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Brock is a 20-year-old, a college student-athlete and a social media marketing expert! He’s been an entrepreneur since he was 7 (What What?!) and his goal is to teach people how to monetize Snapchat and use it to grow their brand!
Now… you know snapchat is my favorite thing right now, so I was excited to chat with Brock and talk about ways to use social media to increase your business and to find out more about brands you love.
He even shares some love by giving us a discount code to unwrapsnap.com – 20% off : livingbig
Transcript:
Hey everyone. Today my guest on the show is a really interesting guy. He’s a young guy, he’s in college, he plays football, and he has a side business that we’re gonna get into. So currently you may know, my favorite piece of social media is Snapchat. So I became sort of obsessed with Snapchat, and I found my guest today, because he shares how to actually use Snapchat to market your business. And also if you’re a parent, and you want to understand how to use Snapchat, because it’s sort of confusing, it’s not easy, like some of the other pieces of social media. But we get into that, and he talks about how to really understand it so that you as a parent can protect your children. And we talk a little bit about priorities and how he balances all this stuff. So super interesting, a really great guy and I am really pumped and anxious for you to hear this interview. Welcome to the art of living big. My name is Betsy Pake, entrepreneur, author and personal success coach. This is the show that brings you stories and small ideas to help you live a big life. I hope this once a week podcast will inspire you, motivate you and encourage you to think differently about what could be possible for your life. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let’s go live big. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to the next episode of The Art of Living big. I have with me today my friend Brock Johnson. Hey, Brock. Hi. Hey, thanks for being on the show today.
Thanks so much. Yeah, I’m really excited to be here.
So tell everybody a little bit. There’s so much with you that we could talk about, I could probably have you on for a couple hours. But tell everybody a little bit about you.
And what you do?
Yeah, so I’m a 20 year old college football player, and I am a snapchat marketing expert. So I teach business owners how to grow their brands using Snapchat. And I also teach parents how to keep their kids safe on Snapchat.
I love that because really, like there is so much about Snapchat, and we’ll get into it a little bit. But there’s so much about Snapchat, you don’t even realize you can do as a business owner, but also what your kids might be doing that you don’t
know. Yeah, there’s just so much unknown with the app, and I’m really trying to help people figure it all out.
Is Snapchat your favorite social media? Like are you on all the other stuff? And you just were drawn to Snapchat?
Yeah, I am. I kind of jokingly say that I did social media in reverse. So I started with Snapchat and Instagram. And then I worked my way to Facebook. I think most people go the other route. Yeah, but yeah, no, I’m on everything. So I’m on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter. And but yeah, snapchats definitely my favorite. And it’s where I spend 90% of my time.
Do you have the same name? Like how can somebody find you on all that stuff?
Yeah, so Snapchat, I’m Brock. 11 Johnson. So the 11 is in the middle of my name. And then on Instagram. I’m Brock Johnson 11. So the 11 is at the end of my name. Yeah. And that’s what yeah, that’s how you can find.
Okay, cool. And I’ll make sure to link to it in the show notes too. So, okay, so let’s talk about Snapchat a little bit, because I, I’m a little bit older than you just a couple years older, but I’m about to be 46.
And so, um, I just recently found Snapchat,
but I find it so so fun. And I’m going to tell you why. And you can tell me if this sounds like typical, but, you know, Facebook, I’ve been on Facebook for a long time. So maybe I was a little burnt out from it. And also, I find I would get really sucked in to Facebook. Like, you know, Facebook could can rob me of my life if I let it. Oh, yeah. And then you know, Twitter’s got its place, but it’s just so different. But with Snapchat, I didn’t Oh, and then Instagram I love but you got to be like, you know, you got to have the perfect. Yeah, I would spend 20 minutes trying to get a picture of my breakfast. You know what I mean? But with Snapchat,
like the beauty of it really is that it’s so much really just your life. Right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So people love Snapchat, because it’s quick. And that was why that’s how it was designed. That’s why the word snap is in the name because it’s supposed to be you’re in and out in a snap. It’s supposed to be very fast moving app. And that’s why people love it so much is because it’s quick, you don’t get drawn in for hours and hours. like you would on Facebook, you don’t get lost down into the internet and sucked into trying to create the perfect post for Instagram. You can just be your real raw, authentic self. And you don’t have to worry about looking photoshopped like you would on Instagram. You can just be natural and organic. And also you can consume content very quickly on Snapchat.
