Episode 6

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Published on:

21st Nov 2024

What To Do When Your Channel (Or Social Media) Gets Banned With Austin Armstrong

Austin Armstrong takes us through his journey of navigating the ups and downs of content creation. From facing platform bans to mastering the art of keeping his audience engaged, Austin shares the strategies that helped him stay resilient and connect with his followers on a deeper level. Expect some surprising insights into building a loyal community.

Have you ever had a setback that made you rethink your approach?

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Transcript
Matt Hughes:

Welcome to the Full Time Creator!

Matt Hughes:

podcast.

Matt Hughes:

My name is Matt Hughes, King of video, and I'm here with Austin Armstrong.

Matt Hughes:

And we're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff that is

Matt Hughes:

really exciting when it comes to getting your account banned.

Matt Hughes:

Well, it might be really exciting, but at least if nothing else, it will be

Matt Hughes:

very interesting because I think a lot of people are scared about the very

Matt Hughes:

fact that your account could get banned.

Matt Hughes:

You might have to start from zero again.

Matt Hughes:

I talked about this a little bit with Maddie in the last episode where she

Matt Hughes:

lost 27,000 followers on Instagram.

Matt Hughes:

So Austin, welcome to the podcast.

Matt Hughes:

The first thing we do is let you introduce yourself.

Matt Hughes:

So over to you, buddy.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah,

Austin Armstrong:

Matt, thank you so much for having me.

Austin Armstrong:

Matt.

Austin Armstrong:

Matt's the king of video.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm the king of getting accounts taken down, I guess.

Austin Armstrong:

So I've become so used to it.

Austin Armstrong:

I've become desensitized and numb, but no, my name's Austin Armstrong.

Austin Armstrong:

I am a full time content creator.

Austin Armstrong:

That's built several businesses around it.

Austin Armstrong:

I have been a content creator

Austin Armstrong:

this month, October marks 20 years, which is kind of crazy to think about.

Austin Armstrong:

I became a content creator on MySpace when I was 14 years old and actually a content

Austin Armstrong:

creator, making a growing accounts, monetising it in various different ways.

Austin Armstrong:

I've seen all of these platforms come and go.

Austin Armstrong:

I've been doing video marketing for 11 years

Austin Armstrong:

now.

Austin Armstrong:

I've worked with many different professions and individuals, many

Austin Armstrong:

different niches, mostly service based.

Austin Armstrong:

I ran my own agency called Socialty Pro for about six

Austin Armstrong:

years and then shut that down.

Austin Armstrong:

And now I am the CEO and co-founder and creator of an AI video

Austin Armstrong:

marketing tool called Syllabi that lets you create, schedule, and

Austin Armstrong:

publish entire videos in minutes.

Matt Hughes:

faceless videos as well, which is really..

Austin Armstrong:

We have.

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah, we have really gone down that rabbit hole.

Austin Armstrong:

Part of being a startup founder is you got to know when to pivot sometimes.

Austin Armstrong:

And we were, we started with the avatar technology and we still have that

Austin Armstrong:

technology, the ability to kind of create like a real clone, deep fake of yourself.

Austin Armstrong:

And that was going well, but what we really noticed was the, there's

Austin Armstrong:

still uncanny valley approach to it.

Austin Armstrong:

And content creators aren't embracing that as much as businesses are, but

Austin Armstrong:

content creators are really embracing faceless videos and up until the last

Austin Armstrong:

several months, this year, it was very manual, long process to create and

Austin Armstrong:

manually edit these faceless videos.

Austin Armstrong:

But now.

Austin Armstrong:

In syllabi, you can create an entire social media ready

Austin Armstrong:

video in about three minutes.

Austin Armstrong:

And we've had several of them get over a million views, which

Matt Hughes:

amazing.

Matt Hughes:

And, and I think it'd be great to jump into your community,

Matt Hughes:

your Discord community, because actually it's one of the most active

Matt Hughes:

communities I've seen in Discord.

Matt Hughes:

So we can talk about that later on.

Matt Hughes:

I've made a note of that.

Matt Hughes:

But really Austin, I followed you for a little while now.

Matt Hughes:

And I, I'm really interested, you know, these websites feel illegal to

Matt Hughes:

know, which is probably the first set of videos I ever saw with you in them.

Matt Hughes:

Was that your idea?

Matt Hughes:

Or did you take inspiration from somebody else?

Matt Hughes:

Because I've seen that clone so many times now.

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

I took elements that were very successful from other creators and

Austin Armstrong:

I made it something fresh and new.

Austin Armstrong:

So I was, I've been creating useful website videos very early on TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

Like five years ago, I started creating these videos.

Austin Armstrong:

It was unstructured though.

Austin Armstrong:

Here's a website that helps you with this.

Austin Armstrong:

There's a website that helps you with that.

Austin Armstrong:

There was a very popular style on TikTok of sort of these sketches

Austin Armstrong:

where you're talking to yourself as different characters and

Austin Armstrong:

communicating educational information.

Austin Armstrong:

I always give credit to Eric Kohlberg.

Austin Armstrong:

She's a, I think a copyright attorney or something like that, but she

Austin Armstrong:

now is a full time content creator, millions of followers online.

Austin Armstrong:

She really blew that style up.

Austin Armstrong:

And I think I had, you know, quite honestly, I don't remember

Austin Armstrong:

if I came up with these websites feel illegal to know hook.

