← Social Media Marketing Podcast
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- [00:01]
Michael Stelzner
Hey there, it's Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner. Are you a marketer trying to navigate the AI revolution? What if you could create content twice as fast, automate tedious tasks and become the go to AI expert in your company? The AI Business Society brought to you by your friends at Social Media examiner gives you expert led training, a supportive community and proven frameworks to master AI marketing that will boost your value and your productivity. Join now and lock in your discounted member pricing@socialmediaexaminer.com AI welcome to the Social Media marketing podcast helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for these social media marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host Michael Stelzner and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads and more sales. Today I'm going to be joined by Brock Johnson and we're going to explore how to create share worthy content on Instagram. If you're struggling finding a new audience or attracting a relevant audience to you on Instagram, that this is the episode for you. By the way, are you new to this show? Follow this show for some great content coming your way. Let's now transition over to this week's interview with Brock Johnson, helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today I'm very excited to be joined by Brock Johnson. If you don't know who Brock is, he's an Instagram strategist that helps creators and small businesses succeed with Instagram. His podcast is build your tribe. His Insta Club hub is a membership that helps marketers and creators grow and monetize on Instagram. Brock, welcome to the show. How you doing?
- [02:08]
Brock Johnson
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- [02:11]
Michael Stelzner
I'm super excited that you're here. Today Brock and I are going to explore how to create share worthy content on Instagram that can help you grow. So before we get into that, Brock, I'd love to hear a little bit of your backstory. Like how did you get started in the Instagram and marketing, Marketing and all that jazz. Start wherever you want to start.
- [02:27]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. I'll start at the beginning of my professional career, that is, which is when I was about 19 years old. As a freshman in college, I started an online course. And the online course was a way for moms to learn how to use Snapchat and thus keep their teens safe on Snapchat. That was my first ever business. And a lot of the guidance, the ideas, and really my mentor for that first ever business was my mom and dad, which some of the listeners of this show might know. My mom, Chalene Johnson. I was raised in a very entrepreneurial family, and I would be remiss to not mention them and. And the huge role that they had in shaping me into who I am today. And that first course was very much mentored by my mom, but that's where I got started. It's very different than what I'm doing today, but I believe that it was through getting started and through doing something that, you know, scared me a little bit and challenged me a little bit that I was able to evolve and grow and change over time. And so, like I said, I got started with teaching moms how to keep their kids safe on Snapchat. From there, it grew into a way to teach Snapchat marketing and teach how to use Snapchat to grow a business. And this was back in 2016 and 2017, and right around that time, Instagram released Instagram Stories. And this caused kind of a mass exodus from Snapchat. And a lot of people jumped ship and left Snapchat and went back to Instagram. And so I followed suit and I began applying a lot of what I learned about Snapchat Stories to this new thing called Instagram Stories. And ever since then, I've been what I am today, which is an Instagram strategist and Instagram marketing coach, helping people figure out how to both grow and make sales with their Instagram.
- [04:10]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. So you pivoted. And I remember that mass exodus once Instagram has this way of stealing features, right? Like in Facebook and all the platforms. Right. So I remember when that happened. So tell me a little bit about the journey, what it was like to reposition from known as a Snapchat guy to being known as an Instagram person. And then a little bit of the journey leading up to the business that you're running today.
- [04:34]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. So the transition was seamless, actually, from Snapchat to Instagram, because like you said, and like so many of us know, Instagram is kind of known for stealing, or you might call it ripping off, or the nicer way to say is, you know, copying features from other platforms. And so when Instagram Stories first released, it was almost identical to Snapchat Stories. And so I had two to three years of establishing my credibility, my expertise, and building experiences of coaching people with Snapchat Stories. So I just began applying that to Instagram in terms of the actual transition of the business. It was also kind of seamless. It was almost serendipitous how it worked out, because at the time, I was a college student athlete. And this was before the days of name, image and likeness, like it is today, where student athletes can get paid for being who they are. Back in my day, they couldn't. And in fact, it was the total opposite. It was actually not allowed to earn an income based off of who you were as a student athlete. And so there was about a six to eight month period where my business had to be on pause while the NCAA investigated me and cleared me and make made sure that I wasn't just an illegal front for donors to give money to the football. Wow. But once that was cleared, once the NCAA said, you know, you're good to go, you had this business prior to becoming a student athlete so you can continue and resume your business operations. Right as they gave me that green light was right when this mass exodus was happening and right as people were shifting from Snapchat to Instagram. And so rather than pressing play and unpausing my business on Snapchat, I used it as an opportunity to relaunch on Instagram. And then once I relaunched on Instagram, it was two to three years of, of tough sledding. You know, slow and steady wins the race, Gaining followers, but definitely not going viral or blowing up. And then we fast forward to April of 2021. So about four years ago now, and Instagram reels were a relatively new thing. And I decided to challenge myself to post a reel a day for 30 days. April 2021. 30 reels in 30 days. There was a challenge just for myself. It wasn't a marketing ploy. It wasn't a way to get leads for our business, Purely just a way to challenge myself. And I invited everyone who was following me to do it along with me. I said, hey, if you want to challenge yourself every day, recreate the same reel that I am and we can do this all together. And at the end of that month, the results were crazy. I had grown over 100,000 followers. I had had numerous viral reels. I had had tons of new leads and customers come into our business. People were following me for the tips that I was giving out in the daily inspiration that I was posting. And that's really the spark that ignited the business that we currently have today, where Now I've got 700 something thousand followers on Instagram, still posting at least a reel a day. And we actually just Finished up another Reels challenge that we did in April 2025 as kind of like a four year anniversary challenge. And so, yeah, it's been a really great organic growth over the last four to five years.
