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Over the last week, I stopped posting on social. I haven't posted on social in a week, and I normally average about a million views per month on Instagram alone. And I'm going to tell you what happens when you just stop posting completely. The Massive Agent podcast with lead generation tips and strategies to give you more leads and sell more homes. I love to buy houses. I like to sell houses. It takes brass balls to sell real estate. Wait a minute. The leads are weak. You're weak. I've had better. Oh, have I got your attention? Now? Here's your host, Dustin Brome. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Massive agent podcast, episode 444. I am your host, Dustin Brome in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I just got back from a week in Maui with my family, where I completely checked out. I was. I mean, I've looked at Instagram a little bit here or there. I think I posted two stories over the entire week that I was there, but I didn't do any posts. I average about a million views a month on Instagram, and I didn't post at all during this week on purpose. Now, the main purpose here was to check out and just to take a break, to take a breather, because, well, I think. I think it's very important and healthy to do that from time to time. But I, you know, I'm a. I'm. What's the word? I'm. I. I don't know why I can't think of the word. I am. Starts with an A. I. I'm very goal oriented. I'm very, like, aggressive and like. And want to get after it. And so it was really, really hard for me to take a break because, you know, like, I want to stay consistent. I want to keep going. I want to, like, I want to achieve. But I knew that I needed a break, and so, of course I was concerned. Well, what happens if I stop posting for a week? Is this gonna, like, Is all of a sudden, like, am I gonna have to dig out of a hole? Is this. Is the algorithm going to punish me for not posting? All of these things went through my mind, right? All these questions and misconceptions that we have as creators. But ultimately I said this. Look, my top priority here is to spend a week with my family and be present and actually enjoy being there and not have my head in my phone the whole time and not have my mind in. In work, not have my mind in post ideas and captions and, well, maybe I could post this or that. I recorded some stuff while I was there, of course, with content in mind for later, but I intentionally decided before I left for this trip that I'm just not going to post. I don't want to have to worry about it. I just wanted to be present and mentally check out and take a break. So here's what happened, right? Over the last week or so, yes, my views went down. I got fewer views because there were fewer videos, fewer new videos to get views on. So naturally, I like, for this week, I probably lost out on maybe a quarter of a million views on Instagram specifically. Okay, now here's the thing. Some of you may be like, well, I would have just kept posting. Like, I get it, I get it. And if I had kept posting and scheduled posts for the entire week, I could have scheduled it ahead of time. I chose not to. I wanted to run this experiment because I hear this concern from creators all the time. There's two ends to this, right? There's how often should I post? How am I going to keep up with it? And then there's, oh, my gosh, I've been doing this consistently. I can't let my foot off the gas. I can't let up or else bad things will happen to me. And I challenge that last part. If this message is really for those who have been consistently putting out stuff on social. You've been consistently posting, hopefully every single day. Hopefully at least one post a day and two to three stories per day minimum, guys. That's where you need to get to. Yes, there are benefits. Yes, it's beneficial. Yes, you will grow more if you post more often. If you post two, twice a day, three times a day, six times a day. Yes, but it's not sustainable for most agents because you are doing content, you are doing social media, you are doing the marketing on top of being the agent and running the business. So at a minimum, your goal should be one post per day, seven days a week, by the way, not just Monday through Friday. One post per day. A carousel, a reel, or a static image, if you must. If you must. If you're gonna do a static image, just add two or three more and make it a fricking carousel post. It'll perform so much better. It'll just perform so much better. But that's a minimum once per day. So get yourself there. If you're not there yet, get yourself there. And then two to three stories per day. Just behind the scenes, what you're up to, what you're interested in, what you find interesting at that moment, something you find funny. Something you're up to. Let people who already follow you get to know you through stories. Remember, stories are only seen by those who already follow you. They're only seen by the people who already know you. So act accordingly. You don't need to be doing home tours or, you know, three tips for buying your first investment property in your stories. That should be a feed post. That should be a feed post. Your story should be, I'm at Costco. I'm trying to decide between this hummus or that one. Which one should I pick? I know that sounds incredibly boring, but you'd be surprised at how engaging stupid stories like that that are. So I don't want to say stupid like as, as if it's not worth doing, but you don't have to think much about it. This has nothing to do with what you do for a living. That's the brilliance actually is it's so easy to engage with. It's so people. It's so easy for people to respond and vote and give their feedback because it's not a pitch, it's not, it's not business related. You're just being human and people connect over that stuff. My friend Chelsea Pites years ago did a story which is now famous at Costco where she just asked, asked people, she was like deciding between Kleenex boxes, right? Are you Team Rectangle or Team Square? And I believe to this day that's still her most engaged with story ever. And I'm talking about it years later has nothing to do with what she does for a living, but it's memorable. It's a human thing that people connect with. So two to three stories per day, not about businessy shit. Unless it, unless the business stuff is really freaking interesting and there's a story behind it. Cool. Got off on a tangent here. Giving