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How would you like to double, triple, quadruple the revenue in your business. Well my guest today did just that, mostly thanks to Reels.
Austin Armstrong is a lifelong digital marketer, public speaker, host of the TikTok podcast BusinessTok, CEO of Socialty Pro, an organic SEO & Vertical Video marketing agency, and CEO of Syllaby, a brand new marketing tool that helps business owners create a social media content strategy in minutes. Austin has posted over 2500 videos on TikTok, tripling his own business’s revenue and thousands more across his clients’ accounts. Austin has leveraged his success on TikTok to gain millions of followers across every social media platform.
In this episode we cover:
- A short intro to Austin and what fires him up right now.
- A brief intro about his agency Socialty Pro.
- His journey into short form video (reels) yourself.
- How he feels as he has exploded in reels.
- What platforms are working best and why.
- What led him into AI.
- What does Syllaby do.
Links mentioned in the show:
If you found this episode of value I’d love for you to reach out and let me know on Instagram @engage_ben or email [email protected]
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Transcript of the Interview: ** Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.
Ben Amos:
Hey, hey, Austin, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here, mate.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Ben, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Ben Amos:
I appreciate your time and you joining me here for our listeners on the podcast here today. You first came to my attention, you’re actually mentioned in the keynote of Social Media Marketing World with Mike Stelzner, the CEO of Social Media Examiner. And he kind of used you as a bit of a case study about the rise of short form video, particularly on Facebook Reels. And that has prompted so much for me as a video strategist as we’ve kind of gone. gone on from there. So it’s a great opportunity to bring you on the show and talk about that, but also talk about some other awesome stuff you’ve going on in the world of AI. And this is going to be a fantastic conversation. So I’m really looking forward to it. Before
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
we get into some of that stuff, though, I’d love to for you to just share a little bit about, well, really, what led you into into starting your agency in the first place? Like, where did that come from?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so I’ve been doing social media marketing for most of my life, over 18 years at this point. So I actually started when I was 14 years old on MySpace of all platforms. I just got bit by that bug, figured out very early on, very happenstance of how to… gain large following online and I’ve more or less been doing it ever since. Now fast forward to about 8 years ago. I moved out to California and stumbled into an internship at a video marketing agency. And they really specialize in the behavioral health space, drug and alcohol treatment centers, therapists, psychologists, behavioral health experts. And I really loved that. I really loved working with those professionals. I loved… Everything that went into video marketing we were very YouTube first It was an interesting business model that ultimately didn’t work out But it was fascinating and we did so much video we did We had a daily four hour long live stream Bringing on large guests. It was just a wonderful fascinating experience to grow with it and and that really Changed the trajectory of my life. So I went from unpaid intern to part-time, or to paid intern to part-time employee to a full-time employee. And that led me to being ultimately head of digital marketing for several businesses, drug and alcohol treatment centers mostly. And then four years ago, I started my agency with my boss from that internship. So he’s been a mentor to me a wonderful asset to my life. And so while that was a failure from a business model perspective, we took the lessons that we learned from that and really started this Sociality Pro, the full service organic focused social media marketing agency about four years ago. And it’s been phenomenal. And I really went full time. about three years ago now. So I guess two and a half, three years ago now. Yeah, so it was in the middle of the pandemic. The agency was very much a part-time side hustle that we were, you know, I was just growing as a extra hours, early mornings, late nights type of thing. And I had gotten fired from my job. And so I was faced with this decision in the middle of the pandemic. Do I bet on myself and go all in on this agency and, you know, lean into entrepreneurship and see what I’m made of? do I try and find a job in the middle of the pandemic, entirely remote. Side note here about me, I don’t have any college degree because I went this internship route. School wasn’t my path. And so I talked to my wife, I talked to my business partner, and it was a pretty clear decision to bet on myself and to try and go all in. And that was the best decision that I could have made. And since has been an absolute whirlwinds and I’m just getting started, but it’s been a wonderful journey.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, incredible journey. And well done on taking that step. You know, it’s not an easy step to step out from potential safety, but I think the pandemic probably pushed a lot of people into places they hadn’t considered moving before. So
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Mm-hmm.
