The Only Social Media Algorithm Hack You Need Is Consistency

I don't know about you, but there's nothing I love more than when random people pop up in my DM's to share with me all these social media “hacks” that are guaranteed to bring you so many followers, traffic, and how to keep the algorithm happy.

Y'all, I don't care about social media algorithms, and you shouldn't either. I feel like all of this hyper-focused energy on trying to keep the algorithm happy has made us lose our joy for why we joined Instagram or any other social media platform in the first place.

On your gravestone, it is not going to read, “ Here lies XX, they had 100K followers and a viral Reel in 2022.”

 The only “hack” that I have found that brings in more leads and has the potential to triple sales is

C O N S I S T E N C Y.

 I believe that whoever is meant to find your business will find your business. Trying to fight artificial intelligence is a losing battle.  It seems like, as a collective, we've lost sight of why we're on social media because hardly anyone is being social. 

 When you implement consistency, consistency builds trust. Trust builds a relationship. Relationships create money transactions. 

Consistently posting, Consistently engaging with comments, Consistently finding and engaging with new people, and building a connection is the basis of all business.

Legitimate connection is at the heart of all of this. Let's bring fun back to Instagram, create content that excites you, not something that some guru with a team tells you works for them. 

What works for one account probably won't work for another. 

A little progress each day adds up to big results.

If You Don't Post It To Social Media Does It Mean It Didn't Happen?

"I don't give a fuck; Twitter ain't a real place." Dave Chappelle

Last night I watched the “controversial” final Dave Chappelle special on Netflix, and this quote got me thinking that he's right. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram aren't real places.

We put all of this value, worth, and expectations of our "Human Experience" on these places that aren't even real. They aren't the next town over; they aren't a plane ride away; it's a place made of nothing and everything at the same time that one day we could wake up and it would be gone.

Last week I went to Red Rocks, and with the first hint that the band was coming on, almost the entire crowd pulled out their phones, slid over to the video setting of their camera, and tapped start. They were watching the concert through their phone when they were at Red Rocks, one of the top concert venues in North America.

Instead of choosing to be in the moment and have a human experience in a real place, they chose to have that experience through their phone. Watching this happen makes me wonder whether we are who we present online, or are we indeed who we are when we are walking around in real life.

We put all of this effort into being in real places but creating images or videos to share to this non-existent place to make us look the way we want the world to perceive us. And it makes me wonder just how much of the experience we are experiencing and how much of going to a place is to side brag to our followers that we've been there. If we don't filter and post our experience to social media, does it mean that it didn't happen in real life?

It may sound like I am hating on the social media spoon that feeds me when that's quite the contrary. I have been talking a lot in person about the core purpose of social media, and after 2020, many people are ready to jump the ship, and when people say that to me, I remind them that social media is a "necessary evil." The foundation of the social platforms is still there; with every user's post, it gets buried a little deeper down, but there is still an opportunity there to connect with like-minded people.

The fact is that your business does need to have a presence on social media. Social media is one of the top three search engines, and you want your business to show up on social media to connect with the searcher. Still, it's also true that you don't have to give up your human experience to do social media well.

When businesses hire me for coaching or management, my superpower is that each post, story, reel, email, or digital piece of information your brand puts out there translates to how the viewer, customer, or client would feel when they are around your real-life energy and the energy of your establishment.

Many people think that I will come in and turn your marketing upside down when I'm only coming in to redecorate the walls. You have a following because your voice has been established, and you, your voice, and your vision are why people have invested in you. The only change will be a decluttering to find the message, consistently share that message, and a zhuzhing of your visual assets.

If you live your most authentic human experience in worlds that don't exist, you are not doing your marketing wrong. You're doing it differently, and people stop their scroll for different. Every independently owned business is unique to the person who operates it, whether IRL or a made-up digital world, hold your uniqueness.

2021 Holiday Marketing Starts Now, in September

I know your Pumpkin Spice is barely cooled to a drinkable temperature, but if you haven't begun planning your holiday digital marketing strategy, you are missing out on valuable brand awareness times.

Your holiday marketing doesn't start with your first social media post on Black Friday. You want to make sure that you are capturing and keeping your audience's attention throughout September and October. Kicking into your holiday sales phase without the proper build-up and preparation could leave you falling flat by December 1.

Here is what you should be concentrating on from now until Halloween:

Brand Building: Concentrate on activities that showcase your brand, products, and messaging.

Increase Reach: Increasing your reach will be vital in adding new potential customers to go from scroll pause to purchase.

Entertain for a Scroll Stop: If you want to integrate yourself with potential new holiday customers, you need to give bite-size entertainment to get them to stop their scroll, pay attention and remember your name. Entertaining content does this best. 

