Metrics that matter: discovering the KPIs for your social media strategy
Are you ready to unlock the secrets to turning your social media presence into a profitable powerhouse? Join me on this episode of Process to Profitability as I dive deep into the world of social media metrics and strategies with the brilliant Andréa Jones, a renowned social media strategist. Together, we'll explore the five key performance indicators you need to look at, uncover the algorithm's secrets, and learn how to effectively engage with your audience. Plus, Andréa shares invaluable tips and real-life examples that will have you re-evaluating your social media game. If you're ready to take your business to the next level, don't miss this episode of Process to Profitability!
Timestamps:
[00:01:39] Meet Andréa Jones
[00:03:51] The importance of metrics in social media marketing
[00:05:45] 2 things you need to have before creating a social media marketing strategy
[00:08:01] Your marketing journey will vary depending on your service and client
[00:09:39] The KPIs you should be considering for your social media
[00:16:36] How to decide which KPIs are most important for your business
[00:18:20] How to measure your KPIs
[00:22:03] Creating a social media marketing strategy that aligns with our KPI goals
[00:27:49] Look at yearly and industry trends
[00:29:54] How you should approach new platforms
[00:33:38] Connect with Andréa
Key Topics:
The importance of balancing key metrics for social media content success
Understanding the algorithm and its priorities in order to maximize engagement and reach
The significance of knowing your own metrics and understanding your audience's preferences
The value of regularly assessing and analyzing what content works best for your audience
How different businesses and industries approach social media strategies to achieve their goals
The emphasis on tracking and analyzing social media analytics on a monthly and annual basis
The need to adapt to changing trends and diversify platforms for continued success
The importance of aligning content with specific goals and the different steps in the sales process
Resources:
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: If you have been trying to figure out how to make social media work for your business, and maybe you've been trying to follow some of the metrics, but you're really not sure what you should be paying attention to or how that impacts your social media strategy, this is a great episode because my guest, Andréa breaks all of that down and talks about KPIs, key performance indicators, and what we should be looking at for social media when we are evaluating what kind of marketing strategy we want for our business.
[00:00:33] Andréa and I talk about what you need to have in place before you start a marketing strategy, and then she shares the five KPIs that you can consider and should be thinking about in your business. We also talk about how you can pick which ones that you want to really focus on right now and what that means for how you put together a marketing strategy.
[00:00:57] I also ask her a question at the end about what we think about new social media platforms that are coming out, including Instagram Threads that released a couple of weeks ago, and what we need to be doing with those platforms and those new shiny objects as business owners.
[00:01:15] Andréa Jones is the social media strategist, helping brands with bold personalities, bold opinions, and bold ideas make bold moves towards elevating their thought leadership and growing their business using the power of social media. Ready for a light on your approach to social media, no heavy listing required? Reach out to her at onlinedrea.com or at onlinedrea on Instagram.
Meet Andréa Jones
[00:01:39] Samantha Mabe: Hi, Andréa. Thanks for coming on the show today.
[00:01:43] Andréa Jones: Yay. Thanks for having me back.
[00:01:45] Samantha Mabe: I'm super excited to have you back and for people who haven't listened, 'cause it was years ago that you were on the show. We did an official intro, but can you give us a little bit more about your business journey, especially since the pandemic and all of the stuff that has changed in the last couple of years?
[00:02:01] Andréa Jones: Yes. So much has changed. We were just joking, it feels like a decade, but so I'm a social media strategist. I work with my clients and offer done for you services. That's still my primary source of business, but I also teach in the Savvy Social School, which is my membership program, the same strategies that I apply to my clients.
[00:02:22] I work a lot with founders, entrepreneurs, business owners who have big personality behind their brands. Usually they are the face of their brands. So the strategy tends to be specific towards that.
[00:02:35] And since the pandemic, my business has actually grown quite a bit. March, 2020, April, 2020, things tanked. I have a few clients who were in the event space who can no longer host their live events. But very quickly after that, things sped up because after sheltering in place, which was supposed to be for a couple of weeks and extended way past that, everyone turned to online connecting. So my world grew very rapidly because a lot of people were learning how to network and be in community in, in digital and virtual spaces.
[00:03:11] So over the past, three plus years things have grown quite a bit. I grew from a team of, I think we had five or six people, now we have 13, so I've been learning a lot.