Ben Amos:
that’s really cool. So tell me today with Sociality Pro, you mentioned it’s an organic social media marketing agency. So what’s the core of what you do and who do you serve within your agency?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, we mostly work with service-based businesses. We still have a strong emphasis in the behavioral health space. So we work a lot with drug and alcohol treatment centers, doctors, psychologists, therapists, group practices, but we’ve also worked with many medical doctors in different areas of practice, lawyers, any backyard pond builder, you name it, you offer a service. That’s really our area of expertise. And we are entirely organic focused. We have an SEO side of the agency. So full service, content writing, content strategy, link building, implementation, local SEO. And then we have the social media arm as well, which really came later. I mean, we really focused heavily on SEO at the beginning media and video component, but I leverage TikTok. as a lead generation platform for our SEO side of business. And it worked so well. It got so many clients. I started to gain a sizable following on there that other businesses started to reach out and ask if we could help them with their TikTok, with their social media and vertical video content strategy. And that has become so successful that that is 90% of our clients now organic focused on short form vertical video content strategy because that’s where the market’s gone. TikTok really came and blew everything out of the water and forced change. And so all of these other platforms follow suit after. YouTube Shorts rolled out, Instagram Reels rolled out, Facebook Reels rolled out. And it’s all of these platforms have really embraced this format. And so it’s been a great opportunity be a thought leader in that space and develop us as one of the leading experts and agencies in short form vertical video marketing.
Ben Amos:
So I love that focus on short form vertical. And so to take me back to when you started using TikTok to promote your agency, how were you feeling in the early stages there? Were you like, new platform, possible opportunity, I’m just gonna give it a crack and see? Like, or were you being really strategic? Like, I’m gonna do this and it’s gonna lead to this. What was your thought process at the start? Like, did you think it would actually drive
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
results for your agency?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
You know, I didn’t know. I don’t think anyone really knew. So I’m a big Gary Vee fan, and I had bought… crushing it when that book came out, follow up to, it’s a crush it, awesome book series. And I’d been listening to Gary’s podcast and everything for a long time. And he was shoving this down our throats for a while. You gotta get on TikTok. It’s gonna be the hottest new platform. It’s the biggest thing, you know. And I said, you know, I said, fine, Gary, I’ll get on this thing and see what it’s all about. And I procrastinated it a little while, and this was 2019, yeah, October of 2019 is when I posted my first video, and I know that because I’ve looked back a couple times. I thought I was late at the time, three years ago, three and a half years ago, I thought I was late to the platform. But when I
Ben Amos:
Yeah,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
first got
Ben Amos:
but not, but
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
started,
Ben Amos:
you
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
I was
Ben Amos:
were
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
like, I’m
Ben Amos:
actually
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
going to be late.
Ben Amos:
early, yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
very early and I still think it’s early. Here we are three and a half years later.
Ben Amos:
Right?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
I had no direction when I first got started. I think I was just doing random content, trying to figure it out. I think I spent the first couple weeks actually just observing. I don’t think I posted anything. I think I was just scrolling through and just learning the platform a little bit and seeing what it was all about, seeing what the hype was about. And then I started to get the courage and learn how the app works a little bit and started posting some stuff. and it wasn’t all business at first. It was, you know, trying trends, trying cat videos, a little bit of sharing useful websites and sharing digital marketing tips. And there was no cohesion on my platform whatsoever.
Ben Amos:
Did you do any dancing?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
And so I… Unfortunately, I did try a couple dances. Nobody wants to see that. They completely flopped. And
Ben Amos:
I’m gonna go and find them.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
so, you know, I did that for maybe a month or so and gained like so, such little traction. But I still thought there was some sort of opportunity here and I always give credit where credit’s due. I had saw a webinar come up from Rachel Peterson. who’s still very active on the platform. I don’t know if you know who Rachel is, she’s amazing. I attended her webinar on how to use TikTok for business and something in that webinar really clicked for me. And her approach to finding relevant hashtags and applying that to the services that you offer. really resonated with me as an SEO. And I said, oh, this makes so much sense. Just create content around what people are searching for. This makes so much sense on this platform. And after that webinar, I gave myself an ultimatum and I said, I’m going to only talk about the products and services that I offer for a 30 day straight. I’m gonna create one video a day, every single day. And if I don’t get… any sense of traction after doing this for 30 days. Maybe this is not the platform for me and I’ll try, you know, maybe I’ll stick with it, but I’ll try something else. I’m gonna put my hand or do something else. And when you commit and give yourself a time limit like that, magic starts to happen. And it just worked. It started to click. one video had popped after doing that for a short period of time and all of these questions in the comments started coming in and followers started to come in and I immediately started to do video responses to every single comment to really build that trust and rapport with the audience and that really exploded the account early on And I’ve just never stopped in the last three and a half years I said there’s there’s something here I’m gonna continue with this and I’m gonna continue with it as long as I can go, as far as I can go. And it’s really carried me to where I am today.
