Sept. 25, 2025

How I Accidentally Went Viral on Instagram (400K Likes & 2x'd Followers) Overnight.

Ever wondered if your everyday work conversations could become viral content? Lacey Moores just experienced exactly that when she doubled her Instagram followers overnight through a video that garnered over 400,000 likes—and the most surprising part? She's not even a social media enthusiast.

The journey began with a practical problem: a client's grandfather wanted to gift money for a home purchase but was concerned about tax implications. Lacey turned to ChatGPT with a simple prompt asking it to "act as a CPA advisor and mortgage loan officer" to confirm gift tax regulations. The AI provided a clear explanation about the difference between the $18,000 annual gift limit and the $13 million lifetime exemption. After successfully resolving the grandfather's concerns, Lacey took two additional steps that made all the difference: she showed her processor how to use ChatGPT for similar questions, empowering her team member, and then created a quick video explaining the concept.

This story illustrates a powerful content creation strategy that anyone can implement. Rather than obsessing over algorithms or trending topics, focus on sharing your genuine expertise about questions you answer repeatedly in your work. By leveraging AI tools to articulate complex concepts clearly and building a library of "evergreen" content, you're not only providing real value to your audience but also creating resources that continue working for you long-term. The content that connects most deeply isn't always what you expect—it's the authentic sharing of knowledge that people genuinely need.

What conversations are you having daily that could become your next piece of valuable content? Stop overthinking it, start recording, and you might be surprised by what resonates with your audience.

00:00 - Lacey's Instagram Follower Explosion

02:24 - Using ChatGPT for Daily Business Problems

05:16 - Empowering Team Members with AI Tools

06:40 - From Problem-Solving to Viral Content

09:52 - Building a Library of Evergreen Content

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If doubling your follower count on Instagram pretty much overnight through a five-minute chat GPT exercise sounds intriguing to you, well Lacey just did that, so she's gonna talk us through it on this episode.

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This is the Secret Sauce Podcast with Chad Treese and Lacey Moores, where we want to help people build big businesses and live big lives.

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We think every episode's gonna maybe give you one ingredient that you could add to your recipe to create your own secret sauce.

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Let's get into it.

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Okay, Lacey, like literally you just dropped this on me.

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And you are not an Instagram super user by any means, but uh Lacey just doubled her uh Instagram followers.

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She had something she had a video that she did go viral, uh 400,000 likes, something like that, right?

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Yeah, I'm not a ton of shares.

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I had to ask what viral meant, just if we're gonna be honest.

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Um I don't even get on Instagram myself.

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Uh I have somebody who helps me with my social media.

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And mainly just to make this make sense, I don't like doing it.

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Okay, so most people don't.

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So people are gonna people will definitely resonate with that.

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I don't like doing it.

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I have someone help me do it.

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Um, but this came about, I did a video and I sent it to the girl that does my social media.

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And anytime I can, I try to do extra ones for her, and she's the one that uploaded it.

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She's the one that called me.

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Holy crap, this did viral, and I'm like, what does that mean?

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Well, so you doubled your follower count overnight.

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Yep.

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1200 to 2400 followers like that, uh, 400 some thousand likes and a bunch of shares.

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And that's what we're looking for.

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I mean, obviously, is just people engaging.

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If you're gonna take if you're doing social media, that's kind of like the pie in the sky goal, anyways, is to um have something to have something go viral.

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Uh, and it and you weren't even trying to do it.

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It this is literally just a chat GPT exercise that you were doing for something else.

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Yes, and it turned into a video.

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And so I want you to walk through that because I think that will be interesting for people to see that just using chat GPT every day in your day-to-day actions and having it up on your computer, using it on your phone, just integrating it into your business and your life can have these unintended consequences that can be huge in a positive way, not a negative consequence, it was positive, right?

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Yeah, so um yeah, spell it out.

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So I'm trying to use it more and more.

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I'm trying to get my team to use it more and more just so we can use it as a resource.

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We have it up all day, like on our second second screen, it's always up there.

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And so instead of going out and searching for stuff, that's what we're using.

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But I had um my processor call me one day and said, Hey, I need you to make a phone call to a grandpa of one of our borrowers who was gonna give a$50,000 gift, but now he only wants to give$18,000 because he doesn't want to have to pay taxes on it.

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Can you call the grandpa?

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And so my, you know, my response is yes, I'll call the grandpa.

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And um so I'm like, you know what?

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Before I call the grandpa, I want to make sure I'm up to date on all of this because the IRS changes its rules on how much you can give, blah, blah, blah.

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So let me read the prompt to you first of what I put in.

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While she's looking for that prompt, I will say this, guys.

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Stick around for the rest of this episode.