Social Channel Zhuzhing: If you want significant results from your accounts, you will need your accounts in their best condition. Concentrate on Zhuzhing things like irrelevant hashtags, poor engagement rates, and images that don’t perform.

Reels: The key for September and October is to build brand awareness, and nothing builds this faster than reels. Make it a goal to post at least one reel a week from now until Halloween. 

Pins: If you are selling products to a female demographic it’s time to resuscitate your neglected Pinterest account by checking for dead links, and creating fresh pins.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all of this, let me help you. Snag the Kickass Holiday Social Media Marketing Guide bundle or send me an email and let's get your business on track to Kickass this holiday marketing season. 

The Future Of Still Photos On Instagram

Do you like to see pictures?

I am constantly staying up to date on all things happening behind the scenes on social media platforms.

Yesterday, I watched an IGTV from the head of Instagram, and he said, “Instagram is no longer ‘just a photo-sharing app” and went on to explain how Instagram plans to reintroduce and promote entertainment, videos, reels, and stories.

This statement about taking the emphasis off images is one that I saw coming three miles away, but it still makes me so sad.

While I do love a good video and a crazy reel, I need the still images. And feel that your business needs the still photos.

There are still people out there who need to look at something that doesn’t move from their screen two seconds later. Some people still want to look at a stunning image, study it and read the words in the caption.

The still images in your feed help capture and convey the tone for the atmosphere and ambiance you are trying to achieve when the viewer signs up to work with you or walks into your store. The still images are an excellent way to convey your messaging to your people.

If you’ve been following or been around me for a while, you know that I believe in looking at your feed as a portfolio of your work and that the other neighborhoods of Instagram more of entertainment.

Reels should be looked at as a commercial, a hook to bring the reel viewers to your feed and capture them to follow and stay in touch with you.

Stories are a great place to give that behind-the-scenes footage and access to who you are as a person or team, not just a brand, because, let’s face it, we’re all nosy.

IGTV is for you to put videos of your expertise to listen or watch as we need.

While one of the head people of Instagram is saying that they are working on taking photos, I still believe that is where your business should keep its primary emphasis. With the introduction of Keywords and the SEO implementation on the platform, I feel still photos are not going out of style any time soon.

Trusting Your Marketing In Unforeseeable Times

Each week I chat with my accounts representative at Google about the ads accounts I manage.  For the past two months we have never seen search data as it has been registering.  The peaks and valleys in the search term charts have been pretty unbelievable.  It’s been so unpredictable that even my Google rep also isn’t sure how to comprehend it and scrambling to help.  People will be searching for things in mass one day and then the next day not searching at all.

When 2020 began I was prepared for sharing content for helping you market your business during the chaos that comes with digitally marketing in an election year. The chaos that is social media, not Google searching.  

If you have been noticing that your marketing has not been converting or a significant dip in website traffic, your business is not the only one.  It can be frustrating when your marketing is not converting but this does not mean you should stop all of your marketing efforts.

Marketing your business is a marathon that is based on know, like, and trust.  The way to ensure that you are helping potential clients or customers know, like, and trust you is to keep consistently posting to both social media channels and the blog on your website. 

Each day is unpredictable but remaining consistent in your marketing shows that your business is serious and in this for the long haul. We are going to be in this situation for the foreseeable future, it is time to brainstorm and modify how we do business.

Even Google is having to modify and figure out how to accompany the new patterns of our internet searching. 

Why You Want To Focus Your Marketing On Where The People Are

Imagine Ariel from the Little Mermaid Singing, “I want to be where the people are…”  That song right now has so much context as we are sheltering in our homes.  

As humans, in general, we are programmed to be around people not isolated in our homes, and as business owners, most of us earn our living through in-person human interactions. 

In the last few weeks, we have been asked to shelter in place, practice social distancing, and modify our business to survive in a digital, little or zero actual human contact world.  I can see companies working hard to adapt to the future of a digital world. However, it can be frustrating when you work so hard on crafting the perfect social media posts, complete with a scroll stopping photo, and the catchy caption only to look at your analytics and see that it hasn’t reached anyone. Let alone the intended party of whom you posted to get in front of.

You are not alone in this. In the last few weeks, social media engagement for most industries on Facebook and Instagram has been down. When I first began to notice the dip, I deep dove into client analytics to see where if any traffic was coming from. The first steady stream of conversion was from their Pinterest accounts.

If your business hasn’t leveraged Pinterest yet or even has a presence, you are missing out on crucial conversion right now.  The migration of time spent off of Facebook has been happening for a few years now, but people are also spending less time on Instagram these days. There are a plethora of psychological hypotheses on this one, which is a topic for another time.

