Social Stats That’ll Help You Crush the Competition (3/3)

As authors, we need to build a relationship with our audience to succeed. Marketing, after all, is about relationships! In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena talk about WHY you’d want to use social media…or avoid it completely. Whether you’re looking at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest or YouTube, there’s a social media platform in your future!

Here's something fun

Download this FREE PDF poster and hang it on your wall to remind yourself each day: YOU'VE GOT THIS!

Links:

• Post to social media FAST with our favorite social media scheduler, SocialBee, and get 20% off for LIFE with coupon code MOMENTUM20 : https://writing.fyi/socialbee
• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let’s get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com
• Statusbrew article: https://statusbrew.com/insights/social-media-statistics/#social-media-usage-statistics

Episode 41 Transcription:

[00:00:17].590] - Gena
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Gena Maselli and this is my husband, Christopher Maselli.

[00:00:23].890] - Chris
Hey, everybody, good to see you.

[00:00:25].200] - Gena
Today we are continuing a series. This is the third in a series on social media for authors. And I'm telling you, if you've missed the first two, please go back and watch them. We give you a lot of information about social media so you can narrow down which social media platform you should be using.

[00:00:47].280] - Chris
Yeah, in the first podcast, we talk about all the different social media channels and why you as an author want to be on some social media channels.

[00:00:57].700] - Gena
Not all.

[00:00:58].420] - Chris
Not all, but some. Really what it boils down to is that we are about building relationships today with our marketing, right? That's how you connect with people. That's how you get them on your email list and are able to sell your books to readers. Building relationships. Well a huge amount of relationship building today happens on social media. And so that's what we talk about in the first episode is why social media is so important in the next one in the series, which was just last week, we talked about how to choose which social media channel is the best for you and your audience. We go through the top social media channels, talk about the different demographics, whether they're more men or women or what the ages are and that sort of thing. And we really kind of dissect that. And there's some fascinating information there. And then this week, we're going to share nine amazing tips and tricks that you can use on social media for authors. We're going to jump around to some of the different channels. This is all from a statusbrew.com article that will put in the show notes that has some fascinating things that we didn't need to know about that you can do on some of the different social media channels to really make a difference.

[00:02:09].030] - Gena
Yes. And that's the thing with as an author, as a writer, as a blogger, you need to be on social media. Said that before. But you need to narrow down exactly which platform is the best one for you based on demographic, based on what you enjoy using yourself and what you'll enjoy keeping up with, based on how your people use it. So this is really it's an interesting study. This is an important part of what we are doing as authors, just getting the word out about our work. So, yeah, let's dive in, Chris, with the first one. What's the first amazing fact that we learn?

[00:02:50].170] - Chris
First amazing fact? So this has to do with Facebook. Okay, so the first impact here is about Facebook. They say that Facebook videos that have a description of about 300 characters. So pretty short description. Those can raise the engagement rates from 18% to 39%. Okay, so if you have a description with your video, you will double more than double your engagement rate.

[00:03:18].400] - Gena
Well, just a 300 character not words 300 character description.

[00:03:24].940] - Chris
If you're posting videos on Facebook, don't do it without putting some kind of description in there. You will double your engagement rate.

[00:03:33].390] - Gena
Great.

[00:03:33].960] - Chris
That's great.

[00:03:35].510] - Gena
All right, number two, let's talk about the length of those videos. Facebook videos that you really want people to engage with you. The most popular ones, the ones that have the best engagement are only two to five minutes long.

[00:03:51].850] - Chris
Two to five minutes. Statistically, they looked at all the videos and said, which ones have the best engagement? And it turned out to be two to five minutes long.

[00:04:01].170] - Gena
Now, remember, this is for Facebook. You can't just take this and apply it to any other network specifically to Facebook.

[00:04:09].430] - Chris
But if you're posting on Facebook, optimal video length is two to five minutes. So that's not really long. That's not difficult to do. Right? You can get out your phone, you can record a two minute video, and you will have the optimal length.

[00:04:22].150] - Gena
Yes. Great. That is all right.