Ben Amos:
And are you still at a daily frequency, like posting one or more a day? Like what’s your frequency now on TikTok?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, at a minimum one per day, that I’ve become quite busy, which is a good problem to have. I’m at that state where if I don’t create, I feel bad. So I have to create, or I’ll just re, like if I’m out of town or on vacation or on a work trip, speaking out of town or something, and I don’t feel creative or I’m sick, I’ll just repost an older video, I’ll download it and repost it for that consistency, but I have to post. something every single day. And so sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes it’s two, three, four videos a day if I’m really feeling creative and I have the time. But at a very minimum, it’s daily content. Absolutely, this is the consistency muscle I’ve built and I will continue it as long as I can. So, I’m gonna go ahead and start with this one. I’m gonna go ahead and start with this one.
Ben Amos:
Now I’ve got to imagine that to be consistent and to continue with that focus on short form and TikTok particularly over that period of time is it’s getting results for you, right? So obviously you’re growing that channel, you’re growing that follower base on that platform. But how is that translating into business for your agency, for example?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, it’s been phenomenal. So from the agency over the last three and a half years, really the last two and a half years, we’ve done just shy of $2 million in revenue. And that’s largely from TikTok. Lately, I’ve had, you know, the last 10 months, I’ve had a significant growth on all of the other social media platforms, which has impacted that as well. But yeah, tremendously. And it’s simple. It’s just creating content around the wants, needs, and desires of who you are trying to reach, showcasing the services, educating around your expertise, showing that you have the results to back up what you’re talking about, showing case studies, showing happy clients, showing examples. going on live and answering those questions in real time and continuing to just show up every single day, providing as much value as you can and making it really easy for them to contact you. So in your bio on TikTok or whatever social media platform, really clearly just who you are, who you serve, what you do, here’s a call to action link to schedule a call with me. And it’s surprisingly easy. And so many people think it’s just top of funnel. and fine, but it can be so much more than that. And say what you will about TikTok. I have personally generated so much business from it. You can deny it or laugh all you want. I’m still collecting.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, yeah. Oh no, there’s no doubt. And is that how you’re attributing those results through that link in the bio? So you’re tracking
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Oh yeah.
Ben Amos:
activity through that link, yeah?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Absolutely, yep. We’ve never spent, I’ve never spent a dollar on advertising, actually. I’m so stubborn about organic content creation, almost to a fault. But yeah, it’s just, so I use Stan right now, which is a Lincoln bio tool, but I just drive all of my traffic to that. I get individual, I get inbound traffic analytics so I can see how much traffic came from TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. Instagram, et cetera, how many people click on that schedule call with me link, and then I have a questionnaire on the actual Calendly link, which is what I use for my booking, and then I sell on the calls. It’s a funnel that’s worked really well.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, fantastic. Well, thanks for sharing that. And I’m interested, you know,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
you have an agency behind you of some form, we’re not sure of the size of the agency, but when it comes to creating content, vertical content in this style, TikTok style or Reels or other platforms style, how are you going about the production on a consistent basis? Are you doing this all yourself or are you plugging in a team behind you to do that?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
So for myself, it’s me. For our clients, we have a full team. So we have 10 employees right now, dedicated account managers, content strategists, dedicated success managers, editors, the whole nine yards. And that’s what we plug all clients into and they’ve been personally trained by me. My content creation is my artistic creativity flow. And so I have never. handed that off to anybody. In fact, nobody has access to any of my social media accounts except for me. And I probably could or should hand that off, but I just like doing it so much. I’ve hired for all of the other things in my life and all of the other jobs and tasks and duties so that all I need to do and all I can do is create because that’s all I want to do is create content. Yeah, from every day. I loosely storyboard the content, I shoot the content, I edit it all on my phone, I post it natively on every app myself.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, and I imagine it’s a great, maintaining the control of that on your own channels is a great opportunity for you as a strategist as well to experiment, to play, to try things that
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Oh
Ben Amos:
maybe
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
yeah.
Ben Amos:
you can, if they work, you can then train your team or roll them out for your clients as well. So I think that’s a really good way to approach
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah,
Ben Amos:
- You
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
100%.
Ben Amos:
mentioned there, yeah, go ahead.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
It gives me a hand on the pulse, 100%.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I love it. You mentioned they’re posting natively into individual apps. So… Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re producing, you know, one short form vertical video on a particular platform or using a particular piece of software. Maybe you can share what that is, but then you’re taking that same piece and you’re putting it into all of the vertical platforms, into Facebook reels, into Instagram reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts, I assume, and you’re doing that all natively. Can you walk us through your process? Are you creating in one app and then repurposing in many?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so great question. So I edit everything in CapCut. Wonderful, very powerful editing app on your phone. And in fact, I’m just on the free plan. I don’t even pay for it. So there’s literally no excuses anymore, people. It’s just such a powerful free app. But yeah, I edit
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
everything in CapCut and then I will natively upload that video onto each platform. Anecdotally found, my sort of belief is that the platforms prefer native uploading to scheduled third-party softwares, but you know it’s still better to use a scheduling software than to not post. So it depends on your on your time allocation for that. But yeah, so I will upload natively to TikTok and I’ll add background music there if needed. I will add any sort of like thumbnail text on that and then just for YouTube because I don’t like the YouTube short editor I will download the TikTok video watermark for using snap tick calm and post that to YouTube shorts the edited TikTok version but then specifically on Facebook reels and specifically on Instagram reels I will upload that same raw file from CapCut and add in background music or any other filters or anything that I need to natively in the app.
