Transcription
All right. So, I grew my Instagram from zero to 100,000 followers in just 3 months last year without ads, without buying followers, without any viral luck. I only spent about an hour a day on my content and I got pretty good results. And now I'm going to be doing the exact same thing again in 2026. And my plan is to grow even faster than before.
But before we dive into everything, you have to understand that there's a lot of generic social media advice that isn't as real as what I'm about to tell you in this video. I want to cut through all of the noise and cover the fundamentals of social media in a no-fluff way because you have to understand a few core concepts before you just start adding on random tips and tricks that you see online. So, I'll show you the way I like to do things that helps me avoid burnout and all at the same time optimizing for fun and flow. I broke this video down into three main parts that I'll cover over the next 10 minutes and I'm going to give you the exact system you can use. But make sure you watch all the way through and understand all three parts because they're not going to make sense unless you do all three together. Whether you're just starting out from scratch or you've been posting for a couple years and your followers are stagnant, this is exactly how you can grow in 2026.
And if you don't know who I am yet, my name is Ethan. I was a professional photographer turned content creator. Over the past couple years, I've worked with hundreds of creators to get their account from zero to their first thousand or tens of thousands of followers. And many of which are my friends and have grown much, much more than that. I also help creators not only just go viral and build an audience, but grow with the end in mind with monetization or their own creator businesses planned out from the start. This way, you can maximize impact, get paid as you post, and give way more value to everyone that interacts with your content. So, we can avoid the brain rot and actually become value creators who have a net positive on the world. And that was the key difference which now allowed me to be here in Bali and make videos and have a lot of fun doing it. So that's the background. I like to have fun and do cool.
The real problem why people can't seem to grow on Instagram or any other short-form social media platform or any sort of channel. I just had the most success personally on short-form. YouTube will also come with time. But the real reason is people don't think of their account as a TV series or as a space on the internet for people to come hang. They're not building a brand and rather just posting to post or posting random viral videos that they think are going to do well. And then you wonder why after months and months of posting when other creators tell you to post every day or why you got to lock in or you got to craft the perfect video and post once a week that you never end up growing because everything still seems a little scattered and you're not actually building a brand rather than you're just posting random quotes and just doing the actions without the outcome. And this can go on for months and months until you fix a couple of these fundamental things.
So this brings us to part one of the three, which is the signature series concept. This is your daily show, your predictable format that lets people know what they can expect from watching you and logging into Instagram every day. Think about your account like a TV channel, so people can look forward to what you post. Instagram knows who to share your posts to, and you also know what kind of content you should be posting. You'll never run out of ideas if you have a viral series, but you got to set it up in a certain way so you do have the freedom to post whatever you want. Because the reality is committing to a framework or committing to a series isn't going to limit you in any way. It's actually going to free you up so you can be more creative with your accounts and niche and channel. Because what you have is a repeatable format that consistently goes viral that people also know you for. You waste minimal mental energy on what you should be posting today and you can focus the energy on the actual micro topic within that series.
So this is how you're going to set it up. Step one, pick a format that you like. It could be carousels, talking head videos, voiceover videos, vlogs, whatever that might be. Pick one format and then commit to it for 30 days. Step two, pick your series name. All we want is a one-liner where we can kind of go back to and just say in every single one of our videos and it should be implied of what the series is about. In the past, I did like a 30-day series of teaching you how to create content. That was what the series was called. Super self-explanatory. This series I'm doing now is day blank of rebuilding my creator business. Also, super self-explanatory. And that first series, teaching you how to post content every single day. One of those videos got me 56,000 followers just from one video. And that whole 30-day series got me 100,000 followers. So, the trick is when you're naming your series is you want it specific and self-explanatory enough. So, it's actually a subtle call to action for someone to follow you again. So, if you made something like episode three of teaching you how to cook high protein meals in under five minutes, that is like a subtle call to action that if you follow that creator, they're going to post episode four of high protein meals in under five minutes, which is a very clear and easy value prop to understand.
But here's where a lot of creators go wrong. You want this series name to be broad enough where you can have different ideas and create whatever you want to create within that series. So in this current rebuilding my creator business series, I can talk about my launches. I can talk about email marketing. I can talk about offer creation. I can talk about content creation, how I light my videos, how I record good audio. I can talk about just documenting a day in the life of rebuilding my creator business. All of those videos still fall under one category, one series. So I never run out of ideas to post. Everything is very clear for everybody, but it gives me the freedom to talk about whatever I feel like talking about that day. So it's kind of a cheeky little hack, but that's why you want to go broad enough where you can give yourself flexibility to talk about whatever you want, which is your basically your mission-based niche, which I made a video about that. And then you're giving your mission-based niche a little series, and then you can create whatever topics within that very easily.