[00:04:24].670] - Chris
The third one, if you do Facebook Live, you know what those are? That's when you go live on Facebook. And we've done some of those. Other people do those. If you do those, if you have a Facebook Live video that lasts over an hour, okay, ready for this? It will increase engagement from 19% to 86% more than four times engagement over an hour. I know why that is. So you know what that is.

[00:04:52].090] - Gena
Wait a minute. So we just said that the better video length is two to five minutes, right?

[00:04:58].270] - Chris
But these are different kinds of videos.

[00:04:59].950] - Gena
But these live videos that last over an hour increase almost four times.

[00:05:07].870] - Chris
Yeah, more than four times.

[00:05:10].180] - Gena
Why is that?

[00:05:11].230] - Chris
Well, I'll tell you the reason why it is. It's because you're going to catch more people if you're live. You're only catching the people who happen to be on Facebook. So the longer you're on, the more people you're going to catch. So there's no doubt that you're going from 19% to 86% because more people log on during the session and you're catching more.

[00:05:30].570] - Gena
Okay.

[00:05:31].170] - Chris
But it's interesting that they do say it's over an hour. So you do need to stay on for quite a bit of time to really increase your engagement a lot. And that's something to keep in mind if you're doing live videos, because if you do a live video that's 15-20 minutes, chances are you're only going to catch very few people actually live. You have to go live for a lot longer to catch them.

[00:05:52].240] - Gena
That's interesting. Okay, so now we're talking about Instagram.

[00:05:56].410] - Chris
Instagram.

[00:05:57].210] - Gena
Instagram. So with Instagram, it's the second highest used platform, and it has an engagement of 84%. 84%. So what does that explain? That statistics to me. Is that meaning that of the people who are signed up on Instagram yes. 84%.

[00:06:18].860] - Chris
No, of the people who are logging into Instagram, 84% of those are actually engaging with the material. They're leaving comments. They're liking something. They're engaging with the material.

[00:06:32].640] - Gena
I would say that's probably true. People are scrolling past. They're not just lookie loos that are going by. They're actually saying, yes, I like this. Oh, that's funny.

[00:06:40].450] - Chris
Oh, let me but that's higher than the other networks, right? That's the reason this is such an interesting statistic is because 84%, that means eight out of ten, more than eight out of ten people who are on Instagram right now are actually interacting with the material. So they're not just looking, they're interacting. So you will find that your Instagram audience is often very active, right? They're actually interacting with your material if they're seeing it.

[00:07:08].190] - Gena
I think that's probably true. Well, and I would say also that Instagram is a very emotive platform. It really works to get an emotion and kind of create an emotion in the viewers. So I can see that. 

[00:07:25].170] - Chris
That's something to consider if you're trying to find the right platform for you. But don't forget, all these things work together. So don't just go to Instagram because there's so much good engagement. Because if it's not your age group and if it's not the demographics that we talked about in the last episode, it may not be the platform for you. So you've got to be careful not to just jump into one based on one thing, but really look at it overall and see if your audience is there.

[00:07:51].150] - Gena
Okay.

[00:07:51].850] - Chris
So speaking of Instagram, they say that posts that have at least one hashtag get 12.6% higher engagement. That means you've got to use hashtags.

[00:08:02].320] - Gena
Definitely.

[00:08:02].790] - Chris
I think we need to talk about hashtags are, right?

[00:08:05].070] - Gena
Yes. And which platforms use hashtags.

[00:08:08].500] - Chris
So hashtags are primarily used on Instagram and Twitter over everything else. Hashtag. I like to look at it this way. If you were to walk into a convention center and there were a million people in that convention center, it would be nothing but a tremendous amount of noise. And that's what things like Twitter are, right? There just a lot of noise when you go on there. But the reason people don't like Twitter is because it just looks like a bunch of chaos. But that's because you're not using it correctly. The way you use Twitter is you go on and you go to the search bar and you type in hashtag. So, like, let's say you type in hashtag pirates. Right now, you will only see the conversations that have to do with pirates. It's like walking into that convention center and then entering a door that has the word pirates on it. Now you're only going to hear the people talking about pirates. It's a lot quieter and it's all built around that one single topic. So on Instagram, you want to put a hashtag with every one of your posts because that helps people make sure that they're in the right room and listening to the right material.

