Y’all know I love trying out new tactics and strategies on social media and reporting back to you, you know, so you don’t have to.

Listen in and learn about the plan, execution, and results of my four major social media experiments of 2023 (I’m bringing the data to back it up). Some were pretty surprising, and others disappointing.

Dive in so you can steal what works and save time by ignoring the rest!

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about:

  • Why panic is not a strategy
  • My SEO keyword-stuffing days
  • Social media as a tool for connection
  • Decreasing engagement across all platforms
  • High-Low Content Strategy
  • The spider that won’t leave
  • Hashtags strategies that still work
  • Strategies that failed

This Episode Was Made Possible By:

Social Media Starter Kit Free Course
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Memorable Quotes:

  • “Social media is changing faster than it ever has, and we have the rise of artificial intelligence breathing down our necks, and we're seeing less engagement than ever before–unless you're on TikTok.” – Andréa Jones
  • “Sometimes we feel like we can keep doing the same things over and over again and get the same results. And unfortunately, digital marketing, especially social media marketing, is just one of those fields, one of those industries, one of those areas in our business where we have to keep iterating.” – Andréa Jones
  • “My philosophy, my overall strategy, my overall core beliefs about social media still remain the same. And those core beliefs are, social media can be used as a tool to market your business.” – Andréa Jones
  • “I do think that mixing high-quality content, let's say it's produced, it's stylized, it's know-it-all style of content works really well, but mixing in that low-end content, the personality, the slice of life, the reaction, the memes can really help you relate to your audience in a way that sometimes the educational content can't.” – Andréa Jones
  • “Erika Tebbens and Nikki McKnight at the Ops Shop saw the content that I was sharing on social media, signed up for a discovery call, and now we just kicked off with them. And I'm so excited for clients like these. They're very aligned with what we have to offer. And it worked, you know, showing the results, like the actual numbers, my results, my client's results, helped them see the results that we can get for them.” – Andréa Jones
  • “As much as people say, you know, posting within the platform gets you higher reach, I just don't see it. And honestly, I don't like doing it. I forget to post sometimes, I just post at the wrong time. I'm posting like, you know, nine in the morning when I know my audience isn't engaging at that time. So for me, I like to use a scheduling tool.” – Andréa Jones
  • “The last thing that I tried that really did work out for me is commenting like a post. So leaving really thoughtful comments. Again, this aligns with my value system as a marketer, instead of leaving more comments, I tried fewer comments, but making sure they were extremely thoughtful. Either adding in, you know, some more information, expounding upon a topic, asking questions.” – Andréa Jones

Resources Mentioned:

Episode 247 – The Biggest Surprises from the 2023 Rival IQ Social Media Report
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpvEfV6DbaS/
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsBymTJMCB9/
https://www.tiktok.com/@onlinedrea/video/7203540245151763718
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpD-BSooeIm/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/onlinedrea_my-toxic-trait-is-thinking-i-can-get-ready-activity-7057714901619748865-bEsf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Check out Metricool

Watch the Episode Below:

Transcript

Andréa Jones (00:00):
Panic is not a strategy. And a few episodes ago I was talking about how the beginning of this year, I was panicking at all the social media changes. And instead of sitting in my feelings and wallowing, I got to testing. So in this episode, I'm gonna talk through the recent tests that I did on social media, their results, and what I'm doing next. Let's dive into it.

Intro (00:33):
Welcome to The Savvy Social Podcast, the show that blends stories and strategies to help businesses create engaged and profitable online communities using the unique power of social media. And now, your host, Andréa Jones.

Andréa Jones (00:50):
Hi, friends. I think we're collectively feeling a lot of feelings about social media right now. And if you are where I am, just know that you are not alone. Social media is changing faster than it ever has, and we have the rise of artificial intelligence breathing down our necks, and we're seeing less engagement than ever before, unless you're on TikTok, which engagement's increasing. I talked about that all in episode number 247. And yeah, we are here. <Laugh>, you are not alone. So in today's episode, I wanna dive into these four experiments, but I kind of wanna frame the conversation because I think that sometimes we feel like we can keep doing the same things over and over again and get the same results. And unfortunately, digital marketing, especially social media marketing is just one of those fields, one of those industries, one of those areas in our business where we have to keep iterating.

(01:49):
There is no room to just do the same thing over and over and over and over again and expect the same results. I remember back in 2012, I was working as an intern at an SEO agency, and back then you could hack Google, like to get on the front page. There was a formula, you keyword stuff the heck out of that page. And you would be on the front page of Google, especially local searched. And we were doing that for companies. We would SEO keyword stuff, their pages build out these webpages for them. They would rank very high in Google Today, strategy does not work. And if you try to use that strategy, Google will actually go, Hey, we don't like this page at all, and we're not gonna show it to anyone. So there you go. So that's just one example of how digital marketing evolves over time.

