June 4, 2025 • 48 mins
From MySpace to Millions: The Journey of Austin Armstrong
Introduction
In this captivating podcast episode, we delve into the fascinating journey of Austin Armstrong, a true pioneer in the digital marketing and social media space. From his early days on MySpace to amassing millions of followers across various platforms, Austin's story is a testament to the power of consistency and passion in the world of content creation.
The Early Days
Austin Armstrong's foray into social media began in 2004 on MySpace, where his knack for growing a following became evident. By the age of 14, he had hundreds of thousands of followers and was making significant income, albeit with some questionable methods that raised his parents' eyebrows. Despite facing criticism from peers, Austin's determination and passion for social media never wavered.
Transitioning to Modern Platforms
After a brief hiatus, Austin re-entered the digital marketing world through a video marketing agency, honing his skills in video SEO and content creation. His journey took a pivotal turn when he co-founded Socialty Pro, marking the beginning of his personal brand's resurgence. Today, Austin boasts impressive numbers on platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, with daily view counts ranging from 5 to 10 million.
Content Creation and Strategy
Austin's success is rooted in his deep understanding of content strategy. He emphasizes the importance of SEO, long-tail keywords, and systematic content creation across various pillars. His ability to adapt to changing trends, such as the rise of short-form content and AI tools, has been a key driver of his continued growth.
AI and the Future
As the CEO of Syllabi.ai, Austin is at the forefront of leveraging AI in content creation. His platform helps creators generate consistent, impactful content, and his insights into AI's role in shaping the future of digital marketing are invaluable. Austin's passion for AI is evident in his efforts to host AI Marketing World, a conference dedicated to exploring AI's impact on marketing.
Monetization and Influence
Austin's journey is a testament to the diverse avenues of monetization available to influencers. From affiliate marketing and brand deals to ad revenue and consulting, he has successfully navigated the complexities of turning influence into income. His advice to aspiring influencers is clear: focus on building trust, providing value, and diversifying income streams.
Conclusion
Austin Armstrong's story is one of resilience, innovation, and authenticity. His influence extends beyond numbers, inspiring a new generation of content creators to pursue their passions with dedication and integrity. As he continues to push the boundaries of digital marketing and AI, Austin remains a beacon of inspiration for influencers worldwide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Walt Bayliss (00:00):
Today's episode of the Influencer Empires podcast
is brought to you by the EmpireProgram with White Label Suite
powering our influencers andbuilding their empires.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo the show.
Today we have a genuineinfluencer superstar with us on
the show.
This man has forged the paththat others are following.
I'm just going to read you offa couple of crazy numbers 3.6
(00:24):
million followers on TikTokalone, 1.8 million following on
Facebook, over 840,000 followerson Instagram and over 800
million views on YouTube.
It gives me incredible pleasureto invite the man behind those
numbers, the CEO of syllabiai,to the show, mr Austin Armstrong
(00:47):
.
Austin man, thank you so muchfor joining me.
How does hearing those numbersroll back to you?
How does that make you feel?
Austin Armstrong (00:53):
Pretty insane to think about.
It's just one video at a time,one post at a time, 20 years
straight of consistency.
It's been a pretty mind-blowingjourney, man, but I love what I
do and I'm excited to nerd outabout this and hopefully share
some wisdom that inspires someup-and-coming new creators.
Walt Bayliss (01:12):
Let's go.
I'm excited for that too.
So, dude, you have been alifelong marketer online.
I mean, I've known your namefor years decades, it seems.
How did you get started in thewhole online space?
Austin Armstrong (01:27):
Yeah, so let's go back all the way back to
2004, the days of MySpace.
Super early in social media.
I was 14 years old.
I stumbled on this platform.
That was the newest, hottestthing.
That was the newest, hottestthing.
I instantly got addicted togrowing a following on MySpace
(01:48):
and I figured out how tomonetize that in a lot of
different ways.
I had several profiles withhundreds of thousands of
followers on MySpace as a 14, 15, 16 year old, making way more
money than I should have.
16 year old, making way moremoney than I should have.
My parents thinking that I wasdoing something illegal, uh, at
(02:09):
the time, and and uh, borderline, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Some things were a littlesketchy at the time, but, uh,
when you're so young, you knowthose.
Those are impactful days.
The prefrontal cortex is notdone, finished developing, and
you're really impacted by yourexperiences in life.
(02:29):
And I just loved that entireprocess of grinding and finding
communities of people that werelike me, that also were
fascinated by growing on socialmedia and what that meant in
terms of multiple streams ofincome, and I more or less have
done it ever since.
Now there was a little bit of adown period where it wasn't a
(02:54):
full focus in my career because,if I'm being honest, nobody
told me that this was a careerpath.
It worked for a while and thenI stumbled back into it about 11
, almost 12 years ago, when Imoved out to California.
I started an internship at avideo marketing agency and now
(03:14):
I've been very, very consistentwith video and social media for
11, 12 years since.
But yeah, there was probably athree-year gap in between, where
I was still active on socialbut I wasn't growing it, so to
speak.
But yeah, that was those werethe early days.
I, you know big, big friend ofTom and I just uh, I, I, I love
(03:35):
those days.
Walt Bayliss (03:36):
Wow, amazing.
So you're you're talking about,you know, being 14 years old
and getting this incredibletraction online.
You got 200,000 peoplefollowing you all the way back
in the MySpace days, which, forthose who are just tuning in in
the influencer space gettingstarted today, this was the
precursor to Facebook.
So, dude, how like did thataffect your daily life, were you
(03:56):
suddenly the guy and everybodywas coming to you, even way back
then?
I lost a lot of friends thatway.
Really Okay, tell me about that, like why, what happened?
Austin Armstrong (04:08):
yeah, so if you remember how facebook or, uh
, how myspace worked?
Is we, you?
You posted to this messageboard area, um, and that's where
that was kind of your feed, ifyou will.
The for you area was a separatemessage board area and so, like
, like all of our friends, allof my friends and whatnot were
connected on MySpace at the timeand some friends and family
(04:31):
members were, and once I startedto growing, you basically just
spam posts to each to help eachother grow.
So we would be in these AIMcommunity I'm really aging
myself here if there's any newcontent.
We jumped into AOL InstantMessenger, aim group chats every
(04:51):
day and we'd go down the listof here's my HTML code that has
a follow Austin and somegraphics and stuff on it, and
everybody in the AIM group chatwould share my profile with some
information and then it wouldbe their turn and we'd go down
this list and we'd share a bunchof posts and so in a row, like
on any given day, I would besharing 20, 30 posts, and that's
(05:16):
just to help each other grow.
Nevermind, we did this multipletimes.
And then I was promoting localbands and t-shirt companies and
doing email lead gen.
I even had an early softwarecompany that helped other people
grow on MySpace back in the dayand so at school, like nobody
knew what was going on.
So I got made fun of, I gotteased, people hated it and
(05:38):
they're, like you know, shut up.
I hate this.
So, like you're spamming mymessage board feed, all I see is
you nobody understood.
Uh and, but I didn't reallycare.
Walt Bayliss (05:50):
The bank was rolling Cause.
Austin Armstrong (05:52):
I'm like you know I'm sitting there.
I'm like I just made $250 todayas a 15 year old from posting
on MySpace.
Like, what have you done?
Walt Bayliss (06:03):
Damn, I love it.
That's amazing.
So obviously when MySpace gottaken over by the other
platforms.
So you had that break, but didyou have some sort of structure
that you went into the otherplatforms with that allowed you
to do the same thing again andagain?
Austin Armstrong (06:20):
Not really, to be honest.
So this was pre-video and so Igot on YouTube pretty early I
(06:42):
think 2006, when it firststarted to grow, and I had a
couple of videos on pages tofollow, just like you know, meme
type pages back in the day.
But I didn't get a whole lot oftraction and, if I'm being
honest with myself, like Ididn't really go into those
platforms with the sameintention of growing and I don't
(07:05):
really know why.
I think just in my head thistime had passed.
Walt Bayliss (07:11):
As you said, nobody gave you this as a career
path.
Austin Armstrong (07:15):
Yeah, I didn't have any mentor in my life at
the time.
That was like no, keep doingthis, you're onto something.
Social media is going to behuge.
Just stay consistent.
I came back to that,fortunately.
Social media is going to behuge.
Just stay consistent.
I came back to that,fortunately.
This was definitely my path inlife.
Walt Bayliss (07:34):
But yeah, at the time, there was not a smooth
transition.
Austin Armstrong (07:36):
There was years of getting back on the
horse, so to speak.
It wasn't an easy transition atall.
Walt Bayliss (07:43):
So it's interesting that, like you
mentioned that, you had thatlittle break and you actually
got picked up by a video agency.
So you were doing video kind ofvideo, marketing video, SEO
video, production video, videovideo as an agency for clients,
and at what stage did this startto become yours, Like at what
stage did you go?
Well, I'm bigger than theagency this is.
(08:04):
This is now Austin Armstrong.
You know out in the space, notjust the agency, that I'm
working for.
Austin Armstrong (08:11):
So not for a while.
So I I went from being a unpaidintern to a paid intern, to a
part-time employee to afull-time employee.
There I had one video that didabout 5 million views.
That was my idea.
On that channel.
That was the biggest one.
(08:31):
And then we were doing videomarketing in the behavioral
health space, so working withdrug and alcohol treatment
centers and psychologists andtherapists and psychologists the
whole nine yards in that space.
And I started getting reallygood and I kept moving my way up
, ended up working as head ofdigital marketing at a drug and
(08:52):
alcohol treatment center as well.
I had grown multiple YouTubechannels to tens of thousands of
subscribers at that point,getting millions of views, and I
started to get that itch andsay why am I doing this for
other people when I know that Ican do this for myself?
Meanwhile I was starting toattend conferences.
This is now, I'd say, eight,nine years ago, so a couple of
(09:18):
years into that.
And then that agency that Iworked at failed.
The business model didn't quitework out.
It was kind of a unique bigpicture strategy that didn't
work out.
But my boss became my businesspartner.
We started a much moretraditional marketing agency,
(09:40):
traditional model, and that'swhere I started to grow my
personal brand again.
Traditional model and that'swhere I started to grow my
personal brand again.
So this was about six and a halfyears ago when I started my
first company, socialty Pro, andthat was where I really had the
vision of, like you were saying, who are you going to hire?
