A New Age of Social Media

I bet you have seen the shift that’s happening.

There is a war against the way businesses (yes, you) have been using social media.

Rico Incarnati ​has said it.​

Roberto Nickson ​has said it.​

Even the “non-gurus” are speaking out against it.

​Like my friend Summer​

and ​my new friend Ian Coll​

We are sick of being sold to.

We are sick of being told there are 5 things I need to do to achieve my goals.

We are craaaaaving more connection.

We want to know more about YOU the person and less about your business.

Everything in life is cyclical and all trends come back into play at some point.

You clearly see this represented by the mullet popularity wheel cycle.

Early social media was the Connection Era.

Blogs and Vlogs were the rage.

We watched as ​Casey Neistat explored NYC and ran over cop cars in the bike lane​.

Our Facebook newsfeeds were filled with photos of people going on vacation.

Twitter was full of what people ate for lunch.

Then we then hit the Information Era where people realized they could run entire businesses from a social media account. The first accounts to do this were the ONLY ones doing this. If you were a personal trainer, you’d be the only one of your friends (and their friends) giving fitness advice. It was a beautiful way for people to get information to reach their goals fast. It made it really easy for that person to grow a business this way.

People like Russell Brunson blew up in popularity and wealth by teaching you how to grow and scale your business using funnels. And on and on it went as seemingly everyone has become an online coach. (BTW I love it. I think it would be a great world if everyone built a life teaching people how to do the thing they love)

Today, we have reached a breaking point and we are tired of it all. It’s gotten salesy and worst of all, boring.

Good news is that we humans love to evolve. We are making our way back to the Connection Era lead by Sam Sulek on YouTube amassing 3 million subscribers with his very long form vlog fitness content. He’s not focused on selling you or telling you 3 ways to accomplish your goals. He’s simply telling you what he’s doing on his way to become a top body builder and sprinkling in life stuff along the way.

This isn’t as new as you think it is. We are actually approaching “The Chasm” of the Connection Age and I want to be sure you jump in on the early adoption phase.

There is power to being an early adopter.

You will be the one giving people more of what they truly want while everyone else is pushing out what people don’t want. It’s like being on TikTok in 2019. The market is wide open for the taking which it makes it easier to grow.

My gut is that we are somewhere in the middle of the visionary phase still. The Chasm could be right around the corner and I want YOU to be ahead of the curve as an early adopter (also for the boys, get on that middle part haircut).

What will stop you from being an Early Adopter

There’s gonna be resistance to getting started. This is simply because of your current held beliefs about marketing on social media.

Have you ever been to your brick and mortar internet provider store? If you spend at least 30 minutes there you will see someone over the age of 70 walking in to pay their bill with a check. It doesn’t matter how convenient paying online is, they don’t trust it and probably never will. Their world views are steeped deep into the safety of the life they know.

This happens to all of us.

Beliefs are created through repetition and heightened emotions, oftentimes by the voice of an authority figure. You form your beliefs to remain safe.

→ Repetition: If you have the discipline to run everyday, you will eventually have the belief that you are a runner.

→ Heightened Emotion: You don’t need to touch a red hot stove more than once (I hope) to create a new belief that a red hot stove will burn you.

→ Repetition from an authority: Every night for months, maybe years, your parents told you to brush your teeth. It was slow, you resisted and complained, but now you are someone who brushes their teeth twice a day.

→ Heightened emotions from an authority: If you are playing in the yard and run out in the middle of the street and almost get hit by a car, your mother may worriedly scream at you to never do that again. You get scared and upset. With this heightened emotion, you don’t need to be told twice to never do that again.

If you take a look at your beliefs around social media, they were formed through a mixture of these. Hearing over and over for the last 10+ years to give away your best information, by posting content and taking action, and/or by having success with a certain style of content.

Now that things are shifting, there is a lack of repetition, heightened emotional experience, or an authority telling you to do this new thing. That means, there is a lack of safety in doing things this way, which means a lack of trust.

Stepping into a new identity

There is a massive opportunity for your personal growth here, provided you agree and believe things are changing on social media. You get an opportunity to take agency over you life.

Whose permission are you waiting for? Not just with your content, but everywhere in life?

Instead of waiting for permission from the self proclaimed authorities in the space to tell you what and how to do things… How quickly can you trust yourself to take action into the unknown and remain safe. This gets to be your lifelong practice.

Imagine someone who is taking up running in their 40s.

