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- [00:00]
A
What's up, y'? All?
- [00:01]
B
Welcome to another episode of Sweat Equity. In this episode, so I packaged together essentially an entire guide on how to win on Instagram in 2026. It's going to cover everything that I've done as a creator, a lot of the things that we've even covered in cut 30 that then we bring over to the brand side. It's a lot easier to test things as a creator because you could flop and not have to answer to the.
- [00:23]
A
Yeah.
- [00:23]
B
To the higher ups.
- [00:24]
A
Totally.
- [00:24]
B
So you're able to test a lot more. But essentially put together and on top of all the stuff that we do for brands, we work with 15, 20 different brands at. At a time, developing their content strategy and producing a lot of the content. And so with that, I've put together this. I mean, this is going to be a long episode, which, which should not.
- [00:43]
A
Scare you, because when you did this the first time, I remember it was your, like, how I went 0 to 40k followers on Instagram, I would argue was one of the most valuable episodes we've ever provided people. You literally just gave, you know, $200,000 worth of game over the course of, like, a single YouTube episode. So even though this one's long, I mean, I would recommend not taking and actually paying attention because it's going to be fire.
- [01:06]
B
What is that? I appreciate it. So we're going to go into. The first element is as a brand, if you're. Again, I want to preface this with, these are for brands that aren't winning on social yet, or maybe they've had, like, hints of success, but they're not, you know, they're not the ald.
- [01:20]
A
Yeah, Right.
- [01:20]
B
Like, they're not getting started. And so if you're getting started and if you're starting to build out your content strategy, then you need to develop and understand what archetype you're going to fall into or develop. Right. And there's multiple, multiple archetypes that you can, you can essentially build out for your brand. The first one being a lifestyle archetype. Right. If you're trying to be a little bit more of a lifestyle integration and integrating your product into a lifestyle, then you have to understand how to build content pillars underneath that. You could look at the sweet greens of the world, which, honestly, they're pro. Like, I have a content playbook coming out about them. They're crushing. I. I would highly encourage you look at their, their ig, where, you know, sweet green is fairly expensive for.
- [02:07]
A
Right.
- [02:08]
B
What you get. But it is more so about the lifestyle that it's the lululemon individual. You know what I'm saying? It's a lululemon individuals. The person that works out a collective equal.
- [02:17]
A
Walking around with the bowl and kind of means, you know. Yeah, you just came from data. It's.
- [02:21]
B
Nobody walks around with a Chipotle bowl.
- [02:22]
A
No.
- [02:23]
B
We have chipotle on the way.
- [02:24]
A
Nobody walks around with a Chipotle. I'm hiding that.
- [02:26]
B
We're hiding it.
- [02:27]
A
It's. You can't even see it. My covers the Chipotle in my passenger seat. Like I don't want anyone to even see it.
- [02:33]
B
100%.
- [02:34]
A
So you got it on the dash.
- [02:35]
B
Yeah. The. The lifestyle element of that is they look at the lifestyle that somebody that buys Sweet Green wants to live or the things that are important to them. Meaning they want to see the. The farm that the chicken was raised at. Right. They want to see where their eggs are coming from. They want to see all of those elements that say, hey, I eat organic, I eat farm raised. Right. And so by focusing on a lifestyle archetype you have to figure out the lifestyle that somebody wants to live. And then you have to then understand how you're going to develop an archetype on social where you integrate that into it. Bandit Run was another one where it is this individual. It's not the. The person that's probably like hey, I'm going to the Olympic trials. It's the individual that takes running very seriously. But at the same time they wear a specific, you know, they, they. They're more high end.
- [03:25]
A
Let's just say they picked up running in the last five years. It's a post.
- [03:30]
B
Yeah.
- [03:30]
A
100 it's a status signal rather than it is. But it's always the most powerful place to be as a brand.
- [03:36]
B
100 the next one is an inspirational archetype. So I have this friend Kevin who he's the founder, one of the co founders of Everyday Better Club. I don't know if you've seen them on. On IG added 110,000 followers to the brand account in the last 30 days.
- [03:52]
A
Sheesh.
- [03:53]
B
30 days. That's multiple formats that he's just scared. If you actually go to his page you would see style. You'd be like, oh, I've definitely seen these. Multiple videos have gone like 20 million views, 10 million views, 5 million views. Some got. I think one got 25 million views. But it's the same format just changing the text. All playing into this inspirational archetype. Right. And so at that point you're looking at the individual that is aspiring to. Or sorry, that needs to be inspired to live some kind of. Like become some kind of individual. Live some kind of way. And therefore you're the resource of inspiration. They see your brain as. As the. The. The brain that is going to inspire them to become that individual. Right. It's like. It's like the bridge from who I am to where I want to go.
- [04:40]
A
Totally.
- [04:41]
B
Third is the aspirational archetype. I don't know how to say this name perfectly, but La Marzocco. You know what I'm talking about, right? The espresso brand.
- [04:48]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:49]
B
The aspirational archetype is you're playing into almost like that Buck Mason into. I even put Buck Mason, obviously, into. Into there. The person that's. Hey, I don't. I don't have a. A old, like classic Porsche 911. I don't have. I can't. Maybe I can't afford La Mata Zoca espresso machine for my house, but I want to live that lifestyle and I'm taking steps every.