- [07:44]
Michael Stelzner
Love that. Thanks for adding that to the story. That's fascinating to me. So for the marketers and creators that are listening right now, the concept of creating shareworthy content, why is that so important? Like, what do they need to understand about the concept of share worthy and why that might be highly advantageous to them?
- [08:04]
Brock Johnson
Shareworthy content is how you grow. It's how you go viral. It's how you reach a new audience. Not just on Instagram, but I would argue on pretty much every social media in 2025. And yes, there are algorithms at play, and yes, we need to be aware of them. And the algorithms do oftentimes dictate the outcomes or the success or failure of our posts. But at the end of the day, we have to remember we're trying to reach people. Our customers are real people. Our followers for the most part are real people. And real people find new content through shares, shares, or sending a post from one person to another, whether it's via text or direct message, or whether it's in your group chat, or whether it's sharing a post to your stories that all of your followers see it. That's how we discover new content. And the content that we discover through shares is much more curated, it's much more engaging than the content that is recommended to us by the algorithm. I'll give you an example. I could scroll through Instagram for an hour, post that genuinely make me laugh out loud, or genuinely bring a smile to my face or teach me something or say something that I really needed to hear. But if my wife sends me just one single reel that she sees on Instagram that makes her think of me or that she thinks would make me laugh, it's so much more likely to have that outcome because it's a human deciding these things rather than the algorithm. Speaking of the algorithm, we recently did a study on Instagram where we looked at what is the result of getting one additional like versus one additional comment versus one additional save versus one additional share. So those four primary forms of engagement, what, what's kind of the difference there? And shares blew the other three out of the water. The other three peaked at around 50 additional views for getting one like or one comment or one save. But when you get just one additional share, we see that equate to anywhere from 150 to up to 400 additional views just from one single share. And then imagine if just One of those 400 people also shared it. And that's how this can kind of spiral or snowball into your best post, your most viral post. So that's why I say that shares and creating shareworthy posts is really the key to grow for people that are.
- [10:26]
Michael Stelzner
Not super savvy on Instagram, which is a section of my audience, maybe they're focused on the other platforms. What does a share actually mean on Instagram and how is it perhaps different than the other social platforms?
- [10:38]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, it's actually super similar to the other social platforms. The only difference might be that they have different icons. Sometimes, you know, on, on YouTube or on TikTok, it might be an arrow. Sometimes on Instagram it's denoted by like a paper airplane icon. But when I say a share, I'm essentially referring to seeing a post and sending it to a friend. Like I said, sometimes it can be like a dm. Yeah, a dm. Sometimes it can be a message outside of Instagram, sometimes it can be a group chat. But a share. You could also call it a repost. Instagram doesn't have like a repost retweet button. But if you are familiar with retweets on Twitter, same basic idea. You're basically taking a post that you have seen from someone else and sharing it with another person.
- [11:20]
Michael Stelzner
Fascinating. Okay, so let's talk about the types of content that are share worthy. Right. Because so many of us who are marketers might be making content that is not share worthy. If I can be very straightforward. Right, because maybe it's promotional in nature or you know, because that's part of our job as marketers or creators even who are trying to promote things. So let's kind of clarify what kind of content is the best kind of content when it comes to ultimately being something that can be shared?
- [11:50]
Brock Johnson
Absolutely. And the primary kind of post that I see most marketers and social media managers making fall into one of two categories. And both of these categories are not share worthy for the most part. One of them is the one you just mentioned, which is promotional or advertisement or marketing related posts. Posts that the purpose of the post is to make a sale. And those posts absolutely have a purpose. I'm not telling people who are listening today to stop selling and stop marketing and stop promoting, but don't expect those marketing promotional posts to be very share worthy. The other kind of post that people are making that's rarely shareworthy is the one that most people are focused on. Most of the time, which is the valuable content. And when most people hear valuable content, they think of an educational post sharing some quick tips or maybe some information or some hacks or strategies that someone might not know of. And at the end of the day, those are very valuable. But those are rarely share worthy. Those have a purpose, those have a value. But the purpose of those posts is not to be shareworthy. I often think about it as like the textbooks that fill the shelves in libraries, very, very valuable. But how often are you getting your friends recommending you, hey, you got to read this textbook. Hey, there's this new manuscript, you got to check it out. That rarely is happening. But your friends are recommending other movies and other books and other things that you watch. And so it's the same sort of idea here. And there are five kinds of posts that are shareworthy.
