How Did a Simple Story Strategy Explode a Brand to 20K Followers | Ep 23

How Did a Simple Story Strategy Explode a Brand to 20K Followers?

In this episode of The Story Lab, I’m taking you back to the very first client I ever worked with… and the moment everything shifted in how I think about social media.

Because here’s the truth:
We were doing everything “right.” Posting consistently. Sharing products. Promoting events.

And it still wasn’t working.

This episode breaks down how Urban Jungle DC went from a small plant shop on the first floor of a home to one of the most recognizable plant brands in DC… and how their social media grew from 2,000 to 20,000 followers in the process. 

Spoiler: it wasn’t more tips, trends, or hacks.

It was storytelling.

Inside this episode, I break down:

•  Why doing everything “right” can still leave you invisible 
•  The exact shift that changed everything for this business 
•  How plants with personality became a strategy that actually converted 
•  Why human content will always outperform perfectly curated content 
•  The real reason your audience isn’t connecting with your posts 

You’ll also hear how:

•  A wandering cactus became a local “reporter” at DC events 
•  A “snooty” orchid attracted attention and built demand 
•  Simple, human storytelling led to partnerships, foot traffic, and real growth 

But here’s the part most people miss…

This isn’t about gimmicks or turning your product into a character.

It’s about learning how to show up as a human.

Because what actually worked wasn’t the cactus or the orchid. It was the connection.

If your content isn’t landing right now, it’s not because you need better content.

It’s because your audience doesn’t feel anything when they land on it.

And this episode will show you how to fix that.

Key Takeaway

You can check every box… Post consistently… Follow every “best practice”…

And still be completely forgettable.

What makes you unforgettable is the story you tell and how human it feels when you tell it.

Transcript

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Why Your Content Is Not Landing

Jonathan 0:00

Your content isn't landing and it's frustrating the hell out of you. Well, I want to share today a story of one of my clients whose content wasn't landing and it was frustrating the hell out of me. But it's also the first time that I tried something that has built my business and proven that what I teach actually works. Today on the Story Lab, we're going to take a look at my first client, Urban Jungle DC, and how they went from the first floor of their house to actually being the featured provider of plants at ShopMeeting DC all in about two years, and how we took their social media from 2,000 followers to a peak of 20,000 followers in that two-year process. And all of it, it all connects back to storytelling. So let's make your story a story they remember just like this urban jungle story today on the Story Lab.

Meet Urban Jungle DC

Jonathan 1:17

You're a little unsure as to why the map brought you here. You're looking for plants, and you walk in and you open the door of this first floor of a house, and you're greeted by nothing but lush green leaves, gorgeous orchids, and somewhere behind all of that, a former nurse, turned garden center owner, who can light up a room, who has stories to share with everybody, and can make anybody believe that their black thumb can be a green thumb. That was Urban Jungle DC when I first started working with them. A really cool garden center on the first floor of the owner's house. And he hired me to start doing his social media because he was not growing his business. They had about 2,000 followers at the time. And he wanted to grow his

The Safe Social Plan Fails

Jonathan 2:09

business. So being my first client, I went in with a pretty conservative plan. Let's post about this and let's post about the events and let's post about you know new products and client recommendations and stuff like that. The basics, right? The things that you should be posting. We posted all that stuff. We posted all that stuff for about six weeks. And back then, you could get followers quick. So we grew a little bit, but nowhere near what we wanted to grow. Nowhere near what I thought we could grow. Because I mean you walk into that place and you just get this feeling it is literally an urban jungle. You are in DC and there are plants everywhere. And it was the coolest thing. And the owner, coolest guy. Cody was amazing. But the content just wasn't landing. And after six weeks, I thought we should be doing better. We should be seeing more. And this was the first time that I decided, let me pitch something.

The First Big Storytelling Pitch

Jonathan 3:18

Because I really think this would work. Because with my experience, I knew that stories were what connected with people. It worked for marriage equality. It worked in the hate crime. Why wouldn't it work for a garden center, right? And I came up with a strategy. Because I wanted social media that we were putting out on Instagram. Now remind you, on Instagram at this time, we didn't have videos, we didn't have reels, we didn't have stories. We had posts. I had a post. So in the post and the caption, I had to convey something. And what happened was I came up with a plan that talked about all the different things that the owner did. Some of his stories, some of his sayings. And then I gave a couple of the plants some personality and kind of made them spokespeople for Urban Jungle.

