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Complete Guide To Shareworthy Content | How To Beat The Instagram Algorithm - 833
00:27:59
In today’s episode, Brock Johnson provides a complete guide to creating shareworthy content on Instagram and how to beat the new Instagram algorithm. He’ll explore how to craft shareable posts and Reels that encourage engagement, boost...
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- [00:00]
A
Like your favorite startup's growth curve, T Mobile's coverage keeps scaling because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service support in 90 plus days device ineligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [00:30]
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The Instagram Algorithms have changed. There's a new Instagram algorithm, Instagram algorithm update. Screw the flippin algorithm. That's how I've been feeling lately, and I'm gonna guess that you've been feeling the same way. And if you're someone who wants to grow their personal brand or business on Instagram, then you're in the right place. Because over the last 18 months or so I've unlocked an Instagram strategy that essentially allows you to give the middle finger to the Instagram algorith. And if you've been listening to Build you'd Tribe recently, then you know that the secret to beating the Instagram algorithm is shares. Now not only have I been saying that shares are the best form of engagement for the last year or so, but Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, who I recently had a sit down interview with, has been saying this himself recently too. He calls it sends per reach or shares per reach, but it's basically all the same thing, shares. And when I say shares or sends, I'm essentially referring to when one person sees a post, sees a reel and sends it to another person. That is the key to growth. That's the key to going viral. That is what the algorithm prefers. But like I said, that's also how you beat the algorithm. And I say that that's how you beat the algorithm. Because let's strip away the robots, let's strip away the computers, let's strip away the algorithms and the technology that rules our lives today and think about what is a share. At the end of the day, a share is one human being sending a post to human being or maybe a group of human beings if you're sending it to let's say your family group chat. It is one person saying I thought of you. This reminded me of you. This makes me think of us. This totally resonates with me. Or with us. Or reminds me of our group. It is a powerful social connection that transcends just Instagram, for example, if you think it's super educational, super valuable, super useful, and you send it to a friend saying, hey, you gotta check this out, this guy's got some good stuff to share with you, well then that's you adding value or giving something, passing something along, recommending something to a friend. This is what we've been doing our whole lives with our favorite TV shows, our favorite books, our favorite comic books, our favorite things. Part of being social and part of being a friend is recommending things that your friends might also like. And so that's why while today we're going to specifically be talking about creating shareworthy content on Instagram, creating shareworthy content in general and is how you grow and it's how you reach more people. And not only are you going to be reaching more people, you're going to be reaching the right kinds of people. There are plenty of examples of posts that go viral that reach tens of millions of people, but it's the wrong kinds of people. Maybe you've heard the term I'm on the wrong algorithm or I got on the wrong side of Instagram or the wrong side of TikTok. It essentially refers to when your content gets picked up and gets pushed out to a group of people who isn't exactly your ideal or intended audience. And the purpose of today's episode is not to dive into into the problems with going viral. And what happens when you reach the wrong audience. You can figure that out for yourself. But the cool thing about shares is you are almost guaranteed to reach the right audience. And that's because again, regardless of what the algorithm thinks of your content, if my wife thinks your content is funny and reminds her of my relationship with her and she sends me that content, I am another ideal viewer. So you went from one ideal viewer being my wife and to the second ideal viewer being mean. Also, when a post is shared, it is way more likely to be viewed than when it's just recommended by the algorithm. In fact, the algorithms are built to have a never ending stream of recommendations. That's what the infinite scroll is built upon as you're scrolling through your for you page on TikTok or your Instagram feed, you're constantly going to be recommended things that the algorithm deems you may be interested in. But of course, you're never going to see all of them. On the other hand, you are very likely to not just see, but completely watch from start to finish content that is sent to you by a friend. Or a loved one. Or a colleague. Unless, of course, we're Talking about the DMs that I have with my friend Skip, who sends me literally 40 reels a day. Skip, I love you, bro, but there's no way I'm going to be able to watch every single one of those. But not only on a human level will shares get you more views, but on an algorithmic level, most algorithms are now trained to optimize for shares. And nowhere is this more true than the Instagram feed algorithm. Reels, photos and carousels are pushed out to more people when they get shared than arguably any other piece of content on any other social media. In fact, according to a recent Insta ClubHub study, getting one additional like on your post will equate to about 15 additional views. Getting one additional save on your post will equate to about 45 additional views. Getting one comment on your post will equate to about 75 additional views. But getting just one additional share on your post will equate to an average