- [05:11]
A
I'm willing to be a fan. I want to put you on my mood board 100%. Like the perfect way to. You want to be on my mood board, but I can't buy it quite yet.
- [05:19]
B
It's the mood board brand, 100%, the aspirational archetype. Then you have the educational archetype. This is. I don't know if you've seen Armor Drink tv. I'll send it to you. Very good. Just like their whole thing is these beautiful, cinematic. How to make like this kind of drink. How to make this kind of like dessert or appetizer. But they play into the educational archetype where, hey, this, my page is a resource for you, right? You come to my page, you're going to learn how to make the best drinks. You're going to feel high class when you do it.
- [05:49]
A
Are these like mocktails or. They're cocktails.
- [05:52]
B
Some are cocktails, yeah.
- [05:53]
A
I love this Cupid logo they got going.
- [05:55]
B
It's sick, isn't it? It's a sick brand. I have so much of their saved.
- [05:59]
A
Are they international that I don't know. They look foreign.
- [06:02]
B
Do they?
- [06:03]
A
Just the fashion. You know, you can. You couldn't get away with growing up in Texas. But they look flat.
- [06:08]
B
They look hella flat.
- [06:09]
A
Yeah.
- [06:10]
B
Next you have. They're. Sorry. Back to educational archetype. Your whole goal here, and I should establish this for each one. Your whole goal here as educational archetype is to become the resource. Right. As soon as you're the resource, then people are going to buy for you because it's the easiest way to build.
- [06:23]
A
And another way to think about that is like, what are you optimizing for? Because Instagram cares about a few key things, so they care about watch time, they care about likes. But I think with likes, they want to see a one to one likes to shares as well as a one to one likes to bookmarks. And so for this educational brand like you're talking about, I think they're much more optimized towards. You want to see that one to one likes to bookmarks on most of your content. And people need to be more dedicated to looking at their analytics.
- [06:53]
B
I'm getting there, I'm getting.
- [06:54]
A
And so not to bury the lead there. And then for this aspirational brand, that's someone you want to. You want a lot of shares, right? Yo, babe, we got to get this thing whenever we make it, like, oh my God, did you see this? Like, we have to buy this eventually. So you're getting shares from that. But educational. I think you want to go more towards the bookmarking.
- [07:10]
B
Yes. Then you have the documenter. And this is, I would say, a newer archetype that we've kind of seen rise to the top in the last few years. And so the documenter is the individual who's basically opening the door and saying, hey, like, take a seat and watch the journey as, as it unfolds. Watches build. Typically it's, it's a brand getting started versus a established brand. Bad Omidis, obviously one of the pod favorites, is goaded at this. You have Softies Burgers, who I talked about as well, where so Bad Omidis talks about their journey of, of hank quitting his 9 to 5 job to build the frozen bean and cheese burrito company salties burgers. They take a whole different kind of approach where they document through the lens of we're going to drop an episode and that episode is going to focus on like one specific lesson. So it'll be like money problems, it'll be like hiring or et cetera, Right. Like, it just has a central theme for each episode. And the whole goal of that is to build affinity out the gate. Right? And so as if you're developing yourself or, or you want to be portrayed as this archetype or develop this archetype, then you have to be essentially an open book and giving people a front row seat to your journey every step of the way. Then you have the entertainment Archetypes. And with the entertaining archetype you're gonna pull, you could pull some elements of like documenting, you could pull some elements of lifestyle. Right. But you could look at a Midday Squares who they're very, very entertaining. You could look at a nitro bar. You could look at roomies. Like they're thoroughly playing into an entertaining archetype where there has to be a main character. You can have a lifestyle archetype and hire actors. Right. Because you're just trying to put. It's more so a lot of times about the aesthetics in the world. Yeah. Whereas an entertaining or an entertainment driven archetype, it's really driven about the personality and the characters involved. And then lastly, you can create a fictional archetype, which is a lot harder and requires a lot more budget to do in. In a lot of cases. One of the best accounts I've seen at this. I don't think we've talked about them. Fern, have you seen them?
- [09:21]
A
A few aren't.
- [09:21]
B
Look at them while you look that up. I'll bring up the other one late. Check out. I've talked about them multiple times. Where they've built this entire fictional world, all these different characters. But Fern literally builds like this like House on the Prairie Type 5 for their perfume company. Yes. Where they're producing legitimate movies for their collections and for their drops. It's sick.
- [09:43]
A
But as a coming for Le Labo.
- [09:46]
B
Dude, I love their content.
- [09:47]
A
Good example of like, you know, why that 1 million followers. I'm just sleep, I guess. But no, I mean, seriously, like, if they're coming for Leylabo, like, this is a point of differentiation that Leilabo will never nail. Yeah. Right. Like, I think sweet green you brought up earlier is an example of what this looks like at an enterprise level. That's probably a CEO who's cool with investing in the channel and then like that unicorn social person. Really hard to plan for having a unicorn social person. But if you're Fernando, like, the way to displace these incumbent players is like to really lean into, you know, your content strategy and meeting customers where they are not being legacy.
- [10:25]
B
Let me, let me send you probably one of the most craziest video clips I've. I've just ever seen that you're like, you see the first. It's called the Wild Apple Heist. They dropped this in autumn 2025. They dropped this 16 weeks ago. They literally dropped a. A legitimate movie for this.