[00:03:24] In tandem with a lot of social media change, changes that happen too. Things like the iOS changes for Facebook ads, which really narrowed down how you can target people on Facebook to new platforms emerging. TikTok rose in popularity during the pandemic, and now we have Instagram Threads. So things like that have also bolstered my business in, in, in a way because people need to be educated around those new platforms as well.
The importance of metrics in social media marketing
[00:03:51] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, so we're talking specifically about KPIs for social media and knowing what's working. My whole series right now is on data-driven decisions, trying to use actual numbers and data to figure out what you need to be doing in your business. And I think people forget about that for social media. We look at a follower count or we might look at, okay, I've gotten, some DMs, but we're not thinking about it beyond that.
[00:04:19] Andréa Jones: Yeah, and one of my friends told me this feels like stepping on the scale. Like we don't wanna look at the metrics because then it may show us that we're not as close to our goals as we think we wanna be, or we feel like we have to weigh in every week or month. So I totally understand that feeling.
[00:04:37] And how I usually challenge business owners to think about this is, first think about your goals and then take a look behind the scenes to see if what the actions you're taking are meeting your goals. And so you may be surprised by which content pieces perform well or which don't based on those goals.
[00:04:57] So there are five different categories of metrics that you can look at. And usually I tell people to choose one to three of these and then start tracking them once a month. Take a look and see, how is that working for you? But then also take a look at the content you produced this month and say, did it feel good to create this?
[00:05:17] For instance, in 2022, my top post was me announcing that I was pregnant.
[00:05:23] Samantha Mabe: It always is, right?
[00:05:24] Andréa Jones: I can't reproduce that and nor do I want to. One of my boundaries is not sharing my daughter on social media. So for me, I know that would work, she's freaking cute, people would love her. And it doesn't feel good to me personally to do that.
[00:05:37] Taking a look at the numbers, yes. But then also taking a look about okay, how did this content feel for me and my business goals?
2 things you need to have before creating a social media marketing strategy
[00:05:45] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, so before we get into what those metrics are and maybe what people should look at, let's start by talking about the foundational things that business owners need to think about before they are really starting a marketing strategy. And before they're starting to look at these numbers to see if they're working. What do we need to have in place? What do we need to consider before we dive into all of this world of social media marketing?
[00:06:12] Andréa Jones: So there's two things that I like to look at here. I call them the next step and the last step. It's a sales funnel, if you're familiar with that language.
[00:06:20] But the next step is, if someone were to come across your LinkedIn or your Instagram or your Facebook page today, what's the next step they would take towards becoming a client or customer?
[00:06:31] So thinking about that next step could be very helpful because oftentimes we go straight to the last step, which is selling our thing. So if it's a service-based business that's selling your services, if you have digital products that selling your products.
[00:06:44] But before someone signs up for your services, oftentimes there's a process in place. Do they want a consultation call? Do they wanna look at case studies? How do they learn to trust you as a service provider? Typically that's what we're talking on social media versus the very last step, which is like, buy this thing.
[00:07:02] And so before you start looking at your social media strategy and kind of putting those metrics in place, it's important to understand the next step that people will take.
[00:07:11] And the last step, and I do like to think of this as dating. I probably used this analogy on the last episode as well, that we did together, but I love it because dating has timelines that are so different for every person, for every couple, for every individual.
[00:07:28] Some people you meet, it never goes anywhere. In fact, most people you meet probably never goes anywhere. But then you meet that person and sometimes you go on five dates and you're committed, and sometimes you need a date for years before you're like, oh, this is my person. Some people are like, they make eye contact and they're like, Oh, this is it. I'm done. And some people are like, I don't know. Let me meet your parents first.
[00:07:47] So you know it, the timelines are different and so that's also something to think about with this next step, last step strategy is it's not always linear and it's gonna be totally different for every single person.
[00:08:00] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Your marketing journey will vary depending on your service and client
[00:08:01] Samantha Mabe: And I've heard a lot of my clients say that they've been following for years before they ever reach out to working with me. Sometimes they'll get on an email list or they'll listen to the podcast, but like people in my service are generally not going to jump right on to working with me the first time they stumble across what I offer.
[00:08:22] Andréa Jones: Yeah. So do you find that your people usually do like podcast or email before working with you? Or how, what is that process like for you?
[00:08:33] Samantha Mabe: Usually they, if they find me from a referral, then they'll go and listen to my podcast or sign up for my email for just a couple of weeks, and then they'll reach out.