Yeah. Okay, so if someone’s listening, and they’ve never been on Snapchat before, how would you describe it?
Hmm. Well, it’s definitely not the most user friendly app first.
It’s not right. It’s like a little confusing.
Yeah. Yeah, no 100%. And people a lot of times will give up on Snapchat because of that. And that was it was an intentional design by the founders of Snapchat was that it’s not built like any other social media. So it’s not designed to be the user friendly way that you’ve learned with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. It’s different. But what’s cool about being different is once you learn how to use it, it’s much faster than any other social media. And you can do more fun things than you can on any other social media.
Yeah, you really can do some fun things. So it’s a
it’s a picture app or a video. So you can do you know, you can do like, What? How many seconds? Is the video? Like 10 seconds? Up to 10 seconds? Yeah. Okay, up to 10 seconds. So that’s fast, you know, yeah, it goes fast. But you really can do some fun stuff. So let’s talk about it. Like from a business perspective, tell me a little bit about how somebody can really use Snapchat for business.
Well, what’s great about Snapchat for business is that there’s a natural urgency created. So because pictures and videos can only be 10 seconds long. And when you put them onto your story, which is basically like your profile on any other social media, when you put it on your story, it doesn’t stay there forever, it only stays there for 24 hours. So there’s a natural urgency created there. There’s a natural time limit to any content that you provide. And it’s great for business owners, because people aren’t going to want to buy from you unless they know like, and trust you. And there’s no better way to get people to know like and trust you than through personal live video. And that’s all Snapchat is. Yeah,
and the cool thing that I like about Snapchat is if somebody is following you, you know, you have inside jokes with your friends. Yeah, I feel like with Snapchat, you can get like the inside joke. You know, like, my daughter was following me on Snapchat. She’s in high school. And she has a favorite mug that she got from Starbucks in Seattle that I am not allowed to use. So when she was at school, and I could see she was on Snapchat at school, which you know, you’re just not supposed to do, I would take the yellow mug and I would like drink it on the toilet. You drink it like, and so I knew she would see it. But people that followed me knew what I was doing. Like they knew this story. And so it created like this inside joke, you know, like, Oh, you know, all of must be on Snapchat at school. So I think that’s sort of like that’s the personalization of it. Right?
Oh, 100% it’s giving people a behind the scenes look into your life. It’s reality TV, minus descriptiveness of reality TV, you know, it’s giving people that real like, behind the scenes, like they feel like they know you they feel like they’re friends with you. They’ll meet you in person. And they’ll be like, I don’t even have to, like get to know you. Because I already do know you just by watching your snapchat every day.
Well, yeah, I mean, that’s what I was saying to you when we first got on the phone and talk for a few minutes. Like you don’t know me, but I know you. is a little creepy, I guess. Right? Not meaning to be old, creepy lady, but, like, a house football. You know, like, I knew stuff about you, which was actually really cool.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I feel the same way with plenty of people who I follow who I’ve never met in person. But just by following them on Snapchat, I feel like I know them on a personal basis. And like we’re friends, like, because I know what’s going on in their life.
Right, right. Yeah. So how do you find people to follow on Snapchat? So let’s say you, there’s a brand you like, or somebody that you like, you know, how do you how do you find where they are on Snapchat?
