499: The Key You've Been Missing to Gaining Thousands of Followers on Social Media

Tap into your best self that is wanting and waiting to emerge.

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Hosted by Derek Videll

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What's up, guys? Welcome to the Social Media Entrepreneurs Podcast. You tuning out to become a full-time entrepreneur by leveraging modern social media strategies. I'm your host, Derek Videl. Welcome to episode 499, episode 500, coming out within the next one, two weeks max. All right. As you guys know who have listened to the show for a while, I used to go once a week. I used to go twice a week. I've kind of slowed down to just when I've really got something to say. That's why you know that whenever you see a new episode from this show, that you know it's gonna be good. Because I was like, you know what? The people need to hear this. I gotta get this message out, and that's what I've got for you today. But I always do something special for episode 500. So make sure you're subscribed. If you have not left a review for the show yet, guys, I guess you need 500 episodes in order to for me to earn a review from you, and I'm gonna do that for ya. But if you got the time to do it now, which you do because you're listening to a podcast, that would be really cool of you. So on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about how to grow a following on social media, the missing ingredient, why nothing has clicked for you before. You've done the hashtags, you've optimized your posting time, you've got a real a day going out. Maybe you got five a week, three a week. Maybe you're not at consistent like that now, but you've tried it. You've tried to do everything that they've always taught you, and you're missing something. I'm gonna tell you what that is. In order for someone to follow you, you have to be in front of them. It's that simple. In order for someone to follow you, you have to be in front of them. And this is not the new time of Instagram where you can just show up on someone's feed, make them laugh one time, and they'll say, Hey, I'll follow you. I don't even follow that many people right now. This will be good. I could use some more of this content in my life. They don't have a lack of content on their feed, they can't get to the end of Instagram like they used to at the beginning because they've followed uh they've seen all the posts from everyone that they followed. It actually ends. They're like, oh, this is yesterday's post now. I guess I can log off, right? That's how it used to be. Now it's just infinite, and it's like 90 plus percent content of people you don't follow, and it's exactly what they want to see. So you have to really be something special nowadays. I I wish it was an easier answer for you, but I I'm always just gonna tell you what the real answer is, and I'm also gonna tell you how to do this today. So we're gonna get into some high-level stuff, and I'm super excited about it, but you guys need to be in front of them. You have to be a lot more experienced than them, have a lot more wisdom, have a lot more personal stories, have gone to have digested more knowledge on this subject than they have, and have been doing it for longer in order to get people to follow you. Now, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't post until then, but you're going to get more people to follow you by being extremely knowledgeable in your market to the point that you can just press record on the phone, you can have mediocre lighting, you can have some just basic Instagram captions, and you can say something that is so true, and they can tell you know what you're talking about so much that of course they they they believe you just because of the way that you carry yourself and the way you explain things makes sense so much that they just know that you are someone to follow. You're a voice to follow, you're someone that they learn from effectively. So that's the secret. It's amazing uh that it's that. It's difficult that it's that, but it is amazing that it's that because we we it's no place to live where our feed is just filled with a bunch of people who really don't know what they're talking about, right? That's not great. That's getting a lot of disinformation, and uh yeah, the the only con is that when you're just seeing all these Instagram posts that are just like banger after banger after banger, because depending on who you listen to, whether it's your uh you know political stuff or your religious stuff or your spiritual stuff or um you know whatever is got you really engaged right now. I'm sure the algorithm knows what that is, and you're probably seeing content from people that are really freaking good at what they do because otherwise you wouldn't see it at all unless they were really freaking good. So you have to be really freaking good. So let's talk about how to be really freaking good. I'm gonna tell you the reality of the situation as a 35-year-old man who was seeing a bunch of his friends that were such happy people in their 20s. A lot of my friends were really happy, really awesome people. I loved so many things about them, and I think they they love things about themselves, but for a handful of reasons, really the I don't think the reasoning gets that vast at the core of it. A lot of them are struggling with depression nowadays, and this this pertains to women as well, but for different reasons. Um, but our generation, millennials, uh Gen X, oh every generation goes through this, but millennials are at the ones that are dealing with it right now, where they're getting into their 30s and 40s, and they uh feel like they're at the halfway mark of their life. Maybe they're at the third mark. A lot of them are at the halfway mark that that don't even know it. You just kind of want to think I'm a third of the way through, right? But