The Wandering Cactus And Orchid

Jonathan 4:22

One of our plants was the wandering cactus. And this cactus would wander around DC, taking pictures, going to events, showing up at the local bar, riding a scooter, and he would then report on what happened that night on the social media. The wandering cactus, it was like the wandering reporter in the neighborhood because this was a community business. This was a small local business in DC. So we had our wandering cactus, every man, kind of just showing up. He might be a little prickly, but hey, he just wanted to have a good time and know what was going on in the city. Then we had one of our snooty orchids, and she had a somewhat elevated taste. And she wanted things to be a certain way. And she was appealing to some of the influencers that we dealt with with the business. And it's not that they were snooty, but they liked the finer things. They wanted to have orchids that lasted for a long time. They wanted something special for Valentine's Day. That was our snooty orchid. And she had a personality for days. Whether it was how she was dressed or what if she didn't get the front row seat for the eclipse, whatever it was, she had an opinion about it. So I took these three components: the story of the owner, the stories that he had, the things that he always said. And then our plant with personality, our orchid, as well as our wandering cactus, who was kind of the connection to the community. And we allowed them to show up on social media in a way that was human, in a way where they shared their stories, and it wasn't just talking about the product. Sure, the cactus was there when he wandered. But we weren't talking about all the different cacti we had for sale or the succulents for the terrariums. We're talking about the other things happening. The cactus was just present, and we had fun with it. Of course we had fun with it. It was plants with personality. How could you not have fun with it? I think we had a drunk succulent for St. Patrick's Day. We we had we just had fun with it. And what happened was people started to connect with the stories we told. With the the different places the cactus would go to and how he spent his night. And then they loved the orchid, and we started giving out orchids for Valentine's Day to different influencers because they wanted that presence, and we started to grow, both online and in store.

What Changed Sales And Growth

Jonathan 7:08

More sales, more people following. It was awesome. But it wasn't immediate, but we did start to notice the connections that those posts that we created actually connected with more people, that what we posted on social media from the wandering cactus got more people and more businesses interested in working with Urban Jungle. It was kind of cool. So we continued and we continued to share stories and continued to show up, and Cody continued to share what he was doing in his own unique way, in a way that connected. Now we had to do this all through pictures and then the caption. But what helped was we did events locally in store for other businesses, and they got to see this person was real. And finally, by the end of my time with them, we had grown the business, not only from the footprint of their first floor of their house to being featured in Shop Maiden DC in their business storefront in there. We took Urban Jungle from being the first floor of his house to being one of the featured brands at ShopMade in DC. And he was in the storefront. He had tons of space. We're sharing with a couple other brands. And he wasn't shoving all the plants into the first floor of his up of his house. And on social media, we'd grown from 2,000 to 20,000

The Real Lesson Behind The Shtick

Jonathan 8:45

followers. Now, here's the moral of the story. Because I want you to be able to take away something from this. It's not about the plans with the personality, it's not about, you know, just having a shtick. What worked here was he showed up as himself on social media and in person, and we connected with the emotions that people were feeling. And we told stories about those things. Depending on the time of year, depending on what was going on, depending on what was happening in DC, we told stories that would connect with the people that would potentially be shopping in the store, that would be looking for plants, that were his loyal fans. We told those stories. And what changed from just posting the regular, here's a new product, here's people connected with it. People felt seen because we were sharing things that they were feeling. People felt heard because we explained to them why certain things were happening with their plants. People wanted to work with them because we had an opportunity to show up and partner with people just by having a cactus there. What you're missing on social media, what's not working for you right now, is you're not showing up as human. And this is the same eight years ago as it is now. I want you to think about how you're showing up on social media. Because you can do all that's expected. You can check the boxes, and you can still not reach people. You could still not connect with people because you're not showing up as human. And here's the thing that worked with Urban Jungle. We created content that felt human, even when it wasn't coming from humans. We saw what was going on and we commented on it. We saw what was happening and we went to events in the city. We shared from the perspective of a human, even if it was a cactus sharing. We allowed everything to be human, to make mistakes, to be perfectly imperfect, as the owner used to say. Perfectly imperfect. It's the best way to describe how you should be showing up on social media. Be human, connect with your audience, make them feel seen. An audience always wants to feel seen. And you can do that in a ton of different ways. Make your audience feel seen, connect with them, understand them and what they want, and you'll grow your social media. Because whether it's eight years ago or today, social media is all about being social. It's a free opportunity for you to grow your business and for you to share about what you do. So don't miss out on that opportunity.

Final Advice And Sign Off

Jonathan 11:41

Share your stories and make your story the one they remember.

Theme Song 11:48

The voice in the crowd.