The other digital migration that has happened is people have been downloading the Tik Tok app like crazy.  Tik Tok is a great way to escape and watch short, somewhat mindless entertainment. If your business can maintain it entertainingly’s brand on Tik Tok, this is absolutely the time to download the app, create some content, and, if it’s well-received, begin to build a presence there. 

The point of all of this is to keep an eye on your website back end analytics because that golden nugget of data will tell you where exactly your people are.  And where your people are showing up is also where your business needs to be continuously digitally showing up. 

Social Distancing & Your Business

After 9/11, I felt called to help my country. The next summer, I went to New York and worked at a foundation that helped kids who lost someone in the attacks. While this is not the same, I feel a similar calling to help my fellow business owners.

These current unfortunate circumstances have me feeling hopeful because while I have been saying it for years, there is no better time than the present to get to work on the virtual end of your business. We are entrepreneurs, adapting is one of our most powerful personal tools. We looked fear in the eye and started our business; this social distancing thing is yet another obstacle for use to pivot through.

It makes my heart so happy that so many businesses, while closed to the public and limiting their staff, have used their adaptive, creative entrepreneur mentality and started offering local 5-mile delivery or curbside online order pickup. As a personal example, I ordered potting soil from my local ACE Hardware online. I called the store to schedule a delivery because, on their social media, they had marketed that they will deliver your order to a specified mile radius.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my opinion on all of this is it will be the new way that small businesses will have to adapt to survive after we've flattened the curve and can go about our lives a little more freely. If anything is this just going to make that giant same-day delivery service located in Seattle more substantial. Your business will need to adapt now to flourish in the future.

Since I trust my gut on almost every decision that I make, I have decided to offer a few of my services at a significant discount. I've decided to provide this ensures more independent businesses come through on the other side and have a foundation started for what is to come.

Website SEO

Blog posts and back end enrich able SEO could help your business get seen right now. I am offering discounted rates on both of these services for businesses impacted by social distancing.  

Setting up a Virtual Store

I have been shouting from the rooftops for years to move parts of your business online. If you chose not to listen to that message and instead waited for a sign, this is your sign. Your product-based service can not survive today or in the future without having some products available for purchase online.

I am offering a discounted rate on loading an online store onto your Squarespace website or getting gift cards loaded on there for purchase. I also have experience setting up a Shopify store. 

Product Content Shoot

I get it you're not sure how to style your photos for an online store or social media. If your products can ship in a Flat Rate print postage from a home box, I will style and photograph them for you to use in your online store as well as in your social posts.  

I am offering 50% off of any of these packages until April 30th. For more information or to receive a quote, please contact me HERE.  

Maven and Muse Media is here to support you with whatever your digital needs are. We are going to get through this together. 

How Digital Marketing Changes In An Election Year

2020 is quickly approaching, and we are all most likely up to our knees for business planning for next year. One unique thing about next year is that it is also an election year, and election years can throw a wrench is business digital marketing campaigns. 

2020 will be my third election cycle as a digital marketing professional, and up until 2016, everything went pretty much as predicted. Candidates bash each other, supporters of said candidates share opinion pieces about the rival, yadda yadda. However, shortly after the New Hampshire primary in March of 2016, I watched the client’s customer bases leave Facebook with the droves leaving the night and day following when we learned who the nominees were. These people also did not log on or interact again on Facebook until well into 2017. 

At that point in 2016, it was just Facebook where the political advertising warfare was raging among the masses. Instagram was pretty much unaffected by the political advertising machine. Instagram, we were still seeing plenty of dog and latte posts with somewhat positive captions that the masses were even interacting with and again somewhat purchasing from businesses.  

The sales trend for purchasing non-essential products and booking services stayed statistically low, as is predicted during an election year. During election years, statistics show that consumers are more conscious of how they spend their money and are more apt to think twice before purchasing because the outlook financially for the next four years is uncertain.  

However, once Facebook jumping began, marketing plans were altered, and email marketing, SEO, and Pinterest became the focus. Which with these changes, businesses’ monthly marketing statistics stayed consistent as non-election years. People are not going to leave the internet because we live here now. People are, however, going to avoid places on the internet that suck for them. 

If Facebook and Instagram are the only marketing platforms that your business is focusing on, I’m sorry to tell you, but in 2020 they could let you down hard. Facebook has already said that they will not filter and will allow all kinds of political ads to be run. Since late September, I have already seen a dozen or more political all sorts of ads popping up on Instagram. This makes me believe that once the Iowa caucuses happen, Instagram will also become penetrated with ads, influencers, and those dogs and lattes photos we all love will be captioned with political comments. At which point, the cycle of leaving and logging off of social media until November 2020 will begin. 