[00:08:43] If they're not a referral, then they've usually done one or the other, and I can see like they're engaged, they're opening, they're listening, but it can still take quite a while before they finally reach out and are like, okay, now I'm ready. Now I feel like I have all of the information about you, but I'm also in a place with my business that I'm ready to invest.
[00:09:05] Andréa Jones: Yeah. Yeah, same. And it's like I was looking for an accountant recently and I found someone on Instagram, but then immediately signed up for her email list and like she's on my vision board. I'm like, okay, this is happening one day.
[00:09:19] And so I feel like there's a lot of people who do that where they're not ready to commit today, but they love and appreciate that relationship with you.
[00:09:28] And so while social media can be the beginning of that relationship, like swirling them deeper into your ecosystem usually goes in tandem with the social media strategies that we talk about.
The KPIs you should be considering for your social media
[00:09:39] Samantha Mabe: So let's get into the data part of this. Maybe we should explain what A KPI is first, and then what are the ones people should consider tracking for social media?
[00:09:49] Andréa Jones: Yeah, so KPI, key performance indicator. This is what you're looking at to say, huh, did this strategy work?
[00:09:57] So before I get into that too, I will also say when you're setting out your social media plan, when we talk about these KPIs, we want each piece of content to match with one of the five KPIs, and typically it does. And if it doesn't, you may be sliding into influencer territory. Okay. So Influencers just want as much attention as possible. That's what their currency is: attention.
[00:10:21] As business owners, we don't necessarily just want people looking at us, otherwise we just dance in a bikini, right? We want people who would potentially buy from us. So that's where these go from.
1. Community growth
[00:10:31] Andréa Jones: The first one is community growth. Okay? Community growth. And this is followers. Some platforms like YouTube, you may see subscribers. But these are people who are raising their hand and going, oh, I found you and I wanna keep up with your content.
[00:10:49] But it's only one of five and people tend to get stuck here because, It's so public, everyone can see how many followers you have. But oftentimes when I ask my clients and they say, oh, I feel like I'm not growing well, where did you start? And they go, I don't know.
[00:11:04] And so even if you feel like you're not growing and you wanna measure community growth, once a month, I like to do this on the first of the month. Go look at the, your platform of choice and just write the number down. It doesn't have to be too complicated. You don't need a spreadsheet. Just write it down so you can actually see if you're growing.
[00:11:19] You may be growing. Maybe it's only 10 followers a month instead of a hundred like you expect, but that growth is substantial. And think about like 10 new people discovering you every month. That's still huge, right? So that's the first one is community growth.
[00:11:35] Samantha Mabe: I love that you mentioned 10 people is still like 10 people that you're impacting that you probably would never meet in real life. And I think we underestimate that a lot of the time.
[00:11:46] Andréa Jones: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think too, we look around at what other people are doing or competitors. I can promise you they have teams of people helping them. So if you're the one woman show one person show like you're doing amazing.
[00:12:01] Samantha Mabe: So what's the, some of the other ones that you recommend people think about?
2. Impact
[00:12:06] Andréa Jones: Okay, so the second one is impact. Okay? And this one is great for those of you who maybe you're not seeing a lot of follower growth, but you wanna reach more people. So we're looking at metrics like impressions, we're looking at reach, we're looking at video views. Okay? So how many people are actually consuming our content?
[00:12:27] And this is super important for discovery placements. Like Instagram reels or Facebook reels, because those placements are designed to go out to people who don't follow you.
[00:12:37] So if you are not seeing your follower number growing, let's take a look at impact, right? How many new people are you reaching with your content? And both Facebook and Instagram will show you that in the data. They'll show you how many people saw this post, who are following you, and how many people saw who are non followers. So this is super important, like if community growth is part of your goal looking at impact is great.
[00:13:02] Video views also on platforms like TikTok, are way more important than followers. Okay, so TikTok is designed for discovery a hundred percent. You can follow people, but that's not really the point of the app. If you wanna be successful on that platform, looking at impact is the key there. So how many people are discovering you consistently.
3. Engagement
[00:13:21] Andréa Jones: The third metric is engagement. So this is likes and comments. So when we're looking at a post, how many people are liking, how many people are commenting? But also hidden metrics like shares and saves go under this category as well.
[00:13:35] So on Instagram specifically, people will share your posts to their stories. It's kind of part of the atmosphere of the app. So if people are sharing your posts to your stories, then now take a look and see how many non followers are looking at that post. So your impact is increasing as people are engaging with it even more.