- [13:22]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah. Before we get into it, I just want to like clarify to some people, because for some people what you just talked about is their entire strategy, okay? Literally their entire strategy is to share tips and is to promote. So just to clarify, in case you missed what I believe Brock was trying to say at the value proposition of share worthy content is to get you in front of a new audience. I mean, that's the key. Right? So there's a place, I would imagine for this other kind of content which is more. It sounds like a nurturing kind of content where this is, this share worthy content is going to get you in front of your ideal prospect. Right. Because ideally, for whatever reason, these people for free are going to basically evangelize you to everyone that they know. And as a result of it, you will attract that audience to you. You do not have to pay for that audience. Right. I just wanted to clarify that. Is that really kind of the key value proposition here?
- [14:14]
Brock Johnson
Exactly, exactly. There is a value in creating educational content. It is to show your expertise to give knowledge, to give away quick wins. But at the end of the day, you can't give away quick wins. You can't teach an audience if you don't first have butts in the seats in the classroom. There's no in creating educational textbooks if no one's going to read them. And so I view shareworthy content as the way to reach this ideal audience. Bring them into the classroom, sit them down, bring them to your account, bring them to your page, bring them to your business, and then from there you can do the other two things, which is creating that valuable educational content and or the promotional marketing content that's actually going to convert them from just a follower or a viewer into an actual customer. And so the share worthy content is ultimately, yes, how you reach them.
- [15:05]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, we're going to get to these five types in just a second. What's the recommended content mix? Or if we had a pie chart, what percentage of the content from your perspective for your brand is shareworthy versus the other kinds of content? Just to help people wrap their head around this.
- [15:21]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, I think part of it is going to vary dependent upon what stage you're at. If you're in a stage where you are actively launching and promoting something, let's say you have a new course or a new workshop that you want people to attend or sign up for, well then during that period I would scale back on your shareworthy posts because you're not necessarily trying to reach a new audience during that period, you're trying to convert your existing audience. So maybe during that period you're going to scale it back to 25% or 20% or even less of your content being shareworthy. But then there might be other periods where you're not in an active launch or a sale and you recognize that your engagement is down or your views are struggling. And so in order to boost those numbers up and get more fresh eyeballs or leads or followers to your account, you might scale up the shareworthy post. So for me, it's typically, it varies like I said, but typically around 50 to 60% of my posts fall into this share worthy content. And then the remaining 40 to 50% are divided between the other two, the promotional and the educational or the quick tip content.
- [16:25]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, cool. So let's break down the different types of content that is share worthy content.
- [16:31]
Brock Johnson
Totally. I'll share what each of these five are and as I'm saying them, I want everyone listening to really think about the kinds of things that they are sending to their friends and family, the things that they are messaging to their colleagues, and also the things that are being messaged to them. And I bet it'll fall into one of these five categories, if not overlapping into multiple. The first one is motivational content. Motivational or inspirational content. The great thing about motivational inspirational content is that motivation is always fleeting, right? Motivation is always ebbing and flowing, going up and down. It's something that people need all the time. And especially when we think about the modern world and being on social media, so much of it can feel negative and draining and dejecting. And so creating a motivational or inspirational post, especially when it relates to your niche or industry, can be very Share worthy. And that last thing I said is something that I want people to keep in mind as I share the other four kinds of share worthy content as well, which is that for all of these things, for all of these different kinds of share worthy content, they need to relate to your niche. Like, sure, if you have some great motivational Bible verse or some great quote that you love, that's great, you know, put that tattoo that on your arm or you know, hang it above your fireplace. But if it doesn't relate to your industry, if it doesn't relate to the niche that you're posting within on Instagram, I wouldn't recommend posting it in the first place.
- [18:00]
Michael Stelzner
Can you give a quick example of what maybe you might do?
- [18:03]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, totally. So when it relates to like my niche and everyone who follows me wants to grow on Instagram, they want to build a business on Instagram. And so for me, I'm going to post a motivational reminder about growth on social media. I posted one the other day. That was Mr. Beast. It took him over a thousand videos. And I'm paraphrasing this, so I might get the numbers a little off, but Mr. Beast posted over a thousand videos to get his first 100 subscribers. Mel Robbins posted over 300 times on Instagram before she hit 10k followers. Me, Brock Johnson. I posted for nine years before I had my first viral post. And so this was sort of a inspirational or motivational reminder to people that, hey, success is rarely overnight. These people who you might look up to as the experts in their industry, it might look like they had success overnight, but it took years, it took time. And so that was a way that I could create a motivational message that was related to my niche and thus very shareworthy.
- [18:59]
Michael Stelzner
Love it.
- [18:59]
Brock Johnson
So number two is the one that most people, most accounts, most businesses are going to do the least of. But in many cases they can be the most viral. And I think the easiest example of this is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. And really what this kind of shareworthy post is is a community post. That's kind of the overarching term. I've sometimes called this a call to arms post. It's the kind of post that is asking for help and getting people involved. So the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, many of us are familiar with it, one of the most viral social media challenges of the early 2010s and now in 2025. I don't know if you've seen this, Michael, but it's made its way back.