of about 150extra views. And some studies actually indicate that getting just one share on Instagram equates to 400 additional views. So while something that I say all the time here at Build you'd Tribe is that we need to prioritize the audience over the algorithm, creating shareworthy content is a way that you can do both at the same time. You can create shareworthy content that your audience enjoys watching and that they want to send to their friends, families and colleagues. And the algorithm will reward you for creating said shareworthy content. Now, of course, if I were to just tell you to create shareworthy content and then peace out, this would not be a very valuable podcast episode. But I don't gatekeep. So I'm gonna share with you the five different kinds of shareworthy content, examples of each and how to create them and and I think you'll be surprised what is left off the list. Number one, the first kind of shareworthy content is motivational content. Motivational content is a kind of post that you can make over and over again, because motivation is something that we all need on a regular, if not daily, if not multiple times a day basis. Jocko Willink, the former Navy SEAL and author one of my favorite books, Extreme Ownership, says motivation is fleeting. Discipline is reliable. Rely on discipline. That's great, Jocko, but on social media, we all need to post motivational content because chances are a lot of your followers are in need of it. Now, the key with motivational or inspirational posts and this is actually the key that is true with all five of the different kinds of shareworthy content is that they need to relate to your niche. So rather than saying that over and over again throughout today's episode, I just need you to keep that in mind. All five different kinds of shareworthy content are going to be feed posts on Instagram. All five of the different kinds of shareworthy content should be related to your niche in some way. They should be relatable to your target audience in some way. And the reason for that is that when I'm discussing shareworthy content on Instagram, I'm only talking about feed posts. Feed posts are what get shared. Rarely do Instagram stories get shared. Yes they can. Yes, there are plenty of examples of that happening, but for the most part it's disproportionately more that feed posts, which is reels, photos and carousels are getting shared rather than Instagram stories. So again, for all five different kinds of share worthy content, including that first one that I already told you, which is motivational content, they need to be feed posts. So reels, photos or carousels. And they need to be related to your niche. But back into the idea of motivational content. This is inspirational quotes, this is powerful reminders. This is your favorite scripture or Bible verses. These are thoughtful messages or reminders. And one of the best ways to come up with motivational or inspirational content is to just think about what has motivated or inspired you recently. Like what has really struck a chord with you and really resonated, really got you off your butt or lit that fire underneath you. If there's any sort of quotes or messages like that that have come to mind recently, that would make a great motivational post. Here's a few different examples of what motivational content might look like. This first one comes from an insta clubhub all star. She is a therapist with over 100k followers on Instagram and almost all of her posts look just like this. White background, black text, very simple, something that you could make in just a couple of minutes. And and it has some sort of motivational message or daily affirmations. And of course it's relevant to her target audience. Here is an inspirational post that I have made. Black background, white text. Again, very easy to make, very quick, very simple. And it says pretending to be someone else on social media is a waste of who you are. So that is a motivational or inspiring message that relates specifically to the idea of growing on social media. This final example comes from my good friend Jamie Brindle. Definitely Check out his page. If you are a freelancer, but he said you're not a vendor, you're a partner. Act like it when they say that's too high. So a little bit controversial maybe, but definitely a great inspirational message for anyone who is a freelancer to remind them of their value and their worth. And the thing that I want you to take away from these three examples and in all of the rest of the examples today, is that, number one, these are very quick and easy to make. The focus is on the value that they provide, not the vanity, not how pretty or how polished or how put together they are. Each, in fact, oftentimes just white text on a black background or vice versa is good enough to get the job done. So that's the first kind of share worthy content. The second kind of shareworthy content is the kind of content that is, on one hand, probably the toughest to make. And because of that, the kind of shareworthy post that you will post the least often. But it's also the kind of shareworthy post that has the most viral potential. The kind of shareworthy post that can really take off and create a revolution or a movement that can sweep across the globe. And no, this isn't hyperbole. I'm not exaggerating. The second kind of shareworthy content is what I like to call call to arms content. Call to arms content, also known as community content, is content that gets the bigger group involved. It's not necessarily teaching something or inspiring something. It's raising awareness for a cause, it's raising funds, it's spreading a certain message that needs to be heard. The most viral example of this that you are definitely aware of is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Back in 2014, millions upon millions of people were dumping buckets of ice on their head. And it was in order to raise funds and raise awareness for als. But the reason that this trend was so popular was not because people were dumping