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The most influential brands, artists, and personalities all have one thing in common:

The people who are able to gather an audience and leverage on their attention, are the ones who make an impact in the world.

Sounds simple enough. So where do we start?

In the 21st century, the answer is Instagram.

With access to around 500 million active users around the world at the palm of your hand, gaining a following has never been easier!

The question is how. And that’s the purpose of the Instagrizzle Masterclass.

It is a content-creation process I use to grow my own brand. And have since taught it to 200+ students from around the world.

Helping them reach a larger audience. Allowing them to spread their ideas and create an impact in the world.

But some call me the Instagram Doctor.

Like many entrepreneurs, I wasn’t a marketing or business major. In fact, my passion back then was to become a space doctor.

Training astronauts, getting them space-ready, making sure they survive up there, and helping their rehabilitation once they return to Earth. Stuff like that.

I loved everything about space travel. I wanted to help people get to Mars and survive there. Problem was, in Hungary we didn’t have a space program or space medicine training. So I was stuck with this burning passion building up inside.

I thought to myself:

“Everyone is talking about making content. So what if I could build a community of like-minded individuals by sharing things about space that inspire me? What opportunities would it unlock, if I could gather an audience of people who are just as excited about space exploration as I am?”

I was worried my friends would judge me, if I posted on my personal account, so I created a brand new account on Instagram, Marstronauts, and started sharing my thoughts and ideas. With some luck, one of my first posts went “viral”.

It got 613 likes, 23 comments, and a few bigger pages shared it too, which got me to 1,000 followers in the first seven days (see screenshots). A huge deal back then, since it was the most I’ve ever gotten.

At that point, I thought I had the social media thing figured out.

“If I can keep creating viral content like this, I can grow my page in no time.”

Turns out, it wasn’t that easy.

I was posting content and checking the likes and engagement every minute like an addict. But none of them did as well as that first post.

That was my first lesson in social media marketing.

I realized growing a brand isn’t about going viral or getting a lot of likes. Those are vanity metrics.

The important thing is consistency with quality content.

As Gary Keller says in his book The One Thing,

“Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.”

Applying the same principle to building an audience. You build your audience one post at a time. That’s how you can build a loyal audience.

And as Chris Do, founder of The Futur says,

“Good companies have customers—Great companies have an audience.”

I expanded from learning principles to studying precisely how the most successful experts and influencers in the field grew their online audience.

Following not just what they did, but understanding why they did what they did (i.e., the thought process behind content creation). As someone who didn’t have a team, was in medical school, and had very limited time, I modified a process that worked within my packed schedule.

With my new process, I built the Marstronauts community to 10,000 people in 2 months. And 70,000 followers today (more than a year later)*.

*I can’t promise you’ll get the same results using my process. Your results may differ.