I posted 4,564 instagram reels and this is what I learned.

I made 4562 Instagram posts and this is what I've learned I started my Instagram page on November the 11th 2016 that is 2,913 days ago and I suppose that averages 1. 57 posts a day every day for 7 years and 11 months that's pretty insane right well in that time I've grown my audience to around 1. 4 million people and it took me four years of posting on social media to even reach 10,000 it then took me another four years to reach 1 million followers my top three short content platforms have 4.

3 million followers and in growing all of these I've learned 32 lessons so let's get into it lesson number one hashtags don't do anything the chap on Instagram called misseri who is the CEO of Instagram came out and quite frankly said it they don't do anything whenever I see people copy paste hashtags a little bit of me feels sad inside there's someone out there in the notes section of their phone as populated a loaded hashtags and they feel that if they paste that into the description or to the comments of their post that it will bring them more engagement I've said for years not only does it make you look desperate looks [ __ ] maybe a long time ago content was sorted and categorized into hashtags but it's 2024 rest assure that every single word and item you put in a video is going to be scanned and audited by the platform this is to ensure it has some idea of what the video is about if the platform didn't do this how do you think it could create the content you like so well and put it onto your feed hashtags need to go they need to stop being used if you want people to discover your content make it better don't post loads of random words in a description hoping for the best only use hashtags when bantering like # teamot chest or # teamnosleep # thick thighs saave lives but I'll tell you what be careful with the last one I actually own the trademark for thick thighs save lives and I'm just waiting for some Fitness [ __ ] to try whack it on a T-shirt and I'll take them to court and this brings me on to the next lesson originality at your peril originality Einstein famously said standing on the shoulders of giants which is well that's cool but in essence your job on a day-to-day basis is to look at the landscape and see what is working think about Investors they don't just buy into [ __ ] that doesn't work and hope for the best they look at Trends and try to jump on them we must do the same truth be told I like to talk to my Sensei Ed from the page creative booth and we talk about many things and he said his last video was doing well so when I was watching it I couldn't help but think about the incredible packaging that he used for it he then told me that he came up with this video due to the reaction he got from other mediums like emails and modules so in essence saided had already done a lot of work for me so this video although the title is the same I didn't steal it technically I hired him and don't worry I paid him more than what it costs me to pay my mortgage for 7 months so he doesn't mind a bit like you if you rip off my content you're grade A bellend but if you join one of my various courses you're merely a student doing what you've been told there's a bit of classic manipulation where were we oh well so I saw Ed's title and thumbnail and I thought that is really good I will make my own version I will also pay homage to where I got it from it's like referencing someone in a study when you use a bit of content which is a good thing to do in Contents let's maybe call that unit 2A reference evidence and it will make you look smarter if you just reference where you got the information it will make you seem more genuine so I saw what was working with Ed and I thought I can make my own version because Instagram short form content which the this is about I could potentially give more value than Ed could he's the expert in YouTube I suppose I'm kind of an expert in Instagram now at the moment I work with hundreds of creators and I see them trying to make their own type of viral content and more than often it flops whereas if they just seen what had worked for other people they could have emulated perhaps the prop or the hook or the setting even the scene and then they could have gone off in their own Direction you need to see what is working and jump on that I'm not entirely sure how sailboats worked for all those years do you ever wonder how people got around the world on boats I assume they knew which way the currents and the winds were going and they just kind of hopped on those seems a bit risky and mad if you think about it but it'd be very Dar to just guess your way across the Pacific Ocean wouldn't it so maybe don't do that next time we in the process of planning and strategizing where you want your content to go I've seen some creators recycle the same hook dozens of time and actually Ryan Tran MrBeast some of the biggest YouTubers have straight up ripped titles and thumbnails of other creators and you ask why because it works and something working will always Trump something original China China which brings me on to lesson number two it's technically lesson number three but I'm one behind my favorite lesson my favorite lesson the best lesson Trends they change so keep an eye on them suddenly scrolling across social media isn't just wasting time babe I'm researching babe I'm staying on top of things I'm researching things many things and the top creators on social media will show you many patterns I saw Shan Casey was getting some mad engagement on carousels so I took note did some myself and they did very well and why carousels do well I'll explain later but when you see trends like I did where the people that in their stories go blank for 24 hours so then they can post another one with an offering it gets more views or just the setups they're using in their content keep an eye on it because this has never changed in landscape try things out and remember if a post bombs no one's going to see it because no one sees it there's nothing to worry about you can always unlist it and further down the