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Three Weeks to Ideal Engagement on Any Social Media Platform – Week One

Are you ready to increase the engagement of your brand or business online? Or are you ready to start a new outlet for it? This is a single-platform engagement plan, so don’t worry about other platforms yet.

Why Only One Platform?

We start this reboot or the kickoff for your engagement implementation on a single platform for two reasons:

Changing your mindset and starting new activity on one platform will take a concerted effort to use the platform differently. At first, the learning, but more so the implementation, curve will be steep. We are changing behavior here, and it won’t be easy at first.
It will take a lot more effort to participate in the conversation that is social media than you’ve done before. You will have to find time, efficiency, and dedication to get it done on a single platform. Can you imagine if you started all this extra work on the five platforms where you have a presence at once?

Week One – Fixing Your Feed

First things first.

Stop posting content on this platform. That sounds crazy right now, but it will make sense.

Doing things as you had always done them wasn’t working for you, so ceasing that content creation and posting will improve your listening and context while we are overhauling how you engage on social media. You were not adding value to enough people to keep it up, so, for the re-boot, no new content created or posted. Period.

To begin, we have to fix the feed that the platform presents to you by shocking the algorithm. Much like we outlined when we sought to change the content before you on a platform because it wasn’t what you wanted to see or stressed you out, we need to fix the feed of the platform.

Out With the Useless, In With the Valuable

On the first day of Week 1, go through your connections, friends, pages, accounts, groups, and hashtags to UNFOLLOW/UNFRIEND/DISCONNECT all the users of the platform that don’t add value for you. You should also consider if the value they add for you is within “The Five,” the five areas of focus for your content creation. By getting rid of the creators that don’t add value for your experience in the areas where you need to focus, you will let them crowd out the content you need to see and fall back into doing things the way you’ve always done them.

Now that you’ve pruned all the useless and valueless from your feed, explore the connections from those that do add value to you. Take time to look at their content, join relevant groups, or add certain hashtags to the content you consume that will add value to you, specifically in the five areas of focus you have. Doing this will give you an immediate win in controlling what content is served to you. Every platform programs their algorithm to give you more of what you just indicated that you wanted to see. They want you to see that newly-added content, because you will act like a child with their newest toy, ignoring all the ones you have to focus on the fresh one that you now have.

This process to tailor the sources of content you’re served will take a while, but get it done on the first day of this endeavor. This drastic change in how you connect with the platform will get rid of the dead weight and add new and valuable creators, telling Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or LinkedIn that you need to see THIS content that is now relevant to you.

The rest of the first week gets way easier for you, and you should invest the time of the remaining six days to help the platform really understand you by completing a solitary action repeatedly.

“Like” Posts

Indicate an interest in the creators that show up in the “new” content you see by simply tapping or clicking “like” on the posts that give you even the slightest bit of value.

Simply “like” them. Don’t leave any comments, reply to them, or even react. Just a simple “Thumbs up” for Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube and a heart for Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to let the platform know what kind of content you value. Perform this activity with an emphasis on valuable content in “The Five.” Instead of focusing on seeking out new connections, take the time to consume A LOT of content and force the algorithm to understand the “new you.”

Let’s Start Week 2, Shall We?

Hustleburg Episode 18 – Answering Your Instagram Questions 2nd of 2

In this Q&A episode of the Hustleburg podcast, Brett answers listener questions about Instagram in the second of two parts. This is the fourth episode of a platform-specific series on the Q&A episodes about the varying social media platforms. Episode 12 and Episode 14 made up a two-part series on Facebook, Episode 16 served as the first in this two-part series on Instagram, and in two weeks, Episode 20 will answer your questions about LinkedIn.

How Can I Organically Grow My Instagram Following?

When it comes to growing a community, no matter the platform, organic growth is always best. Instagram is no different. Regardless of the type of follower, or community member, you need to attract them, and to attract them organically, you’ll need to approach them with something of value, because initially, they don’t know that you exist, right? Or else, they’d be a part of what you’re building already. Your base of content centers on the five focus areas we’ve outlined in-depth previously, giving you so much content to create that your first 10 or so posts.

How Do You Reach People Outside Your Network?

Engage with your existing community to form a baseline of recommended content on the “Explore” tab. With your new tool directly serving you content that it calculates you wish to view and interact with on the Explore tab, you can grow by commenting and following those who add value to you. Use hashtags and local popular posts to find more content and follow accounts that add value to yours. Interact with those new accounts, using the $1.80 strategy outlined in this episode.

What Advantage is There to Using Instagram Stories Over Facebook Stories?