Are you going to hire themarketing agency that has no
(10:02):
following themselves or themarketing agency that has
hundreds of thousands offollowers and is the reason that
we're on a call now in thefirst place?
And so that's where I reallystarted to build my brand again.
And so, if you think about it,there's a big gap in between
when I was big on MySpace andthen I was behind the scenes for
many, many years, and then Iwas behind the scenes for many,
(10:26):
many years, and only the lastsix and a half years now did I
really start to focus on growingmy personal brand.
And it's been that six and ahalf years of consistency that
have really compounded and Iwould say, continue to compound
Like I'm getting more viewsright now than I've ever gotten
on any platform in my entirelife.
Walt Bayliss (10:43):
Wow, and it continues to compound.
I want to dig in a platform inmy entire life Wow, and it
continues to come down.
I want to dig in a bit.
I want to dig in, Like there'sa couple of pieces there that I
really want to dig into.
But just blow me away for asecond.
You're getting more views thanever before.
What's a?
What's a?
What's a view count for youtoday, Like as in on a daily
basis?
What kind of views are yougetting?
Austin Armstrong (10:59):
On a daily, daily basis, probably five to 10
million views right now acrossthe board.
Walt Bayliss (11:07):
Okay, I'm just like that's the end of our
episode.
Ladies and gentlemen, five to10 million views a day that is
absolutely phenomenal.
I definitely want to dig in abit, so I just want to come back
on there.
There was a couple of keypoints.
So, when you're talking aboutworking at the agency, you said
I had grown a couple of YouTubechannel to tens of thousands of
followers.
Now I know, for our listeners,like you said, that super
(11:31):
quickly I grew a couple of youknow YouTube channels out to
tens of thousands of followersand then you're onto the next
thing.
But for a lot of our listeners,that's a dream come true Just
getting one channel up to thatkind of level.
Do you have a formula Like how,how?
much do you back yourself?
Could you start?
Austin Armstrong (11:49):
with a, with a fresh channel today and grow
that out reasonably quickly,absolutely.
Yeah, I've done it a couple oftimes.
Yeah, I've got, I mean, twosilver play buttons behind me
here.
I have 630,000 subscribers.
I grew another channel to uh,it's at about 130,000
subscribers for a client I hadanother client that's about
90,000 subscribers.
Right now, another channelthat's 60,000, 50,000.
(12:10):
I think YouTube alone, I thinkprobably nine or 10 channels
past 10,000.
There's definitely repeatableformulas.
Shorts just have been crushingthe last several years.
In particular.
I have really good shortsstrategies that have worked for
me that I can get in the weedsif you want.
(12:33):
But even before shorts rolledout, seo on YouTube is the game.
Is the game Like it's.
People overthink it.
But, um, looking at long tailkeywords that people are
searching for online using a SEOkeyword research tool like
SEMrush or Ahrefs, or now vidIQor TubeBuddy, you know like all
(12:54):
these tools are fantastic.
And then finding those gaps umof uh, a lot of search volume
but not a lot of competition.
And even if there iscompetition on it, maybe there
hasn't been videos on thatparticular topic in two plus
years.
So there's still a lot ofsearches but there's no new,
(13:15):
fresh content on it and thenjust sort of breaking it down,
because I come from an SEObackground as well and so SEO on
YouTube really worked out.
So maybe here's the broadoriented topic and then it would
be interview style and so, ifthis is so, for instance, like
in the drug and alcoholtreatment space, we would do
(13:35):
opioid addiction, you know, likewhat is opioid addiction might
be a particular topic, and thenyou ask that question first.
Expert answers it for twominutes and then you have a
second question in there that'salso an SEO keyword research.
That's like opioids versusbenzodiazepines, which in and of
itself is a keyword researchterm there, and then in that
(13:59):
after that you might do what areopioid withdrawal symptoms?
Uh, and then opioid uhwithdrawal symptom timeline, and
that, like all of these, youbreaking that uh that process
down.
Um, it makes for a really goodvideo, uh, and a logical uh
viewer uh experience as well.
So a lot of people don't ifyou're going after search, they
(14:21):
don't think about that Like whatis the natural progression of
information within that video tobest deliver it, and so just
following that strategy workedreally well.
Another like overarching contentstrategy that we really
followed is when we wouldonboard a new client, we would
(14:41):
go over four or five corepillars of things that you can
talk about.
So another example of, say,maybe a therapist they could
talk about depression topics,anxiety topics,
relationship-oriented topics,narcissism-oriented topics, and
(15:01):
so if those are our four or fivebroad categories, then you do
that keyword research and topicresearch and competitor research
on what are the top performingvideos and topics in each
category and you outline like 10, 15 topics, subtopics in each
of those categories and now youhave a systematic approach.
So video one is in depression,video two is in anxiety, video
(15:25):
three is in relationship, videofour is in narcissism.
And you do this in a systematicapproach and this works for
longs or shorts and after abouta 30-day period you're going to
notice trends.
And so this is a real-worldexample of a therapist, jim
Breon, that we went through thisand we realized exponentially
(15:47):
more views were coming fromnarcissism-oriented content.
And so it's all a momentum anda double down play.
Content in every format feedsoff of your previous content.
And so if you stack the odds inyour favor, so you do all of
the upfront research, you makeassumptions and then you see and
notice those trends of videosand content that perform best
(16:07):
and you double down to test thatassumption and you continue to
ride that momentum until it nolonger works and then you go
through that A to Z processagain with the content that
you're producing.
Walt Bayliss (16:25):
In terms of you know a lot of, I think.
I've done a whole series ofinterviews with some of the top
YouTubers in the world and Ithink one of the biggest pieces
of feedback that we kept gettingback after interviewing some of
those legends was oh my God, Ididn't realize it was actually
so much work to be an influencer.
So, as a as a content creatortoday, austin, are you still
researching your topic or areyou just point and shoot now?
Are you at the point wheremomentum has taken over?
(16:46):
Do you have a team that'soutlying the pillars and doing
the same thing, or is it like?
What's your strategy today?
Is it still the same?
Austin Armstrong (16:53):
No, it's a lot different.
I mean, we've entered an AI eranow.
I use AI to assist me in mostthings.
Content creation is definitelymy creative outlet.
I sometimes use editors.
I use editors for my long-formcontent.
I still edit my own short-formvideos.
I've gone back and forth on ita little bit, I just like to do
(17:15):
it.
So there are certain thingsthat I delegate out.
Chat, gpt and Claude help me doa lot of research on some of
the topics.
I do a lot of my own research.
I'm very much on the fly withcontent, though.
I've made thousands of videos.
I know what styles of videos,the formatting I've got it down
(17:37):
to like.
If I get, for instance, for me,a 49 second video that gets 37
seconds of view duration, I knowthat like 60% of the time is
going to crush it.
Yeah.
Walt Bayliss (17:51):
Right, okay.
Austin Armstrong (17:52):
Really paying attention to the metrics, and so
that is always a North starshort for me is I try and get it
as close to 49 seconds and Itry and work in micro hooks and
clips that are the exact samelength to stack the odds in my
favor, like that's how sort ofmeticulous that I get with it
(18:13):
sometimes Not every time it'samazing.
Walt Bayliss (18:16):
Like you're doing that on the fly because you've
got the foundation.
I mean, michael Jordan steps upto the free throw line.
He's got a set play that heknows exactly how, what's going
to, what's going to get in thenet 90% of the time.
So if you were starting offlike if you were a brand new
content creator today,understanding the pillars that
you just went through before now, understanding the hooks and
(18:36):
the timing and that kind ofstuff, like there are some
fundamentals that need to bebedded in and it's not just
point and shoot it, you justneed to understand some of those
, some of those fundamentals.
Do you have like a um is there?
Is there somewhere that youwould recommend content creators
go to follow along?
Obviously, guys, I'm going todrop all Austin's links here.
So, uh, austinarmstrongai isAustin's own thing and I'll
(18:58):
include all of the links tosociality pro and everything
there.
But is there some way that youwould say to somebody go here.
This is your best startingpoint.
Austin Armstrong (19:06):
I would say right now it's my Facebook
profile.
That's where I'm spending themost amount of time creating
every day.
I post like five to six times aday every day on Facebook all
different formats of content onthere.
It's where I'm getting the mostamount of views.
My attention goes to whereattention is Big Gary Vee fan.
(19:30):
That's kind of where that comesfrom, but I was a TikTok guy
for a long time, youtube guy fora long time, seo guy for a long
time.
Right now, facebook is whereI'm seeing the most organic
reach, the most connections, themost leads, the most business,
the most revenue.
So that's where I'm spendingmost of my time right now.
Walt Bayliss (19:47):
So I love that.
Yeah, we'll get everybody overthere.
So I'm looking at facebookcom.
Of course, o-w-w-s-t-i-n isAustin's own page there.
1.7 million followers, so doingsomething right there, man.
I would say, so good place togo and learn from you guys.
So, austin, the other thingthat I wanted to look at there
was that you mentioned a coupleof times now already consistency
(20:09):
.
So now it's like years andyears and years and years and
years of consistency.
What does a day in the life forAustin Armstrong look like?
Let's look at a contentcreation schedule and how you go
about feeding that engine.
Austin Armstrong (20:22):
Yeah, Well, so I'm a little bit more
unorganized and chaotic thanpeople might think, but I'm not
a morning person, so I will wakeup at like 9am and then I will
typically either go for a littlewalk with my wife and my dog or
get some coffee and then startworking around 10am, then start
(20:45):
working around 10 am and lots ofmeetings throughout the day I
create on the fly.
I don't batch, I don't like tobatch.
If I have a 30-minute or anhour time availability, which
sometimes I just mark it off onthe calendar if I need to do
(21:05):
deep work or get some contentcreation in, I'll create
something on the fly.
I typically do try and get atleast one piece of content out
before my first meeting everyday, and sometimes I'm more
creative than other days.
One fantastic hack on Facebookin particular is to just go
(21:27):
through your memories and repostsomething that you posted a
year ago.
Walt Bayliss (21:31):
Yeah right.
Austin Armstrong (21:33):
You know the power of consistency is you
build up a backlog of contentthat you can repost.
I'm also a huge advocate ofreposting your top performing
content.
Remember that you are the onlyperson that sees every single
post that you put up.
And so if I had a banger fromlast month that did 50 million
(21:54):
views or whatever, guess what?