(02:42):
Social media is even faster, it evolves even faster, and it feels like it's moving faster than we can possibly keep up with. That's because it is. And as a marketer, we're constantly trying to hack it. A la the keyword stuffing of Google Pages back in the day. The challenge with the so-called hacks is that they can hack a tactic, stuffing keywords into a page. They completely miss the strategy behind the tactic. And by the time you, the consumer or the, you know, junior level marketer is trying to do this for yourself, that tactic doesn't work anymore. Hence experimenting. So when I'm talking about experimenting today, I am talking about specific tactics. But my philosophy, my overall strategy, my overall core beliefs about social media still remain the same. And those core beliefs are, social media can be used as a tool to market your business.

(03:45):
Virality on social media is a flash in the plant pan. It's chasing after something that may or may not actually impact your business. And relationships are everything, okay? So to me, social media is a tool for connection. And it's not a billboard, it is not a broadcasting tool. It is simply a tool for connection. So with that in mind, let's get into my recent experiments. I decided to do these experiments because I was seeing engagement go down. And I started doing these experiments before doing the episode on the Rival IQ report, which just says, engagement is down across the board everywhere. If you are experiencing it, it's because collectively we're experiencing it on every platform except for TikTok. Tiktok’s seeing an increase in engagement right now. So I wanted to find ways to increase engagement despite all of that. And the first experiment that I did was just to have fun.

(04:42):
My husband actually told me recently that I come across as a little bit of a know-it-all in my posts on social media. That's because I'm trying to share what I know, but you know what, let's take a break and let's have fun. I tried different characters on TikTok. I was using filters and doing like this British accent with characters. That was fun. But the post didn't really take off. I tried to use trending sounds. I even danced a little bit, which did all right on TikTok. I will be reposting that to Instagram to see how that does. But then I also started, you know, shifting a little bit. Instead of just focusing on fun, I was trying to be a little bit more reactionary to what was happening around me, more like hot takes and being a little bit spicy. So the first post that took off of me was actually a response video to my client Linda.

(05:31):
Linda is a executive coach for black and brown women in corporate America. And in her video she was staring, sharing some stats and facts about black women and how they progress in corporate. Her comment section got real racist and I felt spicy and hot. I was like, Ooh, I need to comment on this. I was very, very frustrated by the just ignorance in the comments, people saying the most wild things. And I was like, in, in 2023 on internet, you're saying is okay. So I made a response video and I'm gonna pull up the stats from that video because I think it's super important to kind of show you what happens when you have fun. But I'm also gonna talk about how you can translate this into your own business as well. So I posted this video as a response stitch video. So when you are on Instagram or on TikTok, you can take the first clip or any clip of a video, five second clip, and then your response to it.

(06:31):
So their video plays first, then you record your response. And this video got 14,710 plays, 67 comments, 14 shares, 35 saves, and 730 likes. Most of those came from people who do not follow me, which is key here. So new audiences, only 625 of the views came from my current audience. Now what does this mean for you? I think anything that you can respond to in the moment can really help you create content that speaks to what your audience is going through, especially if you have in this video I talked about why I didn't like the comments and I gave the audience something to do. I said, Hey, if you feel the same way that I feel, go show Linda's video some love, right? So I'll put that link in the show notes. You can find all of the links in the show notes as well.

(07:28):
So when you're thinking about creating content, I went into this experiment thinking about having fun. But I think really the main point here is to let loose a little bit and not be so stuffy and buttoned up. And I do like to think of this as a mixture of high low content. So I used to do this a lot back in my budget fashion days. Most of my fashion, 99%, let's be honest of my fashion, is budget, fashion. I'm talking Walmart, target, you know, thrifting. I love, I'm a budget fashion girl. I love budget fashion. But a very common thing that happens in the fashion world is mixing low end garments with high end garments. So you're wearing Walmart tee with, you know, Hermes belt. I don't know you can tell I'm not really on the high end side of things, but you mix in that content.

(08:26):
So that mix, however much you wanna mix is up to you. But I do think that mixing high quality content, let's say it's it's produced, it's stylized, it's know-it-all style of content works really well, but mixing in that low end content, the, the personality, the slice of life, the reaction, the memes can really help you relate to your audience in a way that sometimes the educational content can't. This also worked really well for one of our clients. We use a repurposed post that was less than 15 seconds long for those of you watching, sorry, Gibson just shifted and like his whole pillow dropped off. Anyways, our client, we used a video that was 15 seconds long and it got over a million views on Facebook reels. Okay? So this relatable kind of lighthearted style content that's quick really captured the attention of that audience.