Well, there’s a couple ways the first way that most and every brand should definitely be doing this, everyone should be doing this. And that is posting their snap code, which is pretty much like a bar code that’s unique to your snapchat profile. So be posting that, and their username on all their other social media platforms. So if you go to my Instagram, or my Twitter or my Facebook, you’ll find you’ll find my snapchat account, so you’ll be able to easily add me. So that’s a great thing. And a lot of big brands do that. So pretty much anything like Coca Cola, if you go to their Twitter page or their Instagram page, you’ll find very quickly a link to their Snapchat account. And they want that because they know that once people follow them on Snapchat, they’ll start building more of a real connection with their users. And then the second way, a great way to find people on Snapchat is a separate app that I’ve talked about a lot. It’s a it’s a pretty much a directory for Snapchat, kind of like the yellow book pages for Snapchat, and it’s called ghost codes. It’s a little purple ghost and postcodes is awesome is for is because there aren’t hashtags in Snapchat. So ghost codes is awesome, because you’re you can enter yourself into different categories, which are effectively like hashtags. And then you can find people in those categories. is much easier.
Oh, right. So if you’re looking for someone that’s a weightlifter or you’re looking for someone that’s entrepreneur, you can be in those groups or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, just on most social medias, you can search hashtag bodybuilder and you’ll find a bunch of bodybuilders. You can’t do that on Snapchat yet. Even though apparently that should be coming within the next few weeks, there’s a new release that should be coming out very soon that will let you do that. But as of right now, the best way to find people within a specific category is ghost codes, and then just searching them on other social medias to start,
right. Okay. So that’s why it’s important to put that code in like your Twitter profile or other places.
Yep, absolutely. Yeah,
that makes a ton of sense. So if someone is listening, and they have a small business, and they decide they’re going to do this, and they get their Snapchat set up, and they figure out how to use it, is there certain content, certain things they shouldn’t show? You know what I’m saying? Like? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Business, like, do you just show everything in your life? Or do you? Do you monitor that?
I think there’s got to be some amount of a filter, but at the same time, going with the word filter, I don’t think those filter face masks should be used a ton. Hmm.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the dog.
Yeah, exactly. Cuz
I do really like the one that made the pretty filter,
can I use the pretty filter? Pretty filter, everyone?
Use the free filter, that’s the one that I would say is acceptable. Because at least it’s not like making you into a dog or something. Right?
It gets rid of it’s like Botox filter,
you just look like you’re wearing some nice makeup.
Yes, yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So that’s nice. But besides that, I don’t recommend using the other filters. Because if people are following you on Snapchat, like we’ve been talking about, they want to see the real you, they don’t want to see the puppy version of you, or the bumblebee version of you, you know, they want to hear your voice, not a high pitched voice. They want to hear your actual voice, and they want to connect with the real you. And it’s much easier to do that. When you’re posting a video with your real face, rather than some filtered face. Yeah,
yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And then just have your regular filter on like, don’t do something on there that you wouldn’t want people to see or associate with your brand.
Yeah, yeah. And then I, I people talk to me all the time about, you know, I’m a fitness trainer. And a lot of my time though is spent with my kids at home is okay, if I snap them? And I say yeah, absolutely. If something is big and important to your life, then go ahead and snap about it. So sure, I’m a snapchat marketing expert. And what I do is teach people about Snapchat, but I don’t talk about that most of the time on Snapchat, most of the time on Snapchat, I’m talking about my day, I’m talking about happiness, or my faith, or I’m talking about football, I’m talking about school, I’m showing people that I’m a real person, rather than just a walking salesperson.
Well, and really now that you’re
saying that it’s really like showing people the other sides of your brand, like the values of your brand can be represented in different ways, which I guess is what makes it so cool.
Yeah, yeah, hundred percent. I agree.
So tell me about, like, if you’re a parent, and your know, your kid is on Snapchat, like, that’s a tricky thing. Because I know, I monitor my my daughter’s phone. And you know, if she puts something on her phone, it pops up and alerts me on my phone. But there is stuff you can do in Snapchat, and you teach on that right so that parents get really can understand how this what this app is being used for.