line even delete it your worst posts will get the least views most of the time so I noticed a trend recently about super long videos on YouTube Matt Armstrong who does the cars he has a mark 2 Channel and he's uploading videos that are 4 hours long the average view duration on these videos is crushing the algorithm so I notice trends like that get my notepad out think about average view duration scoring well and I do my best to I don't know make longer videos like one assimilating 30 OD of the best things that I've learned whilst I'm teaching you about identifying Trends and jumping on them whilst also trying to jump on a trend myself to see how it does we are all to be our very best own scientists and we must test and trial things to see how they do which is what I'm doing whil you're learning about it which brings me on to number four camera you can do a lot on an iPhone in fact I grew my social media following on Facebook to 50,000 followers just going live on an iPhone truth be told I didn't know how to edit which I'll cover in one of the lessons coming up but an iPhone is great and it is great enough but you must level up with the times every time there has been an opportunity to level up I take it even these videos the last few weeks I've taken it to the next level in my mind it should correlate with your cash position if you make 10 grand a month come on bro level up the iPhone when I hit a million dollars in revenue for my last Venture I decided come on I need something a bit more than a $999 camera which was the zve 10 and now I've swapped it out because of the autofocus issue for this fx3 but you do not need a $4,000 camera in the future you might every video is its own little production I even blacked out this room for this production today cuz I want this to be the best experience possible but this is the icing on the cake I don't think cameras are everything but they're a lot and if you're going to spend money going to the cinema you want the film crew to use the best equipment because at the end of the day you're giving up your time to enjoy it which has made me paranoid but not recording yeah we're recording audio thank God for that you'll know when it's time to level up and you can always just go to a camera shop that'll help you can get a secondhand camera and a secondhand lens and basically here's the take home give a [ __ ] about your content production because it's hard to get people online to give a [ __ ] about you if you don't to the effort for them remember all this content is for them when it comes to production we need to get into another little lesson which I suppose would be lesson five can you guys hear me all right in this video can you of course you can because lesson five is audio audio is maybe sometimes more important than visuals I think because sometimes people listen more than they watch whether podcasts YouTube or short form you'll notice I don't have that many interactions with all of this content because I want you to listen to what I'm saying more so than anything else shitty audio is a fast way to get people to switch off people are much pickier with their audio then they let slip think about this if someone's a noisy cheer of food it makes you want to knock them the [ __ ] out so when you're audio hisses or sounds shitty is just disrespectful to the experience of the person watching or listening here I'm using the Joe Rogan microphone so this is a short sm7b and it's a great microphone but it needs power so I have it connected to a roadter now a quick lesson this mic needs something called a cloudlifter to make it sound better this device that you can add gives it clean gain so I had to originally buy a cloudlifter however ever times have changed when it comes to audio interface I use a broadcaster 2 which has a cloudlifter built in which is great because it makes the audio that much better but Shaw went one ahead recently and they built a cloudlifter into their latest microphone which is called a Shaw sm7 DB and you can tell that I geek out on this stuff and you might wonder what it's because I [ __ ] care about my production I even got another bookshelf for symmetricality in fact I reached out to Ed my Sensei yesterday and asked him if he was using a cloudlifter cuz I could tell he wasn't he inputs his short m7b straight into his camera and you can slightly hear a hiss in the sound floor if you turn it up loud enough and most people don't care about this stuff but I care and I think games are one in the top 1% so for me sound and a few hundred matter for the majority of you get a DJI mic they're the best and I've used road and I've used DJI in every single way the djr mic is enough to get you to the point that in the future when you want to get a sh s sm7b when it comes to cross cutting audio is not one of those places you may think you can get away with shitty audio but trust me you're not that guy pal you're not that guy brings me on to lesson number six jump Cuts this video you'll notice has all the gaps cut but we still let the words breathe but we cut all the crap that you don't need why for you well I don't want you to sit here or watch here for any longer than you need referring back to audio you do not want to hear me breathe ASMR noises weird people out also I want to be as succinct as possible I want to cut the CRP but don't cut them too far you still need to let the words breathe I actually teach all of these lessons by the way in my Content Mastery course and it's currently $99 and I'll leave a link in the description below but let's get back into it before we get into that let's get into lesson number seven the Peril of using a videographer one must direct the direction of videos sometimes you can hire people and they are great at what they do but Christopher Nolan when directing a film needs the best videographers and Camera people but that doesn't mean that they have the final say over how the film looks I had videographers for years and they made nice looking videos and I put them online and they'd [ __ ] bomb and I always wondered why videographers making [ __ ] look nice and I always