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This is like not something that's so obscure that it's not going to relate to you.

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This will help you.

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Yes.

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Uh, I'm not saying that your next video is going to go to go viral, but this will come around and connect the dots for you where you can integrate this in and have a much better chance of something and just having more content for social media as well, which I know everybody's looking for.

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So taking it farther.

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Okay.

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So I said I have a grandpa who's wanting a gift, who's wanting to gift his grandson money to purchase a home.

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He only wants to give a certain amount so he doesn't exceed the IRS limit.

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What can I tell him so he is okay with giving more since he wants to?

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Please act as a CPA advisor and a mortgage loan officer.

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So that second sentence is where I'm getting a little bit better at making sure I tell it what frame of mind to come back at.

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And that's the role that's the role.

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Yeah, the role, goal, context.

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So you just did it a little backwards, but all three components were there: the role, the goal, and the context.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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So it came back and it it it gave me all of this great information.

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Okay.

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It gave me all of it that said, and I could just do the video again if I needed to.

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But pretty much what it said is hey, the you know, the IRS says that if you give more than 18,000, you got to fill out a form.

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19 right now.

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So it's 18,000 for 2025.

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And so if you fill out, if you give more, you gotta fill out a form.

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But it doesn't mean to pay taxes on it, it just means you gotta fill out the form.

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And that form goes in and it goes against your lifetime capital.

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Calculating your lifetime, and it's like 13 some million.

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13.6 million last year.

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And so um, it just reduces then, right?

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And so the numbers were really great that I got specifically off there.

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I called grandpa, talked to him, and he's like, Oh, I had no idea.

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I just thought I had to pay taxes if I gave more than 18,000.

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And he's like, Okay, well, let's just give the whole 50,000.

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Um, and the the phone call and didn't he was good.

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Mission accomplished, that's what you're using it for.

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Could have moved on, right?

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It it solved the problem and I could have moved on.

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But then I was sitting there and I was thinking, wait a second, why didn't I walk this through with my processor instead of me just doing it?

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Like, why didn't I walk that through with her?

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So I call her back and hold on a second.

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This is important too, because I I want to touch on this.

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I know where you're going, but uh I want to rewind for a second.

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I miss out on this a lot too.

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Somebody brings me something and I'm like, I can fix that, I'll do it right now.

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And instead of actually coaching somebody to be able to do that.

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So the next time that comes up, they're like, Oh, I know like Lacey showed me how to do this, I know what to do.

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And so literally, if you just solve the problem, it feels good in that moment, but all you're doing is giving yourself future work because they're always going, you're gonna always be the go-to.

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Yep.

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Every time that they need something, they are like, Well, Lacey knows how to do this.

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She didn't show me how last time she just she fixed this one.

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Lacey will call the grandpa, right?

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Right.

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So I called her up and I said, You gotta empower people.

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Yep.

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Right.

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Open up your chat and I want you to type something in there.

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And I told her to, I gave her the exact same prompt that I had just put in.

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And then I had her read it to me.

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And she was like, This is good.

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I'm like, it is good, isn't it?

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Like, I just called grandpa.

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He's good, by the way.

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But I wanted you to, I wanted to show you what I did to to have that phone call.

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And she's like, I would have been fine calling him if I would have had this.

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I just didn't want to give him wrong information, so I handed it off to you.

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She goes, but I'm glad I know all this information now.

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Now she knows how to prompt it.

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Now she knows it's gonna give her information that's accurate and that she's empowered to go and do it.

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Yeah, she's very confident and to be able to handle that.

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So you 2X'd it then.

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Yeah, and she's like, I I just wish I would have thought to use chat for that.

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Yeah.

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So now I'm encouraging her, making sure that she's using it.

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Um, so again, another place that we could have stopped the story.

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And I was sitting there and I'm constantly trying to come up with ideas for videos.

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And I have this little I have a notepad.

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And on this notepad right here, I ideas for videos, and I'm trying to get better about this in my daily activity that I do all the time is when somebody comes and asks me a question, write it down for a video, you know, and think about how you can do it.

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And so I wrote it down, make the video for it.

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It's been all it was on my list for a whole week.

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I kept pushing it to the next day, next day, and then finally I'm like, fine, I'm gonna do these videos because I had two or three of them on there.

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Went out to my car, told a story.

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It was a short one, sent it on to my girl who does all my social media.

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And once I once she posted it, because I was on a I did was off social media for 25 days for a thing that we did for our church.

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And so she calls me up and she's like, it went viral.

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And I'm like, what does that mean?

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Um, and just explaining it all to me.

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But her excitement, it was huge because she loves all the, you know, the the numbers behind it and how it all works and stuff like that.

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Um, but for me, she's like, you know, how did you get that?

