Welcome to episode 374 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. All right, guys, it is November.
Like, for realsies. And we have the first episode of November hitting you, which means it’s three things you need to know. And they’re all social media focused this month. Two Facebook notes and one Instagram. I’m amped. I’m really amped. I apologize in advance for my voice. I’m getting over a cold. But the content will be good if you can just bear with the voice, all right?
All right, so let’s jump right in by saying this episode, like all 373 episodes before it, is sponsored by Hit the Mic Backstage. HittheMicBackstage.com is the place to go if you are looking for a social media lifeline. Really, a lifeline is the right word here. Because that’s where I’m doing updates all the time. Whenever networks make changes, that’s where I share them. And in December, we have a brand new, completely revamped Facebook ads training coming out. We just released in the last two months LinkedIn, YouTube, and some other really great trainings.
We also have a monthly mastermind where you get a little feel for one on one time with me, because you are the focus for five to fifteen minutes as long as you submit a question. That’s all you have to do. So join us, HittheMicBackstage.com. Again, this is your online marketing, your social media lifeline. Use it. This is how you phone a friend. I’m your friend. Cool?
All right, so let’s jump into the three things I want you to know in November about social media. Yeah? Cool? You in?
Facebook Newsfeed Changes
Let’s do this. Number one, I did a Facebook live about this, and I’ll link to it over in the show notes. But there are some newsfeed tests happening, there’s also some newsfeed changes that have rolled out. Don’t freak out just yet, but it does mean some changes are coming. Right now, they are testing the idea in six countries on Facebook of having two newsfeeds. One for sponsored posts from pages and stuff from your friends, also people who you have agreed to connect with one to one so to speak. So your profile connections. And then a second newsfeed that would actually be all about your pages. That would be the organic post content from pages.
Now, this has some people kind of up in a tizzy for lack of a better word in the English language, because they’re freaking out that their stuff’s not going to be seen. I take a little bit of an issue with that because of two things. A, Facebook has even said there are not currently any plans to roll this out globally. And B, I don’t think it’s a totally horrible thing if it got rolled out globally, to be honest with you. For one, I think it separates the kids from the grownups a little bit. I’ll be honest with you, the people who are really serving their community and getting engagement are still going to get organic traffic. The people who are willing to invest through ads are going to see an ROI on it because that content’s going to show up in the main timeline.
So I don’t think it’s all bad. I think it may also improve the user experience for Facebook users, which means their more apt to use platform that we’re trying to market them on. There’s no downside to that for us. Now, yes this will change the way we as pages show up. That’s a natural part of social media. For those of you who have spent a lot of time learning Facebook, wouldn’t you rather have to evolve the way you show up here than start over somewhere else? Right now, we’re seeing a lot of people use their Facebook page as a megaphone to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell without being of any real value, and completely for free because they can.
When we change that environment we make it so the people who are doing this well, the people like you who actually care about the people seeing the content and want to actually serve a community, they see results. They actually build a community. They actually engage. And here’s the real talk. Like unfiltered. And this is probably the moment that this podcast gets a little E next to it for this episode. I’m going to try though. Marketers have become really, really, really, really entitled. Here’s the deal guys. 10, 15, 25 years ago, if you wanted to market your business, you paid for it. You bought ad time on the radio, you bought a billboard, you bought a spot in the Yellow Pages, you paid for a bigger, brighter sign than the guy next door.
You invested in that exposure. Social media made us a little soft. We thought we could ride this out forever and ever without any investment, and here’s the deal. The pages who are seeing really massive results, the businesses that are seeing really epic ROI, they’re investing. Not just money, but time. And maybe money not just in ads, but in having someone who knows what they’re doing build them a strategy. Or run their retargeting campaigns. Or write copy for their ads. Or write copy for their content that their sharing. Whatever the case may be, they’re investing either time or money in building a platform and sharing a message on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on whatever the platform is.
So you’re a business. You need to invest in getting in front of your audience. That may be time, that may be money. In all likelihood, in 2018, it’s going to be both. Here’s the bright side. Never, ever, ever, ever in the history of the internet, 10, 15, 25 … In the history of the world rather, 10, 15, 25 years ago, has it been cheaper to market your business. You don’t have to spend, I don’t know, whatever a billboard costs. You don’t have to spend whatever a 30 second commercial costs. And here’s the even better part, you get to track the results of whatever your investment is. If that’s $100, if it’s $500, if it’s $1,000, if it’s $10 thousand, if it’s $100 thousand, you get to see numbers.
You get to target exactly who sees it. Your not playing a commercial during the evening news and hoping the right person sees it. No, you’re putting an ad right in the palm of their hand for the exact right person who’s going to have their life changed by whatever message you’re delivering to them. That is epic. That’s amazing. That’s powerful. So open up to the idea of investing, because, in 2018, you’re going to hear me talking about it a whole heck of a lot. I mean it’s, full disclosure, it’s why the Facebook ads module … Or training rather in December is a complete revamp of the Facebook ads module from Backstage. Because here’s the deal guys, it matters more than ever before.