Yes, so there’s, there’s a private chatting feature in Snapchat. And like we were talking about earlier how stories only last for 24 hours, when you send someone a message on Snapchat, it disappears as soon as that timer is up. So when you send a picture, you can set the timer to as little as like, one second. So you can send someone a picture that only is viewable for one second. And after that second is over, the picture is basically gone forever. So there is a little bit of a hidden feature within Snapchat or an anonymous kind of like a secretive feature, I guess you could say within Snapchat. And this can be troublesome because, you know, teenagers are likely to use whatever is out there to be teenagers. So actually 47% I was shocked to learn this 47% of teenage Snapchat users say that the private chatting feature is their favorite feature. And this blew me away because I was like, What am I I barely even use this. But I think that, you know, almost half of the teens on Snapchat, say that this is their favorite feature. And it’s their favorite because it’s very secret and very private. Um, yeah, I
never even thought of that like
cuz sometimes I’ll chat somebody you know, if they post something, you know, and I’ll comment on it or whatever. Although people don’t really Do that that much Eve even do that. But But let’s get back to my point, my point. My point was that that surprises me because I don’t even use it like, I don’t even think about that. But that’s because I’m my age, right? So they’re using this sort of in the background. So is there any record of it like as a parent, is there any way? And it’s okay to say you have to get my course to find out?
I just didn’t curious. Is there a way?
Well, I mean, if you’re the FBI, the FBI can get legal rights to obtain it. But basically, once the picture is gone, it’s gone. It’s still on the Snapchat servers. But a normal a normal person with a normal phone wouldn’t be able to hack into Snapchat servers, and dig through all the photos that are posted every second and find it. Okay, yeah, we’ve gone. But that’s why in my course, which partial part of it is dedicated just to parents and helping them figure it out, is that the best way to protect your kids on Snapchat is to be in the know, like you, you know how to use Snapchat, and you know, the ins and outs of it. So you’re able to protect your daughter. But if you didn’t know, and you were to just bury your head in the sand and be like, Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing bad going on in the world. I’m sure there’s nothing bad ever happening on snapshot, then you’re not going to protect your kids that way. So the best way to protect them is to get in the know and learn to use it like they use it
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this snapshot on their servers? Do they keep it forever? Do you know, I know. you’ve visited them before?
Yeah, I visited them. I actually didn’t go inside. It was more just a walk about around the outside. Yeah. And was fresh after fresh after some big news outbreak. So they were they were heavily guarded. There was about five guards walking around out front. But really, yeah, I’m not. I’m not sure, actually. And they don’t disclose what they do with their server. So right. I’m gonna guess it’s around on their servers forever. And they don’t just randomly empty the trash of their servers, right. Yeah. So I would guess that it’s on there forever, especially for legal purposes. You know, if someone needs to go back and refine its app chat from 2012, for some sort of case. Yeah.
Right. Right. Yeah. And so that’s really another reason why, you know, I always tell my kid, nothing disappears on the internet. And so don’t do anything that you don’t want pushed across the table at your first job interview.
Yeah, yeah. And that’s another thing is that kids think that just because it disappears, that that means that the other person who’s on the other end, can’t save it. And that’s the problem is that there are lots of ways to save someone’s photo before it disappears.
Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, even if it’s a second, if you’re
ready for it. There’s, there’s third party applications, there’s ways to hack into Snapchat, even just a simple screenshot, there’s plenty of ways to save a snap before it disappears. And a lot of times the person who sent it wouldn’t really have any idea that that was done.
Right, right. So now people can find your course. How do they get to you?
Yeah, so my course is on unwrap snap.com. So like you’re unwrapping it like it’s a package, unwrap snap, calm. And I wanted to give a little discount code for anyone who is listening to the art of living big podcasts. Or if they use living big check out, they’ll get 20% off. And I just wanted to offer that to anyone who is listening, and wanted to be involved in learn from my Academy.
I love that. That’s super
generous of you. Thank you, we’ll make sure to put that all over. So everybody knows. That’s super cool. So tell me how because there’s a whole other aspect to of you that I’m curious about? Because you are a college student, and you play football. And you also have this side business, like how did this even come about? Like how did you even know how to do this? Because I’m trying my mind trying to help my daughter do
something similar, not
snap, chatty, she’s creative in a different way. But you know,
how do you
do that? And how do you balance all that? Because I know there’s probably a lot of parents listening, that would like to support their kids doing something
like this. But how do you even know how to do that?