With all that said, the key to running a successful digital marketing campaign during an election year is to be prepared for anything and focus on areas of directly connecting with customers via their inbox and their searches. What worked well for one month could very well not work the next month or as soon as the news cycle is updated. If this election is anything like 2016, we are all going to be opening up our apps to the wild world wide web together. 

Without The Likes, How Will I Know How My Social Media Post Is Performing?

The news of Instagram removing likes is mainly old news now. When the news first broke that the likes were going away, I surveyed my stories asking how people felt about it. Were business owners ecstatic that the like factor was going away, or were they upset that the likes would no longer be visible? To my surprise, it was a 50/50 split on how they were feeling.

The buzz around the likes was happening as I was sitting down with clients to discuss 2020 digital goals, and I kept getting asked the same two questions in different ways. Since you might have versions of the same issues, let’s discuss them now. 

“Without the likes, how will I know how my competition is doing?”

This is a loaded question because the likes on a social media post are not a direct correlation to how your competition is performing financially. I’ve said it before, and I will keep saying it, popular does not always pay the bills. I have known businesses whose accounts do not have the coveted 10k + following and are killing it in their bank accounts. And I also know businesses accounts with thousands of followers who are struggling to make ends meet. Tracking how your competition is doing based on the follower counts or likes on their social posts is irrelevant. You can never honestly know how your competition is doing or if they are financially your competition without seeing their profit and loss statements. From a marketing standpoint, stick to analyzing how your content is doing. Track your analytics and mindfully share more of the content your audience is telling you that they want from you. Your only actual competition should be striving to be better financially than where your business was last year at this time. 

“Without the likes, how will I know how my post is performing?”

The public might not be able to see your like count, but as the account owner, you still can while likes are one of the last things that should concern your marketing efforts I completely understand why they are essential to you. It feels good to know that people took the time to double tap on your post; however, to track if your marketing efforts are truly effective, you need to focus on conversion. The important statistics to you should be the conversions from social media to your website, sharing your post on their feed, or the conversion of someone reading and commenting or sending you either an email or direct message. Consider this, when you are out networking or selling your product in person, you are primarily marketing yourself. At these events, you can hand out all the business cards that you own, but the only way to be sure that someone ever really “sees” or “hears” you is if they convert that information and reach out to you on the contact information on your business card. 

Fighting an algorithm day in and day out is frustrating and exhausting. I completely understand that, however, the removal of post likes is not the end of the world. Likes have never paid your bills. Sure, clients/customers have liked your posts, but what made them a client/customer was clicking on your website to purchase a product or sending you a message to book your services. Look back at which post-converted them to click and be in direct contact with you, and keep doing more of that.  

Continue putting your best stuff out there, and remember that these are FREE platforms to use. We could all still be in a time where to be known or seen we would have to pay for an advertisement in a magazine. However, that’s a topic for another time.  

The Struggle To Write A Social Media Caption

Every time I meet one-on-one with a business owner, a consistent struggle comes up one way or another, the effort to write a caption for social media.  

Many times I have heard, "I write something I hate it, I delete it, I write again and delete it. Get frustrated and don't post at all." OR "I'm afraid that whatever I post is going to screw everything up."

I get it; I'm right there with you, and I want you to realize that you are not alone in this. Somedays I also struggle with what to write on my social media because I'm so inundated in the updates on social media that somedays it is the last thing that I want to talk about. I realize that you are all here for those tidbits that you otherwise don't know and how to make those platforms work for you and not against you. Just like your clientele does not know everything about your industry or your product, they are looking to you to educate them on what you have to offer. 

You aren't going to screw everything up unless you write something hurtful to another person that gets shared and goes viral. Does anyone remember the tweet that blew up Justine Sacco's life? Writing things like that is what is going to screw everything up for you. 

Here are a few tips to help you through the captioning anxiety:

1. Remember that people read your captions in their tone, not yours. The tone confusion can happen if you are not posting a video, or they have never interacted with you in person to get a grasp on how you communicate IRL.

2. Learn how your target market communicates both on and offline and work on ways to communicate with them that way.

3. Findings have found that our attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Get to the point quickly or risk getting scrolled past. Write what you want then go back to edit to make sure you've gotten to the point.

4. Tweet how you want to be tweeted at or about. Every post you put up and comment response is a reflection of you and your business's customer service culture.

5. Be yourself. Write in a way to the person that if you meet a follower or customer IRL, they feel like they already know you once you begin talking.

Finding your business's voice takes some time, effort, trial and error, but I am confident that you can do it.