Ben Amos:
Right, so just to clarify that in case our listeners missed that, you’re creating, I guess, the base storyline of your video in CapCut, and then you’re downloading
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Mm-hmm.
Ben Amos:
that file to your phone and then uploading that natively to the Reels Creator, the Reels Editor tool, or the TikTok video editor, and then you’re adding in additional platform native filters, text, music. that sort of stuff is going to be unique to the platform. An extra step, but are you seeing that that is making a difference as far as then the platform believes it’s been created within its own ecosystem? Is that the thought process there?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yes, exactly. Yeah, I think so.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, interesting. It was personally, for myself, I’ve been, since being inspired at social media marketing world, I’ve been deliberately making a point to post or upload directly to Facebook Reels using the Facebook platform and app. which I hadn’t really been paying much attention to before. And it’s been working really well as far as my Facebook Reels engagement
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Good.
Ben Amos:
is going really well. But I have been, and maybe it’s a shortcut which I shouldn’t be doing, is ticking that little check box that says also post to Instagram. And I’ve been noticing that the Reels on Instagram that are being pushed through from Facebook are just going nowhere. So I
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah,
Ben Amos:
don’t know. I guess that’s a fair…
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
so that’s one of the biggest misconceptions, I think, or opportunities that’s being looked over for Facebook Reels is that people are just checking that box when they upload an Instagram Reels, also shared to Facebook Reels. You’re missing out on a massive opportunity. Take the extra 10 minutes and go on the Facebook app and natively upload that as a reel through their platform because you’re gonna reach far more people.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, exactly. And what I’m talking about there is the reverse as well, because I’ve
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Right,
Ben Amos:
been uploading
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
sure.
Ben Amos:
to Facebook reels and ticking that box to shoot it back the other way, and I’m getting that same response. So I think what you’re saying there, which I hope our listeners are taking on board here, is to go that even one step further than that and to look at adding some native… elements via the video editing tool within those Reels publishing platforms that are unique to those platforms as well. That’s something I haven’t tried before. I’ve just been creating in a third party tool and uploading it without adding anything extra. That’s got me thinking. I might change what I’m doing. Thank you for that.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, it’s all about experimentation, finding out
Ben Amos:
Yeah,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
what works
Ben Amos:
absolutely.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
best for you and doubling down on what works.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about that rise off TikTok. So you started on TikTok, you realised there’s some traction here to be made for my agency, I’m getting results when it comes to vertical short form video in this style. And at that stage, I guess earlier on, you were just going, I’m just gonna post the same content to Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels because I’ve already got it, right? But then you started to see traction you mentioned before, more and more traction on other platforms as well. So what’s that journey been for you and what’s that look like now? I mean, I just checked before we jumped on here and on Facebook alone you’ve got 827,000 followers. I don’t know how that compares to your TikTok, but you know, that’s for Facebook, that’s pretty cool.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, Facebook’s actually now my number one platform, which is absolutely
Ben Amos:
Who would have thought
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
crazy
Ben Amos:
it?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
to me. Cause it was TikTok for years and the growth on Facebook has really just been in 10 months. I went from 5,000 connections, which is just friends and family. And the key difference here, by the way, is I converted my personal profile. into professional mode. This is not a business page. This is my personal profile that I converted. And so in the last 10 months, it went from 5,000 to 827,000 and it’s still growing really rapidly. Some of the key differences is I was just dumping all of my content from TikTok over to these other platforms kind of without purpose, just duplicate content, dump it. here you go, I was just the TikTok guy for a while. And I didn’t wanna just be the TikTok guy. It’s so dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket on one platform. And point proven, my TikTok account has gotten banned twice. I’ve got it restored twice, but it was in quotes for the listeners, permanently banned twice. It was ridiculous. If I was only on TikTok. I would be screwed. My entire lead generation platform would be gone. And so I never wanna be put in a corner like that where I’m just so fragile, you know? And so I was just dumping all of this content and it wasn’t really working. There was no… you know, while the content was working on TikTok, just everything and anything wasn’t working on all these other platforms. So I had to focus on really understanding the finesse of each platform and the cadence of each platform, little optimization things, and really just