Welcome to episode 395 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
Alright, it’s the first Tuesday of the month and you know what that means. That means there are three things I want you to know right now. Right now. And we’re going to talk about these three things because they are critical for you to know.
If you want to know the latest and greatest and all the things you need to know without having to wait until the first Tuesday of the month, the best place to be, of course, is Hit the Mic Backstage. This is a membership community focused on accountability, action, and giving you the information you need. No more, no less. We actually just built a new section in our private forum called Accountability where you can actually share, hey this is what I’m working on, hey this is what I’m learning, hey this is what I’m launching, hey this is what I want to commit to doing more of, or less of, and then keep us updated in your own little post-sequence. What’s happening, how it’s going, what you’re doing and get accountability and get support and get feedback and all of those things in one place. Highly, highly, highly recommend you check out hitthemicbackstage.com.
We’re also doing a live training this month. We’re actually doing two. We’ll do our monthly member mastermind on the 26th like we always do but also on the 12th we are doing this month’s training, which is a Q1 Review and Q2 Planning Session live. I sent out the email to our members on Sunday that had your homework. If you’re joining us and you weren’t already a member and you didn’t get that email, don’t worry, I will post about it in the private community, in both private communities, actually, so you’ll know what you need to do pre-work wise. It’s really just accumulating your data more than anything but there’s never been a more amazing time to join us backstage. So hitthemicbackstage.com. The really cool thing is you can join us for seven days, try it out, so you can get started today for just a buck. Super easy. I look forward to seeing you backstage. Again, hitthemicbackstage.com is the place to go for that.
Let’s jump in.
The first thing I want to talk about is Facebook Bots.
If you haven’t seen this yet, we hang out in very different circles. If you haven’t seen this yet, Facebook is putting a pause on new bot set ups. This is actually straight from ManyChat who actually, legit, is partnered with Facebook and works directly with them behind the scenes so they have an insight that is a higher caliber than what I could deliver you because I’m not talk with the Facebook bot people. So it’s coming from them. In response to the data stuff that has been coming out and, side note, this is totally my soap box-y opinion, but the unnecessary freak out that has resulted from some click bait-y versions of what is actually happening data wise, they’re putting a kibosh on bots for right now. Now if you already have your ManyChat or whatever you’re using as a bot tool … I use ManyChat. I highly recommend ManyChat. If you have that already set up, you’re good.
If you’ve been a part of the ManyChat community you may have seen some people were having issues when they made changes or when they went to log in or log out, that seems to be mostly solved, but I’m being better safe than sorry and honestly just not touching my bots for a couple of weeks. If I need to, then we’ll figure that out down the road, but if you have not yet set up your bot using your third party tool, whether it’s ManyChat or something else, then no, you can’t do it right now. It’s just not an option for right now.
They’re saying a week or two. I have no answer better than that. Also I’ll say a week or two, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being a little bit longer. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were new rules and regulations and that’s why it’s so, so important that you stay in tune with what is allowed and not allowed with these bots because, and really with Facebook as a whole, because I think what we’re going to see is we’re going to see a tightening of the reins as far as what’s cool, what’s not cool and I think we’re going to start to see lot more consequences of falling into taking some of those less than cool actions. So, following the content from a reputable tool, using a reputable tool, and connecting with sources who are teaching this like me and others, to stay in line with this stuff is really, really critical. Again, I highly recommend ManyChat. They are leading the way as far as I’m concerned. They’re partners with Facebook and they’re incredibly transparent and educational with their user base. So if you’re looking for a tool, that’s what I’d recommend. And take this time to start learning and really thinking about strategically what you want to do with a bot.
It doesn’t have to mean you’re doing nothing with it. This is a great time to start writing out what you want your flows to look like, where you want to use it, how you want to use it. Again, what the goals are of the bot and that’s going to streamline your success when you are able to get those started again.
That’s the first thing.
Number two, I want to remind you of the rule of two.
We’ve seen a lot of changes from Facebook this year, the algorithm change was a big deal in January. In February, last month, with the data information, we’re seeing people who are less confident in Facebook than they have been in the past and choosing to use other platforms instead. What I think is funny is they’re all choosing to use Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook, but that’s a whole other, again, that’s a whole other conversation.
I, for one, am not just leaving my Facebook. I’m very aware of what my permissions are and what I click on and what’s happening. Also realizing that literally, the entirety of the internet is doing essentially the same thing, which is tracking what you do and who you are and what you purchase and using it to drive targeted ads at you. That’s how internet marketing works. Sorry, that got a little snarky.