it's called a midlife crisis for a reason. It it is probably more close to the middle. So you start to realize, like, okay, what have I done? Because like I if I were to just accomplish double this, then like would I how would I feel about that? And also, where am I at now versus five years ago versus ten years ago versus 15, 20? Because I'm starting to either be like, yeah, I am totally content with where I'm at. Everything's been fine. I don't have, I don't feel like I'm wasting my potential. I don't feel like that I've never tried to do what I actually want to do. And uh, you know, those thoughts start to come in for a lot of them, and or maybe they get the a divorce, or maybe they uh have their first kids, and that just totally flips everything for them. Um, and you know, all of the big life changes like that, maybe they move to a new place, so so much stuff that can happen, right? Or they uh the and they also feel like to go through a career change after 35, you better really be serious about what you're doing. Like what like you're you've already got 10 years of experience, right? You've already been climbing up the ranks of this company for so long, and they're coming to terms with if they're at a dead end job. Okay, you can think of all these situations, and the it's not that their situation isn't the problem, their mindset is. Okay, this is the first thing you need to understand. The situation you're in is never the problem. Your ability to solve the problems and your mindset about doing such is uh is everything. Because if a friend of mine tells me, yeah, I've just I really wanted to start a business for so long, and you know, I really am hating my job, and I I really want to start a business, and like I know you do business stuff, Derek. Like, what do you think about this? And I'm like, oh, that sounds like a great idea. That sounds like a great idea, you should do that immediately. And then, you know, you see them three months later and they haven't done anything. And it's kind of like, dude, three months, that's like a really freaking long time. Like, if you have an idea, and then I told you, like, yeah, that's a great idea, you should go for it. Because I also know like just encourage on the first idea. It doesn't need to be perfect, you just gotta go out there and like do something, and then you'll you'll you'll know what to do after. Okay. That's it. That's the secret to business. Stop questioning yourself. Just do. Just do. Don't question. It doesn't matter if you think you're good enough. It's it's a it's stupid thinking. What are you doing? Why are you thinking like that? I don't know if I can do it though. What I've never thought that in my life. What the fuck are you doing? Literally just do. Just do. Just take action today. And you try to teach people that are in their 30s this, and if they didn't teach it to themselves already, then they are in a predicament because when you are at essentially square zero, step zero, you have not been able to get yourself to take the first step on your own. You've not been able to go get your LLC. We'll just talk in terms of opening a business. You haven't opened your LLC, you haven't named the business, you haven't bought anything for the business. You haven't bought your first supplies, you haven't done enough research about where you're even gonna get a supplier or make a website. You haven't done anything yet besides stay at the idea phase. And you then you let months go by. No one can help you but yourself. And I'm gonna tell you how to help yourself, even though as a society, we need to know that no one being allowed to get to step zero is a better goal than helping people off of step zero. Square zero, I'll say it is easier to prevent someone from ever getting there than it is to get someone off of that once they get there. I hate this part about reality. It's also freeing, I will say. If you're a coach like myself, it's also freeing in a way where you know it is so hard to do something to help a friend or family member that is just like, yeah, but what's the point? I'll probably fail anyways. It is so hard. You can give them the best little talk of their life, right? You could be like, look, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and they're they're they're like, yeah, you're right. I should give it a shot. And then another week goes by and they haven't done anything. Like, you have to get yourself out of it. If you are at square zero, you have to get yourself out of it. And you should also know this about other people in your life that they'll have to get themselves out of it. Here's my best tip on how to do it. You are in a downward spiral of confidence, and confidence is either an upward or a downward spiral, never stagnant. You are either getting more and more and more confident in your life because your reality is telling you to be. How could you not be more confident and if everything you do is a success? How could you be not confident if even when things you do uh try fail and you don't even feel discouraged? You're like, oh shit, that makes sense. Uh that makes sense in hindsight. That was a really valuable experience. On to the next thing, and you just go to the next thing. You just go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. How would you not be confident? Your reality is telling you to be. Confidence only comes from your reality. So you need to win a challenge, and this challenge needs to be something that is a matter of choice to hit. So I would tell you to either set a working out challenge or a reading challenge. You have to read X number of pages a day for the next seven days and then do it. That what that will show you is I said I'm gonna read 20 pages a day for seven days in a row, and I did it. I do things that I say. It sounds simple, it is everything that you need to do. This is exactly what you need to do. Or the