I'm going to repost that thing.
Walt Bayliss (21:57):
Yeah sure, would you reshoot, or would you just
like repost that same content?
Austin Armstrong (22:02):
It depends on the platform.
So, to be honest, text threadsare working best for me on
Facebook right now, that's thebest format of content across
the board, which is like aclickbait headline of colored
background, white text, likeblack background, white text,
something like rest in peace.
(22:23):
Photoshop here's five AI toolsto generate images amazingly
Right and then down arrow andthen in the comments will be the
five different tools and a callto action or something like
that.
Like that.
That format just crushes.
There are some nuances ofreposting videos on different
platforms.
Facebook doesn't like it, so Idon't repost them.
(22:44):
They're the biggest platformthat's dinged me for reused
duplicate content, so I don't dothat.
Instagram I have no problemreposting videos.
In fact, I recommend postingthem as trial reels Right now.
Trial reels is a fantasticfeature to test your top
(23:07):
performing content againstpeople that have never followed
you and never seen your contentbefore.
Tiktok doesn't really care.
Youtube doesn't really care forshorts.
They definitely care for long,and so just some little nuances
and then lots of meetings allday, and then I typically will
work until 10 o'clock at night,something like that.
(23:29):
So it ends up being like a 1112 hour day um, but uh, but a
late start for sure, and thenI'm more of an evening person,
so I sort of hit a groove around7, 8, 9, 10 pm.
Walt Bayliss (23:44):
I have to sort of stop like force myself to slow
down so that's when that's whenit really kicks in for you like
the just the flow and you'relike, okay, hang on a second.
I could be here until fouro'clock in the morning if I kept
following this thread.
Yeah, I know the feelingAbsolutely.
Austin Armstrong (23:58):
That's kind of my flow.
State is in the evening.
Walt Bayliss (24:00):
Some people are morning people.
Austin Armstrong (24:01):
I am not.
I am just like a slow ease inall day.
Walt Bayliss (24:07):
And then you know like slow ease in all day and
then, you know, yeah, exactly, Ilove it, I love it, I love it.
So, as we're recording thisthis is a mid 2025, as we're
recording this you have been nowat the helm of an incredible
tool with syllabi just for fortwo and a half years.
You you started up this amazingAI based video application and,
(24:28):
of course, you're one of thepioneers in the space.
There's been a lot that's comeafter you, but how is Syllabi
now reflected in your daily lifeas a content creator and as a
CEO of a powerful AI company?
How do you balance those twothings together?
Austin Armstrong (24:44):
Well, it's been an amazing journey.
I mean, this is my secondcompany.
Well, it's been an amazingjourney.
I mean, this is my secondcompany, my first startup, so
it's a really unique new spacefor me, even though it's been
two and a half years since welaunched, three years since I've
been working on it A to Zprocess of doing keyword
(25:06):
research and creating contentand staying consistent, and I
turned it into into syllabi tohelp other people have all of
the right topics and ability tocreate consistently across an
omni channel approach, everysocial media platform.
I use it.
(25:26):
I love it.
I manage three faceless YouTubechannels and our team in
general across the board.
We manage like 50 facelessYouTube channels and it's
honestly just inspiring to seepeople in our Facebook community
and online every single daystart to create videos and are
(25:48):
monetized that and they've neverbeen able to get out of their
own way to start creatingcontent for, and so that's what
really inspires me, but how I'mable to balance them is through
delegation is the real answer.
You know there's a great bookthat came out a year or two ago
(26:09):
now Buy Back your Time by DanMartell, one of my favorite,
favorite recent books, andthere's like one big concept in
that book of time inventorywhere you just from the moment
you wake up until the moment yougo to sleep for like a week
straight or two weeks straightif you can make it that far just
(26:29):
put a start time and an endtime, list the task out and then
rate it as well of how muchenjoyment does it bring you, how
much is it worth of your time?
Do you like doing it?
Do you not like doing it?
Grade all of this out and thenstart to figure out like what
can you delegate out to otherpeople so that you can buy back
(26:51):
more of your time to focus onwhat brings you the most
enjoyment and what gets you themost positive ROI.
And for me, what I get the mostROI on and the most enjoyment
out of is content creation anddoing amazing podcasts like this
with you and doing publicspeaking engagements.
I love that stuff.
That is my zone of genius.
That's where I come alive.
(27:12):
I brought on multiple businesspartners to focus on things that
I am not good at.
We have a pretty sizable teamnow we're over 20 people so that
I can hyper-focus on doing whatI'm good at and it's marketing
and what I love to do.
So that's kind of the balancein the day-to-day.
Walt Bayliss (27:35):
I love it.
So I'm a huge Dan Martell fan.
I think I've got to buy backyour time on repeat on my
Audible, so when I'm walking inthe morning.
So I'm thinking back like twoand a half years ago you started
syllabi.
It would have taken you blood,sweat and tears to get it off
the ground and now you've beenable to put the team in place
and refocus back on being thatfront face, bringing the natural
(27:55):
subscriber growth from youractivity into syllabi, which is
an amazing thing.
So for all our listeners, forthe people that want to be
influencers, who are influencersand they're getting started
with that kind of world, youmonetize your fame.
Let's put it that way.
You monetize your fame in anumber of different ways and
Syllabi is just one of those.
You have obviously a subscriberbase, content creators who want
(28:17):
to create the YouTube facelessYouTube channels and go Syllabi
is amazing, by the way logged inand just love the application.
But so that's just one of theways that you're monetizing is.
You've got your own brand thatyou built up as a software
application.
What are the other ways thatyou're monetizing those 5 to 10
million views a day that you'rebringing in?
Austin Armstrong (28:34):
Yeah, great question.
Affiliate marketing is probablymy largest income stream outside
of syllabi.
Brand deals.
I do a lot of brand deals Addrevenue across all of the
platforms.
Brand deals, um, add revenueacross all of the platforms.
Uh, beehive is a is a great onethat I've been doing the last
(28:55):
uh couple of months maybe, maybeclose to a year now, and that
Beehive is a uh email newsletterplatform and there's some uh
awesome functionalities in there.
They have this uh what's calleda boost program, which
basically it's other newslettersthat get put in front of your
opt-in form.
So, long story short, you getpaid to grow your email
newsletter, uh, for free.
(29:15):
Uh, you know that's.
That's been a fantastic way.
Uh, hourly consulting, paidspeaking engagements, um,
sometimes UGC.
So, uh, people will have mecreate a video, um for their
brand, but it's not posted on mysocial accounts, it's posted on
their social accounts.
(29:36):
I've had, I have a privateschool community Um, uh, I've
had a couple courses over theyears.
Um, right now I'm working on abook as well, so those are kind
of the more meaningful things.
Sometimes I'll do leadgeneration or referral.
(29:56):
So I shut my agency down.
I don't want to be an agencyanymore.
I got burned out on that space.
I don't want to do clientmanagement.
I'm tired of trading my timefor dollars.
I don't even really like doingconsulting anymore, if I'm being
completely honest, because Ijust like my freedom to market
and just have Sullabite grow asa result.
So I will refer clients toother trusted people that I
(30:22):
trust.
Those are the big ones.
Walt Bayliss (30:28):
I'd say's that covers a fair few bases.
What was interesting for me isthat you listed ad revenue as
third, so I think like well, uh,probably fourth, if you're
counting syllabi as the as thenumber one, I think a lot of a
lot of um uh, people who want tobe influencers in the space, uh
, kind of think to themselves ifI get, if I get half a million
um subscribers, or if I get, youknow, a million views, then
(30:49):
then I'm going to be abillionaire Again.
I just know that from thereality of interviewing a lot of
superstars and YouTubeinfluencers.
That's not the case.
When would you say to aninfluencer this is where you're
going to start to see thingsreally shift and move forward
(31:13):
move forward.
Austin Armstrong (31:14):
I would never rely on ad revenue to be your
number one source of revenue.
Always let that be the icing onthe cake.
The best way that you're goingto be able to make significant
money as an influencer and as acontent creator is have a
business that allows you to be acreator is have a business that
allows you to be a creator.
Pause for impact.
Have something that you cansell.
You can start with affiliatemarketing.
(31:35):
Depending on your niche,affiliate marketing can drive a
lot of money.
I made over six I was justdoing my taxes and I made over
six figures in affiliatemarketing alone last year.
Promoting other people'ssoftware tools, you can make a
lot of money.
Youtube, for instance.
(31:56):
I'm very transparent.
I've got 600,000 subscribers.
A lot of it comes from shorts.
I make less than $1,000 a monthfrom my YouTube channel right
now.
I'm not complaining, but it'sless than most people think that
you make with 600,000subscribers.
(32:17):
Facebook pays a lot right now.
Last month I made about $9,400.
So Facebook's paying asignificant amount of money to
creators right now.
So you can make a decent amount.
But if you sell courses orcoaching or your own products or
(32:38):
services, let that be theprimary revenue driver, because
it can be a little bit morepredictable.
Ad revenue has highs and lows.
Affiliate marketing is good ifyou're promoting SaaS tools
because it is recurring and itbecomes predictable.
(32:58):
Brand deals can have highs andlows.
Sometimes you'll get two, three, four brand deals a month and
then you'll get nothing for two,three months or whatever.
So if you can find somethingthat you enjoy to create content
around and you figure out howto sell something that really
(33:19):
genuinely provides value orhelps your audience.
That's where meaningful revenuecan come from.
Let all the other things justbe icing on the cake.
You know, all of these multiplestreams of income build on top
of each other, but if you onlyrely on one and so many content
creators, just think that, likeas soon as I get monetized on
(33:41):
YouTube, my life is going tochange and they spend two years
getting the thousand subscribersand 4,000 hours of watch time.
They're finally approved and thefirst paycheck comes in and
it's like 67 cents and it's likeoh, it's so rough.
Walt Bayliss (33:57):
I remember I was interviewing Eric the car guy
and I asked him the question ofad revenue and this was the week
that he got more views than TopGear.
And he was like, you know, thatparticular week, my ad revenue
was something like $614.
And I was like, you know, thatparticular week, my, my ad
revenue was something like $614.
And I was like, yeah, there yougo.
And then he was like, and inthat same week, I think it was
Jaguar and Audi rocked up withtwo new cars and just dropped
them off at his house with a bowon top and said, please review.