buckets of ice or because it was a good cause. The reason this trend was so popular and is to this day. One of the most viral social media campaigns for spreading awareness was because part of the challenge was to dump the bucket of ice on your head and then tag three friends. Basically tagging three friends was sharing the challenge with three other people. So again, are you going to be able to create an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge for your personal brand or business every single month? Probably not. But if you can do this even just once a year, it can be absolutely revolutionary for your growth and for your views. Of course, besides the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. This first one is supposed to look like a crumpled up receipt that I have kind of flattened out and taken a photo of. So I'll pause right there and say it feels very organic and real. It's not just some text on a screen, but it actually looks like something that's out there in the real world. But what this receipt says is it has a bunch of line items saying that essentially it costs nothing to support small businesses on social media. And this, like I said, is something I've posted numerous times. And every single time I post it, it goes viral. Every single time I post it, it is one of my best posts for that month, if not for that quarter, if not for that year. And the reason is that it's trying to spread this message, spread awareness that, hey, we can all support each other and all help each other out and it's not going to cost us a dime. So it's a great cause and it's something that is very pertinent, very relevant to my niche. This next example is kind of ironic. It's kind of meta. It's from a post that I made where I was doing an experiment specifically testing shares and I'll spoil the experiment for you. Essentially, I had people share my own reel with myself so that the additional views of them sharing it with a friend or a family didn't count. I was testing to see, would the algorithm push this reel out to more people simply because it was getting shared, or would the algorithm only push it out to more people if it was getting shared with more people and those more people were viewing it and maybe sharing it themselves? And so I had people share my reel with me, send it back to myself so that it wasn't getting any additional views from the recipients of the share, because again, the recipient of the share was just me. Well, spoiler alert. That reel went viral. That reel got millions of views and it wasn't shared with a bunch of other people. It was pretty much only shared with me. But the hook on that reel was what made it a call to arms. I said, I'm doing an Instagram experiment and I need your help. Simply that phrase I need your help is a great way to cue people in that you need their help and that you are calling on the community for their assistance. The third kind of shareworthy content is the opposite of the call to arms content, because it's the kind of content that we can think of the easiest. The ones we post the most, the ones we share most regularly, and the kinds of content that you could probably post on a daily basis and not burn out. And that is none other than relatable content. And specifically, this usually takes the form of relatable humor. Now, the deeper your understanding for your target audience, the more you can empathize with your ideal follower, the more shareworthy your content will be, the better your posts will be, and more specifically, the more relatable your posts will be. When you can really empathize with their pain points and know their struggles and understand the funny quirks that people in your niche do, you'll be able to create more relatable content. And relatability comes from specificity. So rather than trying to be vague, rather than trying to water down your specific experiences or frustrations or whatever, to make it more broad appeal, be super specific. The more specific your relatable humor is, the funnier, the more relatable it will be. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a hilarious humor relatable joke on TikTok or Instagram and I've looked at the comments and all the top comments say, omg, I thought I was alone. Do I not have a single unique experience in my life? Oh my gosh, I thought I was the only one. And yet that post has 50,000 comments and a million likes showing that a million people feel the same way. While yes, I understand you are your own unique, beautiful butterfly and no one is quite like you. And that's definitely true. With that being said, we all as humans have so many shared experiences and behaviors and quirks and pain points. And so when you're trying to create relatable content, be as specific as possible. Here's another example I did, and this specific example is one that you could use in any niche. I made it related to how confusing the Instagram algorithm is because that is pertinent and relatable to my niche of people who want to grow on Instagram. And but you could easily just come up with your own confusing or overwhelming or silly example of something that is relevant to your niche. And as long as it's specific, it will be relatable. The fourth kind of share worthy content is the one that's the scariest to make, but the one that can really help you stand out within your nation and grow your most loyal group of superfans. And that is none other than controversial content. When I say controversial content, what I want you to do is I want you to start being rude, crass, offensive. I want you to get canceled. I want you to have hundreds of people blocking you On a date. No, I'm kidding. I'm not encouraging you to do any of those things. But what I am encouraging you to do is to say the thing that no one else is willing to say. Say the unpopular opinion. Say the thing that you believe that is counterculture. Say the thing that everyone else in your niche has been thinking, but no one else has been bold enough to proclaim. You don't need to go out and attack other businesses or other