#318: Cutting-Edge Social Media Tactics for 2024!

In my newest episode of the Blogger Genius Podcast, I had the pleasure of talking again with my friend and social media strategist, Lauren Litt, to discuss the current state of social media and what tactics you can put in place today to explode your business. It’s not about followers anymore!

Cutting-Edge Social Media Tactics for 2024! | The Blogger Genius Podcast with Jillian Leslie

Table of Contents

Show Notes:

Building Authentic Connections on Social Media

One of the key takeaways from our conversation is the importance of building real connections and relationships on social media. Lauren points out that social media success isn’t just about going viral; it’s about fostering a community and creating authentic connections with your followers. She emphasizes the marketing principles of repetition and the balance of giving versus taking, highlighting the need for consistent content and the importance of providing value to your audience.

A Success Story: The Power of a Dedicated Audience

Lauren shares an inspiring success story of a client who, instead of aiming for a vast audience, focused on a smaller group of engaged followers. This targeted approach led to a successful product launch, underscoring the power of relationship-building and engagement with a dedicated audience.

Managing Social Media Stress

We also touch on the potential stress and mental health impact of social media. It’s common to feel overwhelmed, but Lauren reassures us that it’s possible to approach social media in a manageable way. She advised starting with small, consistent efforts rather than succumbing to the pressure of doing too much at once.

The Art of Engagement: Quality Over Quantity

Lauren and I explore the nuances of engagement on social media, noting that it varies based on individual goals and content. She stresses that engagement is crucial, regardless of how often you post. For some, daily posting is necessary, while for others, like mom bloggers, one post a week with daily follower interaction can be enough.

Three-Phase Engagement Strategy

Here is Lauren’s social media strategy:

Review your profile to ensure it resonates with your ideal audience.
Respond to comments and new followers to foster a sense of community.
Reach out to ideal followers to build authentic connections.

She encouraged responding to those who regularly engage with your content, even if it’s just to express gratitude for their support.

Embracing the Personal Touch

We discussed the personal nature of engagement, with Lauren urging me to connect with those who consistently interact with my content. Authenticity is key, and making genuine connections can be as simple as acknowledging someone you regularly see on the street.

The Human Connection in a Digital Age

Lauren highlights the irreplaceable value of the human connection and personal touch in an age where AI and automation are on the rise. Creating a warm and welcoming environment for followers is essential.

From my own experience, I’ve seen the shift towards meaningful connections with followers. Authenticity and transparency in messaging are crucial for providing genuine and valuable content to your audience.

The Significance of Real Connections

As our conversation wraps up, both Lauren and I emphasize the importance of building real connections and relationships on social media, rather than focusing solely on metrics and numbers. The impact of genuine engagement and the value of showing up authentically cannot be overstated when it comes to creating a loyal and supportive community.

Exploring Social Media Platforms: Facebook’s Resurgence and Instagram’s New Features

We also discuss the resurgence of Facebook and Instagram’s new community feature as potential tools for building community. While Facebook remains a staple for live events and group conversations, Instagram’s Threads feature and the new community option offer additional touch-points for engaging with followers.

TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

The differences between TikTok and Instagram Reels were also a topic of discussion. Lauren explains that TikTok caters to shorter attention spans and a younger audience, making it a valuable platform for those targeting users under 30.

Conclusion

Our insightful conversation sheds light on the evolving landscape of social media and its implications for online entrepreneurs and bloggers. The key is to focus on authentic engagement and leverage the platforms that best suit your audience and goals.

Remember, it’s not just about the numbers; it’s about the relationships you build and the community you foster. So, let’s continue to navigate this digital terrain together, creating genuine connections and providing value every step of the way.

Other Related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes You’ll Enjoy:

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Transcript:

Jillian Leslie (00:00:00) – Hi, I’m Jillian, welcome to a brand new episode of the Blogger Genius podcast. But before I launch in, I have a question for you. Have you started selling your knowledge and expertise directly to your audience, or are you still relying on putting ads on your blog and affiliate links to monetize? Because in today’s world, that is a risky strategy. You need multiple income streams. And this is where my literary cart comes in. Imagine setting up unlimited memberships, digital downloads, workshops, coaching, and mini courses in less than five minutes. I used to say ten minutes. We just rolled out. I created sales pages. They are magic. Get on a free 20 minute call with me so I can blow your mind. And we can talk about your digital product strategy. Go to military combat. Get ready to think about your business in a whole new, exciting way.