other one is I'm gonna do something for fitness every day for the next seven days. And I would not tell you to even say, I'm gonna go to the gym five days. Like, go every day, okay? Just go do something. It doesn't matter if you're if your arms are sore, work your legs. If your legs under your arms are sore, go for a walk, uh, or do an ab workout, or stretch, or do planks, do whatever. Okay, you're you're gonna just do something. You're gonna you're literally gonna stretch for 15 minutes, and it's fine. Like just do something. Do something every day regarding your physical fitness uh for seven days in a row, even if it's like five fucking minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, doesn't matter. Set the goal and then do it. That's how you that's the the most practical thing that you can do in that position, and then go from there and then on to the next thing, okay? But that's what you should do in that position. Reverse the the confidence spiral. Now it's going up. Even if slowly, it doesn't matter. It just matters that it's going up at all. So that's what I can recommend to you. But you need I would I would tell you this for a tip for your kids. Don't let them get there. Don't let your your kids ever think like they get through life going through their entire twenties and never have accomplished something. Because every time they're going, it's tough. You tell them to to quit what they're doing, uh, or and you enable, like, oh, it's okay, sweetie, go ahead and quit. Like, no, it's not, okay? You need to, while they're moldable, they need to learn that not giving up on things will produce the results they want in life. Because if you do not set them up to achieve that, then it's very difficult for them to ever get themselves out from that square zero. So this sound like I thought we were talking about how to grow following on social media, right? I am talking about that because you just have to do things. You just have to do things to gain experience. You just have to do things to become knowledgeable. You just have to keep reading to be to get the knowledge that I'm talking about. You just need to keep going to the gym to uh enable your body to be in its uh healthiest state so that your mind can be processing as fast as possible, and that so that you can be disciplined and people will listen to you when you're in shape. There's not a lot of overweight influencers that you guys listen to is a reality of it, unless you're watching body positivity influencers. Partly because a lot of them don't even start because they have low confidence. But also, if I was like super fat, you guys wouldn't even watch me, right? You'd be like, why am I listening to this guy that can't even control the food that he puts in his mouth to tell me how to run my business? So even that, even being good on your health and fitness impacts your ability for people to follow you. You making sure that your hairstyle is kept good, having a unique style that's something fun to look at that just shows that you're an individual who owns who they are will make you more followable. Having better lighting and better video quality and a better setup will help a little bit. It's not necessary to get started, but hey, put the investment there. And then they'll see that you're someone who cares about what you're doing and you care about what the content looks like and you care about actually adding value and doing so in a visually appealing and entertaining way. Show that you care. Show people that you really are trying to educate them as best as possible. This is going to do so much more for you than just saying, oh yeah, post five times a week, and then use this, uh, these hashtags, and then use the trending audio, and then um these are these are the settings that you need to have on. It it just won't do anything comparatively. And trust me, I I hate that more than anyone else because I love the little tips. I love the little tips. I've built this show on the little tips at the beginning. Switch this setting to get like three percent more views, right? Do here's exactly what hashtags that you should do, the exact formula. Use this, like I love the tactical, implementable, um, you know, things that you can easily structure, easy to teach. I love those things, and I I I always teach them. And people love to learn those things too, because they're instantly implementable and they just make sense, and it doesn't have to have you address your your actual habits in life, and you don't have to really address yourself like where where you're actually at in life, but be someone that people want to follow is the best advice that I can give you for how to gain more followers. Let's talk a little bit more about this. Your success is not determined on the goals that you have, it is determined by the standards that you have. This is a very important concept that you have to understand. People do not rise to their potential, they fall to their standards. What I mean by that is that if you wanted to get in shape, for instance, that everyone already wants the six-pack, okay? Everyone wants to be stronger, everyone wants all of those things. If everyone was just given a choice, hey, do you want to be in great shape or not? They would all press the button that is in great shape, unless you're dealing with an absolute professional victim. But then they wouldn't even be able to be a victim because they actually chose it, right? But you get what I'm saying. They you would they would all choose that. So why doesn't everyone have that? It's because it doesn't matter what you want, it matters what you're willing to settle for, because that is what you will be. So if you are okay being fat, even though you would like to be in shape, you will be fat. Even if you would love to be in shape so much, unless you really, really don't want to be fat, you will be fat. And that is the reality