focusing not on posting every video, but being selective of what videos that I chose. And so I… it also around the same time and this really rapid growth has only happened over the last 10 months really. But I shifted my content strategy to 90% sharing useful websites and AI websites for business owners and entrepreneurs and that was a long winded strategy to eventually promote my tool syllabi. But I changed the delivery. of that content as well. And so rather than just me sharing useful websites, I adopted a very popular style of content, which is this conversation style, where you’re cutting back and forth between talking to yourself in different outfits, but communicating educational content. And so I took a proven winning style before and applied… my content strategy to it and created something fresh and something new that people really hadn’t seen before, but was still relatable because that’s a proven winning formula. And when I switched to that format, it worked really well across the board. And so I just sort of doubled down on that. And so now most of my content is just that conversational. style of talking about useful websites for business owners and entrepreneurs and I talk a lot about different AI tools and AI websites that have come out and that along with some Engagement hacks that I’ve snuck into my content as well, which I’m happy to talk about if you want I figured out how to sort of manipulate and game engagement on the content so between those two things it’s just been a astronomical growth over the last 10 months.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, well, so much in that that I want to dive into. You know, I think first of all, I’d love to just highlight what you said there around taking something or trying something that… is already working on the platform, which is this style of video delivery of playing two characters but you’re the same person and cutting back and forth, that you feel that you can achieve, which obviously it’s something that doesn’t require someone else. You can do it yourself, you can achieve it fairly easily just editing in app and things like that. But also then putting your layer of content, your approach, your niche on top of that, I think is something that’s really smart. you don’t know what’s going to work. But then the second part I wanted to highlight is, is when you, when it did work, when you saw that that was taking off, you doubled down on that. You didn’t go, okay, well that worked, let’s just try another thing and see if I can get something else to
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Right.
Ben Amos:
work. Instead you went, this works, right? And you, did you say 90% of what you do now is basically that same
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
recipe?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah. Yeah. Why, why switch if it’s still working
Ben Amos:
Yeah. Well,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
double
Ben Amos:
that’s,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
down
Ben Amos:
I mean, that’s.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
until it becomes, you know, until I need to innovate again, but you know, it’s still working. So.
Ben Amos:
That’s a lesson in and of itself is if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Obviously, it’s working for you, which is incredible. I want to talk about these engagement hacks. You talked about that and I think we can’t let that one go. Tell me, can you share what are some of these hacks that you’re doing to keep people engaged or keep them rewatching and so on?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so I sort of stumbled upon the fact that it’s easier to get negative engagement on posts than it is to get positive engagement on posts. And think about this, right? Because if you accidentally make an error in anything that you do or anything that you post, what happens? People run to the comments to correct you, right? To point
Ben Amos:
Yes.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
out… your flaws to assert their egos, the trolls, right? There’s always trolls when it comes to creating content. It’s the nature of the game. If you’re self-conscious about something, they’ll find it, they’ll latch onto it, and they’ll bring it up, right? And so, you know, I came to realize, in addition to that, that the platforms don’t care if the engagement is positive or negative. They just want more engagement, right? And so I said, hmm. Let me try something. And so I started to troll the trolls. And so I will mispronounce words on purpose in my videos. I’ll share a website as an example. I bring up this example all the time, but answersocrates.com and I’ll just casually say answersocrates.com. And that always pisses
Ben Amos:
It pisses
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
people
Ben Amos:
people
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
off.
Ben Amos:
off.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
I’ve shown that same website 50 times, every single time. I do the same little gimmick. I mispronounce it on purpose. And without a doubt, tons, 30, 40 comments come in saying Socrates, they’ll phonetically spell it out in the comments. So I’m sharing a lot of useful websites. And right below the website, I will plant a little folder that says something. Like right now, for instance, I have Hillary Clinton, NUD dot dot dot. And I just leave it cut off. And so I don’t mention it, but it’s there in clear sight, very visible, or I’ll put like how to hide a dead body like below it or something, you know, or
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Hunter Biden, uh, laptop files,
Ben Amos:
Something that you know
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
really
Ben Amos:
is gonna spark people,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
something.