Even if they are fit enough to run 30 miles a week, they may only start with 12. By running 3 miles a day for 4 days they are easing into the identity of being a runner. It’s likely they might not even call themselves a runner until their first, second, or maybe third race. Eventually, overtime running isn’t something they get themselves to do, it’s just who they are.

If you do choose to do this, give yourself grace and time. Sharing more stories and being more vulnerable is an identity shift.

You may continue to post what you normally do about 90% of the time and get frustrated that you are not all in and sharing more stories and getting more vulnerable. No need to shame yourself or get upset and think, “Why can’t I just go all in on this?!?!”

It’s okay!! 10% is a great first step.

Soon it will be 80:20, then 70:30 and so on until you have found a great balance you love.

My hope is that, with the awareness of how we create beliefs and the resistance you may feel along with the practice of consciously creating safety in the unknown, that lean in to it and stay consistent with it.

The Strategy

I have been teaching my clients to share more of their personal life and weave that in since 2022, but only recently have I truly began to lean deeper into it and really grasp how to do it effectively.

By effectively, I mean expertly creating deep relationships with my audience while also staying top of mind as an authority in my field.

Since realigning my strategy at the beginning of 2024, I rarely get less than 100 likes with at least 20-30 comments on my reels. Best of all I am gaining more and more followers every day.

Plenty of people have LOTS of followers and get lots of likes, but have no idea how to chase those likes in for dollars. I just saw a guy I love on TikTok say “incomes a bit low right now” and he has over 1 million followers. This isn’t about JUST telling stories and getting vulnerable for the sake of likes and followers. There is a strategic method here and everything I am doing is intentional.

Please know that even though I started this email by saying, “We are sick of being told there are 5 things I need to do to achieve my goals.” and the Information Era is dead. I don’t mean to stop teaching and giving valuable information, people LOVE to learn and grab on to new information. It is simply the delivery of this information that needs to change AND to start incorporating other types of content too.

Here’s the strategy:

You can post one of these week. That’s 4 posts a week. I haven’t found it to be very beneficial to post 7 days a week.

Steph Stabulis said it best in this thread.

1. Teach Instead of telling us what to do. Tell us what you did and why you did it. No more, ”5 steps YOU can do to…” More of, ”Here are the 5 steps I took to…”

2. Perspectives It’s not always about teaching. You can also blow our minds by changing our perspectives.

3. Proof by You Instead of speaking to peoples dreams. Go do more of those things and take us along for the journey.

4. Tell Stories Just as you build a deep connection with a friend, don’t always talk about the work you do. Share stories about what makes you YOU.

While social media may change, us humans do not. It’s far more valuable to understand the psychology of humans than try to constantly jump on trends and game the algorithm.

We have been telling stories for tens of thousands of years (probably longer).

It’s our instinctual desire to connect with one another. When we connect, we can relate, and in relation we find safety and belonging. It feels so good to belong. We rest easy (literally) when we feel safe.

It’s the same reason you watch a movie like Lion King and feel sad when Simba lays over Mufasa’s (his dad) dead body. You are not a lion. You don’t live in Africa. Your evil uncle didn’t kill your father. You don’t know Simba and Mufasa personally. So why do you feel sad for Simba? Because it is our innate desire to connect by finding ourselves in the story. Any story.

Every time you show up on social media your are inviting people to relate their story to yours and you should be much more intentional with this knowledge.

I am going to show you exactly how you can create a rich story out of these 4 types of content in a free live training, “Simplified Storytelling Strategy”

I want you to become a world-class chef who can take any ingredients in the fridge and know exactly how to create a 5-star meal.

In this FREE training you will:

• Learn how to weave in your multi-passionate self to create stories that allow you to stand out (and makes content WIDLY fun)

• Learn how to use consistent language and topics that speak to your soul and makes you top of mind to your ideal client

• Get the 4 posts a week Simplified Storytelling Strategy I am using that has increased my following by 33% this year.

This is a 90 minute training and THERE WILL BE NO REPLAY AVAILABLE (unless you’re in the Growth Membership)

Instead, there are 3 call times for you to choose from.

• Monday, March 18th at 9am PST

• Wednesday, March 20th at 4pm PST

• Thursday, March 21st at 12pm PST

All you have to do is click the button below and I’ll get you signed up for the training.

See ya there!

Matt

Connect with me on Instagram ​@matthew.allyn​ and let me know what you liked about this post so I can do more of it!