Austin Armstrong:

Probably like these five websites feel illegal to know, but I sort of combined

Austin Armstrong:

all of those elements of a really strong opening hook with me sharing websites in

Austin Armstrong:

a style of delivery that was hyper viral potential and people knew about that

Austin Armstrong:

style and created something fresh that was unique to me and my communication

Austin Armstrong:

style And that exploded, absolutely.

Matt Hughes:

It's interesting to hear that story because actually I think as

Matt Hughes:

a, a new creator or if you're a part time creation, you kind of look in

Matt Hughes:

like what works and what doesn't work.

Matt Hughes:

It's so, Hard you, you get kind of stuck in like all these amazing concepts

Matt Hughes:

that people have and they go viral.

Matt Hughes:

Then you create your own version of it.

Matt Hughes:

And you're like, why have I gone viral?

Matt Hughes:

But there's so many more aspects to it that make the thing happen.

Matt Hughes:

Right.

Matt Hughes:

So, it's interesting to hear how you've taken inspiration from other people.

Matt Hughes:

I love Erica.

Matt Hughes:

Erica is always my favorite unicorn because I saw her explode her YouTube

Matt Hughes:

channel from, I think I started following her when she was on like

Matt Hughes:

10,000 subscribers and then it just went

Matt Hughes:

crazy during the pandemic.

Matt Hughes:

Wicked.

Matt Hughes:

So, so tell us about your journey then into sort of

Matt Hughes:

TikTok, did it start in TikTok?

Matt Hughes:

Was it Instagram?

Matt Hughes:

What really happened?

Matt Hughes:

You would launch, you're doing this social media stuff yourself

Matt Hughes:

and doing that for clients.

Matt Hughes:

But when did it really take off for you?

Matt Hughes:

And what was the, what's the story around that?

Austin Armstrong:

yeah, so, so I was working part time at an agency that

Austin Armstrong:

I pivoted into creating a new company with my boss, which was Socialty Pro,

Austin Armstrong:

which was very much a side hustle.

Austin Armstrong:

And I was, the full time head of digital marketing at a drug and alcohol

Austin Armstrong:

treatment center at the time, because that's the niche that I had really

Austin Armstrong:

focused on in my career and I had around that time gotten started on tick tock.

Austin Armstrong:

So I was, we were creating like long form YouTube videos and

Austin Armstrong:

all kinds of different stuff.

Austin Armstrong:

I had started a recovery oriented podcast.

Austin Armstrong:

I've always been creating, but nothing really, really took off.

Austin Armstrong:

I had an ASMR YouTube channel for a little while too, that was really personal

Austin Armstrong:

brand in the digital marketing space.

Austin Armstrong:

It was really right around the time that I had gotten fired from my job.

Austin Armstrong:

And this was in 2020.

Austin Armstrong:

I think this was.

Austin Armstrong:

June of 2020.

Austin Armstrong:

So, you know, four and a half years now that I was let go right at the beginning

Austin Armstrong:

of the pandemic or a couple months into the pandemic, I had my agency Socialty

Austin Armstrong:

Pro as a side hustle, had about two months in the bank to bet on myself.

Austin Armstrong:

Another thing about me, I don't have a college degree.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm self taught.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm an intrinsic, I'm very intrinsically motivated in

Austin Armstrong:

content creation and in marketing.

Austin Armstrong:

And that's when I decided to go all in on TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm a big Gary Vee fan.

Austin Armstrong:

I've read most of Gary Vee's books.

Austin Armstrong:

I listened to the Gary Vee audio experience and I just went down

Austin Armstrong:

that rabbit hole and he was shoving it down our throats.

Austin Armstrong:

I attended a webinar from Rachel Peterson.

Austin Armstrong:

Who I've now become somewhat friends with, and had her on my podcast.

Austin Armstrong:

So it's been just a crazy full circle, but like attending her webinar

Austin Armstrong:

was the ultimate light bulb aha moment for me that gave me a clear

Austin Armstrong:

strategy for how I could take my

Austin Armstrong:

digital marketing experience and translated into a content

Austin Armstrong:

strategy that works on TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

I gave myself an ultimatum of you're only going to do business marketing

Austin Armstrong:

oriented content for 30 days straight.

Austin Armstrong:

And if this is not working, maybe this is not the platform for you.

Austin Armstrong:

And it worked.

Austin Armstrong:

So I really started to grow on TikTok first in that space.

Austin Armstrong:

And then I sort of leveraged that, it's kind of where the market went.

Austin Armstrong:

I really picked up short form video quickly.

Austin Armstrong:

And it's just kinda, you know, YouTube shorts rolled out in

Austin Armstrong:

Instagram reels, at Facebook reels.

Austin Armstrong:

It's just where the whole market went and still is.

Austin Armstrong:

And so I just kind of lucked

Matt Hughes:

And when you say it worked, like what were the

Matt Hughes:

metrics that you decided on?

Matt Hughes:

You gave yourself that ultimatum.

Matt Hughes:

How do you know that you said, okay, actually this is working well for me?

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

Probably three months before that I was active on

Austin Armstrong:

TikTok, but I didn't have a strategy.

Austin Armstrong:

So I was regretfully doing some like follow for follow type

Austin Armstrong:

stuff or I would post a cat video , 'cause I had cats at the time.

Austin Armstrong:

Or like try and jump on trends.

Austin Armstrong:

I was just, I was just learning the platform.

Austin Armstrong:

Occasionally, I'd throw in like a digital marketing tip.

Austin Armstrong:

Nothing would get over like a thousand views.

Austin Armstrong:

As soon as I double like gave myself that ultimatum and that strategy.

Austin Armstrong:

I think less than a week, I had the first video do about a hundred thousand views.

