
Loading summary
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If you've ever had a post go viral and then immediately thought, wait, how
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am I actually going to ship all of these orders? Yeah, that's the part that almost no one talks about.
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When your company is growing fast, order fulfillment can make or break your success. And that's why I recommend that you use ShipStation. ShipStation's intelligence driven platform brings everything into one place. Order management, rate shopping, inventory returns, warehouse systems, and even analytics. They're saving business owners up to 15 hours a week on fulfillment. And here's what I love. Instead of juggling five to seven different tools, it's just one. You can connect to over 200 sales channels and it automatically compares rates across carriers like USPS, UPS and FedEx. Plus, over a million businesses already trust and use ShipStation. And that's why I highly recommend if you have any kind of business where shipping is required, ShipStation is the tool
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episode is brought to you by Shopify,
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the number one e commerce platform in
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the world for building your business and selling your products. More about them later. Also later, I'll tell you a little bit more about our sponsor, which has me super excited, which provides weekly, nutritious, wholesome meals that help you hit your goals in less time, energy and effort. Plus, they taste great. Valuable content is dead. I know, I know. For years you've been told, make your content more valuable. If your content is more valuable, you will grow. And that's wrong. Or maybe I should say the interpretation or the execution of valuable content is
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what you're doing wrong.
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Because yes, your content should still be valuable. I'm not encouraging you to post AI slop and brain rot content, but what I think so many people have been getting wrong over the last 10 years is that valuable content has come to mean educational content. And ultimately it's the educational content which is falling flat, flopping and and causing you to not grow. And so, in today's episode, I'm gonna share with you the six things that you can do, things that are working, and things that you can actually do to educate your audience while entertaining them in the process. And ultimately, regardless of what niche you're in, I think the shift that needs to take place is instead of focusing on educational content, we should be focusing on entertaining content. And again, that doesn't just mean that it has to be superficial content. It doesn't just have to be vapid content, humorous content. I am not encouraging you to make AI Love island with fruit. But what I think we all need to recognize is that the modern consumer doesn't go on social media to feel like they're back in a classroom. They go on social media to unplug, to disconnect. Sure, sometimes we might want to learn something, but we only want to learn something if it's going to entertain us and give us dopamine in the process. Something that I try to do on this podcast is make it as entertaining as possible through my examples, through my storytelling, through the tone and charisma in which I'm speaking, so that you can learn and be educated while also getting some dopamine and some entertainment as well. So if that's something you're into, if you want to grow your small business on Instagram or even on social media more broadly, consider hitting that subscribe button. Because every single week I put out helpful tips, strategies and ideas to help you do exactly that. And before you throw a fit about how poor our modern attention span is, I would argue that this isn't necessarily new. This is just a phenomenon that's been exacerbated because of social media. Think about Robin Williams, character in the Dead Poets Society. He was the most captivating and most beloved teacher in the school because he didn't just teach, but he entertained in the process. Think about Mr. Rogers and all of the life lessons that he shared without ever asking you to open a textbook. Think about Neil DeGrasse Tyson, one of the most famous astrophysicists of our time, who has made learning about super complex, super out there, literally and figuratively. Topics approachable, digestible and entertaining. Think about Bob Ross and how much you enjoy learning about art from him and listening to his storytelling compared to reading the little plaques that are at museums or Brene Brown, one of the most famous and beloved therapists and researchers in history because she's a great storyteller. The list goes on and on. And again, this isn't something that is necessarily new. This is just something that has become so much, I guess you could call it worse because of social media, because now we live in a day and age where you don't have to have an entire production crew and professional camera and a studio and a contract in order to tell stories and get your messages out to the world. We all have smartphones in our pockets that can reach people all around the world and so the bar has simply been raised. There's more competition both in terms of people who are creating and total number of videos being posted. And so the same old boring three tips for Blah blah blah. Two ways to do X has just become overdone and it doesn't grab attention like it used to. So number one, we have more competition. Number two, information is less scarce, not only because of the increased competition, but also because of the proliferation of things like Google and YouTube and ChatGPT. Number three, yes, attention spans are shrinking. And number four, way too many people are creating boring ass content. I'm sorry I said it, but with that being said, I'm going to share with you the six ways that you can captivate your audience and that you can educate them while entertaining them in the process. And like I mentioned, entertainment should be the focus because according to Thomas Finetto, who is the head of Instagram for Business, who I interviewed on this podcast about a year ago, the number one thing that small businesses, brands and content creators should be focused on is entertainment, not education. Again, it's fine