[00:13:54] Engagement as well to me can be challenging depending on your brand. So I work with a divorce lawyer for instance. People don't usually follow or comment. But they're saving. Okay? So they see her post, her video about, how do you negotiate a certain thing when you're going through this very challenging time. Oh, they're saving that for later. So for her, we look at saves specifically shares too. Even if they text that to someone, it shows up as a share as well.
4. Intent
[00:14:25] Andréa Jones: So the fourth metric to look at is intent. Okay? So we had community growth, impact, engagement, and intent. So intent is someone kind of getting closer to converting. Okay?
[00:14:39] So specifically on a platform like Instagram, we're all saying click the link in the bio, right? Click the link in my profile. How many people actually even went over to your profile to begin with?
[00:14:51] You can look at this on the post level, and you can look at this on the account level as well: profile views. So profile views also on LinkedIn and on Facebook and on TikTok actually, you can look at so how many people left your post and then went over to your profile to learn more about you? They haven't, maybe haven't clicked the link in the bio yet, but they're taking that next step.
[00:15:15] Measuring this will be helpful to see where people are dropping off. So if you keep saying, click the link in my bio, and no one's clicking the link, let's take a look at if people are even navigating to your profile to begin with.
[00:15:25] And if they are navigating to your profile, there's something on your profile that's a disconnect between what you said in the post and the link that they're supposed to find. Maybe they got distracted or maybe they looked at your profile and went, oh, this post isn't for me. So that's another way to see if that metric is working.
5. Conversion
[00:15:43] Andréa Jones: Then the last one is conversion. So when we think about conversions in the general sense, usually we're like, oh, we made the sale. But in social media terms, this is usually they're leaving social media to go do the thing that you're asking them to do. So they're off the platform now.
[00:15:59] And this is the hardest one because every single platform will slightly penalize you for this. Instagram wants people to stay on Instagram. Facebook wants people to stay on Facebook. So if you're linking to something else, they go, oh man, every time, Samantha posts, people are going to her website. I'm gonna show them a different post that keeps them on the page. Right?
[00:16:18] So it's a very challenging metric, but it is super important as a business owner, we definitely wanna lead people down that path.
[00:16:25] So we're looking at link clicks for this one, or tapping that link in the bio. How many people actually took action towards the thing that you're asking them to do?
How to decide which KPIs are most important for your business
[00:16:36] Samantha Mabe: Okay, so you mentioned there are five and it seems like they're in different phases of where you're at and where you want people to be. How do you figure out which ones might be the, what you need to be looking for in your business?
[00:16:51] Andréa Jones: Yeah, so typically we do need a balance of all five. So something like impact for instance, we want new, fresh people coming into our world consistently because it leads them to the other areas of the of the metrics.
[00:17:06] Engagement is great because, like I said, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, they all want people to stay on their app. So that's one of the ways the algorithm goes, oh, this person is helping us sell more ads space. So we want some posts to be focused on engagement. We want some posts to be focused on reaching new people. We want some posts to be focused on in intent and conversion. So having a balance of that content will be really helpful.
Knowing your own metrics will also impact the KPIs you focus on
[00:17:32] Andréa Jones: But knowing your own metrics will also be helpful. So I had a client who sells a like a product, like a physical products, an e-commerce store. And anytime we tried engagement posts, they just did not do well. Like asking questions, starting conversation, people were just like, I don't care. Talk about the product. So for that brand, 80% of our content was promotional in nature, like we were talking about the products, and then people would love commenting, engaging about the product itself.
[00:17:59] So it also depends on your audience as well, like what do they wanna see, what do they engage with, which is why we like to do this little health check once a month just to take a look at what actually is working.
[00:18:12] Long story short, we do want a balance of content and once we start testing out that balance of content, we wanna double down on what works for our audience.
How to measure your KPIs
[00:18:20] Samantha Mabe: Okay. And then did you have a strategy for measuring the KPIs that somebody has chosen to look at? You told us where to find them, but how do you have people keep track of those and see what's going on?
[00:18:33] Andréa Jones: So if you're just starting measuring, we're gonna start simple. Okay? We're gonna start at kindergarten level and we can graduate up to grad school and get a PhD in metric tracking one day. But if we start out PhD level, people get really overwhelmed and they get lost and they go, this is not for me.