- [19:40]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah, my kids are doing it. Yeah, it's Mental Health Challenge.
- [19:42]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, exactly. There's like a new Ice Bucket Challenge. And so essentially what this is doing is it's getting people to all raise awareness for something, to raise funds for something. And so like I said, this one is not the one you're going to be posting every single day, Right. If every single day you're doing a new version of the Ice Bucket Challenge, it's going to lose its power, it's going to lose its luster. But if, let's say every few weeks or every few months, you have a cause that's really, really important to you or to your brand or to your business and it relates to your industry, it relates to your niche, it can be a really powerful way to tap in on this larger community and saying, hey, let's all get involved, let's all help each other out, let's all raise awareness or raise funds or spread this message. And again, not every single day, but when done sparingly, this can be really, really powerful.
- [20:31]
Michael Stelzner
Could it also be National Day, like Social Media Day or whatever? Like, could it be some sort of like celebratory event that's not necessarily a cause?
- [20:40]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, 100, 100. That was a great example. And like May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So if there's a way that you can relate mental health, not just, you know, for mental health's sake, but in my case, mental health and social media. If you were someone who is a fitness coach, you could talk about mental health and how it relates to body image and the way we talk to ourselves in the gym. So taking these kind of timely or culturally significant moments or specific days, celebrations and relating them back to your niche is yeah, definitely a way to make this sort of share worthy post.
- [21:13]
Michael Stelzner
Cool. What's next?
- [21:14]
Brock Johnson
Next is the one that people are most common with, the one that everyone's like, oh yeah, that's the number one thing that I'm sharing and it's relatable content. Oftentimes this is going to take the place of memes, it's going to look like jokes, it's going to be humor, it might be self deprecating humor, it might be relatable or extreme humor. That sort of content is highly, highly share worthy because it is easy to understand and it elicits a quick emotional reaction and it's an emotional reaction that doesn't feel too deep. Right. If I see something that reminds me of my wife and it makes me laugh and I share it with her, that will make her laugh. It's quick, it's easy and it's fun. And the biggest tip that I can give people for relatable content is be specific. Relatability comes from specificity. The more specific you can get with your joke, with your text, with your whatever relatable post you're making, the more people will see it and they'll think, oh my gosh, I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only person who felt this way. I thought I was the only person who had this experience. But the reality is there's 8 billion of us and most of us are experiencing the same frustrations, the same emotions, the same challenges. And so when you can specifically highlight those in your post, in your meme, in your content, people are really going to resonate with it that much more strongly. And that increases the likelihood that they will share it. I'll give you an example of this one, Michael. I'm not sure. Have you seen either the first or the second movie, Inside Out?
- [22:47]
Michael Stelzner
Oh yeah, both of them. I saw both of them. Yeah. Anxiety was the central character. Yeah. In the second one.
- [22:52]
Brock Johnson
Great movie. So there's the anger character, right? He's like this little ball of fire. He's wearing his little suit and he's angry. If I took a photo of him and I added the text me when I'm angry, it wouldn't really be that funny because it's not that specific. Like you might be like, haha, Brock's saying he gets really angry. Okay, but you're not probably going to share it. It's not that relatable. But if I took that photo of the angry emotion from inside out and I added text above it, that was like when I just sent my post back for the 17th round of revisions to my boss and he's continuing to add more changes and now the trend is over. It's super specific, it's longer, and that makes it more relatable. Or if I was like me, when the algorithm has changed for the 14th time since Tuesday, that's relatable. It's funny, me when I spent three hours working on an Instagram reel and I got seven likes and two spam comments. It's relatable because it's specific and that makes it more share worthy.
- [23:54]
Michael Stelzner
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- [25:29]
Brock Johnson
Yeah.
- [25:29]
Michael Stelzner
Now, beyond memes, can you also just maybe tell little stories, like a little carousel, like the kind of struggles marketers face with like email, hit the spam tab again, you know, like that kind of stuff, right?
- [25:43]
Brock Johnson
Yeah.
- [25:43]
Michael Stelzner
Can you talk about if you're talking to marketers are going to know that's a problem. Right? Like, and sales plummeted. Right. Or can you relate? Is that the kind of stuff that.
- [25:50]
Brock Johnson
You could also do a thousand percent? It doesn't just have to be the stereotypical memes that we think of when I say memes. It can be any sort of content. It can even be you. I've oftentimes some of my most share worthy stuff is a video of me working in my office and getting frustrated and slamming my laptop. And sure, I might be over dramaticizing it for the purpose of the video, but then I'm adding some text that is the same examples you just gave or the examples that I just gave earlier. And so there's ways that you can creatively make your own video or make your own content. The key is just the text, right? The key is how you're relating this content, this video, this photo, this meme, this emotion that's being portrayed in the content, how I'm relating that to my niche and that's done through the text. The text provides the context which makes it relatable and thus share worthy.
- [26:43]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so so far we have talked about motivational slash inspirational content, we've talked about community content which Is the getting the community rally around something we talked about relatable? What's the next one?