to educate, it's fine to teach. But if your focus isn't first and foremost on entertaining your audience, you're never going to have their attention in the first place and you're going to be talking into the void. So let's get into the six A's. A number one is analogies. Analogies, of course, are short stories or examples of things that might not directly relate to or obviously relate to what it is that you're trying to teach, but you can use them to illustrate a point. So I want you to start using more analogies in your content. And there's two real ways that you can do that. One is by using super popular or commonly understood analogies that already exist. Like if I'm talking to someone about staying consistent on Instagram, I might use the analogy of the tortoise and the hair and how slow and steady wins the race, rather than posting a bunch of times today and tomorrow because you're fired up and have ideas, pace yourself so you can spread out those posts and not burn out. Or I might use the phrase the snowball effect and talk about how one positive action on Instagram can often lead to the other. These super popular analogies work because people can connect to them. They know them, they're stories from their childhood. They're quick examples that they've been hearing their entire life. And so you're just taking this message that people already believe and understand and simply connecting it back to your niche. The other way that you can use analogies is through your own personal storytelling. In a lot of those famous educators who entertain examples that I gave earlier, those people are famous for their little anecdotes, their little stories that they're telling from their personal life. Now, of course you have to find a balance because with short form content, be it YouTube shorts, Reels or TikToks, you don't have that much time. So you can't really go down a rabbit hole and tell a five minute long personal story from your life. But if you can tell a quick one to three sentence story about something that's happened to you personally, it will not only allow your audience to understand and stay attentive to what you're teaching them, but it will also allow them to get to know you on a little bit of a deeper level and possibly relate to or resonate with you stronger. The second A in the 6A's is acronyms. Kind of like calling something the 6A's. Acronyms can be sticky, they can be recognizable, they can be shorthand ways of saying longer, more complex things, and they do a little bit of what I like to call mystifying the mundane. Because if I told you that I had six tips for making your content more entertaining, that wouldn't be as entertaining as if I said the six A's of entertaining content. It's the same idea with my STD strategy, the acronym that I use to teach how to get your most viewed story ever. I intentionally chose the acronym STD because it's recognizable. Every time I talk about it, I get a few comments like std do you know what that means? And I say, yeah, I do know what it means. And I call it the STD strategy because you're never gonna forget it. Which, by the way, if as I'm talking right now, you're like, what the F is the STD strategy? I will link up somewhere on the screen or down in the description below the episode that I did about how to get your most viewed story ever on Instagram by using the STD formula. But the awesome thing about acronyms is that it only takes a few extra seconds before you hit record to come up with what they're going to be. If you have a list of three tips, go through the first letter in each of those tips or the first letter in the keyword in each of those three tips, coming up with an acronym for what you're teaching also gives you a little bit more credibility because it sounds official. It sounds like, hey, I took the time to name this strategy. This isn't just like a list of tips. This is actually an officially named strategy. This is very cool, and this makes me look very professional and put together. And so the next time you're going to record a reel, the next time you're going to record a talking head video, or even just write out some tips in your caption, pause and ask yourself, or even an AI brainstorming assistant, or to help you come up with some sort of acronym that encapsulates these tips you're about to share. The third a of making your educational content more entertaining is to use assertions. Basically be bold, share hot takes and unpopular opinions One of the really common mistakes that keeps a lot of brands and business owners small, it keeps their accounts from growing, is they're scared to pick a side. The thought is, well, if I'm vanilla, if I'm kind of in the middle, if I kind of play all sides here, then everyone will like me. And number one, it's impossible for everyone to like you. But what you end up happening is watering down yourself, watering down your perspective, your beliefs, and your opinions to the point that you don't really stand out. There's nothing unique, there's nothing polarizing about you. I'm not saying you need to go to this extreme, but I want you right now to think about who is the person on the planet worldwide, not just in the U.S. not just in the Western hemisphere, but like worldwide, what human being probably gets the most attention? That person is also arguably the most polarizing or the most assertive person on the planet right now. And I think there's a pretty strong correlation there. So instead of saying I think, say I know. Instead of saying I just wanted to say, say here's what matters. Instead of saying, I think maybe say here's what I found. Instead of saying, I'm not an expert, but just get rid of that. Instead of saying, today I wanted to talk about, just get to what you wanted to talk about. Instead of saying in this post, I'm going to share, just share it. Instead of saying, feel free to comment below, say comment the fire emoji. If you agree, instead of saying, in my opinion, just say it. It's your post, of course it's your opinion. And in general, cut out phrases like I could be wrong but take this with a grain of salt, kind of sort of, I feel like a little bit just honestly, literally confidence can be perceived through camera. And even though following someone on social media isn't as serious as following a general into battle, the same idea kind of still applies, which is that we want to follow people who are confident, who are bold, and who believe in what they're saying. So stand on business, as Gen Z may say.