Announcer UU (00:01:06) – Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:13) – Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show today I have my friend Lauren Litt back on the podcast. She is my social media expert. I think this is her third appearance and I wanted to check in with her since it’s the beginning of the year, since ChatGPT has exploded. Since Google search is in the process of changing, what is she seeing in social media? And what I really like about what she’s saying is that social media is about the social part. It’s about the relationships, the community, the connection. And she gives a ton of strategies on how to build real, authentic relationships so that your business grows so that people buy from you so that you can rise above the noise. We also talk about other platforms besides Instagram, like does Facebook drive traffic again? And what should we be thinking about when it comes to threads? I think you’re going to really like this. So without further ado, here is my interview with Lauren Litt. Lauren, welcome back to the Blogger Genius podcast.

Lauren Litt (00:02:29) – Jillian, I am so thrilled to be back and I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:34) – It’s fun because I reached out to you at the beginning of the year and I’m like, I need we need to touch base because I feel like you, you keep me up to date on what is happening in social media. And so that’s why I was super excited to reach out to you and connect with you. And as you know, and I’ve shared, I’m doing this experiment on Instagram, and it’s partly because of one of our last conversations where you’re like, you just got to do it, you know? And I’m like, you know what? Enough. I got to do it. And so I’ve just been doing reels. Two reels a day. Doesn’t matter. I just show up. Some are better than others, but I’m I’m just kind of flexing that muscle. I’m, like, working out. And so I want to know where you feel the world is when it comes to social media, for online entrepreneurs, for bloggers. Like what? When you take the temperature of social media right now, what are you what what’s the temperature?

Lauren Litt (00:03:37) – I think that the temperature of social media, and this is something that I believe for a very long time, and it’s becoming even more and more true, is that.

Lauren Litt (00:03:46) – Your social media is only worth the actual relationships. You’re building on it, and people need to stop thinking of Instagram or TikTok as the place where you’re going to go viral and everything is going to change in your business, because that’s not how it works anymore. It is a piece of the larger puzzle, and it is a wonderful place to build community, to actually build real connections with people because they are social networks.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:13) – So that’s that’s what I would say. And I shared this in a recent podcast where I’m like, you know, my followers. So I’ve done this for a month and I’m in my second month, I’m doing two reels a day, and then I post them on my story, you know, like the like very easy. What I’m doing and what I’ve noticed is my follower count has gone up, but not not by a ton. And then it goes up and then it comes down and whatever. Um, but the place where I have gotten the most traction is meeting new people, finding new guests for my podcast.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:51) – And so there’s this social piece, and also, just as I like to call it, putting out my vibe. What do I stand for? What do I think about when it comes to online business digital products like where it’s a it’s like a way that I can just show up in small pops but put, I don’t know, put out my my feelings of what works, what people should know. And my challenge is always, how can I do it even shorter?

Lauren Litt (00:05:19) – Yeah. Yes, yes. Um, okay, so a couple things you just said there that I want to respond to. Number one, I would love to get into the back end of your analytics because I bet you anything you are actually behaving properly. Your numbers are probably exactly where they’re supposed to be. People again, have this idea of I’m like, I’m going to get so many new followers. No, most accounts grow between 1 to 3% per month. And that is good and proper because people are going to find you, they’re going to follow you.

Lauren Litt (00:05:48) – They’re going to realize, oh, this wasn’t for me, and leave, or they’re going to realize, no, this is totally for me. I’m in exactly the right place and stay forever. So that’s one thing. Um, you also talked about, you know, putting your thoughts out in the world. This is where I think that social media can be kind of a vision board for our lives. Right. Because I had this client a long time ago. She’s a director. And we were really talking about, you know, where she wanted to go. She just landed her first television show, you know, and she was trying to build things out. And so we talked about like, well, where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing in the community? What kinds of projects do you want to be working on? And we created the content that built that life. She wasn’t lying about what she was doing, but she was saying like, oh, here’s a project that I worked on a while ago, and this is the vision of these Western films that I want to create.

