Christosphere is the recurring mascot of the Shirtzenpantz Instagram account. Shirtzenpantz is a second hand store in Portland, Oregon that has grown an impressive 290k followers on Instagram.

That might be a record for most-followed secondhand store and they’re doing it by kicking a rock until it’s a sphere.

On April 14th of 2025, Shirtzenpantz started a lighthearted series with the simple premise of kicking a rock until it’s a sphere. They recorded themselves kicking the rock around the parking lot while doing a voice over. The whole video probably took them 5 minutes to shoot and 5 minutes to post.

Super easy and efficient content creation.

Anyone could do this. 👇

Over time, this series has evolved into creative storytelling in association with the kicking and weighing of the rock. This story telling, in my opinion, is what made this series create a cult like following.

By adding creative story telling to the rock kicking videos, Shirtzenpantz takes a video that may only appeal to people interested in seeing if a rock can be kicked round, into a video that people continue to watch because the story associated with the kicking has captured their attention.

Take this video, for example from Day 30. He tells this story about how he’s still shaking while posting the video with ominous music playing. He tells a story about two men that came up to him and Christosphere and how they asked them about eggs. The story does nothing for the video series except to keep us entertained. By telling the story in a very descriptive way with suspense, they keep you wanting to hear more.

I thought the secret to Shirtzenpantz growth and engagement on Instagram was this rock kicking series but after doing more digging I think there’s something else that could be contributing.

From the start of the rock kicking series to one of the more recent posts December 5th, Shirtzenpantz has posted 721 reels. That’s 3 posts a day on average. 😱

Some people have a hard time posting once a week but Shirtzenpantz has averaged 3 posts a day. And what’s more impressive in my opinion is that they’ve only had 4 days since April 14th in which they didn’t post anything.

So with 3 posts a day, one of those posts being from the rock kicking series, the other 2 posts on average were related to thrift store hauls, free cookie Fridays where they bake cookies for customers, and other content related to Christosphere.

Most people would want all of their posts to be about their business, and this is why I think most businesses fail at social media.

No one wants to follow a second hand store or any account where they feel like they’re being sold to. So to give people a reason to follow your business you need to think outside the box and create stories and characters that live in the business.

Shirtzenpantz does a great job with this by calling themselves the North Face Ninja when they are sharing a large North Face haul or the Arc'teryx Assassin when he finds a lot of Arc'teryx clothing. Instead of just posting a video showcasing the new clothes that will be in their store soon, he creates this story about how he’s a ninja or an assassin.

By posting 3 times a day, Shirtzenpantz is staying top of mind enough that they can create content that’s not trying to generate a sale and by not trying to generate a sale from every post, it gives them a higher likelihood of generating a following if their content is good enough.

What can we take away from Shirtzenpantz’s social media strategy?

Shirtzenpantz is a great example of showing up and putting in the work each day. What started as a weird series of kicking a rock has turned into an inspirational message to their followers to put 10-15 minutes into whatever “rock” they’re trying to make a sphere. Because it’s hard to see progress day to day but over a long enough timeline you won’t be able to recognize where you’ve come from.