Transcription
5 months ago, I was sitting at 180,000 followers. Today, we are at 800,000 followers on Instagram in literally 5 months. Today, I'm going to be breaking down the exact strategy.
This is not going to be another cute algorithm growth video that you're going to be watching. This is actual content strategies that will work no matter what time, what generation we're in, that will help you truly grow your social media platforms to levels you never even imagined. It was proper branding things that I did to explode and position my social media in a way where people cannot stop watching what I'm doing.
And here's what nobody talks about. What got you to your first thousand followers, 100,000 followers, 20,000 followers is not the same thing that is going to get you to the 500,000 followers, 800,000, or even a million followers. So, if you are stuck at a certain follower count on social media and you want a breakthrough on how can I build this consistently in a way that will help me in any business I am in, keep watching because I will be breaking it all down.
So, let me be completely honest. I was stuck at 150,000 to 180,000 for 5 years. I was building that for 5 years. It's crazy how when you actually learn, or when I actually learned, the right way to brand and post and what people want to see, the psychology of why people buy and follow, I literally almost 6x, 6 or 7xed my followers in less than 5 months.
So the first content changes that I've done which is I opened my mouth. When you open your mouth and you start speaking on your social media, not just showing the behind-the-scenes, the nice B-roll, people will trust a voice. People don't follow aesthetics; people follow voices, transformations, someone that they can connect to with your voice. And especially as a woman, we're so used to just looking pretty, taking the cute picture with a cute little dress. And as soon as I opened my mouth and I spoke my truth over and over and over again, I was an idol where more women were like, "Wow, I want to be like her. She is saying things that I relate to, that I feel." And that automatically gave me the biggest leverage over so many women on social media that don't speak, that just look cute, that just have the perfect makeup and outfit, but nothing else to offer.
But that also did not matter until I knew who I was speaking to. Until I started speaking to a specific person. I've always wanted to be, you know, everything to everyone. I wanted to do makeup, travel, vlogging, speaking, motivation, trading, investing, everything in between, where I was not speaking to one type of woman. I understood that my content, anyone's content, to blow up and for you to be the most powerful in your niche, to whoever you're speaking to, your message has to be so specific that any woman or man that listens to it, they're like, "Oh my god, she is literally speaking to me." It has to be so specific. Like I am speaking to the women that want to make a million dollars through branding on Instagram and want to be powerful and don't want to only have the soft life but want to have generational wealth. You see what I mean? It's very specific to a specific woman. When she sees my content, she's like, "This is my twin. This is my best friend." And I've got that comment so many times where women are like, "We are literally best friends. You just don't know it yet." And that's the vibe. That's how specific you want to be and consistent with who you're talking to all the time.
But then I also realized that people are cold and they don't give second chances and they don't give you even enough time to give you another chance. So what is very important on social media because we're overstimulated every single day with so much content, every platform, so many people, you need to get someone's attention in the first 3 seconds they land their eyes on you. And this is: if you don't take anything from this video, please take this—the hook. I used to spend no time on the hooks, and I would just brush it off, and I would spend the most amount of time on my actual videos, what I'm saying, the tell-you, but none of that matters because people will not give you the chance to watch the video till the end unless you hook them in the beginning. So, the first 3 seconds, I started spending literally 90% of my time on the first 3 seconds, and the rest does not matter. I even watched my analytics the other day and I realized people liked my videos the first 3 seconds they watched it. That was like the highest time they liked my video. That just shows what did I say in the first three seconds? Just the hook. I captured them. They like that's it. That's that's all I had to do to like, not even listen to the full video.
So, make sure the first five words that come out of your mouth are triggering, are controversial, or are bold, or are such a relatable truth that so many women, men, people are like, "Oh my god, you said something that I've always wanted to say." And when I started doing that, I kid you not, my views are always so high. The sharability rate is so high. The comments are so high. The people that love myself, it has increased in ways that I've never even imagined my content being this high.