Austin Armstrong:

And it was an SEO oriented video.

Austin Armstrong:

And then I immediately responded to every comment and question that

Austin Armstrong:

came in on that video with a video response, building and nurturing value.

Austin Armstrong:

And that quickly got me, I think within like two weeks, it got me to,

Austin Armstrong:

from 300 followers to 8,000 followers.

Austin Armstrong:

And I was immediately starting to get leads.

Austin Armstrong:

And I, like within one month, within the 30 days, I had

Austin Armstrong:

gotten a client from TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

And so that's when I just was okay, hyper dialed in.

Austin Armstrong:

I understand from all of my marketing experience that when

Austin Armstrong:

something works, you go deep on that.

Austin Armstrong:

And so for the first like year plus I was the SEO guy on TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

I wasn't even a tech guy.

Austin Armstrong:

I was SEO.

Austin Armstrong:

So I came out with an SEO course, which I'm sure we'll get into, you know,

Austin Armstrong:

different ways that you can become a full time content creator through monetisation.

Austin Armstrong:

But we got a lot, I grew a whole, my whole

Austin Armstrong:

agency around SEO because of TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

And then I started to branch out a little bit because I had gotten, I think probably

Austin Armstrong:

around a hundred thousand followers on TikTok talking about SEO and you know,

Austin Armstrong:

maybe a little bit of social media stuff.

Austin Armstrong:

And people started to ask like, you're having so much success with TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

Can you help me grow on TikTok?

Austin Armstrong:

And it's like, yes, I actually never really saw myself as an SEO guy.

Austin Armstrong:

I just kind of went down that path.

Austin Armstrong:

I've been doing video marketing for way longer than I've been doing SEO.

Austin Armstrong:

But that's just kind of the thing, the paths that you have to navigate through.

Austin Armstrong:

If you want to find success, it's not always exactly

Matt Hughes:

yeah, totally.

Matt Hughes:

And in the platform and the videos dictate where you should go, right?

Matt Hughes:

And I feel like that's a lot of the successful people.

Matt Hughes:

I don't know if you met if you've met Joey.

Matt Hughes:

Joey's a guy that makes smoothie videos on TikTok.

Matt Hughes:

But, yeah.

Matt Hughes:

His story is that he was selling the powder that he puts in the smoothies.

Matt Hughes:

And then when he started doing the videos of the smoothies

Matt Hughes:

took off the powders didn't.

Matt Hughes:

And so we just started making them.

Matt Hughes:

And then he's like 1.

Matt Hughes:

7 million subscribers.

Matt Hughes:

Like it's just absolutely flown, but you've got to pay attention.

Matt Hughes:

Then he's what you're saying to these videos where you do get the virality,

Matt Hughes:

pay attention, do more, dig into it.

Matt Hughes:

And I've actually never had the strategy before of video replies.

Matt Hughes:

Where did that come from?

Austin Armstrong:

Well, that's just a feature on TikTok that

Austin Armstrong:

really made them different.

Austin Armstrong:

And now of course, Instagram has it in it because Instagram steals everything.

Austin Armstrong:

But my seo brain thinks of, uh, video responses as backlinks.

Austin Armstrong:

And so when you have one video that does well, and there's a bunch of comments

Austin Armstrong:

coming in, the comment responses are clickable back to the original video.

Austin Armstrong:

And so anytime that somebody, gets served on their for you page, that video

Austin Armstrong:

response, if it's interesting, a fair percentage of them will click through to

Austin Armstrong:

the original video and see the context, like all the time on my for you page, I'll

Austin Armstrong:

be inserted into the middle of a story and I'm like, well, I got to see, you know,

Austin Armstrong:

we served part three and I'm like, well, what's like, there was a re a recent one.

Austin Armstrong:

I'll just go on a quick tangent, a lady found a buried rug.

Austin Armstrong:

In her front yard and the cops came and like with the dogs and it was a

Austin Armstrong:

huge, it was a huge story, but I'm like six videos into this and now I'm

Austin Armstrong:

like, whoa, this is really interesting.

Austin Armstrong:

Let me go back and watch the whole story here.

Austin Armstrong:

And it started with this lady, like just posting a random video

Austin Armstrong:

of thinking her house was haunted because all of the stuff on her desk

Austin Armstrong:

was like misplaced and out of place.

Austin Armstrong:

And it like, it was like a systematic story, but it got

Austin Armstrong:

millions of views and it got her hundreds of thousands of followers.

Austin Armstrong:

And so like, I went down that rabbit hole and watched like 15 different videos

Austin Armstrong:

because I was randomly inserted in one.

Austin Armstrong:

And that's the power of TikTok and that strategy in particulars by

Austin Armstrong:

creating, you know, 50 video responses.

Austin Armstrong:

on the comments of one viral video, you're creating 50 videos

Austin Armstrong:

that all link into that one viral video, continuing to grow and fuel.

Austin Armstrong:

And it just builds a relationship with your audience too.

Austin Armstrong:

It's responding to comments on any platform, you know, you're not going to

Austin Armstrong:

build a loyal, dedicated audience online by, you know, if someone leaves a really

Austin Armstrong:

thoughtful question and you're like, you ignore them or you're like thumbs up,

Austin Armstrong:

you know, like, and that's all you do.

Austin Armstrong:

They're not going to come back to you to ask more questions.

Austin Armstrong:

But if you take the time to provide value and build your

Austin Armstrong:

community, it reaches more people.

Austin Armstrong:

People see that you're responding to those comments.

Austin Armstrong:

It builds trust.

