the power and the beauty of social media is important.
Kristen Boss (36:18): I love that. What a time to be alive. Brock thank you so much for coming on this podcast. I’m sure my people absolutely just ate it up. What we’re going to do is we’re going to link your podcast in the show notes. And do you have any like free offers if they want to get on your, like a PDF or get on your list or we can drop that in the show notes as well, if you want to pitch that
Brock Johnson (36:37): I think, I think honestly the best thing for people to do is just start following on Instagram. Yep. Brock11Johnson is my handle. And I offer tons of free advice and do coaching and tips every single day. So that’s honestly the best place to get started. And if they want to get connected more, they can shoot me a direct message.
Kristen Boss (36:54): Great. Love it. We’ll link all that in the show notes Brock thinks again for being here. It was a blast. Thanks.
Brock Johnson (36:59): Thank you so much, Kristen, I appreciate it.
Kristen Boss (37:05): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you are ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals. In the Academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or have been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