Lauren Litt (00:06:38) – And here’s me on set, and here’s how I want to give back to my community. I want to be sharing what I now know, standing as a director of television with people just starting out, with women, just starting out. So she created this, um, program where she would give feedback for short films. And all of that was done through social, through creating this vision of the life she wanted, so to say, like, oh, I’m going to get on and talk about what I want. Yes. Because then people also know who you are and are turned on or turned off by you that much faster. Oh, and there was a third point of something you said, and it’ll come to me later. But yeah, but what I.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:11) – Would say that’s interesting is I realize that I have to take my thought of what I’m kind of I’m, I’m a thinker, so I’m always noodling on stuff, and I have to figure out how to translate it into, like, 10s or less.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:28) – Secondly, though, I have to figure out what the value is that I can then share with somebody else. So it’s not just like me cogitating on my own ideas. It’s like, hey, like I put out a reel today and I was thinking about email marketing and all I’m hearing from all of my guests is it is even more important today than ever. And I think about all of the bloggers I’ve had on my show. And when I’ve asked them, what is the one thing you wish you had worked on from the beginning that you kind of didn’t focus on? Every single one says email marketing growing my list. It is shocking and I believe it’s only more important today than ever. Therefore, I just thought, that’s interesting. I’m going to do a little seven second reel where I say, hey, all of the top bloggers I’ve interviewed on my podcast have all said they wish they’d done this one thing, and I tried to create that hook to go, what is the one thing? And then I said, growing their lists.

Jillian Leslie (00:08:36) – That’s it. And then if you’re, you’re saying, whoa, you’re you’re scrolling through, you see my content, it might remind you, hey. These are people who have gone before me. I want to be like them. And they’re saying, hey, if I started over, this is what I would focus on. The end.

Lauren Litt (00:08:54) – And the your answer about growing your list, right. It’s so unsexy. It’s so unfun. Yeah. Right. Like it’s just like, okay. Yeah. Growing your list. But unfortunately it is the tried and true plodding along that gets us where we want to go. And it’s the same for social media. You know, there is no like flash in the pan answer special sauce that’s going to get you where you want to be. It’s you showing up consistently over time, building relationships online. You know, we’ve talked before about how important those smaller numbers are of having a micro list. You know, of having a couple hundred or a couple thousand followers.

Lauren Litt (00:09:34) – There are there’s money there. There are people who want to, you know, download your recipe list or work with you on social media or whatever it is that you do. There are actual followers in there, and if you have a small business, you don’t need 10,000 sales, you need ten.

Jillian Leslie (00:09:50) – So we’ll buy from you again and again.

Lauren Litt (00:09:53) – Yes, yes. Creating that, you know, repetitive income. And when I’m looking, I totally changed my business this year because I last year, you know, for me, for several years I’ve been like, okay, social media is a piece of the puzzle, right? We do social media for our full service clients. We do email marketing for our full service clients. We do blogs, we do SEO for their website. We did all of these things and nobody wanted to buy into it. Everybody was like, no, we just want you for social media. And so I’ve completely changed how I’m showing up for people and that now I’m just teaching you how to do it within you.

Lauren Litt (00:10:29) – Because with ChatGPT, my theory is the algorithm is going to change because the content level is going to go up, because people are more used to using GPT to put content out. And so therefore, it’s not necessarily that you need me to create content for you. You need me to teach you how to create content that connects and how to build those connections over time. And that’s a skill, you know, that that is a skill I teach teams and people that you can then have forever. And it’s never going to change. You know, in ten years it’s going to be the same thing because you just don’t need someone to be building the content for you anymore.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:07) – Right. So here’s my.

Lauren Litt (00:11:08) – Question is take me through the.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:10) – Journey, because I’m sure there’s stuff that I’m not doing or haven’t thought about. And I’m sure people listening to this episode feel the same way, because that sounds great. Okay, so I’m going to get somebody on social media, I’m going to interact with them. They’re going to buy from me.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:23) – Explain to me when you are teaching this how you communicate that, like, what are the individual steps I need to do to put content out there, to connect with people, to build relationships, to make sales and then to make to sell to that person again. Talk to me how you approach this.

Lauren Litt (00:11:44) – All right. So number one, there’s two marketing rules that are true no matter where you’re marketing. Right. The one is the rule of seven, which states that someone needs repetition in order to be able to be ready to buy from you. It’s called the rule of seven because it used to be seven times someone needed to see something with how engaged and crazy hectic our world is now. It’s more like 11 to 12 times that someone needs to see you before they’re going to follow you, before they’re going to click that link in your bio, before they’re going to decide to be on your New Year’s or your newsletter list. Um, and the other one is what we call the 8020 rule. And that is 80% of your content is give and 20% is take.