Austin Armstrong:

It builds rapport.

Matt Hughes:

Which, which, which is a very,

Austin Armstrong:

it's not only a good algorithmic strategy, it's just a good

Matt Hughes:

it's a very good, you talked about being a Gary Vee fan.

Matt Hughes:

It's a very Gary Vee strategy, right?

Matt Hughes:

It's like, he says that he responds to all his comments.

Matt Hughes:

I don't know if he still does.

Matt Hughes:

I assume he doesn't with the amount of content he puts out, but of course

Matt Hughes:

it gives you that sense of community, like you're part of the family, right?

Matt Hughes:

Like, and so I do totally understand that.

Matt Hughes:

And I guess it's worth then just seeing how that is translated to syllabi in

Matt Hughes:

the Discord community that you've got.

Matt Hughes:

So, when you're thinking about creating communities with creators, was it an

Matt Hughes:

obvious choice to decide on Discord?

Matt Hughes:

Like what was the route?

Matt Hughes:

Behind the syllabi community.

Austin Armstrong:

Well, actually our Discord community is somewhat active.

Austin Armstrong:

We have about 300 members in there, but our Facebook group

Austin Armstrong:

is our most active community.

Austin Armstrong:

So we have about 8400 members in our Facebook group.

Austin Armstrong:

Everything I do is build in public.

Austin Armstrong:

I always share my story.

Austin Armstrong:

I think people like to follow the hero's journey, you know, that's

Austin Armstrong:

something that I really learned as a core marketing concept.

Austin Armstrong:

It's also just fun for me to look back.

Austin Armstrong:

I look at my Facebook memories every day, but when you share everything and success

Austin Armstrong:

stories and failures, along the way, it really builds that story and that journey

Austin Armstrong:

and it builds community along the way too.

Austin Armstrong:

So I always want to build companies around community and

Austin Armstrong:

open transparency and whatnot.

Austin Armstrong:

And so that's what we've really been able to tap into with Syllabi, is that

Austin Armstrong:

Syllabi is a tool built by creators for creators and in our group in our

Austin Armstrong:

community, and we have a feature based submission area on the website as

Austin Armstrong:

well, where people suggest stuff, but all the time, people are asking, Oh,

Austin Armstrong:

I'd love for you to add this feature.

Austin Armstrong:

I hate this feature, please fix this and we do, and we actually, you know

Austin Armstrong:

execute on their suggestions and they see that in real time and we provide

Austin Armstrong:

education, and bring on experts.

Austin Armstrong:

I meant I mentioned to you, we're going to bring you into the community,

Austin Armstrong:

Matt to do a webinar for everybody.

Austin Armstrong:

I think everyone will get a lot of value out of that.

Austin Armstrong:

But it's just second nature.

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, you have to build community.

Austin Armstrong:

Otherwise, why are you even doing it?

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, it doesn't make sense.

Austin Armstrong:

For me, I do what I do to help people.

Austin Armstrong:

I don't do what I do just..

Matt Hughes:

yeah.

Matt Hughes:

And you get that, don't you, you know, when you've got enough money, you

Matt Hughes:

realise that actually now what, how do I want to add more value to the world?

Matt Hughes:

It becomes less about the money and you see that in the community,

Matt Hughes:

we've got The Creator Meetup.

Matt Hughes:

We've started it recently.

Matt Hughes:

Well, we've had it for a while, but we've kind of relaunched it now.

Matt Hughes:

And like, I keep telling to people, like, this is not a moneymaker.

Matt Hughes:

We were not going to make any money out of this community.

Matt Hughes:

It's about is facilitating an environment that allows people

Matt Hughes:

to connect and collaborate.

Matt Hughes:

And there's something so fulfilling about that.

Matt Hughes:

From a personal point of view that you can walk away or you can walk

Matt Hughes:

away from this earth, know that you've bought hundreds of thousands of people

Matt Hughes:

together that ordinarily wouldn't have met because they're in different

Matt Hughes:

worlds or whatever it might be, you know, so yeah, I totally get that.

Matt Hughes:

And, and it's funny, I talked about the Discord and that's because I see

Matt Hughes:

the discord notifications all the time.

Matt Hughes:

I don't see the Facebook ones.

Matt Hughes:

So isn't it funny how, you know, taking things to where people are, meeting

Matt Hughes:

them, where they're at, where I was at is the Discord stuff, cause I'm in a

Matt Hughes:

bunch of other ones as well, you know.

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah, it might seem..

Austin Armstrong:

So we don't, we have like 300 people in there, but it's

Austin Armstrong:

probably like 250 active people.

Austin Armstrong:

That's why it seems so active, which is great.

Austin Armstrong:

People love to be heard and they love to be acknowledged.

Austin Armstrong:

Right.

Austin Armstrong:

So when you hear people.

Austin Armstrong:

Acknowledge people and take action.

Austin Armstrong:

They continue to communicate and they continue to share that and become

Austin Armstrong:

amazing brand advocates because they want to get their friends involved to

Austin Armstrong:

experience the same thing that they're

Matt Hughes:

And to that sort of end as well, like, one of the

Matt Hughes:

other things I've seen that you do really well is engagement.

Matt Hughes:

And I know you've done some crazy things to foster engagement in

Matt Hughes:

a good way, and you've done some things to, to troll the trolls.

Matt Hughes:

So can you tell us a little bit about that for anyone that's

Matt Hughes:

not seen any of this of yours?

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

So having been a child of social media, you know, there are

Austin Armstrong:

just little nuances that you pick up on, and tasks that you do along the way.

