How to tell your story on social media

Who is Bennett Looper

Bennett Looper is a filmmaker turned creative entrepreneur. He spent the previous four to five years behind the camera, much of that time telling one company's story in the fitness world, working closely with a figure he described as the pioneer of much of the modern fitness industry. Then he turned the camera around on himself and started telling his own story from the opposite side of the lens. Connor Cullip, who hosts the Network of Directors room in Austin, was introduced to Bennett through a member of the gym about thirty days before the event, resonated with his message, and flew him out. Bennett had crossed a hundred thousand followers the morning of the event. Being a filmmaker first, he said, is what shaped how he articulates and tells a story now.

What makes a good story, and how do you tell your own?

Behind the camera on documentary shoots, Bennett had to direct the narrative by talking to his subjects, usually athletes, and people freeze when a camera is in their face. So he had to master conversation from the hardest possible position. The way you have a good conversation, he learned, is you ask questions. Simple ones. What are you doing today, why are you doing this, what brings you here. And curiosity, he found, is not just good manners, it is the engine of the whole thing.

Curiosity is the root of all storytelling. So if I can take those questions and flip them around on my life, that's how I'm going to tell my story.

His interview style, the one he told Connor about on the phone before the event, is a motto: lead with curiosity, not judgment. To him curiosity is love and judgment is condemning, so the same posture that gets a nervous athlete to open up is the one you use on yourself when you sit down to make something.

Lead with curiosity, not judgment.

Do you actually need a content strategy?

Bennett works with a lot of type A people who want the plan handed to them: post this Wednesday, that Thursday, laid out in advance. The complaint he hears most is I do not know what to post, and if I just post my different interests it will look random. His answer flips the whole premise.

You don't need a content strategy. You need a set of core beliefs.

The core beliefs come from four questions you answer about yourself: who are you, where are you going, what are you about, and why are you doing what you are doing. If a piece of content answers one of those, it belongs. And no single post carries the story on its own. He reached for The Office to explain it: any one episode stands alone and you can enjoy it out of order, but it is the volume of all of them across nine seasons that makes the story. Social media works the same way. Each post answers something true about you, and the accumulation over time is the message.

What gear do you actually need to start?

Bennett is quick to say he is not a gear head, and that people overthink equipment. The best tool is the one you have, which for almost everyone is the phone. His whole kit is short.

Phone, mic, tripod is like the killer combo. Unless you have at least $2,000 to invest in a camera setup, use your iPhone.

The phone also solves the real barrier, which is not resolution but nerve: nobody wants to look cringe filming themselves in public, and a phone lets you do it without announcing it. If you are going to spend on anything, spend on audio. A gorgeous image is worthless if the viewer cannot hear or understand you. After that comes light, soft light from golden hour or a window, and simple framing, putting yourself on the rule-of-thirds grid with your head near the top. But most people, he warned, believe they have to master all of that before they start, when in reality it is never going to be perfect and the point is to begin.

How do you make content that feels authentic?

Authenticity, for Bennett, is not a setting you switch on. It is reps. He got there by doing ten thousand of them, yapping into a camera and leaving in the likes and the ums and the pauses, because you say those things in real life anyway. There is no shortcut around the awkward early phase.

Nothing works until you do. You're not going to get better until you just do the damn thing. And that takes sucking.

The other half of authenticity is direction. He believes you should be speaking to one specific person every single time you turn on the camera. It can be a target customer, a friend, a parent. For him it is often his younger self, the version who could not take risks or sit in discomfort, because if he went through those things, someone watching has too. And he is blunt that trying to be someone other than yourself backfires: your first audience is your friends and family, and they will feel it the moment your speech patterns change into someone else's.

How do you get past the fear of posting?

The most common thing that stops people, Bennett said, is not skill. It is fear, and the fear does not go away, so you cannot wait it out. The only thing strong enough to move you through it is your reason for doing the work in the first place.

Your why has to be stronger than your fear because that fear is never going to go away.

If you are posting for the views, the likes, or the brand deals, he said, you will not last, and he can usually sense it. His own why is that he knows his gifts, creating and articulating and leading by example, and he would be doing himself a disservice not to use them. He also reframed the fear of looking self-promotional. Sitting on knowledge that could help people is the selfish move, not sharing it. And you do not have to be the top authority in your field to have something to say.

Just because you have a little bit of expertise, you're by definition an authority. You might not be the ultimate authority, but you have authority to share.

How do you handle hate comments?

An attendee who had grown his own page asked how Bennett deals with the your-mic-sucks, your-haircut-sucks comments that arrive once you get any reach. Bennett split them in two. If there is anything practical in the comment, he takes it as data and makes a better decision, the same way a jab about a bad mic is really just a reason to buy a better one. The rest is an exercise in thickening your skin, which he considers a trait every successful person needs, and which being vulnerable online builds faster than almost anything. Underneath it is the mindset he keeps about which rooms to be in.

If I'm the most experienced and the most successful person in the room I'm in the wrong room.

Connor added the community angle: leave the negative comment up, let your audience rally, and turn the whole thing into content. Negative attention is still attention.

What is the hardest part of the business right now?

Connor does not let speakers stand on stage and list their follower counts, so he pushed Bennett on the honest struggle. Bennett was transparent: he is a creator at heart, and the hard part is scaling one to many without losing the thing that makes it work. He runs a high-ticket mentorship and a small cohort, both intimate by design, because that is where he thinks creativity actually unlocks. So the next level for him is building a team and learning to let go, which for a self-described perfectionist and former filmmaker is the real work. He is candid that filmmakers are the worst at overthinking their own content, because their taste is so high they feel like they are failing if it is not a full production. His release valve is a reminder he repeats to himself.

It's social media. It ain't that deep. Being imperfect is okay and it's still done.

He has even made peace with the perfectionism on long form, realizing people mostly just want to hear him talk, the way he himself half-watches a video while doing laundry. Lower the stakes, raise the volume, and get to the next one.

Quotes are from the recording, trimmed of filler. Nothing is added.