- [10:45]
A
Yeah. This is crazy.
- [10:46]
B
Talk about a fictional world. Like, talk about a literal masterpiece of a Piece of content. Yeah. That is just. You see that and watch as it continues to evolve. Look at, like, the. Some of the things that are happening with, like, them climbing up the ladder and going into, like, this is a cinematic.
- [11:02]
A
It's a cinematic brain rot, which is maybe something that people should be like, I love it. Yeah, yeah. Cinematic brain rotation.
- [11:09]
B
It is. It is such a good piece of. Of content. And I mean, it goes to show why they have a million followers. They have another one how to. How to steal apples and get away with it built. Taken from the same production that I'm going to get going to drop for you. That's. I mean, it's just amazing, amazing content. But it's this fictional world that they've created around their brand that, again, like, this requires a big budget. If you have an investment. Like. Right. Like if you have $10 million in the bank, if you have $20 million in the bank because you. You raised capital, go ahead, go this. You know what I mean? Like, go this route.
- [11:43]
A
And if you don't, like, you know, take this as inspiration. I mean, I'm not gonna advocate. I'm not a big AI, creative person, but at the end of the day, like, you can, like, this is an example of using AI to, like, really, you know, create an association with people and entertain them in a way that's not gonna come off as slop. Yeah. I feel like. I mean, I think obviously the appreciation for this is probably a little bit of the production quality, but it's more so, like what you just said. There's a lot of Easter eggs. Like they're climbing ladders midway through the run. Like it's. It's weird. Feels like some Oompa Loompa.
- [12:17]
B
It's crazy.
- [12:18]
A
Honest with you, it's crazy. But yeah.
- [12:20]
B
So again, as a brand is. Is, hey, I'm gonna tackle organic. You have to develop that archetype and understand what lane you're going to really run through. Now, second is as you evolve, as you get more established. Let's say you've nailed the educational side. Hey, we're growing very fast. We need to add more layers into it.
- [12:40]
A
Now.
- [12:41]
B
You can add other archetypes into your content. Right. You could add a second archetype. It's more of now of a hybrid approach. So I'll look at an established brand who does this very well, but they didn't start doing this very. Or they didn't start like this. So I've talked about BPN 100 times. Right. But this would be 101 and for a different reason. Where BPN is multiple different archetypes in one, they have the aspirational lens where Nick is aspirational. Right. And like everything that Nick does is aspirational to the individual that's doing high rocks and doing marathons. There's an educational archetype where they break down or he breaks down. Hey, here's how I'm eating. Here's how you need to eat. Here's how you need to train. Here's Right. Like, there's a lot of how to's, but then there's the documentary archetype or the documentary archetype where I'm gonna try to achieve this in the next 16 weeks. Therefore, I'm gonna show you step by step now where it gets interesting as you become better with content, which is the key element here, you can integrate a lot of archetypes into one piece of content. Would you recommend content pillars?
- [13:50]
A
Would you recommend they nail it first? That's what I evolve, right?
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. So after you nail one, I nail. Let's say we nail lifestyle. Or you and I have nailed educational archetype, right? Maybe not the last three weeks for me, but, you know, educational market. Yeah, you nailed it. I'm just kidding.
- [14:08]
A
Yeah.
- [14:09]
B
Now I'm adding in the documenter.
- [14:11]
A
That's how I know. That's how you know your boy is actually down bad. When. When instead of roasting you, I was like, no, you got it, you got it.
- [14:17]
B
And you know, like, it hasn't been hitting, but I was like, I can't kick him on, so. But, like, you literally saw me do it today. Where educational dial. Cool. I know what's working there. Yeah. I'm messing with different formats.
- [14:28]
A
I'm to build the muscle.
- [14:30]
B
Yeah, bro.
- [14:30]
A
Yeah.
- [14:31]
B
Now I am adding. Like, you walked in here and I said, hey, Brian, I need you to walk through that door again. I need you to get this clip.
- [14:36]
A
Little BTS for y'.
- [14:37]
B
All. Like, there is going to be a lot of documenting. We're going to document how we're going to get to 100,000 subs. Because we're going to get to 100,000 subs, please, like, and subscribe, because that's the goal. But you can add these different archetypes into your content, but you do that as you win back. You know, I think when I Talked about the 0 to 40,000, at that point, I was not doing YouTube. I wasn't doing. I didn't post on Twitter, I didn't post on LinkedIn it was like, hey, I am only going to win on ig. So therefore I focused on ig. And then as I got better, I'm like, okay, now I'm going to do YouTube, right? Like that is. You need to take that same approach. Now the next element that you need to focus on is your testing strategy. No one talks about this because they, they go into a content strategy saying, hey, I need to win out the gate. And therefore they think I'm going to put together this master plan. And that master plan typically crumbles within a week. You know, like I know how I can grow. I can rip a good content, bad content, green screen right now and I know I'll grow. But guess what? I'm doing a testing strategy right now. Like there's things that are getting 10,000 views, 15,000 views, and then there's something that gets 100,000 views. I'm testing a bunch of stuff and I'm test testing religiously. I'm testing how close I am to the camera, how wide angle I am, where the text is. Val probably hates how many times I ask her to change the text from up here to here to the color to like, I'm testing so many things. And so as you develop your content strategy, you have to have a testing strategy. And the way I would tell you to do this is develop one concept and then you're going to test it, produce it three times and you're not going to bat shoot it, you're going to produce it one at a time. That's key. You're going to produce one concept at a time and then you're going to create that concept three times. And then every single time you make the next version of it, you need to make an iteration to it. So you're going to do three concepts with three iterations with a 3% difference every time. That is how you're going to test, you know, that's how you're going to test your concept to essentially get it to perform very well. And I'll give you an example. There is a show that we created called History of Leather for a brand. First iteration of the, the content got 10, 10 to like 15,000 views on YouTube. We looked at all the things within the retention graph. 3 second view rate, average watch time, which I'm going to talk about in a second. The next iteration of that all got a hundred plus thousand views, right? For a brand that, that's never done any, you know, that format, any content like that. So the things that we change were our Iterations were based on the opening frame, the action that was done, the angle that it was shot at. Right. Like all of these different elements, but they were all added into the next iteration. And so as you develop these concepts, if something flops, that's okay. Look at the metrics. Like you were saying, where something can flop and still have the right metrics to basically say this has potential. You know what I mean? Like if I do good content versus bad content and I see that one to one ratio, but I just see the average watch time a bit lower than it needs to be, then it's like, okay, like I have a scripting problem. Yeah, concept.