Lauren Litt (00:12:27) – So we take those two rules and we apply them to how you’re showing up, let’s say on Instagram. Since that’s my favorite platform. Let’s talk about that. Uh, you need to be showing up consistently so that people can see you over time and decide to follow you, and then they get enough of your content to get from those give pieces into the take pieces, meaning you’re going to give them the feedback of like you need to be growing your list and top bloggers are using this tool and oh, it’s so cool to do whatever thing else for bloggers. Oh, and I have Milo Tree and it’s going to help you be an even better blogger, right? So you have to get people to trust you to understand that you have a thorough knowledge of your industry, and you’re not going to lead them down the wrong path, because at this point, we’re all very sophisticated, you know? And so if you’re just selling something, they’re going to be like, I don’t have any reason why you are the person I should be going through to for this and to speak to the history of it.

Lauren Litt (00:13:25) – It takes time. You are not going to put out a post and have someone purchase from it, but you probably. So, um, I had a client who was really stressed because her content wasn’t getting the reach that it used to get. She was used to going viral, you know, at least once a month. And we met and we looked at her back. And I noticed that she had 48 repetitive people who were always liking her content, who were always commenting on her content. So in a month, 48 people who were engaging with her and so.

Jillian Leslie (00:13:57) – Instead see that in the analytics, or was it just by going post by post.

Lauren Litt (00:14:01) – Post to post and just kind of like seeing who these people are and gathering kind of this information, right. Like really looking at it in a, in a whole way. And so instead of her focusing on the next piece of content and what that needed to say, she reached out to those 48 people and let them know she had this new thing for sale.

Lauren Litt (00:14:19) – And she’d love to, you know, send it over to them if they’d like a look. And she sold 12.

Jillian Leslie (00:14:25) – So she DM’d that. So she’s seeing these people. Is she is she before she does this and says, hey, I’ve got this thing that you might be interested in. Is she first saying, like, hey, I just wanted to check in and say thanks for commenting. No, because she.

Lauren Litt (00:14:40) – Had built relationships. She’d been doing that all along, right? She’d been putting out fantastic content that people loved. She was responding to them, you know, they had conversations. She had a relationship with these people, and she just had forgotten to be like, oh, yeah, by the way, I have this thing that’s for sale. And I wanted to invite you personally because we’ve talked about X thing. Exactly. You know, you liked the post where I was telling you about how this can change your brain, and I actually have a course on that now. So it’s that history over time and then remembering to let people know, oh, by the way, I’m in business and this is the thing I’m an expert at, and you can learn from me in this way.

Lauren Litt (00:15:20) – Got it.

Jillian Leslie (00:15:21) – So do you believe for somebody listening to this who says, oh, social media, like I tried it, it didn’t work for me. It scrambles my brain. It makes me stressed. It’s bad. Right? It’s bad for my mental health.

Lauren Litt (00:15:35) – Yes. You’re my ideal client. Come on, tell me.

Jillian Leslie (00:15:39) – Tell me, what do you say to that person? And how should they start? Because the thing though, I remember you came on the podcast and you were like, do, you don’t have to do that much. But then I hear, no, you do need to show up. And I’m showing up twice a day with reels. So where is that so impressive? Where is the line?

Lauren Litt (00:15:56) – So impressive. Thank you. Um, I always say people get way too caught up in the content and they forget the engagement piece. Which is why my stance is you don’t have to show up every day. You really don’t in order to get the engagement that you need.

Lauren Litt (00:16:12) – Now, if your goal is to have 100,000 followers and be you’ve heard me say this before, you know, be an influencer. Yeah, you got to show up every day, multiple times a day. You got to be making all the content and have some really slick, cool things going on. But if you are a mom blogger about your amazing garden and how to grow the best petunias you one post a week, you know really like can can you make one post a week? You know we can start there and you can actually build from there if you’re willing to also put in the daily engagement that is necessary on that post to build out the daily engagement.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:48) – When you say daily engagement, what does that mean? Am I going in searching hashtags and going, oh, these are people I should know. And that’s part of having them tell me, like what you how you would approach this.