Austin Armstrong:

And what I came to realise is that all of these social media platforms

Austin Armstrong:

care about is more engagement.

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

It doesn't matter if the engagement is positive or negative.

Austin Armstrong:

They just care about more engagement because.

Austin Armstrong:

It keeps people on the platform longer.

Austin Armstrong:

It makes them literally engage, which is stickiness and they

Austin Armstrong:

can get served more ads.

Austin Armstrong:

And so as humans, it's easier to get negative engagement than it

Austin Armstrong:

is to get positive engagement.

Austin Armstrong:

And both are fairly easy.

Austin Armstrong:

Like when you, when you understand like different psychological elements, you

Austin Armstrong:

can put things into your content in any format, audio, video, text, images, any

Austin Armstrong:

format you can work in some psychological triggers that just increase in engagement.

Austin Armstrong:

I have found that it's much easier to get people to assert their egos and

Austin Armstrong:

assert their opinions that are many times baseless, just personal anecdotal

Austin Armstrong:

experience, which I find hilarious, than it is to get the I agree comment.

Austin Armstrong:

So some of the things, the examples of things that I will do is in the website

Austin Armstrong:

series that websites feel illegal to know.

Austin Armstrong:

I will hold my phone up to the screen.

Austin Armstrong:

I'll show the URL and right below the URL, I'll plant a folder and

Austin Armstrong:

it'll say something like Donald Trump, N U D dot, dot, dot.

Austin Armstrong:

So it looks like it says Donald Trump nudes.

Austin Armstrong:

Doesn't actually just N U D dot, dot, dot, the dot, the dots on purpose.

Austin Armstrong:

Without fail, every single time that I do that, it causes people to watch

Austin Armstrong:

the video more than once to make sure that they saw it run to the comments.

Austin Armstrong:

And leave a comment and cause comment strings.

Austin Armstrong:

I thought I was the only one to see that.

Austin Armstrong:

Or I'll mispronounce a word on purpose.

Austin Armstrong:

I'll say socrates instead of Socrates, and people will run into the comments

Austin Armstrong:

and phonetically spell it out.

Austin Armstrong:

People will love to sort their egos, but what does that do?

Austin Armstrong:

It increases my engagement, it increases my watch time, which is the most

Austin Armstrong:

important aspect across the board.

Austin Armstrong:

And it creates east Easter eggs for my community as well.

Austin Armstrong:

So the people that understand the inside joke, they always look out

Austin Armstrong:

for these Easter eggs and they know that they're in on the joke that

Austin Armstrong:

the first time viewer is not in on.

Austin Armstrong:

And that's a really important nuanced thing with your community as well as

Austin Armstrong:

that insider language, that insider joke, or that things that, that

Austin Armstrong:

really brings the community in and separates them from new outsiders.

Matt Hughes:

And it's genius.

Matt Hughes:

I do absolutely love it.

Matt Hughes:

And I've seen a lot of people practice that art of trolling the trolls as well.

Matt Hughes:

So let's talk about being banned then as is one of your favorite topics

Matt Hughes:

happened to you a bunch of times.

Matt Hughes:

So, um,

Austin Armstrong:

Oh, yeah.

Matt Hughes:

for those creators are starting and they're concerned

Matt Hughes:

about this, what I'd love to know is

Matt Hughes:

A.

Matt Hughes:

How you deal with it emotionally, because it's a difficult

Matt Hughes:

thing to go through I'm sure.

Matt Hughes:

And B.

Matt Hughes:

What you can do to have some kind of defence or prepare

Matt Hughes:

yourself for this thing.

Matt Hughes:

So, can we talk about that?

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

So it always sucks.

Austin Armstrong:

First of all, I've been banned from TikTok four times now.

Austin Armstrong:

Facebook, I guess, technically twice, YouTube, I've had videos

Austin Armstrong:

taken down and copyright strikes.

Austin Armstrong:

It's just due to the nature of my content to some degree.

Austin Armstrong:

Like I, I strongly disagree with it.

Austin Armstrong:

I've read the community guidelines many times and I disagree with

Austin Armstrong:

it, but I do purposefully ride a tight rope on a small line.

Austin Armstrong:

The first time sucked cause I had all of my eggs basically in the TikTok basket.

Austin Armstrong:

I wasn't, I was like somewhat active on other platforms, but I didn't have

Austin Armstrong:

a following like I had on TikTok.

Austin Armstrong:

TikTok is where 99% of my leads, my brand deals were all coming in from and, like

Austin Armstrong:

that, it got taken down and there are ways that you can try and get it restored.

Austin Armstrong:

So TikTok there's a legal forum on the website and you can just

Austin Armstrong:

mass fill out this appeal process.

Austin Armstrong:

Facebook, I contacted DOJ, and government, and they actually

Austin Armstrong:

sent letters to Meta on my behalf.

Austin Armstrong:

And they show you proof of it, which is cool and like responses.

Austin Armstrong:

But the best way to protect yourself is to know the rules inside and out, read the

Austin Armstrong:

community guidelines, like nobody loves to read the terms of service, but I think you

Austin Armstrong:

should at least, at the very least just copy and paste it into ChatGPT and ask it

Austin Armstrong:

to summarise it for you in layman's terms.

Austin Armstrong:

Like, you know, you don't have to read the ridiculously long

Austin Armstrong:

thing, like get the bullet points.

Austin Armstrong:

So you know that your content is protected.

Austin Armstrong:

Um, I always play the long game and so I've never,

Austin Armstrong:

I just don't quit.

Austin Armstrong:

And I love it so much.