- [17:43]
A
It's like you had a good hook rate, but the watch time is low. Therefore somewhere around like the 7 to 15 second mark, you should have introduced something a little more juicy.
- [17:53]
B
100% yeah. And so forth. I am an advocate for testing strategy because you want to have a testing strategy before growth strategy. You got to test, test, test. And then once you find things that work, then scale it right. Then go into actually saying am and.
- [18:08]
A
Being comfortable with, with testing. Is that the biggest problem with, I think social is that when you put stuff out, you have this thought that everyone's going to look at it and also going to like, everyone's going to see it and then also they're going to go back and reference it. And ultimately that's just not the case. Like people are inherently seeing new things every day. They couldn't tell you five things that they saw on their feed yesterday. So when you do create that outlier, that's when you can actually get their attention and make them have that lasting impression. But otherwise, bro, like, you know, it's, it's so much more about volume and ability to actually ship rather than, you know, worrying about like and, and I think everyone's guilty of this. Like I over index on a single like yap TikTok video and I'm like, wait, why did I not just like publish that? If it flops, it flops. Who cares?
- [18:51]
B
Who cares? The reality is like if, if for me, if my video gets 10,000 views, that's not that many. Like it's a lot of people that watch it, but it's also a lot of people that didn't watch it. You know what I'm saying? Like for sure, based on my, the size of my audience, just keep shipping. No one like it got ignored for.
- [19:07]
A
But even then that's, that's actually like the perfect example of every single video is unique at that. Right? 100 because if you have 160,000 followers and only 10,000 people see it, like that's the exact example of what we're talking about. Like you should be creating anything. Because if the people who follow you, like aren't even gonna see it regardless. Right? Like every video stand on its own anyway, 100%.
- [19:29]
B
So as we talk about three iterations, I need to break down number three. How to refine an actual view or sorry, how to refine an actual video. The first thing I'm looking at is the three second view rate. If that three second view rate is not above 50%, you're cooked. That's the reality of it. If it's anything's below 50, it is not going to be.
- [19:49]
A
I feel like 55 to 60 is like you're in a good spot to do well, but you're not going to go viral.
- [19:54]
B
You're getting hundreds of thousands, right?
- [19:56]
A
And then above 60s and then the best one's like 70 plus.
- [20:00]
B
Yeah.
- [20:00]
A
Is where you're like absolutely 100.
- [20:03]
B
So if you have a low 3 second view rate, then what you need to be looking at or testing religiously is your hooks and try to really change three things. The angle, the aesthetic and the action. Like obviously the thing that you say, but reality is most people are consuming without sound on. So either break a pattern with the angle, get that, be visually appealing with the aesthetic, or capture their attention with inaction. Like as an example, we just filmed a hook where I came in, put my hand on your shoulder and hit a hook. I'm going to rework it and we're going to film it again. Where as I say that you're going to turn the laptop and show it to, to the camera. All of a sudden it's like, what is he doing? I'm saying something, right? And that's, that's a much better way of iterate. Or that's an example of how you can iterate the hook. If I would have published it and it's different for a vlog, but like if I were to publish it in the three second view rates, 45, I'm like, okay, let me get it to 55. All of a sudden, me adding in that action of you spinning it, it showing a number, me saying something is probably going to take it to 50, 55%. But again, that is us iterating what didn't work based on the data and.
- [21:10]
A
Then packaging the iterations, packaging the variables, right? So I mean, I hate, I hate to like use something that we haven't showed on screen, maybe we'll superimpose it. But like you put your hand on my shoulder and then I turned to the camera and I shook my head. Yeah. So variables that we could isolate from there is how that was shot. Like, what if it was freehand and it's a little shaky and then there's a zoom in on my face when you say it's not enough and then I shake my hand. What if we just. It's freehand and there's no zoom. What if the zoom is on you? What if we like, there's different ways to like maximize your time efficiency in the planning process. When you look at it from this component based view.
- [21:51]
B
Yes.