Yeah, so it really just comes down to priorities. And it started for me last summer, when I was I was at a different school at this time, I was out in Washington, DC at Georgetown University. And my mom came to visit me and I said, you know, Mom, I want to start making my own money so that I can support myself, because I don’t want you guys to have to pay for all my meals and pay for my education and just been. I’m really appreciative of them. And it’s very generous of you guys, but I want to be able to earn my own money and be independent. That was a big priority for me,
which is really cool. Like, that’s really awesome. Like, I’m going to give you my daughter’s phone number. Tell her how to do that. But yeah, yeah, I mean, that’s really cool. So okay, so you’ve got this idea that you’re like, I want to be able to do stuff that I want to do without checking in right without asking my people For more and more,
yeah, yeah, yeah. So it took some brainstorming. And it was actually because I was across the country. I it got tedious texting my parents all day every day telling them what I was doing, hey, I’m on football now, hey, I’m at class and sending them pictures, you know, it got tedious. So my mom said, Why don’t you just snap us? I said, that’s a great idea. So I started Snapchatting with them. And I started getting more into the advanced features of it. And I started teaching them from across the country, how they can snap me. And then from that, my mom came out to visit me and I was like, we had this conversation. And I was like, hey, what if I started a course, teaching parents like I taught you teaching parents? How do you Snapchat and that’s kind of how it started. So going back to priorities, I had to prioritize over my summer, what I wanted to do, and it really came down to my social life, my school, my football and my business. And I decided that of those four things, one of them was going to have to take a backseat, so that my business could kind of move up a little bit. And I decided that I was going to kind of put my social life on hold for an entire week. I didn’t text anyone, I didn’t hang out with any friends. I don’t play video games to begin with, I don’t go out to parties. So when everyone else is wasting away two days of their week, I’m in my room working on my business. So that’s kind of how it started. Last summer at Georgetown was just one week of getting down to it sitting in the library, filming and setting up and building my Academy. And then it released. And then just you know, I’m following God’s plan. And during football season, I ended up surprisingly, I was playing a lot, a lot more than I thought I would as a freshman. And because of that football had to move up into the driver’s seat. And my business kind of took a backseat during football season. So I kind of put it on pause. Then as soon as football season was over, I moved it back up. And again, here we are today.
That’s really cool. And you’re so right. Like,
it’s really life is about seasons. You know, so many times we think we have to be able to juggle everything, but it’s okay to like kind of ebb and flow with the season.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So when you first started the Academy, then it really was focused, because that’s how I think I don’t even know how I heard about it. But when I first heard about it, that’s it was more geared towards just parents. Yeah. And then, which I really love because then you saw like a larger use for it and like a bigger,
calling to expand. Right, exactly.
Yep, exactly. So that’s one thing I always preach is just getting started. You don’t have to have everything perfectly ironed out. Just start small start small. So I just started with the idea of helping parents out. And then it grew into all these parents who now you knew how to use Snapchat. They’re like, Hey, this is one of the biggest social medias in the world. And I know how to use it now Why don’t I use it for business? Can you teach me out? And that’s how that happened?
That’s really cool. Yeah. So I always say that to like, just start doing something don’t you don’t have to know the whole path. But if you start then things will start to like show themselves to you. Right?
Absolutely. Um,
all right, let’s have a quick discussion about Insta stories, because I am not a player. I’m just not I don’t get it. I like my Snapchat, my Snapchat, and my Instagram, my Instagram.
I agree. 100%. And everyone I talked to also agrees 100%
Oh, really? Yeah. Because if you’re a Snapchat or then your Snapchat or you don’t, you don’t want that.