- [26:54]
Brock Johnson
Okay, the fourth one is controversial content. And so this is what I want all of your listeners to do today, Michael. I want all of them to set a goal to get canceled. I want them to be emotional and defamatory and slant. No, I'm, I'm kidding. I don't want them to do any of that. But controversial content does elicit shares. And when I say controversial content, I'm not talking about being slanderous. I'm not talking about calling people out and using curse words and like, you know, walking the line of what's going to get banned on the platform. I simply mean sharing your niche related, unpopular opinions. That's the easiest way to think about this controversial content. You're not posting controversy for the sake of controversy. You're talking about things that you truly believe. You're dispelling myths that are commonly spread in your industry. You're talking about outdated advice. You're talking about things that you believe in that other leaders in your industry disagree with. And it's totally fine to disagree. You don't need to go after that person. You're just dispelling the myth or sharing your own opinion or stance on these ideas.
- [28:04]
Michael Stelzner
I've got a perfect example. I shared, I stand for the M dash. Always have, always will, okay? And the reason I posted that is because writers are like not using that long dash anymore because they're getting criticized that it's AI content. That is an example, right?
- [28:22]
Brock Johnson
Thousand percent. And also on a sidebar, I could not agree with you more. I've been an em-user forever and now I hate that people are like, if you use an EM dash, I know you're using chat GPT And I'm like, no, I've been using the EM dash since I was in middle school. School. I love that thing.
- [28:36]
Michael Stelzner
That's an example of taking a stance on something, right? That's like an example of doing it in a way that you're taking a controversial stance that's actually relevant to your industry and most people are either going to agree or disagree. But it's, it's not that controversial, technically.
- [28:49]
Brock Johnson
Exactly. It's not that controversial. It's not something that's going to get you canceled, so to speak. It's not something that is going to deeply offend someone. But guess what, Michael, in that example you just gave, when I see that post of yours talking about how you love the EM dash and you're going to keep using it. Because hey, you've been using it since before, before AI started using it in every single paragraph. Guess what? When I see that post of yours, I'm going to share it. I'm probably going to share it to my story and say, hey, look everyone, me too. I believe in this too. And that's why this quote unquote controversial content is so share worthy. Because maybe I didn't think of the idea myself, but as soon as I heard you say it, I was like, oh my gosh, yes. Or maybe I did think of it myself, but I wasn't. And this is oftentimes the case, I wasn't bold enough to say it myself. And so the cool thing about the shareworthy content is it's a way for your followers to kind of say like, hey, I believe this too. I agree with this. This is also what I think without saying it themselves, like boosting up a message and creating more publicity for the message without them having to explicitly say it themselves. And that's why this controversial content is so powerful. And the final thing I'll say about the controversial content is there will always be people who disagree. It's the Internet. That's how the Internet works.
- [30:09]
Michael Stelzner
That's not a bad thing though, right? Because it creates discussion.
- [30:12]
Brock Johnson
Exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say is when you make that post about how you're going to keep using the EM dash and how you've been using it for so long, there's going to be people who are like, no way, I hate AI. No way. I, I totally think that you're using AI and they're going to comment, which is more engagement. It can create conversation, it can create opportunities to learn. And of course the algorithm loves when you get a lot of people leaving these long multi paragraph. I disagree. Comments.
- [30:36]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, cool, what's your fifth one?
- [30:38]
Brock Johnson
Last but not least, this one is the one that requires the most flexibility or adaptability, the most speed and efficiency, and it's timely content. Timely content is the kind of content that oftentimes the brands, the brands who have a major corporation with thousands of employees and they need 17 different checks to put out. This is the kind of content that they often struggle with. And so I'm hoping that if any of those people are listening today, they can send this to this episode to their higher ups and hopefully get approval or a little bit more trust to be able to create content faster. Because we all know those trends that are super popular and we love them for the first few days and then A few days later, we're like, wait, why is this still being posted? I think the most obvious example of timely content. And when I say timely content, I lump trends in, but I don't exclusively mean trends. I think one easy way to think of timely content is like the Super Bowl. Every year, not just the super bowl, but the super bowl halftime show is a moment where there are a few timely memes that come out or a few screenshots that are like, this is so popular, this image is so popular that the day of and the day after the super bowl, that image is everywhere. This year, one of the ones that comes to mind is Kendrick Lamar. He's walking kind of sideways and he turns his head to the camera and he says directly into the camera, say, Drake. And that specific moment of him with a big smile on his face, that blew up and became a super popular meme. Well, if you're using that timely and trending content the day of the super bowl or the day after the super bowl, great. You are timely. But if three weeks go by and you finally get approval to use that, that screen grab, well, then now it's too late. That cultural moment has moved on. We see this happen time and time again, especially nowadays with trending audios or trending formats for like, you know, right now, there's a lot of really popular trends going out about creating an AI action figure of yourself or creating an AI, this version of yourself. It's super popular for a day or two, but a week or two later it suddenly lost its power. And so if you can be quick, basically you're tapping into pop culture as a whole. The cool thing about this and the reason that this kind of content is so share worthy is that it kind of falls into what I call a nap. And NAP stands for a niche adjacent post. So it's still the text on the screen or the way I'm talking about this timely pop culture, this headline news, it's still relating to my niche, but it's kind of reaching outside of my niche. It's somewhat adjacent to my niche, and so it allows me to tap into what everyone is paying attention to. You know, like whenever there's a finale of a new show, something that's becoming super popular. That's another example of a timely or trending type of moment that can, oftentimes, when capitalized on, when used in your social content, gain popularity. Love it.