you, you know like the minimum to hit one post a day, two to three stories a day. If you have been doing that consistently, this, this is really for you. If you're not there yet, you, if you need to take a break, do it. If you need to, if you don't have to, if it's just like, eh, I think I will get yourself consistent first. If you are consistent and you're at that place where you're like, I just, I need a break, I need a minute, I need to. This pressure of constantly doing new stuff, which by the way always helps if you just go back and post some of your best stuff from before. Don't be afraid to go, just repost some of your best stuff. I do this all the time. I mean, it's hard enough to come up with, with a new idea every single day. Well, if they're good ideas, why not repost them more than once? Because chances are your audience didn't see it the first time. The vast majority of them didn't see it the first time. So post it again. Wait a few weeks, a month, maybe two months, it really doesn't matter. Post it again and, and go into your analytics and look at your best performing stuff, your best post over the last year or two years and just keep reposting that and over and over and find different ways of doing it. Maybe you create a new piece that's similar to some of your best performing stuff. It's just a new spin on it or it elaborates further or it takes it, you know, part two, if it's worked well before, chances are it's going to work well again. Repost that stuff. It takes the pressure off. Okay, so this week when I was on the beach sweating my ass off because Hawaii is hot and it's humid and I'm from Utah, we don't have humidity. And so I was just in a constant state of sweat. It's just hot. Like if I was outside my hotel room at all, if we opened up the, the sliding door to the balcony at all, I start sweating. That's what Hawaii does to me. Loved it. Can't wait to go back, but still sweat my ass off the entire time. I just wanted to chill. Here's what happened. Yes, my views went down. Yes, I potentially quote, unquote, lost out on an average of a quarter million views over the week. But what I gained was so much clarity and so much like when you're constantly in that, that grind every single day and you're all these little teeny decisions, all these little teeny things you have to think about all the time, it starts to wear you down to where you're not even thinking about the big picture anymore. You're just so in the weeds with all the minutia that you're just stuck there. And so when I stopped posting and just didn't, didn't care for a week, I knew I was, my views were going to go down. But some, something really cool happened. There were some surprises, some positive surprises that I'll share with you here in a second that I think are cool because there's absolutely a lesson in that. Because there are certain types of content now that will keep working and keep bringing you opt ins and leads and conversations and views Weeks, months later, if you do it right. And I'll share that with you in a second. But when I was able to just chill and not, not be in the minutia, I was able to just like, like think clearly. I was able to think clearly. And now this is really my first full day back to work after my trip. I, it's just amazing how much less stressed I feel, like less pressure. I'm, I'm just like, like all that little teeny, especially like the to do list stuff, it just kind of melts away. And I'm like, okay, here's the most important thing, let's do that. Here's priority number two, let's do that. Priority number three, let's do that. And I'm just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, without, oh, I gotta do this, and also this. And then two weeks from now, I gotta do this. You guys know how that is when you just check out for a minute. It's amazing how productive doing nothing can be. And that's what I felt. So the views went down, messages went down, all that went down, but not completely. I noticed that my carousel posts, certain carousel posts with many chat automation where I was offering a certain thing, a download, a guide, certain AI prompts for Claude or chat GPT or something, those carousels kept getting me opt ins every single day. I kept getting views on them, I kept getting comments, kept getting engagement, and I kept getting opt ins on those carousel posts every single day. And so I left with fewer lead. Okay, I came back with more leads with, with a bigger pipeline, with a bigger email list than when I left. That's pretty cool. So carousels where you have a lead magnet, where you're offering something and there's many chat automation built in to keep the engagement going and to deliver the thing you're offering without you having to worry about it, those continue to do well. Like stuff that I posted two, three months ago is still getting me opt ins. So that's really cool. Some reels kept getting views for sure. But I also noticed like I kept getting more followers, I kept getting new people discovering me because the algorithm is like, wait a minute, we gotta show something. And they started to show some of my best stuff from the past and that reached new people, my audience grew. And so it wasn't all, it wasn't all bad, right? I still got opt ins, I still got views, carousels performed the best. But yes, ideally I would have just kept posting and I would have scheduled it ahead of time and all of that if I were to do it again. I. Now that I've run this experiment, I would schedule a bunch of posts ahead of time. So even though I'm mentally checked out, stuff still going out, there's still consistency happening. It was just scheduled ahead of time. So what I don't want to happen is for, is for you to think that you're in a place if you're not consistent yet. If you're not a consistent content creator and producer, and I'm talking months and months and months and months of being consistent. If you're not there yet, figure out a way to stay consistent. Keep going. Now, if you absolutely are just burned the hell out, stop, take a break, that's fine. It's not going to kill you, it's not going to kill your account. The algorithm is not going to punish you. It just takes. You just start. You just pick up where you left off. You literally just start posting again. Once you're ready to start posting again, don't worry about it, don't stress about it, don't give yourself, don't put a bunch of pressure on yourself over it, don't feel guilt around it. While at the same time, if you are