But that’s all the more reason to make sure you are not building out your marketing in one place. So when we talk about the Rule of Twos, I’m talking about two primary networks and two secondary networks. With our primary networks, we are making sure that these are where our audiences are, this is where we’re spending the bulk of our time, this is the biggest part of our strategy. But we’re also supporting those with two secondary networks that we use a little less frequently, but again, support our ideal clients, support our messaging, are branded well, are sharing content consistently, and that’s going to allow you to be more flexible when it comes to your social media presence. If, again, Facebook disappeared tomorrow, again, I don’t think that’s going to happen but we’re seeing people who are a little less trustworthy of it, so maybe it’s time to be paying attention to what else you’re doing.
Also remember that we’re not building a house on rented land. We are working on our email lists, and our website experience. We’re not just supporting the entirety of our business from a social channel or just social channels. I’ll be honest, this is what I do for a living, but guess what? I also do a lot of networking. I also get a lot of referrals. I also am building relationships so make sure that you have a full marketing picture, but inside of your social media, specifically, make sure you’re not putting all of your eggs in one network’s basket.
Again, I do not say this to say that Facebook is going anywhere, because, quite frankly, I don’t think it is. Not right now anyways. At some point, sure, but not right now. I think they’ve been dinged up this year, but I think they’re also still a really solid option. And for people who are getting all of the actual information about this whole data thing, they have a much clearer picture of why this is not the colossal deal that’s on the click bait-y articles. Or maybe you’re thinking it is. And if you’ve more questions about that, Backstage is a great place to ask them. Remembering, this is about building pieces together to create the whole puzzle. The whole puzzle is not one network. Alright?
Number three, we’re going to talk data in a different way.
You need to be aware of what’s happening with your marketing. When we start to figure out what our Rule of Two is, what our two primary networks are, what our two secondary networks is, one of the first things I encourage you to look at is where are you getting your traffic from. I’ve been having conversations with clients lately who are convinced that they’re going to be totally screwed by the Facebook, if their communities lose trust in Facebook, because that’s where all their business comes from. That’s where all of the traffic driving to their content is from Facebook. And guess what? When we actually looked at the data, that wasn’t the case. They were getting a ton of traffic from Pinterest or LinkedIn or organic search, or other places in general.
Before you start freaking out, before you start making uneducated assumptions, look at your data, look at your numbers, look at your Facebook insights, look at your Google analytics. I highly recommend using a heat mapping tool like Hot Jar. I use a tool called True Conversion. There are a ton of them. Use whatever you want, but be sure that you are utilizing something so that you know what’s happening with your site. Don’t just set these things up, but then start reviewing them.
This is, honestly, so I work with fieryfx.com. The team at FieryFX is fantastic. They manage my two sites, so they manage The Stacey Harris and they manage Hit the Mic Backstage for updates and security stuff, but they also send me a data studio which is a part of Google Analytics report that breaks down my top traffic and I know how to use Google Analytics. I use it a lot with our clients, but I love getting this report because I forces me to look at it and go, alright, this is actually what’s happening in our business. This is actually the content that’s most popular.
In fact, up until recently, the most popular piece of content on the site was a podcast about and a link to it, a podcast about Slack versus Facebook Groups, by a lot. Now it’s starting to be more Instagram focused. We’re getting a lot of traffic around the more recent Instagram podcast episodes that we’ve done. But seriously, guys, I wouldn’t know that. I wouldn’t have that information if I wasn’t looking at my data, if I wasn’t look at my reports. If this is something that you don’t want to look at, if getting into Google Analytics is something that’s just beyond how you want to spend your time, make sure you’re utilizing someone on your team. Again, this is something Fiery Effects packages up for me and I get some time in the first week of every month and they send me a report and I can consume it and take action on it and it’s easy breezy.
Whatever you do, though, don’t ignore the data. It drives me so freaking crazy because people are like, “I don’t know what the best time to post is. I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t know where to spend my time.” Look at your freaking data. It will tell you all the things. Getting all worked up now. Deep breath. I just want you guys to know that you need to be making a decision from an educated place. You need to be taking action, not from assumptions but from facts. That’s what’s going to serve your goals short term and long term. So make sure you’re checking out your data.
If you have no idea where to get started with this, that’s why we’re talking about this in Backstage this month and that’s why I opted to do a live training versus a pre-recorded training. The recording will obviously be in Backstage so if you’re listening to this and it’s after we did the live training, the training is available for you Backstage. Go listen to it. If you’re listening to this live, well, before that date, because this is, of course, pre-recorded, then join us live for that training because we can talk about your numbers. We can talk about your situation. We can talk about what to be going through and how to make decisions based on those numbers.
Okay? Alright. hitthemicbackstage.com to join us. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community. I am incredibly grateful for the caliber of people we have involved in Hit the Mic community because you guys go and do stuff and take action. And that means more to me than absolutely anything else because that’s where the results are. The results are not in you sitting here listening to me. As joyful as that is, that’s not where results happen. Results happen from action and implementation. So go do the work. Alright? I will see you Backstage. Have an awesome, awesome day. Bye.
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