[00:09:17].340] - Chris
Right? And that's a great way too, to also really target your audience. Because if you just put something out there, it could go to anyone. But if you put hashtag writing, you're really going to hit the writers.

[00:09:28].050] - Gena
Okay, but it has to be you're getting in the room with other people who use the same hashtag.

[00:09:33].340] - Chris
Yeah, you can't make up a hashtag, right. You need to have a hashtag that other people are using and you can find out what those are on platforms like Hashtagify.me. That's a really good platform for discovering what hashtags are being used right now, or just by using the platform yourself. Go to someone who does something similar to what you're doing and then you can go ahead and look at their hashtags.

[00:09:56].940] - Gena
Alright, number six, talking about related Pin accounts for 40% of engagement on Pinterest. So explain that to me, Chris.

[00:10:06].490] - Chris
So let me reread that. Related pins account for 40% of the engagement on Pinterest. So when you go on Pinterest and you look up a certain topic and you find a Pin that you think is interesting, they're also going to show you related pins, other Pins that are similar, similar topics, similar look, all that sort of thing that draws 40% of the engagement on the platform are the related. Okay? So again, it's kind of like the last one we talked about hashtags you want to be sure you're using on Pinterest. It's not hashtags, it's keywords. You want to use keywords that other people are using because then your pins will be shown as related pins to their material, right?

[00:10:53].770] - Gena
Okay, great. Seven.

[00:10:57].070] - Chris
Number seven is about Twitter. This is kind of a long one, but it's interesting. This is again about hashtags. Hashtags are kind of important here. It says, research shows that tweets with hashtags receive 100% more engagement. Okay? So if you don't have hashtags, you're getting half the engagement that you would. Otherwise you could get double the engagement if you use hashtags. And using hashtags with tweets increases their engagement by 100% for an individual and 50% for a brand. Okay, so the first one was saying you have double the engagement. This one says you will increase your engagement even more for an individual or 50% for a brand. It says the sweet spot for the correct number of hashtags in use per tweet is just one or two. That's surprising. I thought it would be more. Just one or two.

[00:11:56].050] - Gena
But you can't use a lot on Twitter.

[00:11:58].330] - Chris
Well, you don't want to use a lot because you have less to write, but you could use more, right? But I've seen people using four sometimes. But no, it's one or two. If you follow that strategy closely, it says you'll gain another 21% more engagement. You can see how not using a hashtag gives you very little engagement. Using a hashtag and then using two hashtags. And if you're an individual and you do it on a regular basis, you're really going to have a lot of engagement on Twitter. It's that door we talked about, right? You're making sure people enter the door.

[00:12:31].840] - Gena
Very good.

[00:12:32].530] - Chris
That's interesting.

[00:12:33].160] - Gena
It is.

[00:12:33].880] - Chris
All right, what's the next one?

[00:12:35].050] - Gena
Okay, next one. Tweets with a GIF gain 55% more engagement.

[00:12:41].200] - Chris
Yeah, it's a GIF.

[00:12:42].040] - Gena
I think that is a debate. That is the debate. Is it GIF or Jiff?

[00:12:47].850] - Chris
I said GIF all my life.

[00:12:49].300] - Gena
I've said Jiff all my life, and I've been corrected, so I'm trying to correct myself.

[00:12:54].270] - Chris
What a GIF is. If you don't know where a GIF is, it's a graphic file that's animated, usually, and you've seen those online where people will post an image so that people use them in their messages on their phone and that sort of thing, but you'll get 55% more engagement with that. Here's what blows my mind about this. Couple that with the last statistic about hashtags. Now you're getting even more engagement. So you want to use hashtags. You want to use one to two. You want to be an individual. You want to use an animated GIF file. All those things will really increase your engagement. That is really cool.

[00:13:26].650] - Gena
That really is.

[00:13:27].720] - Chris
Okay.

[00:13:28].150] - Gena
Last one, Chris. Number nine.

[00:13:29].860] - Chris
Number nine is LinkedIn. Brands that post weekly on LinkedIn see an engagement rise by 2%.

[00:13:38].920] - Gena
Wow.