people on social media. You can just talk about ideas, you can talk about strategies that everyone used to think were super effective and you actually don't think they're very effective. You could talk about schools of thought that you believe are unhealthy or unhelpful. This kind of content is so share worthy because most people are too scared to say it themselves. They've been thinking it, maybe they've even been believing it for years, but they've always been so scared to say it. But now that you have finally said it, and you've said it so well and so eloquently and you've planned it out and put it in a piece of content, you've made a reel about it, well then they're going to share it. Because it's a way that they can say, hey, I believe in this. I'm too scared to say it myself, but I believe in this. This is how I think too. This is what I believe. And so it really is a great way for your target audience to, to self identify, to self select, and to show your content to other people who would be interested. Because you want to know who your ideal followers are. They're the people who think the exact same way as the people who already follow you. So be bold, be confident and share that controversial content. Here are three examples of controversial content, although I'm sure you can think of plenty on your own. This first one is a reel that just says I don't have time and then it argues how you actually do have time. This second one is a reel for me that, yes, also went viral and it was kind of dispelling a myth or a misconception about Instagram. And then this final one quite simply says unpopular opinion up at the top and then it states it's unpopular opinion. Fifth and last, but definitely not least of the different kinds of share worthy content is timely content. Timely content can mean a few different things. Timely content can mean trends, both trending audios, trending memes, or just more widespread trends. You could consider the ALS Ice Bucket challenge a trend you could consider B roll reels a trend. But timely content is not just trends. Timely content is tapping into pop culture as a whole. It's what I like to call naps or niche adjacent posts. And taking naps is a great way to broaden your reach. One of the easiest examples of a nap that I might take myself is let's say there was a really popular show that was about to have its season finale. And maybe not everyone, but it felt like everyone was watching the show. It's what everyone was talking about. Let's say maybe it was severance at the beginning of 2025. Well, if I did an Instagram review for a severance character, or if I did a skit reel where I was talking about how your Innie uses Instagram versus how your Audi uses Instagram, that is relevant to something that pop culture or the general population as a whole is paying attention to right now. And so it's a great way to relate your niche to something that is kind of adjacent or even outside of your niche and is at the same time popular or widely talked about or in the news and thus reach a wider audience. Speaking of the news, breaking news or headlines is the third kind of timely content. And you would be surprised how many headlines there are out there that might relate to your niche. And you could either talk about them, address them, or literally be one of the people to break the news yourself. Here are three different examples of timely content. The first one is someone talking about the best new features on the iPhone. The second one is just a headline that says FDA moved to ban formaldehyde in hair straighteners called Too little too late. Well, if you're someone who's in the hair care or the beauty industry, you could totally make a reel either breaking this news or giving your commentary, your feedback, your thoughts on this news. And then the third one is good old Taylor Swift. I would not recommend using this meme nowadays because it's not timely anymore. But when this photo first came out, when this photo was first taken about a year and a half or two years ago, it was everywhere and she was seemingly inescapable. So using Taylor Swift memes or Taylor Swift related content that also pertains to your niche would be a great way to tap into pop culture as a whole. Now I told you that you might be surprised at what was left off this list. And what was left off this list was educational tips. Now don't get me wrong, educational tips, especially when they're like the kind of wow, life hack style tips can be very share worthy, but on average, usually educational tips, valuable resources Knowledge is not that share worthy. Think about your local library. There are likely dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of textbooks that are super valuable, super educational, but have also been sitting on the shelves of that library for years, if not decades, collecting dust. No one reading them, no one picking them up, and definitely no one recommending that textbook to a friend. Of course educational content is valuable. Educational content has a purpose and there are definitely ways to make your educational content share worthy or make your educational content more entertaining. But on average, pure education value and tips is not that share worthy. It's very savable, it's very I'll save it for later, but it's rarely the type of thing that gets sent. I know earlier I joked about you sending this podcast to a friend, but on average long form content like podcasts and YouTube videos which are packed full of knowledge and value and education aren't shared at the same rate as short form entertaining, share worthy content. So if you're someone who wants to grow on Instagram, you want to get more views, maybe you even want to go viral. And what I would recommend is leaning into share worthy content and creating more of it rather than focusing so much on educational tips. Speaking of educational tips, now that we have completed the five different kinds of share worthy content, I want to Share with you 5 tips for creating shareworthy content. And of course these are on top