They may ignore you in one place, but consume what you create without a second thought in another. It’s all about the user. It’s rarely about you. There are differing demographics and psychographics of each platform. The community you have on Instagram is younger than Facebook’s, so the context and content of what you share on Instagram Stories will HAVE to be different than what you share on Facebook Stories, because the audiences differ. You also don’t have the same linking capability that Facebook offers its Stories on the Instagram platform, until you’re a MUCH larger account or an advertiser. That forces you to think about how to create and present content in your stories, driving you to be more creative with the content and the context, so you have even more to consider when sharing to Instagram Stories.

How Do I Best Link to Multiple Things With the Same Instagram Account?

When Instagram began, they chose to focus on the visual. They created a platform as an app-only option that also allowed you to “filter” what you shared within the app to take ordinary pictures to make them extraordinary. That makes things more difficult for brands to navigate to spam you with links to other content away from Instagram. There is one link per account, and it’s in your bio. They are forcing you to only send people off-platform for only the MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF CONTENT to you at a time. To offer something beyond that, the market has several options, all operating with a “freemium” model, free with limited features yet paying for a more robust version. There are a variety of options, such as Linktree, lnk.bio, and linkin.bio by Later. For musicians and podcasters, SmartURL might be an option worth looking into.

Start Marketing Your Business Online With These Three Easy Steps

If you’re just getting started marketing your business online, Beyond Your Side Hustle offers a FREE Getting Started Guide.

Find out more about Beyond Your Side Hustle here:

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Be a Guest on Hustleburg

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Hustleburg Episode 16 – Answering Your Instagram Questions 1st of 2

In this Q&A episode of the Hustleburg podcast, Brett answers listener questions about Instagram in the first of two parts. This is the third episode of a platform-specific series on the Q&A episodes about the varying social media platforms. Episode 12 and Episode 14 made up a two-part series on Facebook, and in two weeks, Episode 18 will answer more of your questions about Instagram.

What are some tips for showcasing my business right now on Instagram?

The most important thing to remember about Instagram is that it’s an amazing opportunity to share with your audience stories that are interesting about what you do through a visual medium. When it comes to how you should be using Instagram for your brand, sharing photos and videos of how something in your business works, people, and other things that make up your brand should be the focus. While Instagram offers multitudes of filters for your images and videos, you shouldn’t over-process or overuse these filters. I certainly suggest you use the most important hashtags to your content and your brand to help others find your content that they may appreciate, your commentary on posts shouldn’t just be hashtag this, hashtag that. A more important use for hashtags on Instagram is for YOU to find content and accounts relevant to you and your business. Like many posts that show up in your feed.

Is Instagram a lower priority than Facebook? I am a photographer, so should I start with Facebook or Instagram?

As with many of my responses to questions posed here in the Q&A episodes, it depends. In 2020, the most important platform for you to have a presence is Facebook. As a photographer, I think that you should prioritize creating for a platform that best showcases what you do and the stories you tell with your business. Obviously, Instagram is a better place to create and share visual content like your photos. You offer something that is uniquely suited to an almost solely visual medium. Utilize that advantage to tell stories about what you do. Focus on telling the stories of the people you work with, and avoid being one-dimensional with your content.

What sort of content best highlights a business on Instagram?

The same kind of engaging content that adds value to others on all social media platforms. Your Instagram game needs to be a mix of your 5 main topics… The ones we’ve discussed before when developing your content strategy. The content you should share to highlight your brand, regardless of the main feed or Instagram stories, are the visually interesting things about it.

Believe it or not, something that seems so mundane to you that you use every day will be found fascinating by someone else. The people you encounter at work, whether your team or your customers, are pretty fascinating themselves. Share successes. It isn’t about broadcasting what you want out there to your followers. Engage with their posts more than you post yourself.

Start Marketing Your Business Online With These Three Easy Steps

If you’re just getting started marketing your business online, Beyond Your Side Hustle offers a FREE Getting Started Guide.

Find out more about Beyond Your Side Hustle here:

Website
Hustleburg Listener Community
Facebook
Instagram
Brett’s LinkedIn

Be a Guest on Hustleburg

The Value in Facebook Stories, Live, and Watch Party

This is based on an answer offered on Episode 14 of Hustleburg.

Question: Is there any benefit to using Facebook stories? Or should I just stick to Instagram for that? What about Facebook Live or Watch Party? These are kind of confusing and seem like they could overlap and I’m just not sure how to use them.