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As many of you know, when I first started this business, I was a college student athlete and at the time I was eating like five meals a day, over 4,000 calories.
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And I was eating the exact same
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meals every single day. Same breakfast, same lunch, same first dinner, same second dinner every single day. And it was super boring.
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But it was what I had to
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do because I just didn't have the time to make different meals, to get different ingredients, and to experiment with different recipes.
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But that has totally changed since I
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graduated college for two reasons.
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One of those reasons is my wife,
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Tay, and her constant encouragement for us to diversify what we're eating. And the second reason is because of HelloFresh.
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HelloFresh allows you to choose from over
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80 global recipes every single month. So you can constantly change things up and meet your protein goals and be
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able to make your food faster and
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more efficiently without having to waste time meal prepping, planning, grocery shopping and all of that.
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And I don't know about you, but
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every single time I have food delivered,
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I'm a little bit dissatisfied because it
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costs so much and it's usually not super healthy because let's be real, nothing quite hits like home cooking. That's why we use HelloFresh and you should too. Go to hellofresh.com byt10fm to get your first 10 meals free and free breakfast for life one per box with active subscription free meals will be applied as a discount on your first box for new subscribers only.
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And it varies by plan.
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That's hellofresh.com byt10fm to get 10 free meals and free breakfast for life. I remember when I was starting my very first online business way back when I was a freshman in college and I was very lucky to have my mom as a partner by my side. She could kind of mentor me and guide me me through the initial setup process and building the business and coming up with the name and the products and what we were going to sell. And some of you may know that that was helping moms keep their kids safe on Snapchat. And I would imagine that when you are thinking about starting or in the early stages of your online business journey, you are likely faced with all of the same challenges, all of the same doubts and fears and concerns. Is my product right? Is anyone going to listen to me? How am I going to market this? How am I going to sell it? And you need a partner by your side as well. And that's where Shopify fits right in.
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Shopify will help you get the word
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out by allowing you to easily create emails and promotional posts so that you can reach your customers wherever they are. And Shopify can be your commerce expert with world class level expertise in inventory, international shipping, handling, returns and warehousing and all of that.
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Plus, if you ever get stuck, they
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don't just have customer service, they have
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world class customer service that is available
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247 and that's something that even my mom couldn't provide for me. And Shopify has that iconic purple shop pay button which is used by business businesses around the world and is the number one converting checkout option in the world. That means better conversions, less people abandoning their cart and more customers for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify. Today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com tribe. Go to S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com tribe Again, that's shopify.com
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tribe, the fourth A for making your educational content more engaging and entertaining and is an attention grabber. Now this is a great time for me to pause and kind of peel back the curtain for a second and tell you that this is basically a hook, right? I'm talking about hooks. The beginning of your content, not just the words you're saying, but the audio in the background and most importantly the visual that is on the screen. The beginning of your content is going to make or break it. I don't care if you are solving quantum physics or teaching the most important lesson in the history of the world. If the first three seconds of your video sucks, people are not going to stop and stick around for seconds 4 onwards. But I said I was going to peel back the curtain for a second. And what I meant by that is I'm talking about a hook right now. But hook starts with an H and H doesn't fit into the six A's. So I was like, well I could call this a hook, but that feels a little bit silly. So I went to Claude and I asked it, hey, what are some alternative ways that I could say the word hook that starts with an A? And Claude was like, what if you called it an attention grabber and I was like, duh, that makes so much sense. Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't think of that? Because I've been doing 17 million other things for my business business today before recording this podcast. But attention grabber fits into the six A's. And now you know that a hook is absolutely a non negotiable for making your educational content more entertaining. Now, I've done an entire episode about hooks just a few weeks ago, so I'll link that up in the show notes below. Because if your hooks are weak, then definitely check out that episode. And the way to know if your hooks are weak. If people are dropping off right after your hook, or even worse, they're dropping off as soon as your video begins playing, then the issue might not even be the body of your content. It might be the hook itself. The fifth A in making your educational content more entertaining is authenticity. Now, authenticity is one of these buzzwords that everyone loves to throw around nowadays. And so my tip to help you be more authentic is to just be yourself. Thanks, guys. Bye bye. Don't forget to subscribe.