(34:18):
So it's like brand deals, likebrand deals taken taking the
cake.
So, Austin, tell me what's thedeal that surprised you?
What?
What point did your phone ring,your email went off, or
Instagram or a notificationsomewhere, and you answered that
and at the other end of thatcall was there a deal or a
connection that made you go whoa, that was huge.
Austin Armstrong (34:42):
The one that immediately comes to mind is
before.
I had a lot of success onsocial media.
I was creating on YouTube.
I was creating really targetedvideos in the SEO space, just as
I was talking about and it wasa video about drug rehab SEO to
get more clients, and that videoat the time had probably three
(35:07):
or 400 views and that video atthe time had probably 300 or 400
views.
But I got an email fromsomebody that had seen a TikTok
video, gone to the YouTubechannel and watched that YouTube
video, sent me an email and itturned into a $15,000 consulting
contract to come in as ahigh-level consultant for three
(35:28):
months to oversee theirmarketing team, because those
videos proved my expertise inthat industry.
And so that's another thing thata lot of influencers don't
think about, is it?
Doesn't?
You don't have the viralnumbers?
The vanity metrics are cool,it's nice to have, it's nice to
say I have three and a halfmillion followers, Great.
(35:49):
But you don't need that to makesignificant revenue.
A video that had three 400views led to $15,000 contract,
so amazing things like that canhappen if you're hyper focused.
Walt Bayliss (36:02):
There was a word there that I just want to focus
on, which was that you theyfocused on your expertise.
It wasn't the 300 or 400 views,it was the expertise that was
behind the video that led to theconsulting.
I think there's a lot of.
Actually.
Let me rephrase this as aquestion how do you feel an
influencer becomes an influencer?
(36:23):
When we're talking aboutexpertise, there are so many
niches out there.
There are so many niches outthere.
There are so many amazing,incredible content creators that
have built amazing followingsin everything from cooking to
business, to SEO, to makeup.
There's just an infinite numberof different things.
How does an influencer createthat expertise that allows them
(36:45):
to generate the following?
Austin Armstrong (36:50):
expertise that allows them to generate the
following Know, like and trustAbsolutely.
You have to show upconsistently, so they have to
know you.
They have to like you based onyour personality and how you
deliver and consistently make animpact in their lives.
And they have to trust you.
Trust is the most importantfactor into being an influencer.
(37:11):
If you're trying to influencesomebody to make a purchasing
decision, they have to trust you.
It's not good enough to just putan offer out there and think
that it's going to justmagically turn into dollars.
No, think about it from yourperspective.
Have you ever just boughtsomething from someone that
(37:31):
you've never seen this personpost anything before?
Are you going to buy it on thespot the first time?
No, probably not.
Why would I buy this thing?
I don't want to waste my moneyright.
So it takes that consistency ofshowing up, providing value for
free over and over again,proving your worth staying
consistent over and over andover again, proving your worth
staying consistent over and overand over again.
Just deliver incredible freevalue.
(37:53):
You can sell the implementation, but if you jab, jab, jab right
, hook the other Gary Vreference there just like 80%,
90% of the content that youcreate should just be free,
amazing value.
Truly try to make a positiveimpact in the lives of who your
audience is, and that's how youbuild influence, that's how
(38:16):
you're able to sell things.
I love it.
Walt Bayliss (38:19):
Dude, how do you feel about being referred to as
an influencer?
Austin Armstrong (38:25):
I think, it's a little silly to be honest, I
don't call myself an influencer,really.
Um, I'm, I'm just a contentcreator.
Um, I think, uh, it does moreharm to, or like, uh, it
inflates my ego more than itshould.
You know it's, it's cool, Um,don't get me wrong, but I, I
(38:47):
don't know, I just feel I feel alittle to be honest.
Walt Bayliss (38:52):
Does it?
Does it weigh on you?
Do you?
Do you have a?
Do you have a?
Do you have a heaviness thatcomes with the responsibility of
millions of people understandor see your, see your post five
to 10 million views a day.
Do you feel responsibilitybehind it?
Austin Armstrong (39:05):
No, I'm authentically myself in person
and online and I've made.
You know.
People have asked me thatquestion of asked me that
question of um, should you usethat reach to do something, uh,
(39:26):
in the world?
Um, I could get into politics.
I don't want to get intopolitics because I personally
don't care about politics.
Sorry, I'm just trying to growa business.
But I could put.
You know, I could rock the boat, but that's not what my content
is about.
(39:46):
You know you don't come to mypage for that.
You come for infotainment.
I'm a corny guy, I do sketchvideos and stuff like that, but
it's all about digital marketingand AI and using these latest
tools.
It would isolate and completelytake away from the work that
(40:07):
I've done by talking about atopic like that, and so, no, it
doesn't weigh on me and I stayin my lane, and I like to stay
in my lane because I don't evenwant to talk about these things
in real life to be honest, yeah,nice, I like it, I like it.
Walt Bayliss (40:22):
Dude, I'm so conscious of your time and I'm
really very, very grateful forthe chance to hang out with you
for a little bit.
So I've just got a couple ofother questions that I just want
to dive into a little bit.
So let's talk about AI for asecond.
So, obviously, syllabiai guys,you can.
You can head over and find outabout Austin's own creation
platform there, which isincredible.
How is AI changing, shaping youas an influencer?
(40:44):
How is it affecting otherinfluencers and content creators
?
Moving forward, like it's a?
It's a really big space rightnow.
Austin Armstrong (40:52):
It is the biggest shift in technology
since the internet itself andI've seen all of these platforms
come and go.
I've seen these trends.
I'm a little bit into thecrypto space, just privately,
but NFTs kind of came and went.
(41:13):
Web3 is still a thing, butthere's no practical, immediate
use cases for the everydayperson, unlike AI.
Ai, why this boomed and why itcontinues to grow is there is
immediate, practical use cases.
(41:33):
In becoming every aspect of ourlife Largely online and digital,
it's becoming more and moreingrained into hardware, which I
think is going to be the nextbig evolution, next transition.
It allows me to ideate faster.
It allows me to create more,better, faster.
(41:55):
It allows me to stay moreconsistent and be more
productive and do deep researchon things that would have taken
me countless hours.
Before I sign a contract, Ipass it through AI to see if
there's any immediate red flags.
As a first pass, it isintegrated into my calendar.
(42:17):
It's integrated into everyaspect of my life.
I talk to ChatGPT on a prettymuch daily basis now and it's
only getting better and betterand I've been loving just from a
content topic perspective aswell.
I started to create contentyears ago on useful websites for
business owners andentrepreneurs, and when these AI
(42:38):
tools started to come out, itwas a very simple, natural
progression to starting tocreate content about useful AI
websites for business owners andentrepreneurs, which has
allowed me to explode onlinefrom having a base and a content
format that worked and just megenuinely being interested in
(42:59):
this space, and now I have myown AI marketing conference
coming up, called AI MarketingWorld If anyone's interested,
aimarketingworldco.
It's going to be in Dallas,texas, october 9th through the
11th.
Shameless little plug there,but I'm an AI startup founder.
Now I'm an AI content creator.
I spoke at Duke University as alecturing professor about AI
(43:22):
and entrepreneurship.
It's opened up so manyopportunities for me to speak
all around the world and buildinfluence that I never really
had before.
Ai is integrated intoeverything and it's only
becoming more and moreintegrated, and I love the space
and I'm fascinated and a littleterrified at it, but it's
(43:44):
always good.
Walt Bayliss (43:45):
What doesn't AI do that you wish it did?
Austin Armstrong (43:49):
Well, my wife and I were talking about this
earlier today.
I'm like we're both getting tothe my wife's a startup founder
as well and we wish like we'regetting to a point where we need
to hire a house manager andjust like assistant to book our
travel and do everything for us.
We're very likely only a fewmonths away from an agent being
(44:11):
able to just book me my flightlike aisle row, try and get me
an exit row or upgrade me tobusiness class, whatever I like
these airlines.
I like flying in and out ofthis city, book me a hotel
(44:31):
here's my preference and it justkind of doing all of those
little tasks for me.
So like just everydayautomation outside of the online
world.
I can't wait for that to comeand I think that's going to be
very soon.
Walt Bayliss (44:51):
I think we're there already.
I'm pretty sure that somebodylistening to this will go Austin
.
You should check this out.
It's already there.
Austin Armstrong (44:57):
Yeah, it's a little buggy, but I mean you can
do a fair amount of this, butdefinitely in a couple of months
.
Walt Bayliss (45:03):
Can you imagine what's going to happen?
Like AI really is only such ayoung technology for so much
impact that it's already beenfelt.
So, I just want to wrap up.
So again, guys, austinArmstrong, the legend that is
forging the path man.
Again, I'm so grateful for yourtime and creating Syllabi as an
app that other creators arethen leveraging as well.
(45:24):
Super, super cool.
Um, dude, I want to ask you whoinfluences you?
Austin Armstrong (45:30):
Hmm, my wife comes to mind.
She's an amazing startupfounder as well, and we motivate
each other.
Uh, there are a mate.
I mentioned Gary V like threetimes on this chat conversation
already.
I'm a big Gary V fan.
(45:51):
Um, I, uh.
Those are.
Those are two people that cometo mind.
Uh, dan Martell is another onethat I really follow.
Those are some of the ones thatimmediately come to mind.
Walt Bayliss (46:09):
Some of the best points.
Yeah, fantastic, fantastic.
And, I guess, last questionwhere are we seeing you on the
horizon now, austin?
What are you working on rightnow?
That is exciting for you?
Where are you headed towards?
Where will we see that starcontinue to rise, going forward?
Austin Armstrong (46:26):
Yeah, I want Cilabia to be the best video
marketing platform on theinternet, and so that's my hyper
focus right now is making itbetter and better every day,
listening to our users' feedbackand suggestions.
We've built an incrediblecommunity and movement online of
new content creators that aremonetizing and growing on social
(46:48):
every day, and that deeplyinspires me.
So just constantly making thatbetter.
And AI marketing world as well.
I've been a student ofconferences all around the world
for 10 plus years now, and sothis is the first time that I am
throwing my own conference andI'm putting my heart and soul
into that, so that's reallygoing to be fun.
(47:10):
And I'm working on a book aswell, so best-selling author on
the horizon as well.
And just continue to grow andsee how close I can get to the
sun without burning.