Facebook Stories

There is absolutely a benefit to Facebook Stories. The first benefit of using Facebook stories is that it’s a great way to connect with the younger users on the platform. As we’ve discussed on Hustleburg, the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook are over 60 years old. Utilizing Facebook stories is going to be a good way to get your content in front of the eyes of Facebook’s younger demographics. Regardless of the age demographic of what you do, reaching younger users plants seeds with them for the future, when they’ll be looking for what you do. You can build your brand identity with them now. Also, you’d be surprised how many buying decisions are driven by interactions between the teenaged sons and daughters and their mothers and fathers.

Stories are also a better way to promote your “Me” content, the links to your website, promotional content, and short videos documenting your business. Because of the quality recording possible with your handheld device, you get two wins here. You are able to produce less polished and more frequent content for both Facebook and its sister platform Instagram. Rather than posting these types of content in your feed as frequently, you can share things in a “Me” way and more “sales-y” in nature, and leave your feed to build your brand. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally, that’s kind of how I can segregate the content that I put out that goes there.

An interview I’ve referenced recently with Adam Mossari, Instagram CEO, lends itself to this as well. In it, he discussed the addition of stories as a way of giving people a “behind the scenes” glimpse, a peek into your life, business, or brand. It gives you a way to offer “insider access” to what it is that you do. These looks are a great way to engage with the community you’re building online. As such, these stories shouldn’t feel as polished or produced as some of the things as some of the other videos or images that you see in the feed.

You’ve likely noticed that some of your more “off the cuff” and less polished content offers some great engagement. That’s because we’re seeing communities respond to what they view as more authentic rather than highly produced content anyway. This is akin to how, about a decade ago, we saw a huge rise in reality and competition TV over traditionally scripted TV. Survivor kicked off the trend, followed up by shows like America’s Got Talent, The Voice, American Idol, all those kind of overtook the scripted television for the most part on network TV. Even The Office and Parks and Recreation took that documentary feel into the world of scripted television. Now that our phones offer HD-quality video and a billion megapixels, we’re seeing that kind of authentic content that doesn’t have that same polish or production value as your general feed content be more engaging with our audience.

Don’t Auto-Post

You’ve probably noticed if you are using the Instagram Story features, you have the ability to auto post to Facebook stories as well, if you’ve connected your business page on Facebook. The temptation to put out two pieces of content on different platforms is great, but it should be resisted. First, you can’t swipe up on the Instagram Story, unless you are paying for it via advertising or you are a mega account. Facebook Stories allow you to have all of the same features as Instagram, but they also allow you to have the “Swipe up.” I definitely discourage the auto-posting from Instagram to Facebook Stories, because you don’t have as many features available to you. It isn’t as feature-rich.

Second, if you cross-post from one platform to another, this flies in the face of putting out content that has context to each platform’s audience. You have different audiences on each platform, because your content there resonates differently on each. Generally, what you’re going to see is that something you say to your Instagram audience isn’t necessarily going to be received the same way that you say it to your Facebook audience. When you cross-post, you’re not providing adequate context for the communities that you’ve built in both of the places it’s tempting to cross-post to and from.

Facebook Live

So, if you have a good reason to offer video content, especially live, streaming video content, Facebook Live is a great avenue to do so. Newer features, allow you to create an event (both on the platform and in real life) around your business or your brand. Events like this give your community an opportunity to instantly connect and interact with you.

Facebook Live gives you the ability to build up your livestream as you schedule that Live, alerting your community about the upcoming interaction. With these new features, Facebook Live can now be used as a souped-up version of Reddit’s AMAs and other platform’s Ask Me Anythings, even if you don’t have an immediate offering for live video content. You get real-time interaction with the brand as a member of their community, and your business gets to create a deeper connection with your true fans in that community. The video component makes it feel more like an in-person interaction that you’ve created, so it truly is a win-win for you and your community. There’s an extra bonus for you if you have video content that will add value to your audience that can be live-streamed, as they engage with your brand in a deeper way.

Facebook Watch Party

If you don’t have the ability or desire to go live with a video to engage the community, Facebook Watch Party offers part of the same value that is possible with Facebook Live. Watching the same content simultaneously gives you the instant connection and interaction capability with the community, surrounding content offered by your brand. It also gives you the opportunity to share more polished, edited video content to your audience, while also giving you the direct interaction with them over it. If you’re 35 or older or have ever had a long-distance relationship, you probably remember calling your friends or significant other on the phone to watch a TV show or a movie together when we were in separate homes. This ability to watch something together but separately, especially in the era of COVID-19 isolation, is a way to connect instantly when you can’t be in the same room to watch the same thing physically together. Watch Party brings us that same ability and feeling to connect and engage with our brand and the community instantly and deeper in the digital space, specifically on the Facebook platform.

As we’ve mentioned before, Facebook is the most important social media platform right now in 2020, and these newer features give you a way to connect in a more personal way going forward.