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No.
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Okay. The way that you're going to be more authentic on social media is you're going to reduce the time between idea and execution. So maybe during today's episode, as you've been listening to me yap for the last however many minutes you've had an idea for a post, I'm going to give you permission right now, as long as you promise you're going to come back and finish the episode, to pause this episode, whip out your phone and start recording. I think that far too often we sit on ideas. We save them in our drafts, we write them in our notes, we have ChatGPT edit them, then we film them, then we edit and edit and edit and edit and overthink and overanalyze and over complicate and we end up overdoing our reels. And every single moment that you spend, every single action that you take between the initial idea and the actual moment of posting is another moment or layer that is getting less authentic. It's becoming less you, and it's becoming literally a filtered version of what was originally in your head. And fortunately, one of the best forms of content, one of the best formats right now on Instagram and on social media as a whole is what is called yapping content. And yapping content is as authentic as it gets. It's in the car, it's handheld, it's with your phone, it's while you're eating, it's while you're getting ready. It's no cuts, no edits. It's a little bit off topic at times. It's a little bit going down rabbit holes at. Sometimes it's talking a little bit faster than you normally would in your reels. Sometimes it's talking a little bit more casually than you normally would in your reels or that you normally would expect to see in your reels. Yapping content is one of the most authentic, best formats on Instagram right now. And the beauty of it is it doesn't take very much time, energy, or effort. There's almost no editing required for yapping reels. And so I want you to start trying out these yapping reels because they're very authentic. And not only are they very authentic and they save you a lot of time, energy and effort, but they also allow your audience to connect with you on a deeper level. Now, as you are filming these yapping reels, I want you to embrace the mistakes I want you to leave in a few bloopers. As long as we can still understand what you're saying. I want you to post it even if it's a little bit off axis and not exactly filmed perfectly straight up and down. I want you to post it even if your hair's a little bit messy or you have a stain on your shirt or there's something in the background that isn't exactly perfectly in place. It's those vulnerabilities, those mistakes, those imperfections
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which make you human, which differentiate you
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from AI and which ultimately will allow other people to connect with you and your content on a deeper level. The sixth and final A to making your educational content more entertaining is also what I would argue is one of, if not the most important, A's, and that is advanced editing. Now, now, when I say advanced editing, I don't necessarily mean cinematography level editing. I don't necessarily mean you need to get a professional camera and you need to hire a professional editor and you need to start doing better color grading and you need to improve your editing. So if that's not what I mean, let me explain what I do mean by advanced editing. What I do mean is stop with the basic formats. The basic formats, the most overdone formats. If I'm to call out two of the most famous problematic examples that I see every day on Instagram, number one is what I call B roll reels. Now, these can be very effective. I think in moderation. These can be great. I think any kind of content in moderation can be great. But B roll reels, when overdone, might be the most boring content on Instagram. And by B roll reels, I mean Those super short 7 second reels with some random audio slapped onto the back. Trending audio, whatever. You have a clickbait headline or title in the text and then after a few seconds it says read the caption. And then you write this unnecessarily long caption because you want to hack watch time and you want to kind of trick your followers into spending a long time reading your unnecessarily long caption, which then makes Instagram think, oh yay, this person had a really good post because people spent four minutes with it. Stop doing it. It's boring for your audience and in many cases it's annoying for your audience. And then the second overdone format that just isn't working is the example that I gave very, very early on in today's episode where it's a talking head reel and it's you speaking to the camera saying, three tips for becoming a better rock climber. Four ways that you can lose weight this summer Watch this before you fly to Japan. It screams I'm about to educate you and it's kind of boring. So instead, here are five other formats that you can use to educate while entertaining your audience at the same time. Number one is what I like to call clones. And when I say clones, I don't mean replacing yourself with an AI version of yourself. I mean putting two of you or even three of you on the screen at the same time. You could have one character play the role of the beginner or the newbie and the other person play the role of the expert or the advanced person. You could have one person play the role of you five years ago and the other person play the role of you now. You could have a back and forth skit going on where they kind of talk to each other. This style of reel does require a