- [33:37]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so we've talked about these five different types in reverse order. It's timely, controversial, relatable, community, and motivational. And inspirational. So, so give us some thoughts on. Actually, if we want to create this kind of content, we want to pick a couple of these categories. Do you have any tips on like really how to think this through?
- [33:58]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. I think a huge part of it is looking at the sorts of things that you enjoy sending and the sorts of things that you enjoy getting sent. And specifically looking outside of your industry. I think a huge mistake that a lot of marketers are making is that they're looking within their niche, right? They're a real estate agent and they're looking at what other real estate agents are doing. They are a B2B fitness product and they're looking at what other fitness products are doing and what that ultimately will lead to is you just kind of being a cheap knockoff or at best a second place of your quote unquote competition. So one of the best things you can do when you're thinking about share worthy content is number one, look at what other niches, other industries, other verticals are doing and what's working for them in this share worthy sort of content. And then another thing that you can do is look at the kinds of content that has worked for you in the past. Now of course, if you're like brand new to social, if you're just getting started, this isn't going to work super well. But if you have been posting for at least a few months, take a look back at the sorts of things that have been share worthy for you, the sorts of things that have generated the most shares or sends in your past posts and then just think about, is there a way that you could either recreate this content or literally post it a second time? Because oftentimes people didn't see it the first time, they missed it, but it was proven to be shareworthy. And so posting it a second time can be a great way to use the content and the work you've already done and have a little bit more shelf life.
- [35:32]
Michael Stelzner
Just for the people that aren't familiar with the Instagram Dashboard or Insights or whatever, like what metrics are we looking for when it comes to this share worthy? Do they make it easy to discover it or are we just looking for the ones with, with the most views or what are we looking for exactly?
- [35:47]
Brock Johnson
They do make it easy. If you go to your Instagram Insights, you should be able to sort your posts. I believe you can go up to the last 90 days and sort based off how many shares those posts received. Or if you use some sort of like third party tool to manage or schedule or track your content. Most third party tools have access to that data as well. And it's relatively easy to find which posts got the most shares. And even if you can't find the most shares, one thing that you just said, Michael, is. Yeah, usually if you look at the post that got the most views, there's usually a pretty strong correlation between the views and the shares.
- [36:20]
Michael Stelzner
Let's say we find one that had a lot of views. Is this where AI can maybe take a screenshot of it, give it to AI and have it come up with some other ideas? Like how do you use AI to maybe help you get more ideas, for lack of better words?
- [36:33]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. So that's, that's part of it is you can use these past posts that have done well, take screenshots of them, or if it was, let's say, a spoken reel, maybe you're going to take your transcription of the audio or your script that you used for that reel, pop it into AI and have it generate similar but modified ideas. That is definitely one way that you can use AI. Another way that I like to use AI specifically for these shareworthy posts is when it comes to the relatable posts, sometimes I'll struggle to, and we all struggle with this sometimes is think about, is there a simpler way to say this? Like, yes, I want this to be specific so that it is relatable, but I also want to use words that the average person would understand. I also want to use terms that people would relate to. I also want to highlight the struggles that other people who do what I do or other people in my niche have. And so oftentimes you can rely on AI to kind of be your focus group and vet different ideas and come up with different ways of saying things that would be simpler or easier to understand. Or sometimes it's even just something as, as simple as sentence structure. How do I structure this sentence so that it's easier to read? Because there's, there's always those sentences where we got to read through it three or four times to just understand what they're trying to say. So pop that into AI and have it create a version that is a little bit more comprehendable. And that's definitely a way that you could create more shareworthy posts with the help of AI.
- [37:58]
Michael Stelzner
Perfect. Okay, so as you mentioned at the top of the interview, there are stories, there are reels, there are. We didn't mention this, but carousels and images. So, like, how do we know what types of videos or visuals make the most amount of Sense for these various things. Like, talk to me a little bit about if some of these things work better in, in like carousels versus reels and images and stuff like that.
- [38:24]
Brock Johnson
According to most studies, video content, which on Instagram would be reels, receives more shares than non videos on Instagram. Non videos are photos and they are carousels which are show posts. But what I found on my own account personally is actually kind of the opposite. And usually for me, my still images or my carousels receive more shares. And so ultimately for everyone listening, what I would say is, why not both? If you create a relatable meme or a relatable text or story or whatever, you could do one version where it is you or whoever the face is saying that relatable text or that relatable story to the camera. So that would be a spoken head reel. You could do another version that is not spoken audio. Maybe there's a background audio, maybe there's some music playing or whatever and there's just text on the screen above the video or layered on top of the video that has the same text, has the same story, has the same relatable sort of idea.