(09:28):
They got 500 plus new follows from that, and we actually were monitoring it. We expected the followers to fall off because it was just that one video, but they stuck around and are now engaging, interacting with our new content as well. So letting loose a little bit, I put how fun initially, but Let Loose can really help elevate your content even further. We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, I'm gonna talk about the three other experiments, their results. And what I'm gonna do next, we'll be back soon.

(09:55):
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(10:22):
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(11:08):
All right, so experiment number two was to make more offers. I do tend to educate a lot in my content. And I don't talk a lot about my offers, what I do.

(11:21):
So I started infusing talk of what we're doing in the Savvy Social School, what I'm doing with my clients which I'll talk about in 0.3 cuz these two kind of go together. But in 0.2, making more offers specifically, I talked about breaking off pieces of the Savvy Social school because we were getting a lot of feedback that it's a big bite to take. Oh my God, there's a spider on my ceiling. Ooh, I hate spiders. Okay, ugh, I'm gonna try to focus y'all, but that little critter is distracting. All right? A lot of people saying the school is a big bite to take. And even when we talk about it on social media, we're listening out everything and it's like, and we have this and we have that and, and, and it feels like a lot. So we're breaking off little pieces and going, you know what, if you're not ready for the whole meal, try this little appetizer.

(12:06):
Then you can come back and buy the whole meal if you like, or if not, if you're just an apps girly, enjoy the app, right? So we tested this with the Feed podcast. We got seven sales during a flash sale. We did through both email and social. And then we're also testing, right? It'll be before this episode comes out, but it's right after I'm recording it. We're doing a sale of our Instagram nine grid template. This one's different cuz it's only $9. The last one was 97. So this is a $9 offer and I just imagine people are gonna buy it because I haven't even announced it yet. I just shared with my community and we've already sold eight of them. So I feel like this one's gonna be big one. Plus it's a really aligned with where a lot of, oh my God, that's fine.

(12:54):
<Laugh> Plus, it's really aligned with where a lot of our audience is right now, which is they're feeling a little bit burned out about Instagram. So this may be a strategy you may want to try in that same period of time. So in the pa in the six week period that we were testing, we also gained 577 new subscribers bumping our email list over 15K. Now I've been growing this email list for over nine years. So to get past the 15,000 email collection point feels good cuz we have now a really nice community of people on our email list who are excited about our newsletters and the offers that we have. So that test to me was a win, and we'll continue testing that as well. The third experiment was proving my chops more. I tested out a Instagram broadcast channel and was just sharing more in my Instagram stories about the results that we're getting for our clients and literally booked two clients just from sharing those results.

(13:56):
Erika Tebbens and Nikki McKnight at the Ops Shop saw the content that I was sharing on social media, signed up for a discovery call, and now we just kicked off with them. And I'm so excited for clients like these, they're very aligned with what we have to offer. And it worked, you know, showing the results, like the actual numbers, my results, my client's results, helped them see the results that we can get for them. Oh God, this spider. All right, experiment number four was the elegant reposting strategy. And this is one I actually spent the most time on, both for myself, my team, and our clients. So we built out what I am calling the digital brain. It is a digital collection of your thoughts, ideologies, frameworks, themes and analogies that you use in your content that you reuse again and again in your marketing.

(14:53):
I initially built this out to be just for social media, but our clients are seeing that they can use this in their email marketing, they can use this on their website pages, they can use this on sales calls. It's the things that they say on podcast videos. It's the things that they say on podcast interviews, in videos, on social media. They've said it three newsletters ago. We then go through that content, pull it into our digital brain and use it as a resource again and again. So a practical example of this, I posted a TikTok that was part of my like let loose theme. It was one of the like, get ready with me videos, but like, I never remember to record those. I have a one-year-old, first of all, it's, it would be a hot mess to show that process, but I, we, my husband and I had just did the handoff. I had like five minutes to get ready for a Zoom call and I was like, why do I always leave myself five minutes to get ready? So I set up my camera while I was doing my makeup, I talked about how I leave myself five minutes to get ready. Again, let loose made it relatable, but it didn't end there. I did post it to TikTok and honestly it didn't do that well on TikTok, but on Instagram it did. All right. Let me pull up the post.

(16:07):
Oh my God,

(16:09):
The spider's gone.