Walt Bayliss (47:23):
I love it, dude.
I love it.
Let's get you those wings madeout of anything but wax.
Come back and tell us about AImarketing world.
Let us know what's going onwith that and how that's going
for you, and I'm sure this willbe the first one of a series
that's coming through.
Keep us in touch.
Of course, guys, with Syllabiand I love that you've got a
thing there where you're lookingto help a million people make
(47:45):
money with AI and video,building that syllabi community
and the teamwork frameworkbehind it.
So, guys, give it up for AustinArmstrong.
Austin, thank you forcontinuing to lead the way.
Do you know what?
Thank you for being you.
Thank you for turning upgenuinely, enthusiastically and
empathetically on your Facebookfeed and on all of the platforms
that you're at and lettingother content creators
(48:06):
experience that genuine, youknow resonance that is you.
So I really appreciate you, man.
And again, guys, we'll makesure that all the links are
there.
Give it up for Austin andAustin.
Thank you again, man, I reallyappreciate you.
Austin Armstrong (48:17):
I appreciate you, brother.
Thank you so much for theopportunity to be here.
Walt Bayliss (48:20):
Cheers pal, Speak soon.
Today's episode of the Influencer Empires podcast
is brought to you by the EmpireProgram with White Label Suite
powering our influencers andbuilding their empires.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo the show.
Today we have a genuineinfluencer superstar with us on
the show.
This man has forged the paththat others are following.
I'm just going to read you offa couple of crazy numbers 3.6
(00:24):
million followers on TikTokalone, 1.8 million following on
Facebook, over 840,000 followerson Instagram and over 800
million views on YouTube.
It gives me incredible pleasureto invite the man behind those
numbers, the CEO of syllabiai,to the show, mr Austin Armstrong
(00:47):
.
Austin man, thank you so muchfor joining me.
How does hearing those numbersroll back to you?
How does that make you feel?
Austin Armstrong (00:53):
Pretty insane to think about.
It's just one video at a time,one post at a time, 20 years
straight of consistency.
It's been a pretty mind-blowingjourney, man, but I love what I
do and I'm excited to nerd outabout this and hopefully share
some wisdom that inspires someup-and-coming new creators.
Walt Bayliss (01:12):
Let's go.
I'm excited for that too.
So, dude, you have been alifelong marketer online.
I mean, I've known your namefor years decades, it seems.
How did you get started in thewhole online space?
Austin Armstrong (01:27):
Yeah, so let's go back all the way back to
2004, the days of MySpace.
Super early in social media.
I was 14 years old.
I stumbled on this platform.
That was the newest, hottestthing.
That was the newest, hottestthing.
I instantly got addicted togrowing a following on MySpace
(01:48):
and I figured out how tomonetize that in a lot of
different ways.
I had several profiles withhundreds of thousands of
followers on MySpace as a 14, 15, 16 year old, making way more
money than I should have.
16 year old, making way moremoney than I should have.
My parents thinking that I wasdoing something illegal, uh, at
(02:09):
the time, and and uh, borderline, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Some things were a littlesketchy at the time, but, uh,
when you're so young, you knowthose.
Those are impactful days.
The prefrontal cortex is notdone, finished developing, and
you're really impacted by yourexperiences in life.
(02:29):
And I just loved that entireprocess of grinding and finding
communities of people that werelike me, that also were
fascinated by growing on socialmedia and what that meant in
terms of multiple streams ofincome, and I more or less have
done it ever since.
Now there was a little bit of adown period where it wasn't a
(02:54):
full focus in my career because,if I'm being honest, nobody
told me that this was a careerpath.
It worked for a while and thenI stumbled back into it about 11
, almost 12 years ago, when Imoved out to California.
I started an internship at avideo marketing agency and now
(03:14):
I've been very, very consistentwith video and social media for
11, 12 years since.
But yeah, there was probably athree-year gap in between, where
I was still active on socialbut I wasn't growing it, so to
speak.
But yeah, that was those werethe early days.
I, you know big, big friend ofTom and I just uh, I, I, I love
(03:35):
those days.
Walt Bayliss (03:36):
Wow, amazing.
So you're you're talking about,you know, being 14 years old
and getting this incredibletraction online.
You got 200,000 peoplefollowing you all the way back
in the MySpace days, which, forthose who are just tuning in in
the influencer space gettingstarted today, this was the
precursor to Facebook.
So, dude, how like did thataffect your daily life, were you
(03:56):
suddenly the guy and everybodywas coming to you, even way back
then?
I lost a lot of friends thatway.
Really Okay, tell me about that, like why, what happened?
Austin Armstrong (04:08):
yeah, so if you remember how facebook or, uh
, how myspace worked?
Is we, you?
You posted to this messageboard area, um, and that's where
that was kind of your feed, ifyou will.
The for you area was a separatemessage board area and so, like
, like all of our friends, allof my friends and whatnot were
connected on MySpace at the timeand some friends and family
(04:31):
members were, and once I startedto growing, you basically just
spam posts to each to help eachother grow.
So we would be in these AIMcommunity I'm really aging
myself here if there's any newcontent.
We jumped into AOL InstantMessenger, aim group chats every
(04:51):
day and we'd go down the listof here's my HTML code that has
a follow Austin and somegraphics and stuff on it, and
everybody in the AIM group chatwould share my profile with some
information and then it wouldbe their turn and we'd go down
this list and we'd share a bunchof posts and so in a row, like
on any given day, I would besharing 20, 30 posts, and that's
(05:16):
just to help each other grow.
Nevermind, we did this multipletimes.
And then I was promoting localbands and t-shirt companies and
doing email lead gen.
I even had an early softwarecompany that helped other people
grow on MySpace back in the dayand so at school, like nobody
knew what was going on.
So I got made fun of, I gotteased, people hated it and
(05:38):
they're, like you know, shut up.
I hate this.
So, like you're spamming mymessage board feed, all I see is
you nobody understood.
Uh and, but I didn't reallycare.
Walt Bayliss (05:50):
The bank was rolling Cause.
Austin Armstrong (05:52):
I'm like you know I'm sitting there.
I'm like I just made $250 todayas a 15 year old from posting
on MySpace.
Like, what have you done?
Walt Bayliss (06:03):
Damn, I love it.
That's amazing.
So obviously when MySpace gottaken over by the other
platforms.
So you had that break, but didyou have some sort of structure
that you went into the otherplatforms with that allowed you
to do the same thing again andagain?
Austin Armstrong (06:20):
Not really, to be honest.
So this was pre-video and so Igot on YouTube pretty early I
(06:42):
think 2006, when it firststarted to grow, and I had a
couple of videos on pages tofollow, just like you know, meme
type pages back in the day.
But I didn't get a whole lot oftraction and, if I'm being
honest with myself, like Ididn't really go into those
platforms with the sameintention of growing and I don't
(07:05):
really know why.
I think just in my head thistime had passed.
Walt Bayliss (07:11):
As you said, nobody gave you this as a career
path.
Austin Armstrong (07:15):
Yeah, I didn't have any mentor in my life at
the time.
That was like no, keep doingthis, you're onto something.
Social media is going to behuge.
Just stay consistent.
I came back to that,fortunately.
Social media is going to behuge.
Just stay consistent.
I came back to that,fortunately.
This was definitely my path inlife.
Walt Bayliss (07:34):
But yeah, at the time, there was not a smooth
transition.
Austin Armstrong (07:36):
There was years of getting back on the
horse, so to speak.
It wasn't an easy transition atall.
Walt Bayliss (07:43):
So it's interesting that, like you
mentioned that, you had thatlittle break and you actually
got picked up by a video agency.
So you were doing video kind ofvideo, marketing video, SEO
video, production video, videovideo as an agency for clients,
and at what stage did this startto become yours, Like at what
stage did you go?
Well, I'm bigger than theagency this is.
(08:04):
This is now Austin Armstrong.
You know out in the space, notjust the agency, that I'm
working for.
Austin Armstrong (08:11):
So not for a while.
So I I went from being a unpaidintern to a paid intern, to a
part-time employee to afull-time employee.
There I had one video that didabout 5 million views.
That was my idea.
On that channel.
That was the biggest one.
(08:31):
And then we were doing videomarketing in the behavioral
health space, so working withdrug and alcohol treatment
centers and psychologists andtherapists and psychologists the
whole nine yards in that space.
And I started getting reallygood and I kept moving my way up
, ended up working as head ofdigital marketing at a drug and
(08:52):
alcohol treatment center as well.
I had grown multiple YouTubechannels to tens of thousands of
subscribers at that point,getting millions of views, and I
started to get that itch andsay why am I doing this for
other people when I know that Ican do this for myself?
Meanwhile I was starting toattend conferences.
This is now, I'd say, eight,nine years ago, so a couple of
(09:18):
years into that.
And then that agency that Iworked at failed.
The business model didn't quitework out.
It was kind of a unique bigpicture strategy that didn't
work out.
But my boss became my businesspartner.
We started a much moretraditional marketing agency,
(09:40):
traditional model, and that'swhere I started to grow my
personal brand again.
Traditional model and that'swhere I started to grow my
personal brand again.
So this was about six and a halfyears ago when I started my
first company, socialty Pro, andthat was where I really had the
vision of, like you were saying, who are you going to hire?
Are you going to hire themarketing agency that has no
(10:02):
following themselves or themarketing agency that has
hundreds of thousands offollowers and is the reason that
we're on a call now in thefirst place?
And so that's where I reallystarted to build my brand again.
And so, if you think about it,there's a big gap in between
when I was big on MySpace andthen I was behind the scenes for
many, many years, and then Iwas behind the scenes for many,
(10:26):
many years, and only the lastsix and a half years now did I
really start to focus on growingmy personal brand.
And it's been that six and ahalf years of consistency that
have really compounded and Iwould say, continue to compound
Like I'm getting more viewsright now than I've ever gotten
on any platform in my entirelife.
Walt Bayliss (10:43):
Wow, and it continues to compound.
I want to dig in a platform inmy entire life Wow, and it
continues to come down.
I want to dig in a bit.
I want to dig in, Like there'sa couple of pieces there that I
really want to dig into.
But just blow me away for asecond.
You're getting more views thanever before.
What's a?
What's a?
What's a view count for youtoday, Like as in on a daily
basis?
What kind of views are yougetting?
Austin Armstrong (10:59):
On a daily, daily basis, probably five to 10
million views right now acrossthe board.