Step number three is you're going to just want to commit to that first 30 episodes, 90 episodes, whatever it might be. Realistically, you haven't started content creation yet until you reach 100 videos. And I would suggest to do it every single day for 100 days. This is what we do in my private community, Catalyst. And I know some of you are thinking, Ethan, every single day, how is that even possible? That sounds exhausting. Or you're too busy with your current job or work, and that's just, yeah, way too much time. If you have an hour a day, you can easily get this done. It's just like adding a new habit like going to the gym or cooking a healthy meal, something like that. It is an investment in your career that will pay off dividends in a couple months. It's going to be pretty quick if you actually commit to posting, you know, one hour a day to creating content for one hour a day, posting the piece of content, and then doing it for 100 days. And if someone could promise you that you would grow an insane amount if you actually committed for 100 days, would you do it?
And this actually brings us to another unique mechanism that I'm going to talk about later on in the video. But this is a creator sprint. You don't always need to be spending so much time, so much energy on content. You don't always need to be ruthlessly consistent. You want to set up your personal brand in creator sprints and then just maintenance phases. During a maintenance phase, you can post one or two times a week. You can just relax. But when you're actually wanting to grow and you actually want the algorithm to learn what you're doing and reward you for the content and work you're putting in, you have to have a creator sprint and you have to focus on it and that be one of the most needle-moving highest leverage tasks that you do every single day. So signature series is amazing. Just have an end date. Just have a creator sprint. Have your 30 or 90-day creator sprint. Then you can maintain it and nurture everyone in the second part of this framework which is called the content ecosystem.
The content ecosystem allows you to get 10 pieces of content from just one idea. That's called content amplification. And every good content ecosystem has some sort of content amplification. It's the only way to actually build your creator business while just dedicating an hour a day to content, which is not too bad, especially for the results you get. Because the reality is most creators that actually commit to posting every single day burn out after that excitement and motivation or their initial views or their initial thought of what it was going to be like is not what they thought. Once that discipline and motivation leave, then all you have is your systems. And you need solid systems like what I'm about to show you so you can actually stay in a flow state and enjoy posting content even when you don't feel like it. Once you start your business and you're monetizing, ideally we want to be creating one newsletter or one YouTube video per week, one long-form piece of content per week. And that big idea, that long-form piece of content can be split up into 10 short-form pieces of content almost every single week.
Now, don't worry if you don't have a YouTube channel or a newsletter yet. This is just the ideal situation of where you should be aiming for, especially if you want to be monetizing and launching your own creator business. That is like one of the most important things you can do. But for now, let's say if you don't have one, you can just call it the big idea of the week. We create or learn about that big idea of the week. Let's say it's how to record better audio for your videos. I might record a YouTube video about it and compare different microphones and say you could use a lav mic, you could use your iPhone, you want to like minimize background noise, and then we can split that up into a couple different short-form pieces with different formats and different hooks. You could do an Instagram carousel and even have a template saved on Canva. So then all you have to do is use AI to take that transcript of your video and then implement it and teach it to write you a viral Instagram carousel based off of that same big idea YouTube video. Then you can split that up and do some X notes, some Substack notes, or maybe an Instagram story post as well of the core ideas in just one or two sentences from that one carousel slide. Then we could do three different Instagram reels or TikToks based off of that YouTube video. We could start with a negative hook like never record your audio like this. We could do a positive hook. This is my favorite microphone to record viral Instagram reels with. And then we could do a storytelling hook. I never thought it was possible to actually get good audio consistently until I learned this one trick. That was three different short-form videos just from that one big idea.
If you wanted some help finding different hooks, you can go to the link in the description. I've collected like a hundred of the most viral hooks and you can just download that for free and you can get inspiration there. Or you can just ask AI to give you a couple different viral hooks or you could take my document of 100 hooks, give it to ChatGPT and then insert it with your own ideas and play around with it and chat. Might be a cool idea to try. So that will give you basically unlimited ideas. All you need is like this one big idea for the week and it'll be unlimited content. And to make sure we're doing this all under one hour of content creation a day, we want to be batching our content. So an ideal week, so Monday, we might want to be writing or finding ideas for all of our content for the full hour. Tuesday, we might want to film the YouTube video. Wednesday, we might want to record the Instagram short-form content and some B-roll. Thursday, we can start editing the content. Friday, we can schedule everything out or also do another editing day for YouTube. And now just in five hours a week, if you don't want to work on weekends, you should have five short-form pieces of content and one long-form piece of content all from your big idea.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, Ethan, isn't everyone going to notice that I'm posting the same content throughout the week? But here's the reality. One, not everyone is going to consume every single piece of content unless they're like a super fan. If they are a super fan, then they're going to love all of your content and they're going to appreciate that you're posting so much. Two, not everyone's going to follow you on the same different platforms. They're not really going to clock that your Instagram videos are similar to your YouTube videos, similar to your newsletters. And if anything, if they do notice, then it would be very beneficial for them. So then you can really drive the big idea home. So if anything, your audience would appreciate it more that you're actually staying consistent and talking about similar things so you don't overwhelm them or confuse them with a bunch of random topic ideas sprinkled out all over the place. This is how you escape the content hamster wheel. You want to be amplifying your content from a couple key ideas of the week and then just let that all trickle out, sprinkle out through your whole content ecosystem, which would be your short-form content, your newsletter, and your long-form content.