Lauren Litt (00:17:00) – I’m going to give you the brief overview and if you’re interested on my Instagram profile, you just sign up for the Daily Fit.

Lauren Litt (00:17:07) – It’s your daily Facebook, Instagram, Twitter engagement strategy. It goes, I walk you through exactly what you need to do, but there’s three phases. So there is review, respond and reach out. And this works for every single platform that you’re on. You can do it for LinkedIn. You can do it for anything. So the first phase is review. Look at your profile and be like, where am I in the story of me? If I were just Joe Schmo from the street, what is it in the story? Right? Because we all forget we’re just posting content and putting stuff out. We don’t really take a second to look and be like, oh, what are other people reflecting on? So just, you know, open the page of your social media book, figure out where you are.

Jillian Leslie (00:17:47) – That’s where I am in response to where other people are. Is this I’m looking for just, you.

Lauren Litt (00:17:52) – Know, what was the last post? Yeah. What was the last post that you put up? What was the last story you put up? Like, where has it been a week, a month, a day, like just kind of know, okay.

Lauren Litt (00:18:01) – And then you’re going to respond. And by responding that is not just responding to comments. Any new followers that you have, you’re going to reach out and thank them if they look like they’re an ideal person. Like obviously if they’re. Random person from another country who was clearly trying to for me to sell jewelry. I don’t know how I got in that algorithm, but that’s my jam right now, right? I get a lot of people wanting me to sell their jewelry. Um, I’m not responding to those people. I’m not following those people back. Like, I’m just ignoring them, and I’m deleting them, actually. But if it’s someone like Jillian, if you had followed me, I’d be like, yes, please. Ideal client. I’m going to reach out to you and be like, I need to know more about Milo Tree. I’m Lauren, I do social media, like, let’s talk, let’s engage. You know, so your followers, if you are seeing regularly certain people like your comment content again and again and again.

Lauren Litt (00:18:52) – It’s totally cool to on the post that they most recently liked being like, hey Jillian, thank you so much for liking this post. I always love seeing you.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:00) – So wait. Okay, so somebody likes my post doesn’t leave a comment on that post. You would comment and tag them. Yeah. Okay. Is that weird?

Lauren Litt (00:19:11) – No. They know they’ve liked it. They know you saw that. You liked it.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:15) – So you literally. Because it’s like, if they comment that I want to comment back, but if they’re just liking it, then that feels weird to me to be like, hey you, I saw you liked this now.

Lauren Litt (00:19:27) – And that’s always to be in your own authenticity. So if it’s weird for you, maybe you DM them and you just say, thank you so much. I know that you like my content all the time, and it really means a lot. Okay? You know, like if you don’t want to do it publicly, you can do it privately, because this is very much, um, I recently worked with a book coach, and it was so interesting because her audience is super introverted.

Lauren Litt (00:19:48) – And so we had to really adjust how we were looking at outreach and DMing, and we came upon this very lax thing that actually works gangbusters for them, which is really, hey, you know, I’m here on the book coach team. If you ever have any questions, let us know. We’re not going to talk to you because we’re all introverts. It’s literally like, right. And people were like, thanks, I don’t want to talk to you either, but I love your content.

Jillian Leslie (00:20:14) – You know, it’s so funny. That is so funny.

Lauren Litt (00:20:18) – There, Jim. That was the authentic answer for them, you know, and you only know that you really have to tag into yourself and be like, okay, I feel weird about that. Why do I feel weird about it? Is it because it’s new and different? Well, let’s try it. No, I still feel weird about it. Okay, how could I authentically connect with this person as if I did on the street? So let’s say you’re walking down the street, right? And you see the same lady every day and you both kind of acknowledge each other, or you haven’t acknowledged each other yet.

Lauren Litt (00:20:45) – And it’s two months now and you’re like, we always are walking at the same time. You’re probably just going to wave, right? That’s a normal human connection thing. So let’s take our normal human connections and take them into social land, right? Someone’s liking all your content. Just be like, hey, thanks for liking my content.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:02) – I like that, I like that. Okay, so for me, I’m thinking there are a couple people that will always like my comment, my content. Yeah. And I, I will if they comment then I comment back. But I like the idea of DMing them, which feels, you know, uh, it’s not as public, but it feels a little personal to say. I just want you to know how much I appreciate that. And that means a lot. It makes me smile every time I see you.