Yeah, and it doesn’t have that same natural organic feel on Instagram, because you can import photos on Instagram. So you can put that Photoshop photo into your snap into your Instagram story. And it’s no more real than an Instagram post. So it doesn’t have that realness that authenticity that Snapchat offers. And there’s some there’s lots of stats on it. There’s like a 65% of people still prefer Snapchat stories over Instagram stories. There’s 50 million actually, wait, no, there’s double. That’s actually there’s double the amount of users on Snapchat stories and Instagram stories. And that’s one of the biggest things is people always like, I would use Snapchat, Brock, but I have way more followers on Instagram. And so I’m just gonna keep posting on my Instagram story. Right, right. Or he’s have about 100 and 50 million daily active users. Snapchat has 300 million, so double the amount of users on Snapchat every single day.
Oh, yeah. So
okay. Which brings us back to what we were talking about in the very beginning, which was like really getting your code out there and your name out there that you’re on Snapchat, because you really could build into something really big. Just because there’s so you don’t even realize how many people are out there that are snapchatters
Yeah, yeah. And I was actually just reading like, I had Literally found this 10 minutes before we started this call. And I was comparing the user percentages of Snapchat to YouTube because everyone knows YouTube and YouTube is ginormous. And YouTube is a is a primarily video it is 100% video based content. So it’s a lot like Snapchat in that way. So I was comparing to see, you know how many of Snapchat users are teenagers and how many of YouTube users are teenagers? How many of Snapchat users are over 65. And how many YouTube users are over 65. And I was shocked to learn that there are equal to or more 35 to 4535 to 4545 to 5555 to 60 and 65. So anyone above 35, there are more users percentage wise on Snapchat than there are on YouTube. Oh, wow. That’s crazy. I know, I was blown away to find two. Like I literally just found this. And I was shocked because everyone thinks that Snapchat is just for teenagers. And I think that comes from not understanding fully what the term millennial means because they hear snapchats dominated by millennials. But millennials aren’t teenagers anymore. Millennials used to be teenagers. Now Millennials are anyone 18 to 35.
Right, right. Yeah.
a five year old who has two kids and a family is still technically a millennial, right?
Yeah. So really, like if you do have a business, so if someone’s listening, and you have a business, like in your in your people are over 35, like snapchats, where it’s at, and I think so many times social media starts out with teenagers, but then they move on to something else, and then it moves up to us old people.
Same thing happened with Facebook, the same thing happens with Instagram. It’s that’s just kind of how social media works.
Right? Right. Yeah, the kids scout out what’s cool, and then we jump on later. Yeah. Okay, cool. So, um, this has been so, so interesting. So let’s, I want to just kind of wrap it up, so. So Snapchat, we can use it for business we can use it for, we should understand it as parents, right. And they can go to unwrap snap comm to be able to jump in there, and they can use the code living big for 20% off, which is so amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And then really, I really love the whole thing about how you’ve just tried to find some balance. I mean, I think that’s something no matter what your age, you know, if you’re an 18 year old listening, and you want to start a side business while you’re in college, or you’re 45, and you want to be able to create some balance, like have knowing your priorities. Yeah, I think that’s so huge to be able to even to recognize the fact that you could even recognize what your priorities were is sort of remarkable, because I know a lot of 40 year olds that can’t do that, right?
Yeah, yeah, that’s really what it comes down to is just knowing what your priorities are. And then once you know what your number one priority is, just start.
Yeah, yeah, just start. And, and I would say start small to live big. So well, awesome. Thank you so much. I’m so glad that you came on. It was so fun to talk to you. And I hope everybody really enjoyed this. And I think that it’s just some like awesome information. And I hope people seek out the unwrap chap and unwrap chat. Say it unraveled snap. And, and can learn a little bit more and just kind of get familiar with that, you know, for however, whatever capacity they need it in. So thanks for being on. I appreciate your time. Thank you
so much. I really appreciate you having me. This was a really quite an honor. Thank you so much
for having me on your journey today. I want to invite you to jump inside our free Facebook group. You can find that at SS lB community.com that stands for start small, live big community.com and we can just continue the conversation in there. And as always, here’s a little message from my husband
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