Walt Bayliss (11:07):
Okay, I'm just like that's the end of our
episode.
Ladies and gentlemen, five to10 million views a day that is
absolutely phenomenal.
I definitely want to dig in abit, so I just want to come back
on there.
There was a couple of keypoints.
So, when you're talking aboutworking at the agency, you said
I had grown a couple of YouTubechannel to tens of thousands of
followers.
Now I know, for our listeners,like you said, that super
(11:31):
quickly I grew a couple of youknow YouTube channels out to
tens of thousands of followersand then you're onto the next
thing.
But for a lot of our listeners,that's a dream come true Just
getting one channel up to thatkind of level.
Do you have a formula Like how,how?
much do you back yourself?
Could you start?
Austin Armstrong (11:49):
with a, with a fresh channel today and grow
that out reasonably quickly,absolutely.
Yeah, I've done it a couple oftimes.
Yeah, I've got, I mean, twosilver play buttons behind me
here.
I have 630,000 subscribers.
I grew another channel to uh,it's at about 130,000
subscribers for a client I hadanother client that's about
90,000 subscribers.
Right now, another channelthat's 60,000, 50,000.
(12:10):
I think YouTube alone, I thinkprobably nine or 10 channels
past 10,000.
There's definitely repeatableformulas.
Shorts just have been crushingthe last several years.
In particular.
I have really good shortsstrategies that have worked for
me that I can get in the weedsif you want.
(12:33):
But even before shorts rolledout, seo on YouTube is the game.
Is the game Like it's.
People overthink it.
But, um, looking at long tailkeywords that people are
searching for online using a SEOkeyword research tool like
SEMrush or Ahrefs, or now vidIQor TubeBuddy, you know like all
(12:54):
these tools are fantastic.
And then finding those gaps umof uh, a lot of search volume
but not a lot of competition.
And even if there iscompetition on it, maybe there
hasn't been videos on thatparticular topic in two plus
years.
So there's still a lot ofsearches but there's no new,
(13:15):
fresh content on it and thenjust sort of breaking it down,
because I come from an SEObackground as well and so SEO on
YouTube really worked out.
So maybe here's the broadoriented topic and then it would
be interview style and so, ifthis is so, for instance, like
in the drug and alcoholtreatment space, we would do
(13:35):
opioid addiction, you know, likewhat is opioid addiction might
be a particular topic, and thenyou ask that question first.
Expert answers it for twominutes and then you have a
second question in there that'salso an SEO keyword research.
That's like opioids versusbenzodiazepines, which in and of
itself is a keyword researchterm there, and then in that
(13:59):
after that you might do what areopioid withdrawal symptoms?
Uh, and then opioid uhwithdrawal symptom timeline, and
that, like all of these, youbreaking that uh that process
down.
Um, it makes for a really goodvideo, uh, and a logical uh
viewer uh experience as well.
So a lot of people don't ifyou're going after search, they
(14:21):
don't think about that Like whatis the natural progression of
information within that video tobest deliver it, and so just
following that strategy workedreally well.
Another like overarching contentstrategy that we really
followed is when we wouldonboard a new client, we would
(14:41):
go over four or five corepillars of things that you can
talk about.
So another example of, say,maybe a therapist they could
talk about depression topics,anxiety topics,
relationship-oriented topics,narcissism-oriented topics, and
(15:01):
so if those are our four or fivebroad categories, then you do
that keyword research and topicresearch and competitor research
on what are the top performingvideos and topics in each
category and you outline like 10, 15 topics, subtopics in each
of those categories and now youhave a systematic approach.
So video one is in depression,video two is in anxiety, video
(15:25):
three is in relationship, videofour is in narcissism.
And you do this in a systematicapproach and this works for
longs or shorts and after abouta 30-day period you're going to
notice trends.
And so this is a real-worldexample of a therapist, jim
Breon, that we went through thisand we realized exponentially
(15:47):
more views were coming fromnarcissism-oriented content.
And so it's all a momentum anda double down play.
Content in every format feedsoff of your previous content.
And so if you stack the odds inyour favor, so you do all of
the upfront research, you makeassumptions and then you see and
notice those trends of videosand content that perform best
(16:07):
and you double down to test thatassumption and you continue to
ride that momentum until it nolonger works and then you go
through that A to Z processagain with the content that
you're producing.
Walt Bayliss (16:25):
In terms of you know a lot of, I think.
I've done a whole series ofinterviews with some of the top
YouTubers in the world and Ithink one of the biggest pieces
of feedback that we kept gettingback after interviewing some of
those legends was oh my God, Ididn't realize it was actually
so much work to be an influencer.
So, as a as a content creatortoday, austin, are you still
researching your topic or areyou just point and shoot now?
Are you at the point wheremomentum has taken over?
(16:46):
Do you have a team that'soutlying the pillars and doing
the same thing, or is it like?
What's your strategy today?
Is it still the same?
Austin Armstrong (16:53):
No, it's a lot different.
I mean, we've entered an AI eranow.
I use AI to assist me in mostthings.
Content creation is definitelymy creative outlet.
I sometimes use editors.
I use editors for my long-formcontent.
I still edit my own short-formvideos.
I've gone back and forth on ita little bit, I just like to do
(17:15):
it.
So there are certain thingsthat I delegate out.
Chat, gpt and Claude help me doa lot of research on some of
the topics.
I do a lot of my own research.
I'm very much on the fly withcontent, though.
I've made thousands of videos.
I know what styles of videos,the formatting I've got it down
(17:37):
to like.
If I get, for instance, for me,a 49 second video that gets 37
seconds of view duration, I knowthat like 60% of the time is
going to crush it.
Yeah.
Walt Bayliss (17:51):
Right, okay.
Austin Armstrong (17:52):
Really paying attention to the metrics, and so
that is always a North starshort for me is I try and get it
as close to 49 seconds and Itry and work in micro hooks and
clips that are the exact samelength to stack the odds in my
favor, like that's how sort ofmeticulous that I get with it
(18:13):
sometimes Not every time it'samazing.
Walt Bayliss (18:16):
Like you're doing that on the fly because you've
got the foundation.
I mean, michael Jordan steps upto the free throw line.
He's got a set play that heknows exactly how, what's going
to, what's going to get in thenet 90% of the time.
So if you were starting offlike if you were a brand new
content creator today,understanding the pillars that
you just went through before now, understanding the hooks and
(18:36):
the timing and that kind ofstuff, like there are some
fundamentals that need to bebedded in and it's not just
point and shoot it, you justneed to understand some of those
, some of those fundamentals.
Do you have like a um is there?
Is there somewhere that youwould recommend content creators
go to follow along?
Obviously, guys, I'm going todrop all Austin's links here.
So, uh, austinarmstrongai isAustin's own thing and I'll
(18:58):
include all of the links tosociality pro and everything
there.
But is there some way that youwould say to somebody go here.
This is your best startingpoint.
Austin Armstrong (19:06):
I would say right now it's my Facebook
profile.
That's where I'm spending themost amount of time creating
every day.
I post like five to six times aday every day on Facebook all
different formats of content onthere.
It's where I'm getting the mostamount of views.
My attention goes to whereattention is Big Gary Vee fan.
(19:30):
That's kind of where that comesfrom, but I was a TikTok guy
for a long time, youtube guy fora long time, seo guy for a long
time.
Right now, facebook is whereI'm seeing the most organic
reach, the most connections, themost leads, the most business,
the most revenue.
So that's where I'm spendingmost of my time right now.
Walt Bayliss (19:47):
So I love that.
Yeah, we'll get everybody overthere.
So I'm looking at facebookcom.
Of course, o-w-w-s-t-i-n isAustin's own page there.
1.7 million followers, so doingsomething right there, man.
I would say, so good place togo and learn from you guys.
So, austin, the other thingthat I wanted to look at there
was that you mentioned a coupleof times now already consistency
(20:09):
.
So now it's like years andyears and years and years and
years of consistency.
What does a day in the life forAustin Armstrong look like?
Let's look at a contentcreation schedule and how you go
about feeding that engine.
Austin Armstrong (20:22):
Yeah, Well, so I'm a little bit more
unorganized and chaotic thanpeople might think, but I'm not
a morning person, so I will wakeup at like 9am and then I will
typically either go for a littlewalk with my wife and my dog or
get some coffee and then startworking around 10am, then start
(20:45):
working around 10 am and lots ofmeetings throughout the day I
create on the fly.
I don't batch, I don't like tobatch.
If I have a 30-minute or anhour time availability, which
sometimes I just mark it off onthe calendar if I need to do
(21:05):
deep work or get some contentcreation in, I'll create
something on the fly.
I typically do try and get atleast one piece of content out
before my first meeting everyday, and sometimes I'm more
creative than other days.
One fantastic hack on Facebookin particular is to just go
(21:27):
through your memories and repostsomething that you posted a
year ago.
Walt Bayliss (21:31):
Yeah right.
Austin Armstrong (21:33):
You know the power of consistency is you
build up a backlog of contentthat you can repost.
I'm also a huge advocate ofreposting your top performing
content.
Remember that you are the onlyperson that sees every single
post that you put up.
And so if I had a banger fromlast month that did 50 million
(21:54):
views or whatever, guess what?
I'm going to repost that thing.
Walt Bayliss (21:57):
Yeah sure, would you reshoot, or would you just
like repost that same content?
Austin Armstrong (22:02):
It depends on the platform.
So, to be honest, text threadsare working best for me on
Facebook right now, that's thebest format of content across
the board, which is like aclickbait headline of colored
background, white text, likeblack background, white text,
something like rest in peace.
(22:23):
Photoshop here's five AI toolsto generate images amazingly
Right and then down arrow andthen in the comments will be the
five different tools and a callto action or something like
that.
Like that.
That format just crushes.
There are some nuances ofreposting videos on different
platforms.
Facebook doesn't like it, so Idon't repost them.
(22:44):
They're the biggest platformthat's dinged me for reused
duplicate content, so I don't dothat.
Instagram I have no problemreposting videos.
In fact, I recommend postingthem as trial reels Right now.
Trial reels is a fantasticfeature to test your top
(23:07):
performing content againstpeople that have never followed
you and never seen your contentbefore.
Tiktok doesn't really care.
Youtube doesn't really care forshorts.