of it. And the same thing is what happens in business. If you are okay having a traditional job for the next 20, 30 years, and you're it's fine. I I wanted to do some other things, but it's fine. I know it's difficult, it's saturated, you gotta have, you gotta know people. If I don't know anyone, blah, blah, blah. Excuse, excuse, excuse. You know it's total bullshit, but you've allowed yourself to believe it anyways. If that's what you're going to do, then guess what? You're you're going to work a whatever job that you are willing to settle for for the rest of your life, is the the fucking reality of it. I I would love to tell you a different story, but I only care about telling you the truth. So this is the truth of the matter. If you want to get in shape, you have to really not want to be out of shape. It it comes from you not being okay with being out of shape. Okay. I I, for one, I do not do well. If I am starting to gain a little bit of weight, like I was recently, I was like, where is this coming from? I do not want to be carrying this extra weight. My shirt is not fitting the way that I want it to. I'm I will fast. I will do a 72-hour fast. I will fast for five days. I will really cut back on everything. I will go to the gym constantly. I will go on, I will take action immediately. The moment that I realize I'm getting out of shape is the moment that I do something about it. You guys have to act that way too. I need to fix my financial situation. Win now. That's it. That's the only time. The only time that exists to take care of your problems is now. Everyone that I've ever seen that wanted to start a business that said, I want to do that someday, and didn't take an action that day, never did it. All the other entrepreneurs that I talked to on this show done hundreds, probably a hundred interviews in total between this show, my YouTube, my other shows, probably uh interviewed about a hundred entrepreneurs that are all like decently successful. None of them ever like questioned themselves. Okay, like this it's not a story. It's not like I questioned myself for years. I took years before I finally opened my business, and once I did, I was so glad. They just started right away. Okay, they're playing in a different they're playing a completely different game than you because their mindset has never stooped to square zero or or even around there because it wouldn't make sense. Have you not accomplished things in your life? Of course you failed. Let's not even think about that. That that didn't even happen. What are you talking about? All all that happened was you learned stuff. Remember all those successes that you had? You got it in A in second grade, you must be fucking awesome, right? Why not think like that? You you you did well at a high school track meet. Guess you're freaking awesome, then why not act accordingly to that? Why not why not let your success dictate how you think of yourself just as much as you're currently letting your failures dictate what you think about yourself. It is all mindset. It is all mindset. I I don't like mindset training as much as I like the tactical training. The reality is that if you thought like this, you would be fine. You wouldn't need someone to like the the problems you're going through that are Googleable, you would just Google them and solve them. Instead, you'd rather it be an excuse that allowed you to let yourself off the hook from having to accomplish your own goals. If you want to own an amazing business, don't settle for anything less than like 20% business growth every year. Regardless of where you're at. Even if it's above your peers and it's it's good and you're you're comfortable, and you're like, Yeah, I I'm at 150k for this year. Last year I was at 150k. Sweet. That's not bad, but it's okay to have some healthy discontent. My favorite Gandhi quote is healthy discontent is the prelude to progress. And we've kind of gone away from a society of thinking that discontentment is there's something healthy about it, right? With the participation. Awards and shit, it's okay to lose. It is okay to lose and pursue winning. And then it's okay to like, I I lost the first five times and then I won the sixth time. That is so much better than winning the first time. If you could live out two lives, one that was successful the first time you tried something, and another that failed five times and then was successful, and you could live both realities and you could say which one was more satisfying. You would choose the one where you lost first. And that's happening to you in your life right now. But you'd rather just uh quit along the way and then make up a story that everyone you ever tell will know is bullshit. I want you to know that. You will never be able to get it past anyone. Everyone knows that you're lying, even though they've made the same excuses themselves. That's why they can recognize it. They they see your excuses as the ones that they make, and uh they know that you're both kind of just making something up because battles have been won against greater odds, and you quit because the odds were whatever you thought they were. And they probably weren't even as bad as you thought they were. You just weren't confident that you could do it. So please allow me to give you permission to know that if you know you're good at stuff, then be good at stuff and just say that you're good at stuff and don't worry about society thinking that you're cocky or society thinking like, oh, I don't like how they're pursuing their goals. Because you wanna you wanna know what will show you if you have fake friends or not. Start a business. Look how many of them follow you on Instagram. Look how many of the ones who follow you like your stuff. Look how many of the ones who like your stuff ever buy anything and even buy from your competitors directly. Look how many of them never tell you that they