(16:18):
Oh, he's still there. Holy shit. <Laugh>. I felt a,

(16:24):
I felt a tickle on my back and I swear that was the spider. Okay, he's still there. Oh G I'm so dumb. Okay, <laugh>,

(16:35):
Oh,

(16:37):
All right, so this Get Ready with me video. I posted it on Instagram. It did much better than TikTok 805 plays 37 likes eight comments, 13 shares and two saves. Now this one went out mostly to my followers. 756 accounts reached, but only 32 of those were not my followers. Most people were the ones following me. And so that's where I really saw engagement with my current audience. But then this is where the elegance come in, into the elegant ring posting. My team saw that video, they saw how many comments were coming in and they took that same concept and turned it into a LinkedIn poll. Okay? So in the LinkedIn poll I said, well, my team said the same thing. Hey, I get ready for a Zoom call. Three minutes to spare, can't be me. What are some of the things that you do that are kind of like your toxic traits?

(17:38):
And I turned it into a poll. 44 people voted in the poll and it started a conversation in the comments. We've got 10 comments here on this poll as well. And it comes up in conversation, which I think is the most interesting part. People will mention it to me. One of my clients, I got on a call with her and she was like, how's that Zoom filter going? Because I talked about Zoom filters in that video. So it was a connection piece. And this is where my philosophy about social media really starts to take shape because it's all about connection. So all of these things that I tried the, you know, letting loose, making more offers, proving my chops and elegant repurposing is something that I'm definitely going to continue. It is an iteration on what I already believe as a marketer, and it's something that I definitely can improve upon in the future.

(18:33):
We've been testing this with one of my clients that LinkedIn polls work really well for them. But if we take the same content in the exact same way and post it on Facebook, it doesn't work. But we turn that content into a, an infographic or a carousel and it works a little bit better. So not simply posting the same thing to all platforms, but having a little bit of elegance to the content and kind of crafting it in a way that that platform and the users on that platform enjoy to consume content. I do wanna wrap this up with a few other things that I tried that honestly didn't work. This is where the panic comes into play. I am susceptible to it just like everyone else. But I tried posting in the moment and even taking posts that I pre-planned and posting them natively on the platform.

(19:22):
I tried that for three weeks. The only post that that worked with was the one that I responded to. And so the one that I talked about earlier that had 14,000 views. So as much as people say, you know, posting within the platform gets you higher reach, I just don't see it. And honestly, I don't like doing it. I forget to post sometimes I just post at the wrong time. I'm posting like, you know, nine in the morning when I know my audience isn't engaging at that time. So for me, I like to use a scheduling tool. Right now we're using Metric Cool. I like their data. And I like how each brand is separated. So that's something that we tested out and I just don't find it true. I will continue to test it over time, but scheduling posts still has the best outcome for our clients.

(20:13):
Oh my god, that's later. <Laugh>. the other thing that we tested was using no hashtags. People say all the time, it's all about the keywords. Hashtags don't matter, but on every platform using hashtags, increases reach in the post on LinkedIn, TikTok Facebook, just use three to five hashtags. Instagram you can get away with more. I like to do like 15 to 20 hashtags. The more hashtags you use, the more reach you get. At some point the hashtags start looking a little bit cluttered, so use your best judgment, but test, test, test. What I also like about is they tell you the reach that individual hashtag get. If the hashtag is large enough. So for instance, I try to meme post out from Love Is Blind, it didn't really get that much traction. But I used hashtag Love Is Blind and that did show up like how many people I reached based on that hashtag.

(21:04):
So that sort of information can be helpful. The last thing that I tried that really did work out for me is commenting like a post. So leaving really thoughtful comments. Again, this aligns with my value system as a marketer, instead of leaving more comments, I tried fewer comments, but making sure they were extremely thoughtful. Either adding in, you know, some more information, expounding upon a topic, asking questions. These types of interactions not only get seen by the person whose account that I'm commenting on, but all the looky-loos, myself included, who goes straight to the comments. I love a good comment section. And so it showed my comment there right at the top for everyone. And then also if you have mutuals. So especially on Instagram, if I'm following someone and then someone else that we both are connected to comments, I will see that person's comment right at the top.

(22:01):
So it reestablishes that brand awareness and shows me that I'm everywhere to the people that I'm connected with. All right, do you wanna hear more about any of these specifically commenting like a post? I have a lot of thoughts about this. If you want me to do an episode on that, hit me up on Instagram, @OnlineDrea. That's online d r e a. Send me a dm, let me know what you think about the show. Also, low-key tips on spiders because this spider in here, <laugh> is up. I don't want to kill it. I just don't want it here. Yeah, DM me if you have any tips. Thank you so much for watching another episode of The Savvy Social Podcast. I'll see you back soon. Bye for now.