[00:13:39].340] - Chris
It doesn't surprise me. It's not 2% two times, twice as much engagement. It doesn't surprise me because I think the one thing you see about social media across the board is that consistency is the key. It doesn't matter what platform you're on. If you are not consistent, you're not going to see the kind of engagement you want, the kind of interaction you want, the kind of growth that you want. It's not going to happen unless you're consistent.

[00:14:05].580] - Gena
Well, and what we've seen with that is because I know a lot of people talk about consistency, but I think what we are seeing is that the more consistent you are, the more people begin to trust you and your brand. And that's what makes them want to connect with you. And that's what makes them want to engage with you, is because that impression, the number of impressions that have hit them, have made them create this sense that they know who you are and what you're about, and so they want to connect. If your message is resonating with them, then they want to connect with you. But it takes a little while to get that going and build that kind of trust.

[00:14:47].170] - Chris
Well, I'll tell you what, those are the nine. I think those are all fascinating. I would love to hear what your favorite one is of those. So if you would go ahead. If you're watching my YouTube in the comments. Put down what your favorite ones, or catch us on any of the channels on social media. We are /writingmomentum on those channels and we would love to hear what you think the most interesting one is. Or if you go another one, share with us because we think it's fascinating. Now, if you're having trouble with social media, you've probably heard us talk about Social Bee before. We love Social Bee. It's a tool that we use every day while we're recording this podcast. It's working for us right now.

[00:15:22].980] - Gena
Right?

[00:15:23].350] - Chris
And what social media? Social Bee is, is it's a social media content management tool that sends out your post to social media on a schedule for you. You can create one social media post and put it on Social Bee and it'll send it to Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and Pinterest and Twitter, right? It'll send it all to all those all at once for you over time, making your social media management so much easier. It has a lot of other things it does too. It's really great with analytics. If you're wondering how you're doing on social media, if you're jumping from channel to channel, no, they're all in one place, right? On Social Bee, we use Social Bee on a daily basis. And if you go to writing.fyi/socialbee, you will get what I'm telling you is the best deal on the internet for Social Bee. The reason I know that is because I have a coupon code that is right now still available, is you can get 20% locked in, 20% off for life. Okay?

[00:16:25].140] - Gena
For life.

[00:16:25].690] - Chris
The Social Bee is normally about $20 a month. If you sign up for the annual plan, it drops to about $15 a month. If you use this 20% coupon code on top of that, it ends up being like $12.60 a month. Is that crazy?

[00:16:40].140] - Gena
That is wonderful.

[00:16:41].520] - Chris
Way less than fifty cents a day.

[00:16:43].450] - Gena
Yes. And that coupon code is Momentum20

[00:16:47].400] - Chris
So go to writing.fyi/socialbee, use code Momentum20. It's actually on that page. And you will be able to sign up for Social Bee. They do have a free trial. You're not locked into anything, but except for that 20% off, you're locked in once they start charging. And we started using Social Bee years ago and have never stopped. We just love it.

[00:17:10].560] - Gena
And we have tried some other way.

[00:17:12].900] - Chris
I tried them all and we always come back to Social Bee, in my opinion, is the best. I just wrote about another content management platform that stopped posting to a couple of different networks because they had so many users that were doing spam stuff on there that the networks contact them and said, we're going to limit your access. Right. It has not happened with Social Bee because Social Bee is very careful. They know just what they're doing. They train their users. And speaking of training, if you're wondering how to use Social Bee. I have some training too, and just let me know you've got Social Bee and I'll send that to you. So here we go. I hope you've enjoyed all these last three sessions where we've talked about social media. I think it's been really interesting. If you haven't caught all three, go back and listen to number one and number two. It's the last two episodes, episodes 39 and 40. This is episode 41, and if you would please rate and review if you found this interesting. If you found it helpful, subscribe. If you don't want to miss any more episodes about writing and marketing and publishing.

[00:18:16].480] - Chris
And then please share this with a friend because that's how we help get the word out, right?

[00:18:20].110] - Gena
Absolutely. We are so thankful that you dropped by and hung out with us today. And so we will catch you next time. And until then, remember that we together. We have writing momentum.