of all of the tips that I have already given about creating quickly. About how relatability comes from specificity. About how creating content that feels more organic is going to perform better than a overly curated or overly polished graphic or highly edited video. But besides all of that five tips that I have to share with you on creating shareworthy content. Number one is to always of course start with a hook. Every post should start with a hook. I would recommend spending the majority of your time, energy and effort on creating better hooks. Now if you struggle with hooks, I have a free guide linked up in the show Notes down below this episode with 25 viral hook ideas. But my general recommendations for your hooks is that you should keep them simple by using 5th grade reading level vocabulary. I don't know about you, I haven't been in fifth grade in a minute. So basically what I mean by this tip is to keep it simple, dumb it down, use easy to understand language. Not because people are dumb, but because most people are not paying attention when they're scrolling on social media. So keep it simple and also keep it short. We've found that between five and eight words and is the ideal length for viral hooks. And then my third tip for your hooks is to use negative words whenever possible. Negative words are words like no, don't, stop, avoid, cancel, give up. These sorts of words grab our attention. It goes back to our cave person brain where we're more likely to pay attention to the tiger that might kill us rather than the 50 butterflies that are cute and pretty. We are trained, we are hardwired as human beings, we to pay more attention to the negative, the scary, the threatening, and so you don't have to make every single one of your reels super aggressive or sensationalized. But using negative words has been proven to be more effective than using their positive counterparts. Tip number two for your shareworthy content is to tell people to share it. But don't just say share this post. Give them the reason why. Share this post if you agree is a call to action you could use on a controversial post. Share this post if you can relate is a call to action that you could use on a relatable post. Share this post if you learned something new is a call to action that you could use on a timely post. Share this post Helps spread the message is something that you could use on a call to arms post and Share this post if you're feeling inspired is a call to action that you could use on a motivational post. Basically, directly ask people for the action that you want them to take place and also give them the reason why they should take that action. Now the best place for the call to action would be in the post itself, like on the screen or in the spoken audio. But the second best place would be just in your caption if it doesn't organically or naturally fit into the post. Tip number three for creating shareworthy content is that success leaves clues. But my warning here is don't look at successful posts from within your niche. Don't look at what other competitors are doing and other competitors are creating that is share worthy. Instead, look outside of your niche. Look at different verticals, different niches, look at different areas of social media and find the kind of content that maybe you're sending to your spouse, maybe that your friend is sending to you, maybe that your colleague just sent the group chat at work. That sort of content is shareworthy. It's proven because it's already been shared. And just ask yourself if there are ways that you can take elements from that share worthy post and apply it to your own shareworthy content within your niche. Tip number four for creating shareworthy content is something that we teach in the Insta Club Hub and that is the Miniskirt Rule. The Miniskirt rule is a way to answer the question of how long should my posts be. The answer is that your reels should be like a miniskirt. They should be long enough to cover what you need to cover, but still short enough to hold attention to. Say it another way, as my good friend Marketing Harry says, long enough to cover the important bits, but not any longer than that. Basically there is no one size fits all miniskirt. There is no one size fits all length for your Instagram reels. Instead, it should be long enough to share the tips or the value, the relatability, the inspirational message, whatever it is that you are posting about, but not any longer. Not redundant. Not going over the same thing over and over again or saying the same sentence multiple ways. Kind of like I just did. And then the fifth tip that I have for your shareworthy posts, and this one is specifically for your share worthy videos, is the two second rule. The two second rule comes from TV and Cinema and the two second rule basically says that there should be some sort of edit, change, transition or something happening every two seconds in order to keep our goldfish brain paying attention to the video. If you follow these five tips and you create one of the five kinds of share worthy posts that I talked about in today's episode, you will get more shares, you will reach more people, you will grow your following and you will grow your business because of it. And if you learned absolutely anything at all in today's podcast, I hope that you apply it. I hope that you go out into the world and you start creating share worthy content. And I also hope that you hit that subscribe button so that next Thursday's episode and all of our future episodes automatically show up in your app. Thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate you and as always, happy networking Foreign.
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Like your favorite startup's growth curve, T Mobile's coverage keeps scaling because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid cart. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service support in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption. Required card is no cash access and expires in six months.