Now, not only a verbal hook is important, a visual hook is also very important, right? How you look or what is the wording that you put on the screen. So sometimes when I'm also saying the hook, I also like writing it so people have the visual hook and the sound hook because most people listen to videos actually on mute, especially on Instagram. So make sure you write it out so they see it, and now they are forced to actually watch and like what you're about to say because what's the point of this amazing value if they're not even going to watch it? Because our attention span is literally worse than a goldfish these days. We just keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, trying to find that like adrenaline. And you can only get that if you catch them within the first 3 seconds. So, make sure you spend the most time on the hook, just like I spend the most time right now talking about the hook.
Now, what I also realized is the most powerful metric on social media is not the like button; it's the sharability button. That's what gets you more followers and more viewers to your Reels, to your TikToks, and all other platforms. So, when I'm crafting my content, when I'm planning my content, my number one question is, if someone saw this, would they share it, not only to their friends, but would they share it on their stories? Would they post it in their group chats? If someone posts your Reel, your video on their story, you don't only get them as a viewer; you get all the people that already watch their stuff as viewers. And that's how you get so many new followers.
Now, what makes people actually share a video? Number one, you shared something so relatable that they're like, "Oh my god, she said it better than I could ever say it, so I have to share." That's number one. Number two, they're sharing it because sharing that content makes them look smarter than they are. Words that they're like, "Oh my god, that's my values. These are my visions. I'm going to share hers because that's literally me." Like, she said it better than I could ever say it. Number four, if it's something controversial or a bold opinion about their values, mainly if they can relate to it or if it makes them look smarter than they are. That's why people share stuff. So, make sure when you're crafting your content, you make it sharable, and that's the fastest way to grow on social media.
Now, let's be honest, people get bored. So, one thing I've done is I kept my people on edge. I've always believed that people don't only want to be educated; they don't only want to be entertained; they don't only want to be inspired. They want all three from one same creator. So if you are in the education space and you are educating people, make sure you first of all entertain them, then you educate them, then you inspire them. That's how you're going to have people's attention all the time because they're like, "I have no idea what I'm getting into watching their content today." And then boom, you're educating them. Boom, it's a funny thing. And they fall in love with someone that can deliver all three. If you only do educational content, you're going to be pretty boring after a while. If you only do entertainment, you're going to be looked at as a clown after a while, and no one's going to pay you. And if you only do inspirational content, you're going to just be looked at as a motivational speaker or someone that just flexes on people. And you don't want any of these. You want the three combined; keep people on edge.
Now let's talk about the psychology on why people trusted me to pay me a lot of money for my business to even explode when I also grew my following. I was not only giving motivational speeches; I did not only say believe in yourself, hard work pays off, keep God first. These things are cool, and we hear them and see them all the time. But the most important thing that I focused on that made people want to pay me the big bucks is I started giving perspective shifts, aha moments. So if I'm saying something very inspiring, very educational, I need to say it, but then make sure I convince you on why this is the right way for you to think—a perspective you've never thought about, an aha moment like, "Oh my god, I've never thought about it this way." And that's how people will start looking up to you and trusting you to pay you whatever services you're offering.
And another thing that I did not think was very important until I realized it is very important is I stayed visually consistent. What does that mean? It means that I don't have to change my hair color every single day so people don't get bored of me. I don't have to change my makeup style, my colors that I'm wearing, the background. I used to always choose different backgrounds to record my content. And I thought that will keep people excited to watch my content. In reality, that actually made people not even recognize me. Sometimes they watch a video of me while my hair was blonde, but the next day my hair is darker, and they're like, "Wait, is that the same person?" You need, as a woman especially, to keep a similar look. This is my signature look. You'll see me in a lot of the videos, in 99% of the videos, similar side part, similar makeup, similar neutral colors that I like to keep, similar backgrounds throughout my videos. So, that's my signature look that people expect me with. When they see me, they actually recognize me instead of thinking I'm a different person. So remember, especially as a woman, I know we can transform so much with hair and makeup. Have a signature look that you post and you show up with so people actually can remember you and recognize you.
Another important thing that I did was I positioned myself as a leader, not as a content creator. I know as women, we love to fit in; we love to just blend in and not take up too much space. But that is probably the number one reason why you're stuck and you're not growing as fast as you want to grow. When you are a leader, you're not speaking at people like you should do this, you should do that—that's a manager. As a leader, I'm speaking with people. I am the voice for all the women that are standing beside me, and I'm speaking our truth for us. Hence why more women are like, "Oh my god, I want to work with her. She is so humble, so down to earth. She's like literally for us. She's with us." And that is power where more of your audience will trust you because you're leading the wave. And people follow leaders, not other followers.