Ben Amos:
yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah. Something that’s going to cause people to be like, what, what did
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
I just see? Are we going to talk about this thing? And so what does that do? It forces people to rewatch the video to make sure that they saw that thing there, right? Increasing your watch duration of your video. And then they run to the comments to assert their ego and point out and make fun of you. Try and make fun of you. You know, correct your spelling error. point out this weird thing that they think was an accident that you have in your folder, or I’ll mess up my hair, or I’ll make my glasses all weird, or something, right? Just so that they will come to the comments and assert themselves. And you don’t need to take it as an extreme that I do, but there’s a great concept in this strategy about planting Easter eggs. in your content that becomes an inside joke for your audience, your true fans, right? And so what you’re ultimately doing is you’re leveraging the trolls to elevate your content and bring in your loyal fans on an inside joke. So what this does is when anybody runs to the comments to point out, you know, one of the webs, the folders that I have or, you know, correct a spelling on something, People will, you know, it’ll create comment strings and someone will say, you know, I thought I was the only one to see this. Let’s talk about this. It gets a bunch of upvotes and stuff. But the fans come and know that it’s a joke, right? The regular attendees. So now they look for it and they’ll respond back like, ha, he gotcha. Or like first time here, huh? Because they’re in on that insider joke. And that is a really powerful psychological. strategy that you can implement in your content to increase engagement and build that loyal trust with your true fans.
Ben Amos:
Man, I love that and I love how strategic you’re being about something that seems so unstrategic effectively.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Hahaha
Ben Amos:
I’ve seen that. I’ve seen that same engagement hack in other places. I think being a video strategist, I tend to notice that and I tend to know that I’m being hacked in that way. Not always, I’ll tell you, I’ve definitely fallen for it. But I love that idea that it’s actually prompting that engagement. My question to you though, because you do work with, obviously this works for your own brand, your own content, and you’ve found that balance in it, and what works for you. How would you apply this or how do you feel that businesses can apply this when they’re using this style of content for a business when there probably is a little bit more hesitation in some of these tactics? Do you understand where I’m going
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah,
Ben Amos:
with that?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
yeah, yeah, 100%. And you have to lean into your comfort level on this stuff. So, you know, I’ve talked a lot with, I’ll give you one example that we’ve actually done with a client, but I’ve also talked to a lot of real estate agents. And so, you know, I’ve… I’ve come up with a lot of ideas for them in particular, but it could be just something as simple as when you’re doing a house tour, which is a very common style of video for realtors. What $500,000 can get you in Dallas, Texas, for instance. And so if you just do something really silly like having someone dress up in a Bigfoot costume and just without notice, they just walk through the backyard in a really funny way, right? It’s gonna
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
cause people to run to the comments and be like, did anyone else see Bigfoot? What’s up with that weird ape or something in the comment, right? Or, you know, you can do a recurring thing. Like I was chatting with another guy and he has this little stuffed animal dog called Wolfie, I think its name was, right? And so I was chatting with him, we were talking through ideas and what we came up with was, Where’s Wolfie in every video? Like an elf on a shelf type thing. In every video, Wolfie’s gonna be in a different weird area or something, right? And so he can encourage that regular engagement with his fans to… run to the comments and say, oh, I found Wolfie. Like he’s in the bookshelf or something like that, right? Like that’s a great way. And a really funny example, we have one client that he’s got a great sense of humor too. And so he buys and sells like gold and diamonds and jewelry and melts it down and sells it for more and stuff. And so he had a bag of gold teeth from deceased people. You can
Ben Amos:
as
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
buy
Ben Amos:
you do.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
these gold teeth and melt the, you know. cooled out of it and sell it for a lot of money. And so he, different shots throughout, but he just bare hand, like pulled these teeth out of the bag and put it down. And then at the end of the video, he licks his finger and goes, this deals finger licking good. And so that, that set people off like crazy. Cause he’s like, oh my gosh, did you wash your hands in between? What? That’s disgusting. You just bare hand those teeth, licked your fingers. And so that set off the comments like crazy. So there’s so many different creative things that you can implement. Just think about your comfort level and just try stuff out, try this idea out.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, thank you for that. I think that’s awesome. And it is obviously about aligning these tactics, these engagement tactics with your brand and with how you want to be perceived, but also allowing yourself to play a bit and to push the boundaries a little bit to where it’s acceptable I think is an important way to approach this. Hey, as we kind of wrap up here, I just want to explore because we’ve mentioned here your Facebook itself. I want to just say, before we move on, I do want to talk about syllabi as well. Don’t let me forget that, we’re getting there. I want to talk about the opportunity right now for businesses in Facebook reels,
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
Facebook video, Facebook watch. most importantly short form because I think it’s overlooked or
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Oh yeah.