[00:18:52] So we're starting off with just writing it down. So in the Savvy Social School we have this like little metrics planner that we give to our members, and literally once a month for 12 months, you'll write down two to five metrics that you're tracking. So you'll pick one and write it down. That's the easiest way to get started 'cause then you'll start to see trends.
[00:19:09] Then when we graduate from kindergarten, we go into using a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are great because they can start calculating percentages for you, how much you grew every single month or not in each area.
[00:19:21] And then from there we're gonna start building out reports. And at this point you probably have an assistant helping you with this because not only are we gonna track the metrics each month and the percentage of growth or decreases, we're also gonna start tracking the different posts that we're creating, specifically the posts that got the top metrics.
[00:19:42] So sometimes this is all the same, like the top post of the month was the most viewed and the most commented and the most liked and the most shared. So sometimes that happens, but sometimes there's a standout post.
[00:19:54] Once I did a post that was a hiring post. It didn't get a lot of comments, but, oh boy, people were clicking the link over to the bio. So I was like, oh, okay. So this was a standout post in link click specifically, but people weren't really liking and commenting on that one.
[00:20:08] So you wanna look at top posts in the categories that you're tracking as well. Start looking for trends there so that you can replicate them in the future.
[00:20:17] And I like to do this as a content repurposing exercise as well. So when I was pregnant I just reposted a lot of content 'cause I was way too tired. And so for me it was like going back through my reports, looking at the content pieces that work well and just straight up posting them again.
Let the data tell you which types of content to create more of
[00:20:31] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I think that's helpful to think about. It doesn't have to be the most commented post or whatever, like you're looking at the data for each one, and that's gonna tell you, if I want to increase in this area, then this is the type of post that I need to share. Or I can just share this one again if it's still relevant.
[00:20:54] Andréa Jones: Yeah, exactly. And it always surprises me which ones are the top posts.
[00:20:58] Like my client she works with women in corporate America, specifically women of color, like how to, climb the corporate ladder. Because of her industry, we started off creating these super polished, she's in her office, she's, almost like teaching, educating. But lately we've been doing really casual videos, and this week we did one in her car. She's just talking about a personal story still related to the audience, but it's like her personal story. It's not like you should do this, but it's here's what happened to me. 66,000 views, her most viewed video today easily, and she only has 2000 Instagram followers. So that's a huge win.
[00:21:36] So also like noticing what content pieces work best over time could be really helpful. And for her it's like breaking down our assumptions of what we think would work. Actually looking at the data. Okay, people want real stories from a real person in a real location. We weren't expecting that to take off. And she's this was the easiest content I could create 'cause I'm literally just sharing this story. So sometimes the easiest stuff is what performs the best as well.
Creating a social media marketing strategy that aligns with our KPI goals
[00:22:03] Samantha Mabe: So once we know where we're starting at, we have a way to track this. How do we then create a strategy for our social media that aligns with the goals that we wanna reach in our KPIs?
[00:22:15] Andréa Jones: Yes. So part of this goes into your business goals as well. So for example, if I'm working with a speaker, like someone who their whole business model or most of their business model is keynote speaking, when we're looking at social media, we're oftentimes networking with like event planners and things like that, and the social ends up being a showcase piece. So we may not see a lot of link clicks from social media. What we may see though is video views, and we may see some engagement, particularly from the audience of the speaker as well. Speakers also, part of the reason why they get booked is they can oftentimes bring their own audience to these events. So we're looking at audience growth, we're looking at things like that.
[00:22:59] So part of the metrics go into how your business is run. If I'm working with an accountant, we're looking at, oh, link clicks for sure. So we're educating and then we're like getting people closer to working with us. Usually going into an email list so that you can nurture someone from there. That overall business goal is important in deciding those metrics.
[00:23:20] And then once you have your metrics decided, then it's creating content that feeds into that. So if you decide I want more engagement and I want more link clicks, now we are creating content geared specifically towards engagement, and then we're creating content geared specifically towards link clicks. And you can mix in some other things, but those are your primary focuses.
[00:23:44] We try to mix the two a lot with business owners 'cause we're trying to run a business, right? So we want people to buy our stuff. But if we continue to ask people to leave the platform, let's say LinkedIn is your platform of choice. Every time you post on LinkedIn, people leave. LinkedIn's not gonna show your post as much. So we want some engagement, some conversation as well.