wondered why videographers make [ __ ] look nice but that is not making great content great content and nice looking videos are miles apart you cannot hire someone to hold a camera and expect them to make the magic happen for you I've even seen friends of mine hire members of staff and the issue is that they can offload the important thinking and ideation to people on salaries they often create subpar results if your business is going to have a million-dollar idea or a video it's probably going to come out of your mind not someone else's so hire people to work for you but not to do your job for you no one cares as much as you do no one ever will it's on you so don't be [ __ ] lazy don't be [ __ ] lazy China China lesson number eight hooks there are several types of hooks that you can use in social media and you use them to capture attention each with its own style and purpose so here are some of the most effective ones so you could use a hook that shock and surprises people and these hooks can catch people off guard with an unexpected fact or visual for example opening with a surprising statistic or a bold statement what if I told you that most fat loss diets are more harm than good then we could always ask a question hook and this what we're looking to do is ask a question at the beginning to encourage engagement by making viewers think and to respond we then have a relatable or a problem solving hook and you can start this by addressing a common problem making the fewer feel seen and understood struggling to stay motivated to work out here's what actually works these aren't too Lumbers some or too long they're very short and succinct and there's something that we can get out in the first 3 to 5 seconds again we might have a value driven hook this type promises a solution or a tip or an Insight that's immediately beneficial like a how to or a quick tip here are three ways to boost your fat loss without changing your diet the next could be a curiosity hook which teases the content without giving everything away prompting viewers to stick around to learn more the one exercise that you should never skip and you'll be surprised another one we could do would be maybe a shock reveal or mythbusting hook and you can open with a controversial or even a surprising statement that debunks common myths you don't need to be doing a lot of cardio to lose fat and this is why other things we could do would be a personal story or a vulnerable hook where you open with a short personal anecdote or Insight that can humanize you and it can help you build trust I used to hate going to the gym but this is what changed it for me what else we could also do a challenge or a call to action hook and with this you could directly challenge the viewer to do something or make a decision if you're not seeing any benefits to your cardio try doing this if you're not seeing any benefits to your Jiu-Jitsu sparring ability then try this over the next 22 days we could then have a demonstration or a visual hook and you can begin with a demonstration of a product an exercise a technique and you can show value immediately starting a video with you performing a workout move that's crucial for getting a contraction or listing an outcome another one I would use is humor or an unexpected twist hook so you could use humor irony or twist to grab attention and entertain right from the start and then another one would be maybe a countdown or a list hook where you start with a countdown or top tips or a list structure and keep people watching for each point you might even have a visual whiteboard behind you these are five ways to grow your entrepreneurial business to 100K within the next one year the benefit of this is by using different types of hooks we can keep our audience engaged and C to a range of viewer preferences and this is super important in the early stages of content creation your first 5 seconds are so important do not take it lightly how important they are if you can get your hook right the rest is easy however keep in mind for longer format you may want to have an introduction and this can have some hooks in it but if someone is watching a YouTube video like this one I may need to pay off the title and thumbnail with more priority than a traditional hook to let the viewer know they're making the right decision like I did in this one I kind of repeated the title then gave the authority that it's one and a half post today people go wow that's a lot this guy must know a lot about this then we get into the lessons and talking the lessons we should probably get into lesson number eight call to actions and Goodwill do you remember fasten the Furious one rest in peace Paul Walker in the first drag race Paul Walker uses his NOS way too fast this is why he loses toin Diesel and this is what you should do when it comes to your call to actions do not shoot your load too soon we must recruit Good Will from your audience and if I'm honest on this channel I'm [ __ ] prepared to post on this channel for one to two years before it booms I know human beings and some of you are ready but most of you are not and I will use this as field to keep me going more than anything I will wear you down across months and years if I need to I know I cannot just expect to pull the NOS because I hit 10,000 subscribers on this thank you by the way but I will leave a subtle quote of actions in my description but that's it that is it I'm willing to go to town for years if I need to so with your short form content get in get out be classy don't ask for follows occasionally give a call to action maybe for a resource or something that helps them but for most of you you're a lot of posts away from doing the work necessary to actually have the leverage to get people to actually do it I want you to be willing to see social media as a place you literally help people for free for years and you need to be okay with people not signing up I created my Facebook account on the 1st of April 2014 I had people come up to me and say how much I've helped them lose 20 kg and then they say I never joined your program but you helped me so much