really secretly appreciate what you're doing. Look how none of them actually will give you any kind of props and will still go out of their way to minimize your success. Look at how many people in your family tell you not to do it. And then when you get to the root of why they're so against it, that you kind of realize that they either don't want you to take risks because it's scary for them and they don't want to do, and they just, you know, would rather you play it safe, and that's more of an act of someone who loves you that just doesn't get, you know, entrepreneurship, doesn't really get believing in themselves, and they're just projecting their lack of self-belief onto you. Look how many people are project their jealousy or project their lack of self-belief, even the people who are closest to you, as soon as you start a business. And until you are making money hand over fist, then they will stay like that. So a lot of businesses really not being able to be phased by the people who are closest to you in your life. Are you willing to do that? Because it would make sense if you were. It would make sense that you ignored their uneducated opinion on success. It would make sense if you ignored all these people that don't have the lives that you want. It would be it would make a lot of sense if you ignored that negative opinion about what you're doing. It would also make sense if you ignored your own negative opinions about whether you could do things or not. Because gun your head, you could do most of these things. Gun your head, everyone listening to this podcast could run a marathon. We you will die, or you can run a marathon. Those are your two options. Wow, look at that. All of you can run a marathon all of a sudden. You're gonna figure it out. Do not mistake that you are a matter of willpower away from accomplishing your goals rather than everything lining up perfectly and it being pretty easy, and it's just and everyone supported you, and uh everything went perfect, and there was no failures along the way. Success is just this line linear line, it's an exponential line, just straight up. It's just you know, doing things in life. Okay, nothing is. Even if you don't do that, like you you will just basically what happens is you live whatever life while in the background always remembering what you gave up on. I can't imagine what that would be like. I genuinely can't. And I don't have any sympathy for people who do that to themselves because you're lying to yourself. I don't feel bad for you at all that you lie to yourself. You shouldn't feel bad for yourself either. What are you doing? You're we're all literally gonna die. We're all literally gonna die, and you're like, yeah, but what if I can't uh what if my first business doesn't work? What if my first business idea is in a wild success? You're gonna die. What are you talking about? What it's not that big of a deal. Nothing's that big of a deal. We're here for a very short time. We're we're a blip in time, and there's something freeing about that. And you can leave a legacy, you can leave an impact on the world. People do it all the time. There's tons of people that are dead right now that a lot of us know, and if that's important to you, then strive for that. Because you will get further striving for that than you would striving for, ah, as long as I don't have to deal with failure, you won't even do anything. You'll just do nothing. It's not that big of a deal. Go spend $10,000 on your business and then it fails, and then make another one, and then make another one, and it'll probably work. You're you're probably gonna figure it out by business two or three. This whole thing about like 90% of first businesses fail and and uh forty percent of second businesses fail. When you hear that stat, what do you hear? All you should hear is I'm gonna start my first business and I'm gonna try to be part of that 10% that makes it. And if not, then I could probably be part of that 60% that makes it the second time. And if they had stats on a third business, it would be even better, of course. So then you can be part of that 70 or 80% that makes it on the third business. And your story will be better. Your story will be better than the person who just came out and just had the mightest touch, or they they they didn't even have the mightest touch. And there's a lot of problems with this too, by the way. The people who come out in their first business is a success. I I I pity them because they think they have the mightest touch. They come out, they're like, I tried, it worked, and it's just like, oh my gosh, like I'm a master at business. And all that happened was they just opened the right company at the right time. You caught a tailwind, you you picked the right product, you picked a good market, you did a great job at that, but then you go try to do something else, and you realize, like, oh, it's actually uh, you know, selling something different is completely different. Opening a different business, selling a different product to a different kind of person is completely freaking different. My other success is like, you know, just the reason why I chose to do the second thing, but the the business owners who have failure first, success second, rather than success first and then failure next, because that is what's going to happen. Um, no one is just successful. Like every I came out with a hundred businesses and all 100 sold for you know over a million dollars. I sold them all for over a million dollars. I'm amazing. Like it's just boring. Like, that's just what is this, Pleasantville? That show where just everything is perfect all the time? It's not what you want. You don't even want the reality that you think that you want. You don't even want everything to go right all the time. So why would it matter if everything would go right all the time? It makes no sense not to believe in yourself.