[00:24:02] So once you start doing those things, then you know, oh, if I'm posting twice a week, one post is gonna be geared towards starting a conversation and one post is gonna be geared towards maybe swirling people deeper into my world by encouraging them to listen to a podcast or sign up for my email. Okay, so that's that next step action. And that will really bring clarity to the types of content that you need to create on social media.
Tailor your strategy to the people you're trying to connect with
[00:24:28] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that's so helpful, and I think it's a good reminder that we do need to look at least two of these things, because in a service industry, like we want people to find us and then eventually become our clients. So we want them to leave the platform, but that's not what's going to get us in front of more people because we have to work within the algorithm that we have.
[00:24:52] Andréa Jones: Yeah, exactly. And earlier you mentioned referrals being a great source of business for you. I'm the same way. Like my favorite clients just, they're not on social media 'cause they need me.
[00:25:02] My social media strategy is almost entirely built on referrals. And so I want my referrals to engage with my content. So when I'm looking at who's engaging with my content I'm looking at people, web designers, branding experts, podcasting expert, like people who also serve my clients. And so the conversation is a little bit different. I don't try to talk down to them or teach them social media necessarily. It's more conversations about business in general, especially service-based business in general, like we have a lot in common.
[00:25:34] So even the conversations that you're having on social can be dictated by the goals that you have in your business.
[00:25:43] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. That is such a good point to consider is , who are you trying to reach? Are, is it your clients? And we always have to kinda realize what do they know about what we do and where can we show up and be helpful without feeling like we're talking down to them or giving them the basics? Because if they can't learn anything new from us, there's no reason for them to follow and engage.
[00:26:06] Andréa Jones: Yeah, exactly. And that's sometimes what I struggle with when I am doing consulting calls and things like that is unfortunately sometimes when I look at people's profiles, I go, I don't see why I would follow this account.
Give people a reason to follow and engage
[00:26:20] Andréa Jones: And so if you're, if community growth for instance, is one of your metrics that you're tracking, start thinking about why someone would follow your account. Why do you follow new accounts? Whose content do you like to consume? Take the like business owner marketer hat off for a second and just think like a human being, a person.
[00:26:38] Unfortunately, there's a lot of content on social media. Like I will watch cute cat videos all day. I get so burnt out on like the businessy stuff, like I can do it in small doses. So that's your competition is like you're a business owner competing with someone's cute little kitten. Like it's very challenging spot to be in. So really getting creative with your content and thinking about how your content fits in the feed is a very helpful exercise as well.
[00:27:09] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, I think that's why we see real life posts do well is because we are not feeling, people don't feel like, oh, they're talking about their business again. They wanna sell me this thing again, or teach me this. It's more of a human to human connection.
[00:27:24] Andréa Jones: Yeah, exactly. And this is why, when Instagram reels first took off a lot of my clients were like, I'm not doing that. I'm not dancing, I'm not pointing. And I'm like, dancing and pointing is working because it feels like a human is doing it. So let's take the vibe of that and do it in a different way, aka my client, Linda, in her car, right?
[00:27:43] We want that human connection. We don't necessarily crave Ooh, sell me something today.
Look at yearly and industry trends
[00:27:49] Samantha Mabe: So is there anything else about KPIs and creating a marketing strategy that we haven't covered that might be helpful for people to know?
[00:27:59] Andréa Jones: Yeah, so I talked a lot about monthly kind of reporting for yourself, but I also think there's a power in looking at this annually as well. So at the end of, we do the calendar year, but you can set it up however you'd like. A lot of platforms allow you to look back at the year.
[00:28:17] So I'll use Instagram for example. You can actually look back over two years of content and see what the top performing posts are, and you'll really start to notice trends there as well. So the posts that got the most comments, the posts that got the most shares, the posts that got the most saves, start taking a look at those and seeing if you can replicate them again.
[00:28:38] So that annual reporting is very helpful as well, just to give you that bird's eye view because we're in the weeds every single day.
[00:28:47] And then the other thing is, If you're noticing things trending downwards, take a look at industry standards. So one of my favorite sites to do this is Rival IQ. They do a lot of benchmark reporting, and they did a report on 2022 that showed Instagram engagement was down by 5% across the board.
[00:29:09] So if you're looking at 2021 versus 2022, and you're like, oh my gosh, my engagement has tanked. You're not alone. There's just way more content being produced and people are going elsewhere. TikTok was the only platform that saw an increase in engagement in 2022. Every other platform, Facebook, LinkedIn, all of them saw decreases in engagement.
