The Long Trail: What 2025 Taught Me as a Brand Builder (Part 2)

byshawn8183

927 followers

6 days ago

In Blog One, I walked through my struggle with affiliate marketing the friction of building before I truly knew who I was building as.

This blog is the other side of that same year.

Same platforms.
Same training.
Same work ethic.

But applied to a brand built with heart.

I’ve been a quiet observer in this community for a while. I don’t post to show off. I post to document the road for the next person coming behind me. I recently crossed the 101-blog milestone here, and looking back, I can say this clearly:

You can’t outsmart the foundation.

I had to stop skipping steps and start listening ,really listening to the coaches and the support system we have right here at WA.

2025 wasn’t a breakout year.
It was a translation year.

My Evaluation: The Honest Truth

Before I show you these numbers, I want to be real.

Are they “good”?
Yes.

Are they what this brand is capable of?
No.

And that’s on me.

I split my focus. I tried to do too much at once. I didn’t give this brand the full attention it deserved. That slowed momentum, not because the system didn’t work, but because I wasn’t fully dialed in.

That changes in 2026.

Facebook: Finding the Rhythm

For context, my affiliate brand got 133K Facebook views in 2025 mostly from ads. This brand got 3.5M views mostly organic. Same person. Same year. Different belief

Total views: 3,514,634

From organic: 3,340,506

From ads: 174,128

Content interactions: 95.4k

Watch time: 17h 47m

Facebook carried this brand in 2025.

Those 3.3 million organic views didn’t come from a hack. They came from rhythm and message. This platform showed me that when you stop being a student of the click and start being a student of the brand, people stop scrolling and start listening.

This is where the voice formed. Most of the real work happened in comments, replies, and conversations not funnels.

Working the Plan: The Strategy Behind the Consistency

People ask me how I stay consistent while I’m out on the road. The answer is simple: I work the weekly plan Meta gives me.

If it asks for 40 posts, I hit 40.
If it asks for consistency, I deliver consistency.

But here’s the part most people miss each post builds on the last. I’m not throwing noise into the feed. I post questions, thoughts, and ideas people actually want to talk about.

Before every post, I ask myself one thing:

What’s missing from this conversation?

Bring that missing piece, and the platform does the rest.

Instagram: Slower, but Moving

Views: 31,143

Reach: 12.2k

Content interactions: 1.8k

From organic: 28,302

From ads: 2,841

Instagram didn’t explode and I didn’t expect it to.

What mattered was direction. Growth came steadily and mostly organically. That reinforced a lesson I had to learn the hard way: not every platform moves fast, but movement still matters.

Pinterest: Building Intent

Impressions: 1.52m

Engagements: 47.5k

Saves: 9.16k

Outbound clicks: 2.43k

Total audience: 478.64k

Pinterest behaved exactly how the training said it would.

People didn’t just view content they saved it. That tells me they planned to come back. This platform rewarded clarity and consistency, not hype, which fits this brand perfectly.

Search: The Slow Climb

Google Search Console: 2.14k impressions / 56 clicks

Bing Webmaster Tools: 48.5k impressions / 765 clicks

Search is slow and it should be. Trust takes time.

These numbers told me the engine was turning. I stopped trying to outrun the training and started trusting the WA engine to pull the heavy load.

The Question I Had to Ask Myself

When I stepped back and looked at both brands side by side, I had to ask myself a hard question.

Where do I actually see myself pushing forward?

I love Wealthy Affiliate. I always will. This is where I started, and I’ll always recommend it. But affiliate marketing requires people to want to be sold to. You can promote office gear, electronics, discounts, even WA itself and over time those sites will grow.

But here’s the truth.

I’m not a salesman.
I’m a storyteller.

And that’s where this brand changed everything.

Why This Brand Feels Like Home

This brand opens doors that affiliate marketing never could.

Books.
Audiobooks.
Apparel.
Social platforms.
Conversations that turn into stories.

I love researching. I love learning. I love talking to people and on Facebook especially, I can lose hours talking about Sasquatch without even noticing the time pass.

That’s not work to me.
That’s who I am.

I don’t comment much on the affiliate side.
But this brand? I’m in it.

If I actually wrote down every place I want to take this brand, we’d be here for hours. Ideas come to me in the middle of the night. I get up just to write them down because they won’t wait.

That’s how I know this is the right path.

What These Two Blogs Are Really About

These two blogs aren’t about teaching something I’ve already mastered.

They’re about learning while building.

That’s what Wealthy Affiliate is really for not just tactics, but helping you discover who you are as a creator.

Affiliate marketing taught me structure.
This brand taught me purpose.

And when you build from your soul instead of a strategy alone, everything changes.

It Starts With You

I shared these two blogs to show one thing clearly:

The tools work.
The training works.

But it starts with you.

One idea.
One dream.
A lot of belief.

Legacy doesn’t happen by accident. You build it long before it ever shows up.

If you’re wondering whether you can do this, look at me an Alberta-based truck driver who just kept showing up and refused to pull over. Pick one platform. Post consistently. Find what you believe in. Let the compound do the rest.

Two brands.
One person.
Two very different mindsets and levels of heart.

This year, I’m committing to one brand, one heart, one direction. I hope this helps someone see what they’ve been struggling with. Find a niche that genuinely excites you. Learn it inside and out. Then stay with it long enough for it to grow.

I’ll see you in the next one.

Shawn