Austin Armstrong:

I think that has emotionally carried me through because we all go through little

Austin Armstrong:

phases of, you know, burnout or fatigue and This can really, make it worse when

Austin Armstrong:

all of your effort that you put into growing a channel, the time, the money,

Austin Armstrong:

the endless amount of resources that you've put into something to see it get

Austin Armstrong:

deleted by a platform sucks, you know, all of these platforms are rented space.

Austin Armstrong:

That's why it's so important to cross pollinate.

Austin Armstrong:

Learn these different platforms.

Austin Armstrong:

Grow your email list, grow a private community on school or Discord or

Austin Armstrong:

another platform that's away from where your audience is hosted.

Austin Armstrong:

If you're getting leads, and business from these platforms.

Austin Armstrong:

But once you, you know, the other thing that I have confidence in is that, once

Austin Armstrong:

you really learn how to grow and you learn how these platforms work and you

Austin Armstrong:

learn what people are actually interested in and care about, the good news is

Austin Armstrong:

you can do it over and over again.

Austin Armstrong:

And so now, you know, I lost my TikTok account at about 840,000 followers.

Austin Armstrong:

I now have almost 200,000 followers again, but I've got a million on Facebook,

Austin Armstrong:

600,000 on YouTube, 800,000 on Instagram.

Austin Armstrong:

You just know how to do it.

Austin Armstrong:

And you can build it back up again.

Austin Armstrong:

And yeah, it might take you some time.

Austin Armstrong:

I lost five years of content on TikTok, but I'll never be able to get back.

Austin Armstrong:

It's just permanently banned.

Austin Armstrong:

But you have to ask yourself, do you like to create content?

Austin Armstrong:

Do you want to be a content creator or are you just doing this?

Austin Armstrong:

Because you don't want to work a job or like what, you know,

Austin Armstrong:

you have to ask yourself, what are those motivational purposes?

Austin Armstrong:

And like, I love to do this.

Austin Armstrong:

Even if I sold all my businesses and didn't need to work, I won the lottery,

Austin Armstrong:

whatever, I would still create content.

Austin Armstrong:

Because I love creating content.

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah, so it sucks, it's a sore subject, but we truck along.

Austin Armstrong:

And I think that, you know, shows character of an entrepreneur as well.

Austin Armstrong:

Cause content creators are entrepreneurs.

Austin Armstrong:

If you're, you know, putting something out there, you're providing value and

Austin Armstrong:

you're monetising it in return, you, you're an entrepreneur in my opinion.

Austin Armstrong:

And you have to have that grit and tenacity.

Austin Armstrong:

As an entrepreneur and as a content creator, because the algorithms are

Austin Armstrong:

all over the place, there are seasons of growth and seasons of learning.

Austin Armstrong:

I can endlessly just ramble on that,

Matt Hughes:

when I spoke to Maddy about it in the last episode, we talked

Matt Hughes:

about being too busy to create content.

Matt Hughes:

And you've pretty much said the same thing, which is she said, well, then

Matt Hughes:

being a content creator is not for you.

Matt Hughes:

Like what you're saying is you really got to love the art of being

Matt Hughes:

a creator, regardless of all the benefits, all the upsides, because

Matt Hughes:

the downsides are there as well.

Matt Hughes:

And just want to go again, like, okay, this has happened.

Matt Hughes:

Let's just pull ourselves together and go again.

Matt Hughes:

And I think that's a really good message.

Matt Hughes:

You talked about cross pollinating and I mentioned off air that I saw this move

Matt Hughes:

that you did from TikTok to YouTube.

Matt Hughes:

I've never seen anyone not since move an audience like you did to YouTube.

Matt Hughes:

Can you tell anyone that doesn't know you what happened and how that happened?

Austin Armstrong:

Yeah, so it was the first time that I was banned on TikTok

Austin Armstrong:

that I said I have to figure this out.

Austin Armstrong:

I have to figure out these other platforms because I can't

Austin Armstrong:

be dependent on one platform.

Austin Armstrong:

I was pulling everything and anything over.

Austin Armstrong:

I had uploaded about 600 Shorts onto YouTube.

Austin Armstrong:

Nothing had done over 10,000 views.

Austin Armstrong:

That was my shelf.

Austin Armstrong:

I had gotten up to about 5,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is not a small

Austin Armstrong:

amount, but by most, a lot of YouTuber standards, 5,000 subscribers is great.

Austin Armstrong:

I am ambitious.

Austin Armstrong:

It was not enough for me.

Austin Armstrong:

Fortunately, and you are a master networker, Matt as well.

Austin Armstrong:

I have become, you know, through attending great conferences and speaking

Austin Armstrong:

at conferences like TubeFest, shout out to TubeFest, I became good friends

Austin Armstrong:

with Jeremy Vest, who is a brilliant, brilliant YouTuber, one of the best

Austin Armstrong:

in the game, and Jeremy also wanted to try and figure out Shorts, and so

Austin Armstrong:

we got together and we're like, okay, we're gonna figure this out together.

Austin Armstrong:

We're gonna help each other out.

Austin Armstrong:

We're gonna do this every single day.

Austin Armstrong:

Jeremy and I got on Zoom to test ideas, to create a content together,

Austin Armstrong:

to study other people's content, every single day for like a month straight,

Austin Armstrong:

Jeremy and I were doing experiments, reviewing each other's videos, studying

Austin Armstrong:

audience retention graphs, nerding out on the analytics, nerding out on other

Austin Armstrong:

people's content, in different niches.

Austin Armstrong:

That's another thing that I learned along the way.