little bit more editing capabilities, but I wouldn't call it a cinematic level of editing. And it can be super engaging when done correctly. Idea number two is ranking videos. These are the kinds of reels where you're choosing between this or that, or maybe there's a bracket and you're going to have different things, different items, different ideas, different strategies that relate to your niche. Compete to see who the ultimate winner is. Maybe you're going to rank different tools in your niche on a tier chart, or maybe you're going to rank them as bad, good, and Best. Again, this is something that requires a little bit more editing, doesn't require a professional degree in editing, but it does take a little bit more time, energy and effort. The third idea is green screens. Green screens might be the easiest to do out of all five of these ideas, because Instagram Stories, the Edits app, and most editing apps nowadays, even a lot of camera apps themselves have built in green screen modes that are pretty good at removing the background and putting you on top of whatever it is that you want to talk about. Whether that is a news article in your niche, whether that's someone else's post that you're going to be reacting to, whether that's a technique or a fake form or a competitor or whatever that you're going to be responding to. Green screen videos can be a really powerful and engaging form of content, and I would argue that they're actually pretty quick and easy to make. Idea number four is what's called a split screen or a top down reel. Basically, you have your reel split in half. The bottom half is you talking directly to the camera, and then the top half is either a screen recording if you're showing something that's on like a phone or a computer, or maybe it's just like illustrating a point visually through animation. Or the top half is literally a top down shot of your desk as you're showing us what you're doing, as you're giving a tip, as you're moving maybe pieces of paper around on a board to illustrate an example. Essentially you're giving the audience two things to consume at once, but both things are kind of talking to each other and they're aiding in your education. And then my fifth and final format that I would recommend is whiteboard content. Go to the store and purchase a whiteboard. Go on Amazon and purchase a whiteboard. They're like 10, 15, 20 bucks at most. Grab yourself a dry erase marker and use it to teach a point. Just like in school when you were literally in a classroom, your teacher didn't just talk to you wah, wah, wah, wah, the entire day. They also had a whiteboard. And the best teachers had a very dynamic whiteboard with art and illustrations and writings and diagrams and examples. And it just made education and made learning more fun. I want you to take that same principle and apply it to your reels on Instagram or to whatever content you are creating. Oh, and by the way, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, because every single week I put out helpful tips, ideas and strategies to help you grow your business. Online. Thank you so much for watching and as always, happy networking.
Host: Brock Johnson
Date: May 25, 2026
In this dynamic episode, Brock Johnson challenges one of the most persistent mantras in the creator and entrepreneur world: “make your content more valuable.” Brock argues that the interpretation of “valuable” content has become synonymous with “educational” content, and that this approach, once a growth driver, is now what’s holding brands and creators back. Instead, he advocates for a pivot towards entertaining content that still teaches, but does so by capturing attention and delivering dopamine alongside insight. He breaks down six actionable strategies – the “6 A’s” – to make content both captivating and educational, drawing on storytelling, boldness, and authenticity.
“The modern consumer doesn't go on social media to feel like they're back in a classroom. They go to unplug, to disconnect.” (03:39)
“What you end up happening is watering down yourself... to the point that you don’t really stand out.” (09:30)
Brock introduces a mnemonic–the “6 A’s”–to help creators elevate their educational content by making it engaging and memorable.
“I intentionally chose the acronym STD because you’re never going to forget it.” (10:07)
“Confidence can be perceived through camera… We want to follow people who are confident, who are bold, and who believe in what they’re saying.” (10:57)
“If the first three seconds of your video sucks, people are not going to stop and stick around.” (14:37)
“It’s those vulnerabilities, those mistakes, those imperfections which make you human, which differentiate you from AI, and which ultimately will allow people to connect with you.” (18:23)
“Any kind of content in moderation can be great. But [overdone styles like ‘b-roll with audio and a long caption’]... are boring for your audience and in many cases annoying.” (18:43)
“Valuable content is dead. I know, I know. For years you've been told, make your content more valuable… That’s wrong.” (01:18)
“We want to follow people who are confident, who are bold, and who believe in what they're saying. So stand on business, as Gen Z may say.” (10:57)
“Every single moment between idea and posting is another moment or layer that is getting less authentic. It's becoming less you, and it's becoming literally a filtered version of what was originally in your head.” (16:16)
“Stop doing it. It’s boring for your audience and… annoying for your audience.” (18:43)
If you want to grow your brand or business on social media, start treating your followers like an audience at a show—not a classroom.
Subscribe for more actionable tips from Brock every week!