Ben Amos:
under assumed as to what’s possible here. Maybe a lot of businesses are actually thinking Facebook reach is dead. There’s no point really focusing much on Facebook anymore. I do want to point out because we talked briefly about it before. You talked about switching your personal profile to professional mode. That’s maybe part of the strategy there too. Can you just give us just a top level view of what you see the opportunity for businesses? on Facebook video right now is.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, it’s this is a really recent update on Facebook. We’re talking less than a year here where they were very stagnant. They were on the downfall and they had a lot of negative press, right? And so they wanna be as competitive as, they wanna be the number one platform out there. And so they really, when they released Facebook reels, they… have been pushing it organically so heavily right now. The organic reach that you can get on Facebook Reels right now with zero following, you don’t need to have any following, is insane. We have done this with dead Facebook, we have revitalized dead Facebook accounts that sat with 200 fans and no interaction for five years. This is on one of our clients. He’s now got 87 86 87 thousand followers because we just post daily reels daily reels and then complimentary Text posts as well. And so those same like quote images and motivational stuff and really hyper relatable Text posts around the same subject matter as your Facebook reels is the best strategy right now that’s just repeatable and we’re seeing work over and over and over again. So the reels are bringing in a new organic following. And so how do you regularly engage with them outside of the uploading reels? Because let’s face it, video production takes time. It takes a lot of time. And how many times can you post a reel on a day, even the most aggressive creators? I would say I’m pretty aggressive. and I can only do maybe two, three maybe on a given basis. But it doesn’t take me that long to post a quick text post to regularly engage on Facebook. And
Ben Amos:
Yep.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
so, Facebook’s kinda like my Twitter right now. I’ll post like 10, 15 times a day on Facebook, various stuff, all business related, sharing case studies, helpful information, motivational business, or marketing quotes. And I really go, the finesse of that too, that I’ve really leaned into is almost cliches or black and white statements, because it’s going to elicit either a positive or a negative response again. So, you know, one of the, and this was an example that Mike brought up on stage that you had mentioned at the beginning, which was just such a humbling experience.
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
But my most viral text-based post around that was society’s biggest problem is people wanting $30 an hour with a $3 an hour work ethic. And it’s fairly controversial. And so that set off people on both sides of the argument. Just the systemic issue of America and capitalism’s evil. And then the other side of… people that are like, yeah, you know, you should get what you know put in, you know more work you get what you You get in what you get an effort or the more effort that you put in the more reward that you get You know the whole thing and it went crazy people it got like 40 50,000 shares something like that that post has reached like 5 million people at this point, but just Black and white statements, of course, that’s not America’s biggest their society’s biggest problem. It’s But it’s going to elicit an emotional response on either side. And so if you can stack these things together, you’re regularly creating reels, leveraging that organic growth, you’re re-engaging these people on a regular basis through your complimentary content on your Facebook post, or page, or profile, whatever you choose to do this on. This is the magic formula right now. We’re seeing this work. We haven’t… not had success with this format. It’s been a 100% success rate the last couple of months, which is insane to say, but that format is working so well on Facebook right now. It’s the biggest opportunity that nobody’s taking advantage of.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I love it. Thank you for that. And just to clarify, I mean, you’re doing this through your personal profile with professional mode turned on and these are public posts, so privacy set
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yep.
Ben Amos:
to public on Facebook. And
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yep.
Ben Amos:
are you recommending that that’s what business clients do as well, is someone
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
I love
Ben Amos:
within
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
you.
Ben Amos:
the organisation goes through their personal profile or are you seeing this re-engaging business pages that are typically lying dormant?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, I think both work. Right. You, you might remember another quote that, that Mike put up on stages that I told him as I sacrificed my friends and family for reach, which is kind of true. You know, if you’re going to switch your personal legacy Facebook profile over to professional mode, which gives you analytics and a whole suite of other tools. You’re and you, you use it as a business tool and you start creating only business oriented content. you have to get ready that you might isolate some of your friends and family that have been connected with you for years. Now there’s also criticisms about professional mode as well. It doesn’t work for, you know, it’s not just like turn on professional mode and now you’re gonna be, you know, you’re gonna have a million followers. It doesn’t quite work that way, right? Test, you know, the reason I went all in on the professional mode is I thoroughly tested it. I tested the same videos on my business page. and on my personal profile. And the reach was astronomically more on my personal profile. And that’s why I made that switch and went all in and said, any friends or family that’s not gonna support me and my dreams and ambitions, like, sorry, this is my path. You can unfollow me, we’ll still be fine, right? And I’ve never gotten any negative feedback.