what you never gave me your money cheers but you need to be okay with that because if you can't help people for free then you won't get people to join for money there's a real Slim line between helping people for free and having loads of clients so don't leave things on the table give people as much as you can give them so much that they get suspicious that maybe you were sent from above to come here from Heaven to help them when you can do that for long enough people will respond to your cool to actions but until then keep pumping keep hustling and be sparing with cool to actions or you look well a little bit beggy and we don't want that which brings me on to lesson nine purpose your purpose on social media is to help them not you a lot of creators get caught up in the world of me me me when it needs to be about them them them here's my breakfast becomes if you are looking for an amazing breakfast you can have every day then I would recommend the exact same breakfast that I was going to talk about before in the world of content creation we become subservient to those who subscribe and watch our content it sounds weird but the faster you realize that your purpose is to help strangers on the internet the better you can come to the reality of it I like to personally go a bit further I like to make it feel like I'm their mate I overshare I'm brutally honest too and my Approach is to the point that if I bump into someone perhaps even you I want you to feel like I'm your mate that you haven't met yet and really the only time you should talk about yourself is when it can directly help them if you want to help yourself help other people Smith J 2024 lesson 10 is it 10 lessons I have no idea at this point let's talk about frequency how often should you post well I think it's a good idea to aim for at least daily not that there's even that much in it beyond the fact that you need to do the [ __ ] reps to get better at it but if you want to become great at something do it daily it doesn't have to be a full- on production but [ __ ] me on a slow day you could screenshot a tweet and post it on your Instagram it doesn't have to be a full-blown cameras lighting production scripting whatever in my opinion you cannot post too often it can only be too boring I'll repeat that again you cannot post too often it can only be too boring maybe one more time you cannot post post too often you can only be too boring which I suppose then brings me on to lesson 11 which kind of ties into this one a bit reposts the majority of my videos go viral the second or third time I post it for many of you in the early onset of content creation imagine this create a new piece of content take an old piece and post it again you double your posting frequency for not a lot more work maybe a minute more work going back and finding it on your iPhone the beauty of this is not everyone saw your first post now some people are going to go I've already seen this post but the people that moan and go I'm going to unfollow you because you posted a post more than once friends has been been on TV for like 30 years no one's complaining you don't see friends on TV going oh a channel Monica I've seen it a million time yeah you know they just put it on someone might want to watch it and the people that get annoyed that you've reposted something and not the people that buy your product the day it comes out because the people that are your best clients go do you know what James I'm glad you posted it again cuz I loved that video the first time I watched it and you know what the second time I watched it I liked it too because sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught sometimes people double tap that thing and share it to their story not because they've watched it again but they know how it made them feel the first time and they want other people to see it and they will Champion you and help you grow your just post just repost repost you don't put two three hours into something to just leave it there once especially in short form in YouTube can you get away with it as much probably not but in short form especially if you're growing on social media whenever anyone gives me any [ __ ] I'm like sorry mate I've grown by 137,000 followers since I last posted this so I just put this up there so an audience the size of people at twick on when it sold out can watch it next thing I want to talk about is lighting face the light so those of you that are filming at home if you can face natural light the better for this today for this camera this lens I've actually blacked it out and I've got a professional light here this still isn't the perfect lighting setup because I need to get something for my camera called an ND filter but again we are getting carried away in essence because of the way that I'm filming now an ND filter is like sunglasses for your camera which lets less light in which can have a beneficial appeal to bluring out the background but again that's probably a bit too advanc for most people but lighting stage one face natural lighting do not have lights on above you or down lighting or anything behind it just distorts thoughts everything all the lights off in the room face natural lighting again this is flat lighting if the light was to my side it would be more of a rembrand for the majority of you just become well lit the background does not need to be well lit there is a glow light and I will get some more but Lesson 12 lighting just face the bloody light and turn turn them top lights off because most lights in the house are the orangey glows it makes you look ridiculous what would be another lesson uh lesson 13 be time to post now I don't think there's quite the importance on the time to post that everyone else says there is I think it's maybe smart that you don't post when the majority of your audience are asleep and maybe do post an hour or two hours before you think that peak time is to let the post get a bit of traction on social media But ultimately get it out at a sensible time don't wait till 3:00 in the morning to put it out but again some people even say don't post at 8:00 a. m.