- [21:51]
A
When you look at your hooks with the right like indexing, basically of like, okay, there's a first frame, there's an action, there's an angle like you're talking about. Now we're going to test three of each and then that matrix of combinations goes. If you have three different things across those three different components and you combine them to test in individual ways, like, you now have like, what, 15 different variations, 100, which you can rip every single one as a trial reel. And like, I get that that feels like a lot of work, but at the end of the day, we're talking about trying to win.
- [22:19]
B
So yeah, I'm about to hit you with something sick in a second about trial reels from Everyday Bedel, who again added 100,000 plus.
- [22:28]
A
That's crazy.
- [22:29]
B
It's a crazy number. So it was 60 million views in 30 days.
- [22:33]
A
I mean, and to that point, most of those came from one video. 25 on one out of 60, like that's just always what the game is going to be. You're searching for that whale 100%.
- [22:45]
B
The other things that you can refine are average watch time. So what I found with my content and with Brand's content, if it's more dialogue heavy, 12 to 13 second average watch time is. Is like where videos go to die.
- [22:58]
A
Yeah.
- [22:58]
B
It needs to get above 13 and every hour or every few hours it should be climbing second by second.
- [23:04]
A
Yes.
- [23:05]
B
So correct. I've seen it where it's like, it goes. It starts at 12 to 13 and I'm like, okay, cool, come back the next hour. Maybe two hours. It's at 14. Cool. If it starts to go back down. Sorry. Like you're cooked. If it goes 14 to 50. 15. Okay. 15 and 16. Okay. Like that's how you know that the.
- [23:24]
A
Trajectory of that video Instagram is. Is finding better audiences. Yes. Over time, like that that's really what that number means is like every tranche of new views. Because Instagram will be like, okay, here it is for, you know, a 50, 000 view cohort of people, like they're now watching it more. And so if they're continuously optimizing it.
- [23:42]
B
That means you got likes 100. And so when you're looking at your average watch time, you typically need to be able to look at it in segments. It's not just like 1 to 12 seconds. It's typically things fall in buckets. So if. Are you changing things every five seconds, are you changing how many shots somebody's looking at? And so where that drop off point typically is in a, in a video that doesn't continue to perform, you need to be able to look at your average watch time and be able to be like, okay, do I introduce another like mini hook? Do I introduce a new character? Right? What are the things I'm introducing at that fall off point where my, my where essentially people stop watching? Because that, that's like every four seconds.
- [24:19]
A
Too, I would say. I feel like you have the 3 second hook, then you have like a 7 second drop off, then you have like a 12 second drop off and then a 15 20. Like it really is. I mean we talked about the but therefore. Yes framework a lot of the time too. You can't just. And this and this and this and this. It's like this and therefore this, but this, therefore this. Like when you kind of can zigzag like that, I think that's another.
- [24:43]
B
And so that's something we, in our social shows that we've been implementing.
- [24:46]
A
Heavy is like at those like the most goated advice.
- [24:50]
B
The but therefore by South.
- [24:52]
A
It's actually so insane.
- [24:53]
B
It's great. Is, is literally that element where we'll, we'll play in the script and then we. Good. Go to the script and we're like, okay, how do we add more tension? How do we add more hooks? And that's not being clickbaity, it is more. So I'm reeling you back in. You're so used to just keeping like, you have to think about behavior. People are so used to just like seeing something for a little bit and continue to go like, yeah, physio. You have to literally. Yes. You have to literally get someone to stop for a minute, which is so hard to do. So you have to earn it. And so I have to think about all like these little elements when I'm making a piece of, of content.
- [25:29]
A
I mean people, like, people will like and bookmark something and then still swipe seven seconds.
- [25:35]
B
You saw how like how many people like Dan Ko had something go viral on Twitter. How to fix your life in one day and 200,000 bookmarks. And I don't know, maybe or not 200,000. Maybe like 20,000 or maybe.
- [25:47]
A
No, it was, it might have been like 200.
- [25:49]
B
Yeah, 200,000 and like 80,000.
- [25:51]
A
Super, super viral.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think there's a move on Twitter as well to take anything that is like very long form and publish it as an article. They're pushing that. They're pushing articles crazy right now. So I'm going to start publishing all these, the newsletters as articles. You should see what happens because I've just wrote some bangers. Next, you're looking at the retention graph. What I found is anything over 50% after three seconds is going to get a hundred thousand views for me. That's been my like my go to metric right there.
- [26:18]
A
So there's your golden nugget, ladies and gentlemen. I mean that, that type of data you just simply don't get anywhere other than sweat.
- [26:26]
B
But so over 50, I'm aiming for that. That is why like today I'm going to film good content or a bunch of iterations of my content. But I'm test, I'm going to film multiple hooks. Like not what I say, where I'm at, how I come into frame. Like I got to, I got to fix it because they've been flopped. I've never had a good content versus bad content get 15,000 views to the point where like I archived it. And I was like, let me just change. Like I'm changing how close I am to the camera. Like I'm testing everything because I don't want to continue doing just green screen. Right. Like fuck it, we have all this just, you know, I mean, yeah, green screen, totally. So that is what, how I would be, how I would refine the videos and the content is by looking at those metrics and then getting as crazy as I am. And as we are about, here's how we're going to get our view, like our retention graph to be at 50 no matter what. Here's how we're going to get our 3 second view rate to climb from 45 to 51. Like all those things, those little iterations can mean hundreds of thousands of more views. Right? Right. Like that is, that is the differentiator between the whale. When I talked to Kevin from Everyday Better Club, he's like, I will take a video that has an angle, as in like. Or a. An aesthetic, whatever that I know works. And I'll test, like, 8, 10, 20 different video iterations of the text on trial reels, and then when it pops, then I put it over to the main. So he's like. He's showing me his trial reels. He's like, look at these. Like, these all have millions of views on trial reels. Right. So there's a lot that can be.