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Everybody’s overly supportive. But it’s testing, right? And so we’ve had tons of pages that are doing the exact same format, Reels, regular, complimentary posts, posting like five to 10 times a day. And the organic reach has never been better. Even prior to the like adpocalypse on Facebook where they just destroyed organic reach and it became pay to play, the organic reach on Facebook has never been better. It’s better now than it was before. opportunity, but test it out.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, awesome. Thanks for clarifying. So you did mention that you’ve pivoted the focus of your content on Facebook towards content around AI, which is obviously a very popular content that people are very interested in right now with the rise of chat GPT and all these other AI tools. And even just watch a few of your videos, you’ll realise that the AI tool landscape is… exploding, it’s crazy.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
And you’ve created your own AI tool. So started a new business. Can you just give us the rundown on what led you into software, into AI?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so I, you know, we created syllabi to address a lot of the problems that business owners and entrepreneurs face that they’re not quite ready to hire an agency or maybe they don’t have the means or the budget to hire an internal person or an internal team. And, and so like I’ve been doing social media for 18 years. I’ve had this agency for four and I’ve worked at an agency for eight and a lot of the that business owners and entrepreneurs faces. They know they need to create content, but they don’t know what topics to create. They don’t know what to say in their videos. They need help staying consistent and accountable. Sometimes they just don’t like being on camera and they don’t have the budget. And so I’ve taken what we’ve learned in social media and our repeatable processes, and we turned it into a flow and a suite of tools. within syllabi and so syllabi shows you the top questions that your customers are searching for online with data, real time data to back it up. It generates viral video scripts for short form videos or for longer YouTube videos. We have a content calendar built in and a consistency tracker to sort of gamify it and help you stay consistent. And just this week we’re actually rolling out AI video creation. So we’re incorporating a… an AI avatar that looks like a real person, sounds like a real person, and so it takes that viral video script that’s generated and feeds it into this AI and it actually creates the video saying a script that your customers are searching for so you don’t even need to be on camera anymore. So everything that we do as an agency, we really built a tool around it at a fraction of the pricing.
Ben Amos:
It’s crazy and anyone listening to this probably recognises how powerful systemising and streamlining and getting that sort of assistance that we know that AI can be so good at, just prompting ideas and getting started with scripting and generating content consistently. Because I think the biggest thing that holds people back from content is just doing it on a consistent basis and not losing momentum because you could just get… busy, right? If you make that easier, then people are going to take action more consistently. That’s
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Absolutely.
Ben Amos:
where AI, I think, really shines. Do you see use cases for this? Have you got clients using Syllabi who are using it at an agency level as well as at the individual business level? Does it scale to that agency level as well?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so we’re actually working on some agency plans and functionality within the app. So there are some agencies that are using it. It’s not really built for agencies right now. We are rolling out some tools where you can like switch between profiles so you can focus on content for a particular client. That’s not out yet, but we are actively working on all of that. We have a lot of great case studies. We have, we’ve had over… 5,500 users so far at TriSyllabye. So it’s been an amazing, very fast growing experience and we’re getting
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
a lot of great feedback.
Ben Amos:
That’s cool. And the tagline there for syllabi is create your social media strategy in 10 minutes. I mean, if that’s not enough of a prompt for listeners or viewers of this podcast episode to go and try out syllabi for themselves and they can try it for free, right? Is that correct?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yep, yeah, seven day free trial, yep, syllabi.io, or I’m sure you’re gonna have a link in the description.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, so I’m partnering with Syllabi as an affiliate. So if you have got value from this episode, then jump on over to Syllabi and give it a try via my link at engagevideomarketing.com slash Syllabi, which is S-Y-L-L-A-B-Y. And that’ll be a great way for you to test it out. And if you do end up using Syllabi, then a little affiliate commission comes my way as these things tend to work. So I appreciate you for doing that. you back on the show, Austin, if you’re open to it, as syllabi kind of rolls out. Particularly, I think my audience, being video marketers, doing this for their clients, I think as we kind of get to a point with syllabi where it’s a viable thing for agencies to use, I can see so much upside there. That’s huge. So
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
let’s get you back
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
and let’s talk about AI and syllabi in a lot more detail that we couldn’t get to in the time we had today.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, I’m happy to. Thank you so much, this was an awesome conversation. I’m just a nerd about this stuff, I love talking about it, so I’d be honored to come back anytime, and I hope it was valuable to all the listeners.
Ben Amos:
Oh man, me too. I could have kept going for another hour, but
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
I think we’ll respect your time and we’ll wrap it up here. Austin, where can people find you? Obviously, catch your short form videos. They’ve got to follow you on TikTok and everywhere, right? Facebook. Where’s the best place? Where’s the best place? Where do you engage most?
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
Yeah, so if you want to engage with me, probably Facebook is the best place. Austin Armstrong, I think I’m. Socialty Pro across the board on whatever your favorite social media platform is
Ben Amos:
Excellent guys, we’ll have the links to everything, including the links to try out Syllabye for yourself at engagevideomarketing.com slash 275. This is episode 275, so slash 275 to go there. And that’s the show notes for this episode. Austin, it’s been a pleasure to reconnect with you and thanks for sharing so much insight, value and awesome stuff that you’ve got going on. It’s been awesome.
Austin Armstrong @SocialtyPro:
It was a pleasure, my friend. Thank you, Ben.
Ben Amos:
All right, cool.