And alongside being a leader, I actually took people on a journey. I did not just show up perfect, polished, never shared a struggle in my life. And it's like, you know, I woke up, and I'm just naturally a good speaker, naturally successful. That is unrelatable. Stop trying to be perfect in every single area, in every single post, because then people will look at you as in, "Wow, so perfect. I cannot relate. I cannot trust. I cannot buy. I cannot work. I cannot look up to that person." You want to be the woman that leads, but also takes people along the journey. Like, this is the project that we're working on. Here's the behind-the-scenes. Oh my god, now we made our first sale. That inspires people more than just a perfect destination because that's not relatable.
And of course, I know as women, we tend to burn out. We have a lot on our plate; we have a lot of things that we're doing every single day. So, I made sure I built systems that serve me and made this journey of me posting on social media, showing up, very easy, very smooth, and very strategic. So, one thing that I got so good at is batching content. I don't like to get ready every single day. I don't know about the ladies, but for me, I like just me being in my natural state. And of course, being on camera, you want to look very nice, put together. So, I made sure two to three days of the week I am recording for the whole entire week, sometimes for entire two weeks, depending on how good you get at this, because it's work in progress. I started batching and recording probably 10 Reels in one day, YouTube videos, two to three sometimes YouTube videos in one day. Now, what takes the most time is really not the recording; it's the planning, the content, and scripting and making sure the topics, the points, the teachings that you want to teach are on point. The planning takes more time than the actual recording. But once you're strategic, you have systems, you have exact days, you plan the shoots, that all makes it so easy to be disciplined where you have pieces of content to share every single day where people feel like you're giving so much away every single day and so much of your time and value for free, but you're really not doing that.
Now, to make the batching even easier, you have to understand a very important concept which is the content pillars and the content styles. What is content pillars? Content pillars mean when people come to my page or your page, what do they expect to see? What are three things they are expecting you to talk about? So when you come to the Afnan Khalifa page, you're going to see me heavily talking about women, a lot about women, right? But what am I talking about women? Am I talking about makeup? No, I'm talking about women in business, women's success. The second thing that you're going to see me talk a lot about is money. I love money. You want to call me materialistic, you want to call me whatever. But I know what life without money feels like and the anxiety that you go through. And this is why I know it is so important to make a lot of money. And I preach it every single day for the women. So I always end up attracting the women that are in business or want to be in business or aspire to be in business but also want to make a lot of money, that want to have the big success, the millions of dollars online, that want to have the movie lifestyle, the fairy tale life because that's what I talk about all the time. And then the third thing that I always—you will hear me talk about—is branding. I fully, fully, fully, fully can assure you that the best way for a woman to make money is to build a personal brand. It is the number one reason how women will never go broke again if you build it the right way. So that's my third content pillar. So when you go to my social media, you're going to see a mix of these three. I'm not suddenly talking about makeup or cooking; that's not me. And I don't want to confuse people. People come to my page because they expect me to talk about a certain topic, and I talk about them in so many ways, in different angles, in all shapes and sizes.
Now, content style. What is a content style? Content style is basically the style of content that you are posting with. So if you guys have seen my social media, one of my favorite content styles is the podcast content. So you will see me in a podcast or podcast style, um, where I'm speaking, the perspective shifts, the aha moments. I am teaching about money, business, women in general. So when you see it, you're like, "Oh, I know what I'm going to be talking about." The second style of content is usually me in my home, right? And when you see me sitting on this couch, I usually am preaching about branding, why women should have a brand, or how to build a powerful brand. The third content style that we are getting into right now, which is mini vlogs. You've probably seen it—a day in a life while shopping, a day in a life Lamborghini edition, a day in a life Dubai. So, we're testing with that style, but we're also testing with two other styles. One of them is just pictures, a bunch of pictures of us, and people love to see the behind-the-scenes in a week. And another one is just the nice video with a lot of clips of us and then us saying something very motivational in the video, like writing it in the video. So we are testing it. And that brings me to my next point. After you have your content pillars, after you have your content style, you want to test, try, look weekly, by the way, how many shares, how many likes, how many comments we're getting, what gave us the most follows, what are the metrics, so we can understand what do people want to see more of, what is more effective, what is giving us the highest maybe sales, the highest followers, because they're all different. But the more you analyze weekly, the more you're going to start noticing a trend on what actually works for you.