- [27:54]
A
Picking up followers there too.
- [27:55]
B
Oh, 100. Yeah, 100%. Have you reposted any of your stuff on trial reels?
- [27:59]
A
Yeah, yeah. The 2J's video went viral on it. Like, a couple. Couple of different, like, bangers.
- [28:05]
B
Yeah.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah. Some didn't know, which was interesting.
- [28:08]
B
Yeah, I. I did some of them. So they cracked down on it now. So now if, like, again, it's like, oh, Adam said.
- [28:18]
A
I mean, what's crazy is you. You ripped the podcast clip again. Did you change something or what'd you do?
- [28:23]
B
No.
- [28:24]
A
You just let it fly.
- [28:25]
B
Yeah, I let it fly. I edit it in edits.
- [28:28]
A
Yeah, they love that.
- [28:29]
B
They love it. So I just.
- [28:30]
A
Like, edits is also sick.
- [28:31]
B
It is good. I literally just added text on top.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah.
- [28:34]
B
Swiped it out of screen and it popped. But, like, they want to push the. You know, this was made with edits or whatever it is.
- [28:40]
A
Right, right, right. I've been seeing that everywhere. Yeah, yeah.
- [28:42]
B
So next element is you have to have a through line. I talk about the content narrative. That content narrative is that through line for all of your content. Don't make a bunch of random. You need to have the through line where it's not that every piece of content has to match, it's every piece of content has to match. Like this overarching narrative that you stand for or that you want people to perceive or associate with you. If not, you're literally creating a bunch of random and creating multiple perceptions in somebody's head. If Salt, who is the. The Electrolyte brand, if they were, like, super comedic and then one day super inspirational, and then so, you know, like, that wouldn't work. They're literally trying to be, like, for the person who parties, maybe on a Friday, but they take work seriously. Right. Like, it's more about the lifestyle of a specific type of individual. And so their through line and their content matches. Sorry. Matches that through line versus them. Trying to be BPN one day, trying to be, you know, element another day, and then trying to be, like, more scrappy documentary style another day. Right. Like, it wouldn't work. And so you have to have a through line that's like, hey, I stand for this. I have this like stuff story that I'm trying to tell. And so therefore everything I test is going to hit that and match that story. Right? That's how my perception or anybody's perception because how somebody thinks of you is literally just memory. Right. Like it's just a bunch of content to form some idea that then gets stuck and imprinted on somebody's brain. Like that is all it is. And so that through line is that it is this overarching narrative that you like over time you create content and it compounds and it forms that through line or that, that message in that narrative in somebody's head. That's why everybody rocks. Go on more. You know what I'm saying? Like that is, that is why. Because all the content feeds that it doesn't happen on accident. Then next is majority of brands. If you haven't won, you need to be focusing on top of funnel content. As you win, develop your content funnel. Top of funnel content in this case is content to get followers. It's as simple as that. It is fucking commercial fishing. I'm trying to catch as many fish as possible within my category and get them into my ecosystem. It is not plugging product. It is, you know, doesn't mean product can't be integrated naturally. But is not trying to push, it's not trying to sell. You know, I looked at Alex Cooper. I think it's Alex Cooper. The call me daddy. Call her daddy.
- [30:58]
A
Call me.
- [30:58]
B
Call me daddy. Damn. Call her Daddy. She call her daddy. She started drink unwell.
- [31:05]
A
You looked me straight in the eyes and said that. I did, to be honest.
- [31:07]
B
And paused.
- [31:08]
A
Yeah. You let it marinate for a second.
- [31:12]
B
She, she dropped drink on well. And like for someone that's so good at organic content.
- [31:16]
A
Yeah.
- [31:17]
B
Drink on well's IG is a ad library.
- [31:20]
A
Same with, I think Alex Earl did like an electrolyte brand or something. Maybe that's what I'm thinking about.
- [31:24]
B
Yeah, that's what I'm.
- [31:25]
A
Yeah. Because like. Well, the thing is they, they've reached macro influencer status which is completely different. Like once you kind of reach that upper level corporate stuff, you just believe in your distribution as like the end game.
- [31:37]
B
Right.
- [31:37]
A
So you don't have this philosophy what you're talking about, which is like you are looking at every single individual metric to a video. Yeah. As important they do not do that. They fill up a content calendar and then let it fly.
- [31:50]
B
And what's sad about it is the art Direction for the content's amazing. The actual content is bad.
- [31:56]
A
Art direction is not something that I think people are bad at. I think what we're describing is like probably the biggest edge that people like you and I have on these traditional marketers is the understanding of the watch time, the shares, the like stuff. Because they just don't get that granular.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah.
- [32:13]
A
And they just don't care because they don't make it themselves. And so what was the incentive to ever look into these things? Like something either worked or didn't. But art direction is not necessarily as hard, I think, to acquire as an understanding.