Okay, last but not least, this is pillar three. This is going to be the most important one because once you build your audience, you're going to want to make sure they stay so then you can actually monetize, build trust, and actually accumulate something that's bigger than yourself. You actually want to take advantage of the digital leverage that you're creating, which is the whole point. And we're going to do this through magnetic brand design. This is how you stop the scroll and make people actually want to follow you. Because now you might be getting all these views, but you actually want people to follow you, follow your journey, and have that content and attention turn into revenue or at least long-form newsletter subscribers, which is the only audience that you actually own. Most content gets scrolled by in like 0.3 seconds. You have less than a second to stop someone. Then you only have like 10 seconds for someone to decide to click on your profile and potentially follow you. And this can feel super frustrating because you just spent all of these hours making this perfect content and this perfect series with your content ecosystem. But unless they actually follow you and engage with you, then that's not going to mean anything. So, your content not only needs to hook attention, give value, but also needs to be packaged in a clear and unique way that is specifically tailored to your brand and message. And you can do this by using similar content formats with your team or with whatever you use to edit content with. So, I have a Canva template and I just use the same Instagram carousel every single time and I throw in some unique photos that I take throughout the week, but I use the same text, the same formatting and everything is already there. So, it also makes it way more efficient for me to actually be posting content. Right now, I edit my own Instagram videos, which is also super convenient because I edit everything in the same timeline. I use the same sound effects. I use the same subtitles. This also helps me edit videos way faster and makes my brand way more recognizable. Be intentional with the design. Pick two or three colors that you really like. A couple core formats. You really only need one or two styles to really get good at and grow on Instagram. And you only should have one key message. This should be your mission-based niche and what you're trying to help people achieve or what you're help trying to help people realize.
Think about luxury brands like Apple, Rolex, your favorite fashion designer. You can recognize these brands instantly because they have so much attention to detail throughout everything that they do. The craftsmanship of their products, the posts on their Instagram, the the docu-style vlogs that they put on their YouTube channel, the origin story that they've created throughout the years, and the mission they have to solve a problem or deliver an amazing product. This is how you should be approaching your own brand. All of your social media platforms should have that consistent, elegant, and curated handmade taste. I would consider a strong brand something that is very consistent and that people can expect the same thing from over and over again. Every time they post on Instagram is high quality and has a funny vibe or whatever vibe you want, a more luxurious vibe, let's say. Same with their YouTube channel, slow and luxurious. Same with their newsletter. Same colors, same vibe, same pace. Same if you buy their own product, it has that same delivery. So now once they open up some new aspect of their business like they introduced live streams, you can tell that that's going to be worth going to because every touch point you had with that brand is very conscious, very consistent, very mindful and everything lines up and everything is very curated. That is having a strong brand. So now when they release this new aspect of their business or aspect of their content, let's say live streaming, people are actually going to show up because they know and are confident of what they can expect when they give their time to that brand or that piece of content. We want to be building a brand that people can feel and when they feel it, they're going to follow.
Okay, so let me bring this all together with a quick challenge for you. I want you to commit to a 30-day creator sprint starting anytime in 2026. For the next 30 days, you're going to make a piece of content or spend an hour every single day making a piece of content and post it when it's done. 30 days under your one signature series. If you don't want to commit to a signature series, you don't have to call it day by day or episode by episode. You could just leave that out and just say your little punchline instead. If you do this, I guarantee you, you will be growing on Instagram in 2026 or any other short-form platform. You will grow because the algorithm is going to reward you that consistency and your audience rewards that commitment. I know it might feel a little scary to actually hard launch something like that. You might be thinking, what if I fail? What if what if no one watches or what if it looks stupid? But in 30 days, you will have your own personal brand, your own growing account, and you're going to learn a lot during that 30 days. But here's exactly how you can set yourself up for success. To make sure it's easy. Make sure you get clear on your niche, your offer, why you're starting a personal brand in the first place, and what kind of content you're going to be posting. Take another two weeks or three weeks to try and batch some content before try some stuff out.
If you need a full roadmap of what a creator business launch looks like, I have a six-day creator business launch email guide that gets sent straight to your email, which is going to be the top link in the description. This is going to go over what kind of offer and niche you have, how you can actually start getting paid to grow your audience, how to make a viral short-form video, how to make a content ecosystem, how to connect with your audience, and how to do your first ever creator business launch. So, if you want the full roadmap, link is going to be in the description for that one. If you want my personal help with your next creator sprint or your next phase of your creator business, you can get everything I teach in Catalyst and work one-on-one with me if you DM me 56 on Instagram and we can chat about some details there and build this all out with a community of sick creators, plus have all the templates and resources and other fancy stuff that you would get with working with me.
Now, if you're keen about growing your Instagram and get going, check out this video linked up here where I explain how you can make your first viral video where I go into the details about hook writing and script writing and storytelling so you'll know exactly how to actually craft and make those videos for your own personal brand. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss future videos and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.