Austin Armstrong:

Like don't just study your direct competitors, study other niches.

Austin Armstrong:

If I only studied like digital marketers, I never would have studied

Austin Armstrong:

Erica Kohlberg style of videos to port that over into something that way.

Austin Armstrong:

Ultimately that gave me the headspace and the epiphany of why am I uploading.

Austin Armstrong:

All of my content over what if I only pull over my top performing videos and at the

Austin Armstrong:

time those were those top five most useful website videos and so I said, you know,

Austin Armstrong:

as an experiment, let's just do that.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm only going to post top five most useful website videos.

Austin Armstrong:

Nothing else every single day and I think I was doing like three video three or

Austin Armstrong:

five videos a day at that point and after pivoting to that strategy, it worked.

Austin Armstrong:

That's what unlocked the YouTube algorithm for my channel.

Austin Armstrong:

So it took me three years to get to 5,000 subscribers.

Austin Armstrong:

And then it took me three days to go from 5,000 to 100,000 subscribers.

Austin Armstrong:

And now I'm at 600,000 subscribers.

Austin Armstrong:

And it's kind of tapered off now.

Austin Armstrong:

I have to, I'm now in a season of growth, so I need to, you know,

Austin Armstrong:

adjust my content strategy and try new things, which I am experimenting with

Austin Armstrong:

different styles and whatnot, I'm not growing as explosively as I was before.

Austin Armstrong:

But yeah, it's just it and then, you know, you hyper focus on something

Austin Armstrong:

and you figure it out and then that becomes the new norm and then you hyper

Austin Armstrong:

focus on something else and you figure it out and that becomes the new norm.

Austin Armstrong:

And so I did that from platform to platform.

Austin Armstrong:

Until I'm pretty good with all of the major video platforms

Austin Armstrong:

or the sport, you know.

Austin Armstrong:

Facebook has become my main platform right now, which is crazy to think about.

Austin Armstrong:

It's where I get the most engagement, have the most followers, get the most

Austin Armstrong:

business and leads from, but yeah, yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, that's what it took is just getting in the weeds, and studying

Austin Armstrong:

it, you know, really wanting it and not giving up until like, Forced

Matt Hughes:

so you forced it to it.

Matt Hughes:

Good.

Matt Hughes:

You got it by the balls, Austin, and you made it work.

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, I'm not that..

Austin Armstrong:

There's always going to be more talented, better looking people than you, people

Austin Armstrong:

that get luckier with the algorithm or just hit something randomly, but you

Austin Armstrong:

can brute force your way to success.

Austin Armstrong:

And that's what I've done, is I've posted thousands of videos,

Austin Armstrong:

like more than 4,000-5,000 videos.

Austin Armstrong:

It's not because I'm overly talented.

Austin Armstrong:

It's because I nerd out about this stuff and I am the king of consistency.

Matt Hughes:

Good.

Matt Hughes:

You relented.

Austin Armstrong:

I will out everybody, but it shows that

Austin Armstrong:

like, you don't need talent.

Austin Armstrong:

This is teachable stuff.

Austin Armstrong:

You just got to pardon my language, do the fucking work.

Matt Hughes:

No, absolutely.

Matt Hughes:

I totally get it.

Matt Hughes:

The last question I've got for you, I think, is we could talk forever.

Matt Hughes:

And we have in the past, usually in a bar somewhere.

Matt Hughes:

So

Austin Armstrong:

wait till the next.

Matt Hughes:

Likewise, how can creators leverage AI?

Matt Hughes:

That's the question.

Matt Hughes:

I think a lot of people are worried about AI.

Matt Hughes:

I'm really excited about it.

Matt Hughes:

I know you as a business, you're really excited about it and you're

Matt Hughes:

putting a lot of bets on that.

Matt Hughes:

So how can creators leverage AI to help with what they're doing currently?

Matt Hughes:

Oh

Austin Armstrong:

there's so many different ways.

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, you have to embrace AI, and go with it, use it as a tool to enhance

Austin Armstrong:

your creativity and do better research and help you be more productive.

Austin Armstrong:

And there's different things that you can use it to, like Opus is a

Austin Armstrong:

great tool to repurpose your long form videos into shorts using AI.

Austin Armstrong:

We're having a I generate background music for you or generate B-roll, help it, you

Austin Armstrong:

know, having a ChatGPT or Claude or one of these other models, study competitors,

Austin Armstrong:

breakdown strategies, outline a content strategy for you, train it on yourself.

Austin Armstrong:

You can train a custom GPT on you.

Austin Armstrong:

I did this for myself.

Austin Armstrong:

I downloaded like 40 hours of podcast interviews and webinars

Austin Armstrong:

and live streams that I did.

Austin Armstrong:

I ripped all of the transcripts and I trained a custom GPT model

Austin Armstrong:

on how I talk and my expertise.

Austin Armstrong:

So I can use that as my assistant to come up with different content strategies

Austin Armstrong:

or how would I answer this question or what are some things that I can do.

Austin Armstrong:

You're essentially cloning yourself, creating a personal assistant.

Austin Armstrong:

Embrace it.

Austin Armstrong:

Cover it.

Austin Armstrong:

You know, it's hot right now.

Austin Armstrong:

So work it.

Austin Armstrong:

Work in talking about it into your niche.

Austin Armstrong:

Whatever that is like, you can get creative with that.

Austin Armstrong:

Like the blender guy.

Austin Armstrong:

How could a blender guy get into into AI?

Austin Armstrong:

Maybe there's an AI powered blender.