- [39:27]
Michael Stelzner
That's not a reel with music. I mean, that's not a carousel with music. That's still a real. Right?
- [39:30]
Brock Johnson
Still a real. Yeah. So the only difference is instead of me saying the words to the camera, it's a video of me, let's say, typing on my phone and getting really frustrated. And the text on the screen says something about how I'm frustrated with the Instagram algorithm. And then I could do a third version, that is a photo, a photo of me getting super frustrated. Maybe I'm mid shot, you know, throwing my phone on the ground and about to smash it, or maybe I'm breaking my phone in half or something. And yes, you could use AI to help you generate these images so you don't have to to spend marketing budget on breaking iPhones. But again, photo version, same text on the screen. And then you could even create a fourth post that is a carousel that maybe has multiple images that all kind of depict the same idea or they have the same relatable text but the image changes. And now you just created four different posts which will appeal to four different people, but ultimately all come back to the same idea. And so I'm a big fan of whenever possible using the ideas that you have, using the content that you've already made in different styles. I think one of the real beauties of Instagram is we have all these different kinds of posts, we have photos and carousels and reels, and even within reels there's multiple different kinds of reels you could create. And so for every idea, try to create more than one version of that idea.
- [40:48]
Michael Stelzner
What's your thoughts on the written caption? In context of everything we just talked.
- [40:52]
Brock Johnson
About, I think that the written caption is somewhat overrated, especially when it comes to share worthy content. According to our recent polls, less than 50% of people who see your post will begin reading the caption and less than 10% of people will make it to the end of the caption. And so what that tells me is most people are spending way too much time over analyzing writing these multi paragraph captions or trying to trick their audience into reading the caption and forcing them to read a long caption just for the sake of a long caption. And don't get me wrong, I am all for writing a long caption if it's necessary. If you have a recipe that you need to share, or some tips that need some explaining, or a story that needs to be told, or context and backstory, heck, write a long caption. Go for it. But my biggest tip is that if you can't get people to read, if you aren't the type of engaging copywriter or storyteller to actually get people to read the long caption, then you're wasting your time and you're straining your thumb muscles to write that long caption for nothing. And so, especially when it comes to relatable content, I oftentimes keep my captions short and sweet. And if I look at my top 30 most shared posts, I believe only one or two of them have a caption that is longer than two sentences. Say it at the reverse, about 28 of them, or 29 of them have a caption that is only one to two sentences long. Some of them don't even have any text in the caption. It just might be a laughing emoji. Or it might be a call to action that says share this if you agree. And really, that's all that needs to be said because the post itself is doing most of the talking.
- [42:30]
Michael Stelzner
When we were prepping for this, you talked about the importance of inviting the follow. Talk to me a little bit about what that means and how we work that into this.
- [42:39]
Brock Johnson
Absolutely. This is such a huge point because the algorithm has really changed over the last few months. It's one of the reasons that shareworthy content, while it's been important for the last few years, it's now more important than ever but another reason is that with this algorithm change specifically on Instagram, most people's reels are getting shown to more non followers than ever before. So in the past, Michael, it was, you know, about 90% of your viewers were existing followers. They already know you, they've already decided to follow you, they probably have already seen some of your posts and maybe even know part of your story. But now the percentages have totally changed and people are seeing 40, 50, even 60 or 70% of their views coming from non followers. And so again, I'm such a huge fan, within the world of social media of let's not think about the algorithm, let's focus on the audience. If you knew that 60 to 70% of your viewers were people who had never heard of you, had never seen your post, had never met you before, what would you want to do? Well, of course, you would want to reintroduce yourself. You would want to give little tidbits as to who you are, your mission, your background, your why. You'd want to sprinkle those sorts of elements into your reel, and you would want to encourage them to follow you, because if they've never seen your stuff before and they enjoyed this post that they just saw, they might want to follow for more. And so I think that doing those sorts of things in your reels specifically is now more important than ever.
- [44:08]
Michael Stelzner
So how are you functionally pulling that off? Explain how you inject that into your reels. The invitation of a follow up.
- [44:15]
Brock Johnson
There's a few different ways. Number one is the way that I would recommend doing the least often. And so for me, this is something I do about every 60 days. So once every two months. And that is a full reintroduction reel. A reel where the entire content is just, hey, I'm Brock Johnson. This is what I do on Instagram. This is why you should follow me. This is my background. Kind of like the first question on every podcast. I'm just reintroducing myself for people who have no idea who I am. I wouldn't recommend doing that more than every couple of months because again, you don't want to be constantly just reintroducing yourself or you're basically ignoring the existing followers that you do have. But every few months, a reintroduction post can be awesome. And it can be a way to invite your existing followers to also introduce themselves in the comments. That's the first one.
- [45:03]
Michael Stelzner
Would you pin that also for people that come to your.
- [45:05]
Brock Johnson
Yep.
- [45:06]
Michael Stelzner
Your. Your whatever you call it page or whatever.
