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Social media engagement has tanked? You ain’t alone
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If I had a dollar for the amount of times weāve received SOSā from our beloved online community in the last 3āish months along the lines of, āhalp TDP, my reach-slash-engagement has nose-dived! What do I doooooooo?ā ⦠Iād genuinely own my own private island right about now.
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You think Iām joking, donāt you?
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Iām not.
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Genuinely the most received Instagram DM / FB comment / FB PM / email within our hello@ inbox right about now, and so because Iām a marketer who specialises in content? ⦠Iām all about turning my most frequently asked questions into content.
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This is that FAQ-come-content-by-way-of-this-here-blog-post.
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I wanted to walk you through the top x3 reasons as to why your social media engagement has tanked, and each of my top x3 reasons will have the solution to that challenge. #yawelcome, but also ⦠#yaready?
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The problem: weāre in the middle of a global pandemic.
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I actually genuinely larfād out loud as I typed that, because typing out āweāre in the middle of a global pandemicā feels so feckinā obvious ⦠but I canāt help but get the impression that some business owning folk think this couldnāt possibly impact their social media engagement and reach. As your resident content marketing specialist? Well, Iām here to tell you that it will.Ā And has.Ā And potentially will continue to negatively impact your reach for a little while yet.
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Reason being? Your people are cooked, bruh.Ā GD.Ā Especially if they hail from Melbourne.Ā 7+ months of home schoolān, anyone? ha! Whatever their individual scenarios? Theyāre absolutely pandemic-impacted > checking out from social media > crawling into bed pretty early, and generally just resting those adrenals.
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Truly.
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The solution: either decrease your content, or increase the feelgood content a little.
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So I felt the absolute shift with TDPās content within the last x3 months especially, and I most definitely noticed the rapid decline in our usual social media engagement and reach ⦠and so I actually did both oā these things, i.e I decreased our content schedule / increased the feel good stuff.
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An example of the feelgood? Right here;
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Our community needed feelgood stories, so I scoured the internet for them > presented them via this carousel > gave them a sneaky discount code on the last image ⦠and the response was wild.
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Another example of [even more] lighthearted feelgood? Right here;
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When in doubt? A lighthearted meme to speak to the obvious: our community is kentucky-fried, and could probably all go a solid night of melatonin + 10+ hours of sleep right about now, ha!
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And finally, another example of a positiveāish post that still proved to me that our community are ready for some deep-thinking [but on lighter topics that still very-much-so relate to our brand];
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As you can see here? 1k+ likes and hundreds of comments and so-very-above our usual average in terms of reach and engagement on our content. It proved to me that our community still wanna think ⦠they just want it to be a little more light-hearted than the usual industry-disruptāy kinda content that we usually share.
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The next problem: believe it or not, your biggest competitor online is now ⦠yourself vs. yourself. #lol
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Iām not even joking, ha!
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Look at Instagram, for example.Ā Youāve potentially been working so hard to build your online community there, and now your biggest competitor in terms of commanding reach > engagement > attention is you, actually.
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Youāre competing with yourself in terms of trying to meet your audience where they’re now, which is that theyāre potentially really into your IG stories instead of static content, or your IG reels instead of IG stories, or IGTV instead of all oā the above.
Long story short? Your followers are all still there ⦠but theyāre kinda here, there and everywhere now, i.e some prefer your static content, others wanna see what you got on IG reels, and then others are like ⦠gimme all the IG stories or IGTV.Ā Get what I mean? You really are competing with yourself now, which when I flip my perspective to think of it like that? Iām really into it.
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The solution: embrace the new.
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Itās genuinely time to drop the fixed mindset and that fear of change, and just roll into the new.Ā
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That might [for you] mean your very first IG story, or your very first IG reel, or your very first IGTV ⦠whatever it is, itās genuinely time to stop being so scared of all oā that social media change > drop the perfectionism > give something [brand new to you] a red hot crack.
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For me? That meant;
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The wild thing about that kinda reach? This IG reel wasnāt perfect.Ā I made it in the x5 minutes I had post-school drop-off / before my first 9am Monday AM meetings-heavy day ⦠and I was most definitely not wearing makeup etc. [truth be told? ⦠Iām a nil makeup kinda gal, ha!].
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It wasnāt polished.Ā It wasnāt perfect.Ā It clocked 16k+ views / bucket loads of engagement / incredible brand sentimentality ⦠and countless opportunities for us to retarget some oā that good stuff via paid ads retargeting if we felt like we wanted to [spoiler alert? We usually do. #lol].
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The problem: itās the end of year, and your content is fatigueān.
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There, I said it.Ā And honestly? Iām usually just as blunt-slash-honest with myself.Ā As much as monthly/quarterly, tbh.
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Again [and because I specialise in content], I am regularly reviewing the content themes I regularly lean into for TDP across the social platforms that weāre on: Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And Iām subsequently asking myself, āis this still performing well? Is our audience still into this?ā and if the answer is no, Iām very quickly dropping that content theme and innovating on some new ones.
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The solution: design new content pillars
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In the last x6 months for us, thatās looked like moving away from content themes that used to work so well for us [industry disruption, small business honesty and some other great themes Iāve enjoyed a longāish relationship with] ⦠and recognising that they were beginning to fatigue for us a little, and so subsequently heading into what I realised people wanted at this point in time: social media advice [gahd damn it, I never wanted to be another āsocial media expertā online dishing out social media advice, ha! BUT the people spoke, and I listened]. #lol.
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Exhibit A. The people wanted a video marketing challenge, so a video marketing challenge we gaveāth them ⦠and we clocked 400+ saves on this bad boi alone.
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Has this helped you? Can you relate to some of what weāve shared here? Feel like a few things apply to you here?
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Let us know in the comments below, we always love hearing from you!
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Keen to get some strategy inspiration? Weāve just opened our 2021 VIP program, which covers off on x12 different digital marketing topics over the year [we spend x1 month on each topic to really help you elevate in that space, e.g Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing, paid advertising, Google advertising, SEO etc.].
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The cost? $50 per month, and itās not just mentored learning [hosted live], but itās also weekly Q&Aās with myself or my strategy team to help you with all of your social media questions.Ā And then itās a whole lot of accountability, i.e expect us to whip crack a little [weāre gentle, we promise!] while we keep you accountable to your social media goals / new learnings etc.
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Wanna learn more? You can see all the info here.
Oh wow and here I was thinking Iād lost my touch š
Seems Iām not the only one struggling with reach at the moment!
Such good tips and they seem yes obvious and simple now you e highlighted them!
Thanks Cherie, very much looking forward to the VIP program xo
Spot on as usual Cherie and team! Itās easy to beat yourself up at times, but often the answer is staring you in the face (you just need to change your perspective to see it)!