Austin Armstrong:

Maybe you could look at the blend jet channel, which is a amazing

Austin Armstrong:

YouTube case study of will it blend?

Austin Armstrong:

Or I'm sorry, that's not blend jet.

Austin Armstrong:

Blend jet is another famous book, but there's a YouTube content

Austin Armstrong:

series around, will it blend?

Austin Armstrong:

And so could you blend like meta AI glasses, will it smoothie?

Austin Armstrong:

With AI devices, like, you know, there's a million different ways.

Austin Armstrong:

That's the beauty of AI is that it enhances your creativity.

Austin Armstrong:

So leverage your amazing human creativity and these tools.

Austin Armstrong:

That's what they are tools to enhance your creativity and your productivity.

Austin Armstrong:

Cause there's always going to be the

Austin Armstrong:

" I hate AI people".

Austin Armstrong:

There are always like, they're so ignorant.

Austin Armstrong:

I could go off on a tangent on that.

Austin Armstrong:

I hate AI.

Austin Armstrong:

You know, people will be like, Hey, Siri, write a comment that saying, I hate AI.

Austin Armstrong:

And they like, don't understand the irony in that process, but leverage

Austin Armstrong:

this stuff because other people

Matt Hughes:

And they're going to go faster than you.

Austin Armstrong:

you don't, you Yeah.

Austin Armstrong:

I mean, you have the freedom to make that choice.

Austin Armstrong:

If you do not wanna use AI, don't do it.

Austin Armstrong:

But you're going to get outpaced.

Austin Armstrong:

You're going to get outpaced.

Austin Armstrong:

Simple as that.

Austin Armstrong:

And that's, it sucks, but it's the reality of the world.

Austin Armstrong:

Embrace it, or it's going to be a really tough

Matt Hughes:

I mean, I see it as a great opportunity for a lot of people.

Matt Hughes:

And so I can't see, I don't understand the negativity around it.

Matt Hughes:

I get it from a loss of jobs point of view, but outside of that.

Matt Hughes:

Then that's an opportunity to have, to create new different

Matt Hughes:

jobs that didn't exist before.

Matt Hughes:

So, Austin, thank you so much for your time.

Matt Hughes:

I really appreciate it.

Matt Hughes:

How can people find you as if they can possibly ignore you on the socials?

Matt Hughes:

And let us know, we'll include all the links in the show notes as well.

Austin Armstrong:

Well, thank you so much again for having me.

Austin Armstrong:

We could have talked for hours and hours.

Austin Armstrong:

We didn't even get into monetisation stuff, but, I am

Austin Armstrong:

Austin Armstrong across the board.

Austin Armstrong:

Also Socialty Pro is a lot of my handles.

Austin Armstrong:

If you just look for Austin Armstrong, I am the nerdy with

Austin Armstrong:

glasses, Austin Armstrong.

Austin Armstrong:

I am not the curly haired relationship stud in Los Angeles, Austin

Austin Armstrong:

Armstrong, nor the Florida Gators defensive lineman, Austin Armstrong.

Austin Armstrong:

There are several of us.

Austin Armstrong:

I'm probably the

Matt Hughes:

Yeah, me too.

Matt Hughes:

There's an author called Hughes and there's also a UFC fighter.

Matt Hughes:

And so when there's a sports, when there's

Austin Armstrong:

Oh yeah, there is.

Matt Hughes:

That is, has the same name, you know, you're never going

Matt Hughes:

to beat them on social media.

Matt Hughes:

So wicked.

Matt Hughes:

Thank you so much.

Matt Hughes:

This is the Full Time Creator!

Matt Hughes:

podcast.

Matt Hughes:

If you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to give us a rating

Matt Hughes:

that really, really helps.

Matt Hughes:

It doesn't matter how many times I say it, people are not doing it.

Matt Hughes:

So we're gonna have to find some way of engaging them to do.

Matt Hughes:

meetings.

Matt Hughes:

If you think it's helpful, share it with your friends as well.

Matt Hughes:

And we'll see you in the next episode.

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About the Podcast

Full Time Creator
How to become a full time creator
Welcome to Full Time Creator, the go-to podcast for content creators ready to turn their passion into a thriving career. Hosted by Matt Hughes, the King of Video, creator of the @MattFullTime channel, this podcast is your backstage pass to the world of full-time creators. In each episode, Matt sits down with top creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs to dig into the strategies, mindset, and behind-the-scenes secrets that helped them build their platforms, grow their audience, and—most importantly—get paid for doing what they love.

If you're tired of treating your content as a side hustle and want to take the leap to full-time creator status, this podcast is for you. From monetization hacks and brand deal insights to audience-building tips and going viral, we’ll cover it all. But this isn’t just about success stories—it’s about the journey. Each guest shares the highs and lows, the breakthroughs and setbacks, so you can learn from their experiences and apply their lessons to your own path.

Hosted on the MattFullTime YouTube channel, where Matt is documenting his own transformation from content creator to full-time pro, Full Time Creator offers a unique blend of real-life advice and inspiration. Tune in, learn the ropes, and take control of your creator journey. It’s time to stop dreaming and start creating—full time.

About your host

Profile picture for Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes is the King of Video.

In 2013 he started his video company that he ran for 7 years creating video and travelling the world, with clients from one man bands through to billion dollar companies.

Fast forward to 2019 and he created the King of Video brand to help small business owners confidently, create, consistent video content that connects with their audience.

In 2021 Matt turned his focus to YouTube and has the goal of getting 1000 small businesses to 1000 subscribers using YouTube as the primary platform to grow their business and make money by strategically creating video content.