- [45:08]
Brock Johnson
Yep. That is the first pinned post that I recommend people have the number one pinned post in the upper left Cor is like the start here or an about me. I update that every few months and whenever I do the new version I just repin it as my new first pinned post.
- [45:22]
Michael Stelzner
Now how do you do this? Invite the follow in in a post that's not introducing yourself.
- [45:27]
Brock Johnson
Yeah, so if, if it's not an explicit entire post, it's just encouraging people to follow me and introducing myself. I will either include it as a short blurb in the post, maybe I'll put it in the text on the screen, or maybe I will say it itself in the reel. Something like make sure to follow for more tips on growing on Instagram. Don't forget to hit that follow button. If you just learned something new. Short calls to action like that in the post, just remind those new viewers that oh yeah, I should probably follow this person. Oh yeah, I should probably check out oh yeah, I did learn something new. I should see if I could learn more from this guy or putting it in the caption. Now I wouldn't necessarily make an entire caption that was just, just reintroducing yourself and begging someone to follow you, but if you have a multi sentence or even multi paragraph caption, one of those good captions that we talked about a moment ago that actually got people to read and stay engaged, then it's totally fine. And I would encourage it actually to put a sentence or two kind of tucked down the bottom of the caption that again encourages people to follow. I think the biggest mistake though that people are making, Michael, is they're just saying follow for more or don't forget to follow. Hit that follow button. Just like a very simple call to action when I think it's actually more effective to give a reason for the action follow if you learn something new. Don't forget to follow for more daily tips. If you want better ideas, hit that follow button. Because I post them every single day. Just a reason encouraging people to follow, it increases the likelihood that they do follow because they think like, oh yeah, I do want more ideas. Oh yeah, I, I did learn something new. And it puts them in this sort of headspace where they are more likely to take the action that you want them to take.
- [47:11]
Michael Stelzner
Do you? And of course I'm coming at this from a YouTube perspective, which is much longer content. Sometimes on YouTube people will inject that right after they provided some value, but before the end of the video. But with reels are much shorter. So do you recommend waiting till the end of the video or where do you place it? Such a statement. Do you understand where I'm going with that?
- [47:30]
Brock Johnson
Most often I place it at the end of the video. But I think there can be some really powerful use cases and I've seen some really great examples of people placing it exactly as you said, more in the middle of the video, maybe right after they've added some value, but before they've given the full tip. Maybe they've given tips one through three, but then number four and number five come after the ask for the follow. I think the biggest difference between YouTube and a short form piece of content like a reel is really just in the length of. And if I'm doing a 15 minute YouTube video, I could spend a whole minute asking people to subscribe to my video or subscribe to my channel and it wouldn't be, you know, it'd be less than 10% of that YouTube video. It'd still be a relatively short blurb. But if I only have a 15 second long reel, I can't spend a minute asking for people to follow. If I were to scale that down and compare it to the YouTube video, it would only be a second. So really what I'm getting at here is use a one to two sentence call to action asking people for the follow. Don't make it like a whole four sentence or four paragraph monologue asking people to follow.
- [48:34]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and I like the idea that you could just place the suggestion on the screen. Maybe you have an image that you've already created that you plop on the bottom of the screen so that it doesn't interrupt the video at all, but it's like a subliminal message to them, right? I mean, do you try that? Do you do that sometimes?
- [48:48]
Brock Johnson
100%. That's a really great way of just mixing it up. And that's my biggest tip when it comes to asking people to follow you, is to mix it up. If every single one of your videos ends with don't forget to follow for more, eventually it's going to become white noise. It's like the beeping fire alarm that's been going off for 45 minutes and you don't even hear it anymore. It's just white noise by that point. So sometimes you're going to make an entire reel asking people to follow you. Sometimes it's going to be a sentence at the end. Sometimes it's going to be two sentences in the middle. Sometimes it's going to be a paragraph in the caption, but just varying where and how you ask people to follow is a great way to, you know, make sure that that people stay engaged.
- [49:24]
Michael Stelzner
Brock Johnson, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. If people want to follow you on Instagram, I believe is it Brock 11 Johnson, is that correct?
- [49:34]
Brock Johnson
That is it. That's my username.
- [49:36]
Michael Stelzner
If they want to check out your business and all the stuff you've got going on, where do you want to send them?
- [49:40]
Brock Johnson
The link is in my bio for anyone who wants to learn more. I also encourage anyone to send me a direct message or if they enjoyed today's episode, take a screenshot, share it on their story tag both of us and we would love to see that you learned something from today's episode. But we also have a free download that relates to share worthy content and so we'll put that@instaclubhub.com SME and that's a free download so people can learn a little bit more about shareworthy content, how to create it, and different examples of the five kinds of share worthy content.
- [50:09]
Michael Stelzner
Instaclubhub.com SME and it's Brock the number 11 Johnson, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [50:17]
Brock Johnson
Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.
- [50:20]
Michael Stelzner
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@social mediaexaminer.com 667. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a longtime listener, we would love a review on whatever platform you're listening to. And do check out our other shows, the AI Explored Podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Just a quick reminder before you go. If you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting social mediaexaminer.com AI I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.