- [32:24]
B
Because you could go literally on Pinterest for art direction and be like, I want this, hire someone, they build that.
- [32:28]
A
Right, right.
- [32:29]
B
Versus I want 10 million views. How? Yeah, it's hard to find the person that could get you 10 million.
- [32:34]
A
Yeah. Like, how do I package this top of funnel and like create like a, you know, strategy that allows me to do this over and over and over again.
- [32:40]
B
Yeah. So for Most brands, spend 90% of your time doing top of funnel content and don't like until you're at 10,000 followers. Literally don't do anything but top of funnel content. Once you get past there, then you can go to like 75% top of funnel and start mixing in middle of the funnel. I wouldn't even say do bottom of the funnel until you're. Unless you have a launch, like in your launching product. That's different. Don't even start doing middle of funnel content until you're like 25 50,000 followers or sorry, bottom of the funnel content until you're 2550,000 followers. Middle Funnel content is content for your followers. Me, as an example, my top of funnel is good content versus bad content. My middle of the funnel is going to be breaking down the pod. How we're going to go the pod. You know, hopefully it gets millions of views. Chances are it's not, but I'd be happy with 50,000 views that send people to actually care about the pod. Right. Like that is. That's the goal.
- [33:27]
A
Because those people who buy my followers.
- [33:29]
B
Yeah, like those are the people listening. And then bottom of the funnel, how to get my followers to take action. This is more product driven. Right. This is trying to get somebody to either sign up for a newsletter, go to an event, purchase product. I'm driving action here. And so when you look at content through that lens of like content to get followers, content for my followers, content for my followers to take action, or get my followers to take action, it's very easy to bucket your ideas realistically to be like, oh, I've been spending all my time down here, I need to be here. No wonder shit's flopping. I can get past my follower base. No shit. Like you haven't made anything that's truly top of funnel content.
- [34:04]
A
I think what people miss in this whole entire equation as well is the brand equity you're building.
- [34:09]
B
Yeah.
- [34:09]
A
By being SOFA first and by, you know, having entertainment in your blood. Like the ability to get views on command as a brand and build brand affinity is something that is going to double, triple, quintuple your enterprise value. Because that's I, I think a lot about these brands that I know that are ripping on, you know, IG ads and then they are also crushing on Amazon and they're really healthy P and L's right. You know, maybe doing like 120, 130, 150, whatever. And I think there's an argument to be made at that level too that you know, why even invest in brand until like nine figures in revenue sometimes? You know, like I know an electrolyte brand that is literally went like 0 to 125 million in like 2 years. WHO instant hydration. Oh yeah, they're cranking.
- [34:56]
B
Really?
- [34:56]
A
Yeah, it's doing really well. And they don't have like, there's nothing, there's no art direction, there's no like coherent real organic strategy. They're just like incredibly dialed at paid acquisition and like they do it better than anybody really. And now they're going to take that growth story into retail. And I think when that brand goes to try and sell, had they invested in a character, in an ecosystem, in world building, in a lot of these different things that we talk about that scrappy brands do first. Yeah. You know, what does that do to the exit multiple? And that's really where you see that investment coming through is it's not necessarily like, oh, we're just lighting $50,000 a month on fire. It's like we spent, you know, a million dollars on brand building this year, which brought the valuation of our business from 150 to 300 because we have a die hard group of people that love what we do.
- [35:43]
B
Couldn't agree more. I'm gonna try to speed right through because I'm halfway, which is crazy. Next is your content buckets. Content has gotten so good at targeting the right individual that your content buckets is actually known. Your customer taking your customer segments and saying this is who we're going to make content for. Give you an Example that I wrote about in yesterday's newsletter where if we take Solomon, right, and Solomon's, let's say their top customer segment is the marathon runner who is running their third to fifth or sorry, their fifth or more marathon. You can't just say like we target marathon runners, right? If that is your top customer segment, then you have to understand, okay, if that is it, how do I develop a content pillar for that individual? It's too broad to say I have an educational content pillar. So I'll actually take this into the next one. You have to add qualifiers now to your content pillars. Where it is, okay, our top customer segment is the marathon runner who's running their fifth or plus marathon. Maybe they're trying to qualify for a race. Therefore my content pillar is educational for the the individual running their fifth or more marathon. So now you understand, hey, we're going to develop a series, we're going to develop a concept around that speaking to that individual because that's who we're going to target with the content. And so your content pillars can't just be educational. It has to be like educational plus X. And so your content pillar now needs a core qualifier. It needs that thing that goes a layer deeper to say your content is going to target this individual. We're going to build a concept around that top customer segment, around that content bucket. The next element then is how to scale when you find the winner, you then need to be able to distribute it amongst multiple formats. So if good content versus bad content, if a performance lesson that you like a more classroom setting for, for Solomon is like the thing that works, et cetera, you need to then understand, okay, how do I take this and make it a 10 shot video, a vignette, how do I make it into a carousel format? How do I make it into, right. Like you have to think about how I can take something, take the. Or, sorry, how I can take a winner, scale that across multiple formats and content types. That is absolutely key, right? And, and I think that's also something that brands or individuals that are winning on social don't think about everyday Better club. Watch what he does where he got one video that worked very well with one person running. Then he's like, what if I add two people? What if I had three people? What if I had four people? What if I just change the text? What if I just change the scenery, the location, like all of these different elements where he just found something like, look, I'm keep reworking and repackaging this idea, this concept, right? That is our content pillar. I'm going to scale that content pillar until it doesn't perform anymore. Whereas everybody tries to think about reinventing the wheel. What about just more wheels? More wheels. You know what I mean? Like just more wheels is. Is all you need to be doing there.