They definitely care for long,and so just some little nuances
and then lots of meetings allday, and then I typically will
work until 10 o'clock at night,something like that.
(23:29):
So it ends up being like a 1112 hour day um, but uh, but a
late start for sure, and thenI'm more of an evening person,
so I sort of hit a groove around7, 8, 9, 10 pm.
Walt Bayliss (23:44):
I have to sort of stop like force myself to slow
down so that's when that's whenit really kicks in for you like
the just the flow and you'relike, okay, hang on a second.
I could be here until fouro'clock in the morning if I kept
following this thread.
Yeah, I know the feelingAbsolutely.
Austin Armstrong (23:58):
That's kind of my flow.
State is in the evening.
Walt Bayliss (24:00):
Some people are morning people.
Austin Armstrong (24:01):
I am not.
I am just like a slow ease inall day.
Walt Bayliss (24:07):
And then you know like slow ease in all day and
then, you know, yeah, exactly, Ilove it, I love it, I love it.
So, as we're recording thisthis is a mid 2025, as we're
recording this you have been nowat the helm of an incredible
tool with syllabi just for fortwo and a half years.
You you started up this amazingAI based video application and,
(24:28):
of course, you're one of thepioneers in the space.
There's been a lot that's comeafter you, but how is Syllabi
now reflected in your daily lifeas a content creator and as a
CEO of a powerful AI company?
How do you balance those twothings together?
Austin Armstrong (24:44):
Well, it's been an amazing journey.
I mean, this is my secondcompany.
Well, it's been an amazingjourney.
I mean, this is my secondcompany, my first startup, so
it's a really unique new spacefor me, even though it's been
two and a half years since welaunched, three years since I've
been working on it A to Zprocess of doing keyword
(25:06):
research and creating contentand staying consistent, and I
turned it into into syllabi tohelp other people have all of
the right topics and ability tocreate consistently across an
omni channel approach, everysocial media platform.
I use it.
(25:26):
I love it.
I manage three faceless YouTubechannels and our team in
general across the board.
We manage like 50 facelessYouTube channels and it's
honestly just inspiring to seepeople in our Facebook community
and online every single daystart to create videos and are
(25:48):
monetized that and they've neverbeen able to get out of their
own way to start creatingcontent for, and so that's what
really inspires me, but how I'mable to balance them is through
delegation is the real answer.
You know there's a great bookthat came out a year or two ago
(26:09):
now Buy Back your Time by DanMartell, one of my favorite,
favorite recent books, andthere's like one big concept in
that book of time inventorywhere you just from the moment
you wake up until the moment yougo to sleep for like a week
straight or two weeks straightif you can make it that far just
(26:29):
put a start time and an endtime, list the task out and then
rate it as well of how muchenjoyment does it bring you, how
much is it worth of your time?
Do you like doing it?
Do you not like doing it?
Grade all of this out and thenstart to figure out like what
can you delegate out to otherpeople so that you can buy back
(26:51):
more of your time to focus onwhat brings you the most
enjoyment and what gets you themost positive ROI.
And for me, what I get the mostROI on and the most enjoyment
out of is content creation anddoing amazing podcasts like this
with you and doing publicspeaking engagements.
I love that stuff.
That is my zone of genius.
That's where I come alive.
(27:12):
I brought on multiple businesspartners to focus on things that
I am not good at.
We have a pretty sizable teamnow we're over 20 people so that
I can hyper-focus on doing whatI'm good at and it's marketing
and what I love to do.
So that's kind of the balancein the day-to-day.
Walt Bayliss (27:35):
I love it.
So I'm a huge Dan Martell fan.
I think I've got to buy backyour time on repeat on my
Audible, so when I'm walking inthe morning.
So I'm thinking back like twoand a half years ago you started
syllabi.
It would have taken you blood,sweat and tears to get it off
the ground and now you've beenable to put the team in place
and refocus back on being thatfront face, bringing the natural
(27:55):
subscriber growth from youractivity into syllabi, which is
an amazing thing.
So for all our listeners, forthe people that want to be
influencers, who are influencersand they're getting started
with that kind of world, youmonetize your fame.
Let's put it that way.
You monetize your fame in anumber of different ways and
Syllabi is just one of those.
You have obviously a subscriberbase, content creators who want
(28:17):
to create the YouTube facelessYouTube channels and go Syllabi
is amazing, by the way logged inand just love the application.
But so that's just one of theways that you're monetizing is.
You've got your own brand thatyou built up as a software
application.
What are the other ways thatyou're monetizing those 5 to 10
million views a day that you'rebringing in?
Austin Armstrong (28:34):
Yeah, great question.
Affiliate marketing is probablymy largest income stream outside
of syllabi.
Brand deals.
I do a lot of brand deals Addrevenue across all of the
platforms.
Brand deals, um, add revenueacross all of the platforms.
Uh, beehive is a is a great onethat I've been doing the last
(28:55):
uh couple of months maybe, maybeclose to a year now, and that
Beehive is a uh email newsletterplatform and there's some uh
awesome functionalities in there.
They have this uh what's calleda boost program, which
basically it's other newslettersthat get put in front of your
opt-in form.
So, long story short, you getpaid to grow your email
newsletter, uh, for free.
(29:15):
Uh, you know that's.
That's been a fantastic way.
Uh, hourly consulting, paidspeaking engagements, um,
sometimes UGC.
So, uh, people will have mecreate a video, um for their
brand, but it's not posted on mysocial accounts, it's posted on
their social accounts.
(29:36):
I've had, I have a privateschool community Um, uh, I've
had a couple courses over theyears.
Um, right now I'm working on abook as well, so those are kind
of the more meaningful things.
Sometimes I'll do leadgeneration or referral.
(29:56):
So I shut my agency down.
I don't want to be an agencyanymore.
I got burned out on that space.
I don't want to do clientmanagement.
I'm tired of trading my timefor dollars.
I don't even really like doingconsulting anymore, if I'm being
completely honest, because Ijust like my freedom to market
and just have Sullabite grow asa result.
So I will refer clients toother trusted people that I
(30:22):
trust.
Those are the big ones.
Walt Bayliss (30:28):
I'd say's that covers a fair few bases.
What was interesting for me isthat you listed ad revenue as
third, so I think like well, uh,probably fourth, if you're
counting syllabi as the as thenumber one, I think a lot of a
lot of um uh, people who want tobe influencers in the space, uh
, kind of think to themselves ifI get, if I get half a million
um subscribers, or if I get, youknow, a million views, then
(30:49):
then I'm going to be abillionaire Again.
I just know that from thereality of interviewing a lot of
superstars and YouTubeinfluencers.
That's not the case.
When would you say to aninfluencer this is where you're
going to start to see thingsreally shift and move forward
(31:13):
move forward.
Austin Armstrong (31:14):
I would never rely on ad revenue to be your
number one source of revenue.
Always let that be the icing onthe cake.
The best way that you're goingto be able to make significant
money as an influencer and as acontent creator is have a
business that allows you to be acreator is have a business that
allows you to be a creator.
Pause for impact.
Have something that you cansell.
You can start with affiliatemarketing.
(31:35):
Depending on your niche,affiliate marketing can drive a
lot of money.
I made over six I was justdoing my taxes and I made over
six figures in affiliatemarketing alone last year.
Promoting other people'ssoftware tools, you can make a
lot of money.
Youtube, for instance.
(31:56):
I'm very transparent.
I've got 600,000 subscribers.
A lot of it comes from shorts.
I make less than $1,000 a monthfrom my YouTube channel right
now.
I'm not complaining, but it'sless than most people think that
you make with 600,000subscribers.
(32:17):
Facebook pays a lot right now.
Last month I made about $9,400.
So Facebook's paying asignificant amount of money to
creators right now.
So you can make a decent amount.
But if you sell courses orcoaching or your own products or
(32:38):
services, let that be theprimary revenue driver, because
it can be a little bit morepredictable.
Ad revenue has highs and lows.
Affiliate marketing is good ifyou're promoting SaaS tools
because it is recurring and itbecomes predictable.
(32:58):
Brand deals can have highs andlows.
Sometimes you'll get two, three, four brand deals a month and
then you'll get nothing for two,three months or whatever.
So if you can find somethingthat you enjoy to create content
around and you figure out howto sell something that really
(33:19):
genuinely provides value orhelps your audience.
That's where meaningful revenuecan come from.
Let all the other things justbe icing on the cake.
You know, all of these multiplestreams of income build on top
of each other, but if you onlyrely on one and so many content
creators, just think that, likeas soon as I get monetized on
(33:41):
YouTube, my life is going tochange and they spend two years
getting the thousand subscribersand 4,000 hours of watch time.
They're finally approved and thefirst paycheck comes in and
it's like 67 cents and it's likeoh, it's so rough.
Walt Bayliss (33:57):
I remember I was interviewing Eric the car guy
and I asked him the question ofad revenue and this was the week
that he got more views than TopGear.
And he was like, you know, thatparticular week, my ad revenue
was something like $614.
And I was like, you know, thatparticular week, my, my ad
revenue was something like $614.
And I was like, yeah, there yougo.
And then he was like, and inthat same week, I think it was
Jaguar and Audi rocked up withtwo new cars and just dropped
them off at his house with a bowon top and said, please review.
(34:18):
So it's like brand deals, likebrand deals taken taking the
cake.
So, Austin, tell me what's thedeal that surprised you?
What?
What point did your phone ring,your email went off, or
Instagram or a notificationsomewhere, and you answered that
and at the other end of thatcall was there a deal or a
connection that made you go whoa, that was huge.
Austin Armstrong (34:42):
The one that immediately comes to mind is
before.
I had a lot of success onsocial media.
I was creating on YouTube.
I was creating really targetedvideos in the SEO space, just as
I was talking about and it wasa video about drug rehab SEO to
get more clients, and that videoat the time had probably three
(35:07):
or 400 views and that video atthe time had probably 300 or 400
views.
But I got an email fromsomebody that had seen a TikTok
video, gone to the YouTubechannel and watched that YouTube
video, sent me an email and itturned into a $15,000 consulting
contract to come in as ahigh-level consultant for three
(35:28):
months to oversee theirmarketing team, because those
videos proved my expertise inthat industry.
And so that's another thing thata lot of influencers don't
think about, is it?
Doesn't?
You don't have the viralnumbers?
The vanity metrics are cool,it's nice to have, it's nice to
say I have three and a halfmillion followers, Great.