And again, it doesn’t have to be $10 thousand a month. It doesn’t have to be $100 a day. It can start smaller than that. It can start wherever you’re comfortable. Obviously, the more you invest, the better your results are going to be. But we can start small and figure out where we see the best results, and then throw more money there instead of just sort of making it rain all over Facebook and hoping for the best. All right? All right, so that’s number one. I’m going to move on from that one. Loosen up a little, all right.
Re-Targeting Ads, don’t forget them…
All right, number two, don’t forget to re-target. I know a lot of you are running ads right now for your Fall launches, or I know a lot of people who are running e-commerce sites, and this is a big time of year for you guys. We’ve got some Backstage members who sort of, the companies and the teams they work with are making all of their money in November and December. And so if you are running ads, make sure you’re retargeting. Make sure one of those ad campaigns is a retargeting campaign. “Hey, you visited this site, and you didn’t buy. Here it is again.” “Hey, you opted in but you didn’t buy. Here it is again.”
Whatever it is. “Hey, you read some content. You want to see what’s after that? Here’s this.” Run those retargeting ads. If you don’t know what a retargeting ad is, go into Backstage, go into the Facebook training. Learn about pixels, because that’s how you do it. Make sure your pixels, not your pencils, your pixels are set up and makes sure that you are building a campaign targeted to those people. That’s absolutely mission critical. There’s no other choice. This is not optional. If you are running any kind of ad right now I want you to be running retargeting ads. Honestly, retargeting ads are the only ones I’m running right now because for me, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to run ads to a cold audience right now.
So what I’m doing is I’m running ads to an audience that’s been to the site but is not a part of my email list so that I can grow the email list so that when we launch something cool in February or March of next year, you guys can know about it. All right? So I see you’re not on the email list, you should do that because there are things coming guys. I’m excited. All right, so that’s number two. Don’t forget to re-target. Seriously, retargeting, retargeting, retargeting. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. That’s all I got for that.
Instagram Stories to Connect
Number three, if you haven’t started using Instagram stories yet, I really, really encourage you to start doing it. It’s a really fun way to engage with your audience, but there are some best practices. And we’re going to have an episode, I think we have it in the December calendar of this podcast all about Instagram stories and some best practices going into 2018. I think it’s after our social media planning episode. There are such good episodes coming for you guys in this last eight weeks of the year. I’m so excited about this section of the editoral calendar. But anyways.
But real quick, what I want you to know is give Instagram stories the same planning and strategy time that you’re giving your other pieces of content. It’s easy to feel like Snapchat or Instagram stories or Facebook stories is something that you can kind of do on the fly. You know, if I get inspired I’ll share something. But waiting for inspiration is the fastest way to lose consistency. Because it’s really hard to every day, or twice a week, or whatever it is on demand get inspiration and be clever and engaging. It’s why we preplan this show. It’s why we prerecord the show. Also, because sometimes I get sick, and then I have to record sick because I did not do a very good job executing my plan on time. Full disclosure, guys, I’m not perfect.
I know, shocking to all of you. But it’s true. But with Instagram stories, having an editorial calendar has been a game changer for me. It’s one of the ways we’re getting a lot more engagement, a lot more messages and people voting in polls and all those cool things as a result of the stories. Certainly a lot more views over the duration of the story. And realize that your stories don’t have to be a day in the life every day, and they don’t have to be all about you and your personal life. If you’re not a personal brand, that makes no sense. Give different people on your team a takeover kind of thing. Work with clients and do takeovers that way.
Share packaging. There’s a lot of things it can be. It does not have to be all about you, and your family, or your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or husband, or wife, or kids, or dogs, whatever that is. It can be a daily tip. Like a little mini two minute show. Whatever it is that fits best for you. And again, and we’ll talk more about strategy on this in the future. In fact we have a training that’s going to roll out to Backstage I think in January. Don’t quote me on that though because I don’t have the calendar in front of me. Again, all about Instagram stories, kind of now that Instagram stories have been around for awhile, and less about how to do a story and more about how to use stories.
By the way, we have lots more strategy-focused trainings coming in 2018, because after two years, we’ve kind of got the baselines of how-tos. We’ve got some updates happening here and there, but we have a lot of strategy-focused stuff. I’m super amped for 2018 guy. I’m like I’m jumping out of my skin so I can just like tell you guys all this cool stuff. Any who, so that’s the three things today, all right? You start using Instagram stories to really, really up level the way that you connect with your community. It’s a good way to get that bond, that like trust factor a little easier, a little faster. Cool? Cool. Cool.
I’m also really stoked to start testing out Instagram story ads. I’ve not done it for myself. We’ve talked about it with a couple clients who have rolled it out for themselves. But I really can’t wait to try it for myself. It’s going to be super fun. Super, super fun. Okay. I’m done now. I’m done teasing you about what’s coming. I’m done with your three things. If you haven’t joined us yet, if I haven’t convinced you over the course of this episode to join us backstage, I just don’t know what will. So HittheMicBackstage.com is the place you do that, okay? I will see you very, very soon on I’m sure a Facebook live or Instagram or Twitter. Wherever you want to hang out with me. All right? Have an awesome rest of your week. Clearly, the cold has made me delusional. I will see you guys very soon. Bye.