- [38:42]
A
100 and anytime you crack something that actually works, it feels like it works. That's the. That's the thing that a lot of people don't appreciate enough. And honestly, you can really get drunk. You can get high on your supply with that too. Or like you think it's something, you know, you can just use it over and over again.
- [38:59]
B
But you're ready for Friday night. You get high. You could get drunk on your own supply.
- [39:02]
A
I'm not going out this weekend.
- [39:04]
B
You're not?
- [39:04]
A
I'm too old, bro.
- [39:07]
B
No, you just. This is the. This is what happens when you hit a bender the last weekend and you're like absolutely wrecked. You're going through everything.
- [39:15]
A
Everyone's on this dry January shit, which I think is a psyop. I think if you need dry January, you have a severe problem that you should address year round.
- [39:25]
B
Yes.
- [39:25]
A
You know, you should not be isolating your treatment, your rehabilitation to one month a year. Motherfucker. You need to go get to check yourself into a facility or else you should be able to manage that shit. Which I'll be checking into mine within like the next seven days. Yeah.
- [39:42]
B
Lastly. Or the last few elements. The last few elements is then how to differentiate. So there's category separation, where if something is working within, you know, within fashion, how do you bring it over to your burger company? Right. It's not looking at the burger. All the burger companies and being like, how can I do the thing better that they're doing? It's cross pollinate 100%. You know, again, talking to Kevin, Kevin was looking at all these different categories and finding things that works and then spinning it to get it to work for him. So you want to look at category separation. Then you want to look at art direction. Art direction is not the content. It's how you differentiate the content. It's how you get someone into the world to be able to feel the content. It is not the content itself. And so those are the two things I'm looking at is one concept essentially or category separation via concepts. Take the concept, add the art direction to then make it very unique to the world that you're trying to. Trying to build. The last two elements, I think I've said the last two elements four times. Is you need to build familiarity. That is the most important factor I think, going into 2026 is becoming memorable, making and adding unique and distinct elements that make your content memorable and familiar to the individual. Scanning at rapid paces. You take Subway takes. Subway takes. Always start split screen. And he goes, so what's your take? Soon as he does that, it goes to the individual that's going to respond. Every single episode, it's always in the same location. Yes, he changes sometimes to, like, a London subway, sometimes it's New York subway, whatever. But it's always. There's all the elements in it, all the repetitive elements, whether it's the visual hook, the title hook, whether it's the location, the characters, the host, these are all elements that make your content extremely familiar to the individual that is consuming thousands of pieces of content every day. So when you do this, you have to think about the repetitive elements that are going to be in your content. If all you have is, like a character that can be repetitive, fine. But if. Then think about, okay, what's one element that I can add to myself as the character that is repetitive? Is it what I wear? Is it how I open the video? Is it the angle? I start every video, right? Like, find these little elements that make it very, very familiar to the individual consuming it. Then lastly, if you have budget or you understand those repetitive elements, then it goes into set building, right? Like, we are trying to build a set for sweat equity. So when you see it, you know it's sweat equity. As Subway takes, their set is a location. Matt Choi's Mile Challenge, the lo. The. The location of the track is the set, right? And so you can think about sets as either locations, things that you rent, or things that you build. Like, those are the three variants that you can have as a set. So if I do it on the street style, if you've ever seen Street Hearts, I don't know if you've watched that, seen that show on Ignition. It always. It's like a dating show thing that literally starts on the sidewalk and it's the same host, right? Like, yeah, it is a location that they're using. It's not something they built, it's not something they rented. So therefore, you have to think about the location as the set and then think about the little familiar elements that you can add to it that make it unique and distinct to you. Putting all of that together, that's how you're going to win on Instagram in 2026.
- [42:55]
A
And if you don't, then now you know you didn't watch this episode six times.
- [43:00]
B
Yeah, you should watch this episode as many times as possible because there's a lot of little things we. We use chapters.
- [43:05]
A
You skip around, you know, hopefully.
- [43:06]
B
Yeah, we'll use chapters.
- [43:07]
A
If you enjoyed the episode, as always, please, like, subscribe. We put a lot of effort into these things, and the metrics that people who want to pay us for these things look at is engagement. So we really appreciate it. You know, leave a comment. Like, if you think, Alex, I mean, you're kind of evolving into a new look right now. I think.
- [43:25]
B
I know.
- [43:26]
A
I want some commentary on the hair.
- [43:27]
B
I was gonna say, I wonder if, you know, listeners, have you noticed that I cut the bun off? I cut all the hair off.
- [43:32]
A
Yeah, right. And if you think I should get rid of the mustache. I get it. I get it.
- [43:37]
B
It doesn't stand out as much as you think it, which is. I don't know. It needs to.
- [43:42]
A
What you got? Keep it.
- [43:44]
B
All right, guys, I'm gonna keep ripping this 2026 guide for growing on Instagram. But please, if you like this, subscribe. We're trying to get to 100,000 subs by the end of the year. If not, we're going to figure out something painful to do. But please, 100,000 subscribers.