[00:29:30] So part of this too, that senior level analyst, is looking at benchmark reporting and making sure you're not internalizing it, going oh, it's me, my content is doing worse. It's doing worse across the board. It's not you.
[00:29:45] So some of that is looking at diversifying your platforms and exploring new avenues like TikTok just to see, how you can level things up again.
How you should approach new platforms
[00:29:54] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. And as we wrap up, did you have any advice for people who are seeing these new platforms that have come out?
[00:30:00] We've seen TikTok, we've now we have Instagram Threads, like how do you decide if you even want to jump in? What does that look like for business owners when they see these new things come up and they're like, but I'm trying to do this thing over here.
[00:30:13] Andréa Jones: Yeah, it can be distraction overload. So I'll use Threads as an example. For most of my clients and students, I said, don't worry about it right now. Go in, claim your account, but don't worry about it. It's so untested. I've been playing around with it. The feed is a garbled mess. I like it because this is what I do, but it's not fun for most people to try to figure out a new platform.
[00:30:33] So let it get out of the infancy stage and follow your favorite marketing friend and follow their advice for how to leverage the platform. You're not an expert in that space and there's still, when I say Instagram engagement is down by 5%, that's still a lot of people that you can engage with. So it's not like it's gone down by a hundred percent, right? So there's still a lot of opportunity on the platform that you're currently on.
[00:30:58] So follow your favorite marketer friend, and then if you have time, and typically this happens once you start building out a team, then you can start playing around with new platforms.
[00:31:08] So my rule of thumb is 80 to 90% of your time should be on your platform of choice. So if that's LinkedIn, 80% of your time's on LinkedIn, the rest of the time you're taking that content, repurposing it to other platforms. Maybe you're testing out some things. And unless you want social media to be your full-time job, that, that's typically what I recommend.
[00:31:28] Samantha Mabe: Okay. I'm sure that's a huge relief for people to feel like they don't have to just jump on everything that comes in.
[00:31:33] We can go in, we can claim it. And then we can just let it sit until we figure out, okay, how is this working for other people? Does it even make sense for the way my business runs?
[00:31:43] Andréa Jones: Yeah, and listen, time is money. So if you need to hire a consultant, take a course to fast track your learning on a platform, definitely do that because you could waste a lot of time.
[00:31:54] I'll use Clubhouse as an example. I did not like Clubhouse. Y'all remember Clubhouse? You remember Clubhouse? I didn't like it. But I spent probably about five to six months deeply studying the platform 'cause it's my job. And I did create a course around it and it's some lead magnets and things like that. So I educated people on how to use it. But I was very clear that education, like I don't recommend this for most people. It's such a huge time suck and here's why.
[00:32:18] So I think getting that information from someone who has spent a lot of time on the platform could be helpful.
[00:32:26] The one exception I would say to that is baby business owners tend to have a lot more time because they may not have the clients yet. So if you do have time, you may have time to explore something, but I would still recommend exploring a more mature platform first over a new one.
[00:32:43] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. And that helps us. We don't need to listen to the influencers who have decided they can teach us about Threads after they've been on there for three hours. We really need to find somebody who understands what we're doing as business owners to learn from.
[00:32:58] Andréa Jones: Yeah. And someone whose values matches yours. I alienate a lot of people sometimes 'cause I don't, I'm not there on weekends. I don't have notifications turned on. I have really strong boundaries around social media.
[00:33:10] And if you want like a marketer like, let's say Gary Vee, who's like posts everywhere all day, all the time, go follow Gary Vee. If you want someone who's more, Hey, I'm figuring out how to make this work for me. I'm not just posting everywhere all day, all the time, find your marketing friend whose values align with yours, and then it'll help you in deciding, you know, how to spend your time in marketing.
[00:33:32] And that goes for anything, not just social media too, like email marketing, web design. Find the people whose values align with yours.
Connect with Andréa
[00:33:38] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that's so important. All right, so if people want to learn more about what you do and see how you approach all of this, what's the best place for them to connect?
[00:33:49] Andréa Jones: Yes. So I'm, I am on all social media, but hint, hint, my team does a lot of
[00:33:54] things. People are like, you're everywhere. I'm like, I'm not. So I'm everywhere at online, Drea online, d r e a. And if you like podcasts, check out The Savvy Social Podcast. You can find it on all the podcasting apps. We release new episodes every Tuesday.