Now, let's talk about the internal changes that I had to do to actually achieve everything that I achieved today. Number one is I showed up like I already have a million followers when I did it. How? I sold certainty. If you see my social media, you're going to see I am very certain about everything that I talk about, about everything that I preach. And people, again, we said they follow leaders; they follow that certainty like, "Wow, she she's so certain. I did not believe in whatever she's saying, but now after watching her, I believe in what she's saying because she's so confident in everything she says, and she keeps repeating it over and over and over again." So, you have to be certain. Show up like you already have a million followers and you know what you're talking about and you can help a lot of people with every piece of knowledge that you know today.
We also got to understand that with a lot of attention, a lot of views, a lot of followers comes the responsibility. And sometimes that responsibility can make us feel like, "Oh my god, I want everyone to like me." I stopped waiting for validation. I don't care how many followers I get from this; I don't care how many likes. This is my value; this is what I truly believe in, and I'm going to always post it because most of the time, or sometimes I would say, you're going to get hate. That hate is not personal. People are maybe attacking the message or attacking what they think of the message or what they think you said about the message, but they're never really attacking you. So number one, you have to be okay with people misunderstanding your message, people hating on your message, people disliking your message, and still stand on it like you're standing on business. It's impossible to please everyone, guys. We are not God. I cannot please everyone, right? I am just me, a little human. And I will try my best to speak my truth, and whoever aligns will come. And whoever doesn't, that is perfect. At least I don't have people that follow me that don't, you know, fully align with what I always preach and talk about. And you got to have the same mindset. Don't wait for validation; don't wait for permission, and expect hate if you want to go viral and have so many people follow you. With all that comes, you know, the understanding that nothing happens overnight. You know, I said it—I grew so fast in 5 months—but if you look at it from an outside perspective, I have been doing this game, which is social media, for six years. So I
From day one, I understood that it's a long game and that consistency is way more important than perfect. I just got to show up every single day and get better. My best today will be better tomorrow. That's always, always my mindset.
And lastly, I treated social media like it's literally my calling. It's not a chore. I just knew that God gave me the vision. God gave me the voice for other women. Like someone had to speak for the girls. Someone had to teach the girls. And if that had to be me, and if that is me, then I will take full ownership to always wake up the girls, inspire the girls, make the girls a lot of money because that's what God put in my heart. And I enjoy it because it became more than, oh, I'm posting on social media to get viral. It's more a purpose. How many women can I touch today to get them to start acting on their full potential, to start acting like the billiondollar woman that she needs to be? And it just becomes really like fulfilling, and I really, really, really enjoy it now.
So this is exactly how I grew from 150,000 followers to 800,000 followers in less than 5 months. And I want us to understand that this growth happened because I just stopped playing small. I stopped speaking to everyone. I stopped filtering and decorating my values or my beliefs for people. I just started stating them. I started showing up like a woman that people would love to follow and would love to comment and share her stuff and pay her to teach them stuff and to take them to the next level.
So if you're stuck today, I need us to become a little bit bolder and take this a little bit more serious because building a brand, building a social media following—not only a lot of following, but a social media following that people trust, respect—that will be the way where you can be making millions of dollars very softly because you just showed up. You understood what you had to do. You were consistent, and it shows.
So, if you're stuck today at a certain number of followers, the answer isn't just to do more of what you're already doing. The answer is to level up your actual content, your actual strategies, and implement everything that I talked about in this video. And if you want to get the exact blueprint to building a powerful brand, to know exactly step by step how to grow very fast, how to make a lot of money from social media—not little pennies. We're only making co-money here—make sure you check the link down below, uh, to get access to one of my programs that will give you the exact blueprint on how to actually build a milliondollar brand that people are literally begging you to answer them so they can pay you.
Hope this video helps, and I will see you guys in the next video. [Music]