(35:49):
But you don't need that to makesignificant revenue.
A video that had three 400views led to $15,000 contract,
so amazing things like that canhappen if you're hyper focused.
Walt Bayliss (36:02):
There was a word there that I just want to focus
on, which was that you theyfocused on your expertise.
It wasn't the 300 or 400 views,it was the expertise that was
behind the video that led to theconsulting.
I think there's a lot of.
Actually.
Let me rephrase this as aquestion how do you feel an
influencer becomes an influencer?
(36:23):
When we're talking aboutexpertise, there are so many
niches out there.
There are so many niches outthere.
There are so many amazing,incredible content creators that
have built amazing followingsin everything from cooking to
business, to SEO, to makeup.
There's just an infinite numberof different things.
How does an influencer createthat expertise that allows them
(36:45):
to generate the following?
Austin Armstrong (36:50):
expertise that allows them to generate the
following Know, like and trustAbsolutely.
You have to show upconsistently, so they have to
know you.
They have to like you based onyour personality and how you
deliver and consistently make animpact in their lives.
And they have to trust you.
Trust is the most importantfactor into being an influencer.
(37:11):
If you're trying to influencesomebody to make a purchasing
decision, they have to trust you.
It's not good enough to just putan offer out there and think
that it's going to justmagically turn into dollars.
No, think about it from yourperspective.
Have you ever just boughtsomething from someone that
(37:31):
you've never seen this personpost anything before?
Are you going to buy it on thespot the first time?
No, probably not.
Why would I buy this thing?
I don't want to waste my moneyright.
So it takes that consistency ofshowing up, providing value for
free over and over again,proving your worth staying
consistent over and over andover again, proving your worth
staying consistent over and overand over again.
Just deliver incredible freevalue.
(37:53):
You can sell the implementation, but if you jab, jab, jab right
, hook the other Gary Vreference there just like 80%,
90% of the content that youcreate should just be free,
amazing value.
Truly try to make a positiveimpact in the lives of who your
audience is, and that's how youbuild influence, that's how
(38:16):
you're able to sell things.
I love it.
Walt Bayliss (38:19):
Dude, how do you feel about being referred to as
an influencer?
Austin Armstrong (38:25):
I think, it's a little silly to be honest, I
don't call myself an influencer,really.
Um, I'm, I'm just a contentcreator.
Um, I think, uh, it does moreharm to, or like, uh, it
inflates my ego more than itshould.
You know it's, it's cool, Um,don't get me wrong, but I, I
(38:47):
don't know, I just feel I feel alittle to be honest.
Walt Bayliss (38:52):
Does it?
Does it weigh on you?
Do you?
Do you have a?
Do you have a?
Do you have a heaviness thatcomes with the responsibility of
millions of people understandor see your, see your post five
to 10 million views a day.
Do you feel responsibilitybehind it?
Austin Armstrong (39:05):
No, I'm authentically myself in person
and online and I've made.
You know.
People have asked me thatquestion of asked me that
question of um, should you usethat reach to do something, uh,
(39:26):
in the world?
Um, I could get into politics.
I don't want to get intopolitics because I personally
don't care about politics.
Sorry, I'm just trying to growa business.
But I could put.
You know, I could rock the boat, but that's not what my content
is about.
(39:46):
You know you don't come to mypage for that.
You come for infotainment.
I'm a corny guy, I do sketchvideos and stuff like that, but
it's all about digital marketingand AI and using these latest
tools.
It would isolate and completelytake away from the work that
(40:07):
I've done by talking about atopic like that, and so, no, it
doesn't weigh on me and I stayin my lane, and I like to stay
in my lane because I don't evenwant to talk about these things
in real life to be honest, yeah,nice, I like it, I like it.
Walt Bayliss (40:22):
Dude, I'm so conscious of your time and I'm
really very, very grateful forthe chance to hang out with you
for a little bit.
So I've just got a couple ofother questions that I just want
to dive into a little bit.
So let's talk about AI for asecond.
So, obviously, syllabiai guys,you can.
You can head over and find outabout Austin's own creation
platform there, which isincredible.
How is AI changing, shaping youas an influencer?
(40:44):
How is it affecting otherinfluencers and content creators
?
Moving forward, like it's a?
It's a really big space rightnow.
Austin Armstrong (40:52):
It is the biggest shift in technology
since the internet itself andI've seen all of these platforms
come and go.
I've seen these trends.
I'm a little bit into thecrypto space, just privately,
but NFTs kind of came and went.
(41:13):
Web3 is still a thing, butthere's no practical, immediate
use cases for the everydayperson, unlike AI.
Ai, why this boomed and why itcontinues to grow is there is
immediate, practical use cases.
(41:33):
In becoming every aspect of ourlife Largely online and digital,
it's becoming more and moreingrained into hardware, which I
think is going to be the nextbig evolution, next transition.
It allows me to ideate faster.
It allows me to create more,better, faster.
(41:55):
It allows me to stay moreconsistent and be more
productive and do deep researchon things that would have taken
me countless hours.
Before I sign a contract, Ipass it through AI to see if
there's any immediate red flags.
As a first pass, it isintegrated into my calendar.
(42:17):
It's integrated into everyaspect of my life.
I talk to ChatGPT on a prettymuch daily basis now and it's
only getting better and betterand I've been loving just from a
content topic perspective aswell.
I started to create contentyears ago on useful websites for
business owners andentrepreneurs, and when these AI
(42:38):
tools started to come out, itwas a very simple, natural
progression to starting tocreate content about useful AI
websites for business owners andentrepreneurs, which has
allowed me to explode onlinefrom having a base and a content
format that worked and just megenuinely being interested in
(42:59):
this space, and now I have myown AI marketing conference
coming up, called AI MarketingWorld If anyone's interested,
aimarketingworldco.
It's going to be in Dallas,texas, october 9th through the
11th.
Shameless little plug there,but I'm an AI startup founder.
Now I'm an AI content creator.
I spoke at Duke University as alecturing professor about AI
(43:22):
and entrepreneurship.
It's opened up so manyopportunities for me to speak
all around the world and buildinfluence that I never really
had before.
Ai is integrated intoeverything and it's only
becoming more and moreintegrated, and I love the space
and I'm fascinated and a littleterrified at it, but it's
(43:44):
always good.
Walt Bayliss (43:45):
What doesn't AI do that you wish it did?
Austin Armstrong (43:49):
Well, my wife and I were talking about this
earlier today.
I'm like we're both getting tothe my wife's a startup founder
as well and we wish like we'regetting to a point where we need
to hire a house manager andjust like assistant to book our
travel and do everything for us.
We're very likely only a fewmonths away from an agent being
(44:11):
able to just book me my flightlike aisle row, try and get me
an exit row or upgrade me tobusiness class, whatever I like
these airlines.
I like flying in and out ofthis city, book me a hotel
(44:31):
here's my preference and it justkind of doing all of those
little tasks for me.
So like just everydayautomation outside of the online
world.
I can't wait for that to comeand I think that's going to be
very soon.
Walt Bayliss (44:51):
I think we're there already.
I'm pretty sure that somebodylistening to this will go Austin
.
You should check this out.
It's already there.
Austin Armstrong (44:57):
Yeah, it's a little buggy, but I mean you can
do a fair amount of this, butdefinitely in a couple of months
.
Walt Bayliss (45:03):
Can you imagine what's going to happen?
Like AI really is only such ayoung technology for so much
impact that it's already beenfelt.
So, I just want to wrap up.
So again, guys, austinArmstrong, the legend that is
forging the path man.
Again, I'm so grateful for yourtime and creating Syllabi as an
app that other creators arethen leveraging as well.
(45:24):
Super, super cool.
Um, dude, I want to ask you whoinfluences you?
Austin Armstrong (45:30):
Hmm, my wife comes to mind.
She's an amazing startupfounder as well, and we motivate
each other.
Uh, there are a mate.
I mentioned Gary V like threetimes on this chat conversation
already.
I'm a big Gary V fan.
(45:51):
Um, I, uh.
Those are.
Those are two people that cometo mind.
Uh, dan Martell is another onethat I really follow.
Those are some of the ones thatimmediately come to mind.
Walt Bayliss (46:09):
Some of the best points.
Yeah, fantastic, fantastic.
And, I guess, last questionwhere are we seeing you on the
horizon now, austin?
What are you working on rightnow?
That is exciting for you?
Where are you headed towards?
Where will we see that starcontinue to rise, going forward?
Austin Armstrong (46:26):
Yeah, I want Cilabia to be the best video
marketing platform on theinternet, and so that's my hyper
focus right now is making itbetter and better every day,
listening to our users' feedbackand suggestions.
We've built an incrediblecommunity and movement online of
new content creators that aremonetizing and growing on social
(46:48):
every day, and that deeplyinspires me.
So just constantly making thatbetter.
And AI marketing world as well.
I've been a student ofconferences all around the world
for 10 plus years now, and sothis is the first time that I am
throwing my own conference andI'm putting my heart and soul
into that, so that's reallygoing to be fun.
(47:10):
And I'm working on a book aswell, so best-selling author on
the horizon as well.
And just continue to grow andsee how close I can get to the
sun without burning.
Walt Bayliss (47:23):
I love it, dude.
I love it.
Let's get you those wings madeout of anything but wax.
Come back and tell us about AImarketing world.
Let us know what's going onwith that and how that's going
for you, and I'm sure this willbe the first one of a series
that's coming through.
Keep us in touch.
Of course, guys, with Syllabiand I love that you've got a
thing there where you're lookingto help a million people make
(47:45):
money with AI and video,building that syllabi community
and the teamwork frameworkbehind it.
So, guys, give it up for AustinArmstrong.
Austin, thank you forcontinuing to lead the way.
Do you know what?
Thank you for being you.
Thank you for turning upgenuinely, enthusiastically and
empathetically on your Facebookfeed and on all of the platforms
that you're at and lettingother content creators
(48:06):
experience that genuine, youknow resonance that is you.
So I really appreciate you, man.
And again, guys, we'll makesure that all the links are
there.
Give it up for Austin andAustin.
Thank you again, man, I reallyappreciate you.
Austin Armstrong (48:17):
I appreciate you, brother.
Thank you so much for theopportunity to be here.
Walt Bayliss (48:20):
Cheers pal, Speak soon.
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