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I I want people to know I didn't spend a bunch of time researching what's the best post gonna be.

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Like what are the right hashtags?

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Yeah, what's the caption that needs to go with this?

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Literally, the whole purpose was just I'm already doing this message.

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I just did it.

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Now I need content.

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How many other people could be interested in what the life how the lifetime gift exemption applies to the annual gift?

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I I know I need to film that video too because I get asked that question all the time.

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It's a it is a recurring conversation that I have once a month.

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Well, you know how I said in in that prompt, act as a CPA advisor and a mortgage loan officer.

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So let me just read to you how it says to actually this is the part it says, here's how you reassure grandpa.

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Hey, grandpa, the IRS limit is$18,000, is just the amount you can give without extra paperwork.

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If you give more, you don't pay taxes, you just file a form that the IRS keeps to go against your lifetime$13 million plus exemption.

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Unless your estate is huge, this doesn't cost you a penny.

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So you can give your grandson anything that you want, and we'll just hand her the gift the gift letter for the mortgage.

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Now that's beautiful, right?

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It's just an easy way to ex to say it or explain it.

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So that's where I think too we need to learn how to use chat to be able to clearly explain things to borrowers as well or whatever industry we're in.

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Like it can help in all of those forms.

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And threw it on a video and there it goes.

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So that was the the 3x of it basically like turning something you would have done anyways, just continue to like go down that path of how else can I do it?

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And I think that uh we talked about this, and uh like as we're building out these videos on these things that were conversations we're having anyways, and you build out videos, it is all you're what you're doing then is building a library of evergreen content.

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Evergreen just means it's not specific to this one situation, it's not just for grandpa, it's to anybody that's interested in that information, and it can live in a library that you can access and say somebody has a question about this.

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Oh, Lacey actually filmed a video about that.

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Uh, and we're gonna send it right over to you.

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Your team has access to it and can can just easily email or text that video over to somebody that has that question that you know you don't have to recreate that over and that conversation every single time.

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Like obviously, that conversation, you did it really well because it went viral, so it connected with people, right?

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So that's proof of concept, but then now it's just continued every single time you make one of those videos, you put it out there, whether it goes viral or not, you are also building a library of evergreen content that you should access over and over again.

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That's valuable.

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That is super valuable, yeah.

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Because just the time savings and the distraction, you've got a distraction, somebody's asking you this question.

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Now you can just say, hey, here's a video on that one.

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It feels better to them.

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It's it does leave them feeling better than you writing an email with it, right?

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Um, and it feels like it's that video is made for them, but you've already had that sitting in a library and you use it over and over again.

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Uh, and it just save it can save so much time with all the repetitive conversations that we have, and it keeps you stu staying on tasked for all the things that can actually be making money.

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The money-making activities that we talk about, the green activities that we need to be doing, instead of getting pulled to solve this problem and send that email, recreate the email.

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Uh it's a beautiful, beautiful um thing that I don't think we need to spend too much more time on.

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Do you want it to no?

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I mean, do you have any tips for going viral?

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Because I no, I think the most I've ever gotten is like 12 likes on something.

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Uh and I've got I'm losing followers.

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So no, I don't have any tips.

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And like I said, um, but I I wanted I wanted the simplicity of that to come across.

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I want people to realize it I'm just you to using it in the daily activity that I'm already doing, but I'm pushing myself one more step or one more step every time I can.

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Sometimes I don't think other people want to hear it.

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Sometimes I don't think it's that valuable.

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Sometimes I think other people already know it, and that's so far from the truth.

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Right.

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Um, and then and using chat to help script it to make it flow really well.

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I mean, those are really small things, but uh, any of us can do that um for sure and just bring a lot more value.

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So I hope it helps.

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Yeah, stop trying to figure out what is going to go viral, just put the content out there, do it for that purpose that you are like getting information to people and things will naturally go viral uh because you're never gonna get in front of that algorithm.

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It changes all the time.

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That's what I've learned is like you could ask what's what are the prompts that are gonna make this thing go viral, and and what's what was gonna do that yesterday is different than today.

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That's what that's what's so interesting about that.

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The algorithm is constantly changing that you can never actually get in front of that.

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So just go put out the content that you feel like people are people need to hear the message that that and it is the repetitive questions that you get.

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Yep, that's the stuff that people are gonna resonate with.

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Help people doesn't need to be earth-shattering information like that.

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But um, yeah, that's beautiful, guys.

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Take that.

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I'm gonna run with that one for sure.

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I'm gonna start building a catalog right away.

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Amy, can you help me do that?

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Okay.

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Uh thanks for listening, guys.

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If you have any questions about that, just reach out to us.

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We'll see you next time.