Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 188 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love to you take a screenshot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/188

This week’s episode is sponsored by Melbourne Innovation Centre and their Digital Solutions Programs.  I’ve been involved with Melbourne innovation Centre as one of their mentors and workshop hosts for about 3 or 4 years now, so I was pretty chuffed when they wanted to sponsor my podcast for a few weeks.

So, if you live in Victoria, listen up!  Melbourne Innovation Centre has subsidized programs to help you if you are struggling to reach new customers and struggling with digital marketing.

Join for just $44 and get access to 3 hours of mentoring with a mentor of your choice, access to weekly training, workshops, masterclasses, webinars, online courses and much more.

Like I said, I am a mentor for this excellent program, so you can choose me and we can work together to discuss all your digital marketing needs. 

Sign up today by visiting: courses.melbourneinnovation.com.au or via the link in the show notes.

So, today I titled the episode the number 1 reason why your social media isn’t working right now and although this reason might not be the ONLY reason, it is a massive reason for many.

And the reason is that you aren’t listening to what they are saying!

“They” being the people who control these platforms because news flash – that simply isn’t us!

Did you listen when Instagram back in June 2021, said that Instagram isn’t a photo sharing app anymore?  Or are you still predominately sharing photos?

Did you embrace Reels or are you still ignoring them with great gusto?!?!

Instagram bosses announced in December 2021 that they would “rethink” what Instagram looked like in 2022” – and if you’re on Instagram a lot – you will have seen many many changes already on the platform, but my prediction is there is much more to come.

In 2018 Facebook’s Zukerberg canned content and told us that content was no longer important – they made it all about interactions, and community and really went all-in with Facebook groups – encouraging us to grow our own communities on Facebook, meaningful social interactions!

So, are you still ignoring Facebook groups as part of your marketing strategy?

Are you still producing content and linking out of Facebook with that content and wondering why there’s no interaction, no love, no algorithm given to it?

Are you still being promotional on your own Facebook Page and expecting that it’s ok – that another business (Facebook) will let you grow your own business for FREE?

It’s time to rethink.

Oh, and at the time of this recording, Elon Musk just purchased twitter!  Good, bad or indifferent, if Twitter is the place for you to interact with your clients and prospects, you better listen up for what’s changing, for what’s happening, what’s being tested and measured and change your Twitter habits in conjunction with the changes, or you will lose what you’ve spent thousands of hours building – just like on Facebook and Instagram.

Yes, I will admit, it totally sucks that these platforms have us performing like monkeys. 

“If you want the banana, do as we say” – but that’s the reality of business in 2022 as far as social media goes.

We want the banana – the algorithm, we have to perform in the way they want us to.

It’s a little dark, I know, but I am always looking at that building or that car going past or that flyer that comes across the desk that has the big blue F for Facebook on it.

It’s genius to think that Zuckerberg created a business that we are all promoting for him and not only promoting but driving traffic too – it’s the golden egg business, isn’t it?

I guess when it comes to social media marketing, it’s important not to scratch the surface because who knows what it we might find!

So, it’s time to rethink the way we use organic social media, because it’s getting harder and harder and what worked once and what you see many many people doing, simply isn’t working anymore.

Now, I don’t have the answers – sorry!  But I am always testing and measuring things – so perhaps it’s time for you to embrace some test and measure theories too!

Let’s take Facebook for instance.

Instead of putting up a post with an external link in it – put the link in the comments.  Did that make a difference with reach or engagement? Test and measure.  Try new things.  Try out different ways to get engagement and traction.

STOP trying to grow followers.  PLEASE stop trying to grow followers as a metric of your success.  No one – literally no one cares. It’s a total vanity metric.  Useful for grants, awards and vanity.  Not much else.  (Although I will say that Facebook did announce last year that people with over 10,000 followers on Facebook would get new features – I am yet to see that happen – just FYI).

So, unless you have a good reason – such as new features – to grow your “number of followers” – stop looking at them and above all stop concentrating on them.

Now Facebook might not be about numbers but it is about numbers!  HA HA – stick with me here.  It’s not about the number of people who like or follow your page but getting engagement – getting brand exposure – it is about that number.

A very very small percentage of people will ever go to your Facebook Page – doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be up to date, but very very few people will ever go there.

They will see your content in their feed.  You will reach them, keep top of mind with them, in their own feed.  You have to produce content that gets them there.

As many of you will know, I have a Facebook group called Buy From a Bush Business.  It has over 360,000 members.

I can’t tell you the stat of how many people would click that group and go there – but I can guarantee you that MOST sales through that group won’t happen in that group.  They would happen in the consumer’s feed.  And yet know matter how much I try to explain this, I still have people fighting about who’s up the top of the group. 

It’s not the point.  It’s not who’s up the top, it’s whose feed are you getting into.

The idea for organic growth, for organic sales has to be to get into someone’s feed – aka the algorithm.

We need the algorithm to LOVE us more.

How do we do that – well, again, I don’t have the exact answers, but here’s what you should be doing:

1. Creating amazing content. If you want engagement – think of a question that you can ask your audience, such as “When did you get your first job in retail?” and use the background and text, square thingy – I really don’t think it has a name, but it’s basically when you type something into Facebook and it’s short enough to choose a background – hope you know what I mean.  If not head to the show notes at socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/188 to see an example

              Absolutely NOTHING to do with selling, but everything to do with brand awareness and engagement. 

              The science as far as I am concerned is to get engaging content in front of a wider audience once a week which then will hopefully put other content, with a different strategy, like sales, in front of them too – by in front of them I mean into their feed.  Try it for a month or two and let me know what happens.  Test and measure.

2. Try links in comments rather than in text or caption. Test and measure.
3. Focus on video. Focus on video.  Stretch yourself, do video.  Go live once a week.  Do reels – you don’t have to dance and sing, but you do have to do reels.  Do story videos.  In February 2022, the headline was “Zuckerberg tells staff to focus on video” – read the signs, listen to the signs, act accordingly.

My last two pieces of advice, because I don’t want to overwhelm you on one podcast episode is to make marketing a priority and consistently try new things!

What’s that saying “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got” – Nuh Ar – not on social, do what you’ve always done and you’ll get zip.

Really try to understand the beast you are working with here.  Organic marketing on Meta owned platforms is almost dead.  Posting photos only is dying quickly and ignoring video is at your own peril.

If you feel like you are already behind when it comes to marketing, remember, when is the best time to plant a tree, 20 years ago, when’s the next best time – TODAY.

Change your marketing strategy and marketing mindset today.  If you want to use these platforms to grow your own business, then you need to watch for trends, follow the people who are in the know about changes and make the changes that are sometimes whispered in our ears to help us grow our businesses.

Let’s continue the chat in my Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group – you can join on Facebook if you haven’t already.

Oh and talking about my Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group – I have some amazing guests coming in there to do lives with me this year.  I am super excited by this.  From finance experts to PR and marketing experts (besides me) to Law experts – they are all coming on to give you their time and do some Q&As with the group.

Another amazing reason to come and join that community!

But, that’s it for another episode of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Remember you can find the links in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/187

Thanks to the Melbourne Innovation Centre and Digital Solutions Program for supporting           this episode today! If your business is based in Victoria, don’t forget to check the program out by visiting: courses.melbourneinnovation.com.au

You can join for just $44 and get access to 1:1 mentoring with either myself or select 50 other digital marketing gurus from across the State.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 188.  But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!