capable, continuously prioritize content every single day. Right. Do you understand the distinction here? Some will use it, use this episode here as an excuse, like, oh, okay, I'm just going to take some time off because nothing bad will happen to me. Well, do you need, do you need to do that? Because if you're still in growth mode, which, honestly I feel like I'm still in growth mode. There's levels to this, right? I'm still in growth mode. I have big goals and I'm trying to get there. Ambitious. That's the fricking word that I could not think of, think of for the life of me earlier in the episode, which we better not cut that part out. Hopefully we didn't cut out my stammering and actually, hopefully we did. But the word, that word I was looking for was ambitious. I'm. I'm wildly ambitious. And so of course my default is like, well, I gotta post every day. But I wanted to run this experiment. I'm posting again and it just picks up where I left off. It just. It just picks up where you left off. I think even better for me personally in this situation because now I have more clarity, I'm able to think more creatively. I'm able to focus on like, all the minutia is just not there anymore. Like, that'll come back, which means I'll need another Break at some point, but don't beat yourself up. If you, if you miss a post for the day, it's not the end of the world. Your brand does not disappear from the Internet. Your credibility does not disappear instantly. It's just, yeah, it's, it's not ideal, but the world keeps spinning. All good, fine, Just pick up tomorrow, pick up after the weekend. If you need a break, take it while. If you can, keep going. If you don't truly need a break, don't take one, keep fricking going, or schedule to have this stuff posted. So you do take a few days off and stuff continues to get posted. Well, I hope this was helpful. I hope this was helpful. I learned that carousels are much more evergreen than reels right now. When you, when you do carousels that have a good offer, there's many chat automation, so it, it delivers the thing. As soon as somebody comments to get the thing, the engagement keeps going. Those carousels are, are crushing it. Now, if you have certain carousels that are offering something, a lead magnet, and you want those to keep going, pin them to the top of your profile. I'm speaking about Instagram specifically here, but pin them to the top so that any new new visitor that lands on your, on your page, on your profile, they see that at the top of the fold. If it's buried down there, then you're just relying on the algorithm to hopefully serve it up to people. But if it's really good and you, if it's performing well, if you want it to continue performing well, if it's giving people something of value, they're obviously opting in, they want the thing. Pin that post to the top of your, to the top of your profile and it'll just keep going. And don't be so damn hard on yourself. Don't be so damn hard on yourself. I'm ambitious as hell, but once I decided I'm just not going to post and just, I'm going to see what happens, what's the worst that could happen? And I, I just, I didn't even think about it for another second. I didn't worry about it at all. I had so much peace in that decision because I knew my brand wasn't going to disappear. The Internet wasn't going to forget about me. And once I started picking up where I left off, I'd pick up where I left off, albeit maybe a week behind, where I could have been. But so what? That's all theoretical. Maybe I'm a week behind, but I think I'm Actually further ahead because of the clarity that I now have, the energy, the focus, the new ideas, I'm not bogged down by all the minutia and bullshit. So if you're a consistent content creator and you've been posting consistently and you feel burned out or you feel like you've hit this creative rut, take the weekend off. So freaking what? The algorithm will not punish you. It's all fine. Sometimes taking a step back or taking a break, just not taking a step is the fastest way forward. If you find yourself in one of those ruts while at the same time, and I know this will sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here, while at the same time, whenever I get into those content ruts, those creative ruts, those places where, like, I'm just not inspired, I'm just not feeling it, I'm not excited. Posting through it has helped me and consuming other stuff to where I get ideas and I try something new usually gets me excited about, about the new thing and posting through it. So if you do get into those ruts, be careful for how long you stop for, if you stop at all. Because, like, that could be the worst time to stop. The only way through is like, keep, keep pushing through that. It could be the algorithm, it could be you in a. Just in a rut. It happens frequently actually. Just keep going. Just keep going. I hope this was helpful. Whoever needed to hear this, hopefully you heard it. So there you go. Maui is beautiful. Road to Hana. Amazing. We. We did this awesome tour where we. I didn't drive the road to Hana. Thank God. We had a tour, a tour guide in this awesome van drive us from. Drive us to Hana. On the road to Hana, we stopped at some waterfalls, got the banana bread and did all the stuff and then we took a helicopter back. That was the hack. That is an incredible. So we didn't have to worry about driving all the way back exhausted, for another, what, three hours or whatever it was. Three, four hours. That was the hack. I'd never been in a helicopter before. My family had never. That was, that was amazing. Amazing. That was the highlight of the, of the trip for sure. And now, as you know, if you've ever been on a vacation, you get back and you're like, well, shit, I gotta plan the next one. So let me know where I should go next. Let me know where I should take my family next. I'm thinking it involves a passport. Thanks for listening, guys. I'll see you guys next week on the Massive Agent podcast. Share this episode, please, with an agent or a broker or team leader who you feel like needs to hear this. A fellow content creator that you know is burned out. They're spinning their wheels. They're trying. Send them this podcast. Let them hear this message, and help me. Help me help you. Actually, I don't know how you do help me to grow this, to. To grow the audience and to reach new agents. And I will keep coming back with new episodes every single week for you here on the Massive Agent podcast. Take care.