Lauren Litt (00:21:26) – I’m putting a lot of effort into my two reels a day. And thank you. You know, like that’s it. Yeah.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:31) – Because you can feel kind of lonely if you’re out there just put and and it can be you can get kind of paranoid like, oh, nobody liked this one or why do people like this or I don’t know, it’s like I’m really, really trying to not get up in my head about this, to have fun with it, to recognize this is just an experiment.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:53) – Something about saying that to myself makes it feel low stakes. Yeah, like I could it feels a little bit like one day at a time. Like I could stop doing this tomorrow, but I’m going to keep going for another day and see what happens. See? Like like be curious.

Lauren Litt (00:22:11) – Approach it with curiosity. And the thing is, you know, when when people say like, I’m lonely, nobody ever responded. My question them is always like, well, what was your outreach like? Because if you’re lonely, I bet you anything you weren’t actually centering your ideal client, right? You weren’t actually trying to speak to them, and you weren’t even asking people like, hey, what would you like to see next? You know, like what’s what’s your you know, you’ve been following a lot of my content. Is there something about blogging that you would love to know? I’d love to do some content just for you.

Jillian Leslie (00:22:48) – You know, I am all about everybody selling their knowledge to their people.

Jillian Leslie (00:22:55) – Therefore, start with an easy book and to help you, I have put together 13 ChatGPT prompts. This is all you need to write your e-book start to finish. To grab this, go to military.com slash e-book prompts. Very easy. Military.com slash book prompts A ton of you have already downloaded this, and I’m starting to hear how useful this PDF is. So go get yours. And now back to the show. If people listen to my podcast, you know that I say these things that seem crazy, which is get on a call with people or DM them, but like make these human connections. And I think that as you’re saying this, that’s what I need to be doing on social media. Like I will do it on email, I will get on calls with people, all of this. But like, I don’t think I’ve taken it as far on Instagram, just even reaching out to the people say liking my content. So you’ve given me this whole it feels, I think, because I grew up on Instagram in that old model, and especially because we launched Catch My Party on Instagram, of course, and we have something like 165,000 followers on Catch My Party.

Jillian Leslie (00:24:18) – So that’s a very different business for US military where I have like 2000. Yeah. And we do get lots of comments on my party, but it’s predominantly like, hey, I like these goodie bags, how can I get the goodie bags? It’s not so much like personal military is much more personal. Like, oh, I struggle with that too. Or how do you know what your advice on this or something? And so I think, though that I still have that old view of catch my party and I’m not fully yet embracing it with military. And you are always and by the way, this is, I think, your third or fourth time on the show, and you are always like, it’s a personal thing. And I think that hasn’t fully hit me.

Lauren Litt (00:25:05) – Yeah, it’s the success that I see from my clients is really like, if we look at the numbers, right, it’s small. They’re booking three clients a year from social media. But if you think about what three clients a year means to a small business, when you can only service 12 clients a year, you know, like that’s huge.

Lauren Litt (00:25:29) – And this is a free marketing tool. Like to the people who are feeling reticent about starting this and don’t like it. Like if you need the mindset stuff, I’ve got it. I have a horrible story about being on social media. I figured out how to put up guardrails and make my cell feel safe here, but this is free. And when we are looking at the larger picture of your business, when you’re saying, you know, like email marketing, absolutely. Email marketing is there. But how are people going to learn that you have an email list. They’re going to learn about it through social. They’re going to Google you the more places you can pop up, which, by the way, Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn are paying way more money to show up on page one of Google than you ever will.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:09) – Yes, I was reading about that. Yes. And I think that that is true especially for two reasons one. As bloggers especially, we’ve gotten really good at keyword research and SEO, and what I am seeing or what people are predicting is that searches might change, especially with AI content.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:31) – You’re not necessarily going that traffic to individual blogs will probably decrease. I don’t know how much, but if I can get that answer by typing into an AI chatbot, I might not need to go to a secondary site to read a blog post. I mean, it just makes this is why.

Lauren Litt (00:26:49) – This is why social is so important. Because it’s AI can replace everything but your actual sole. Yes. Right? Yes. And the only way people are going to get to know you is if you start showing up authentically through one of these social platforms, you know, like actually showing up on video, taking a photo of you at your desk, you know, like these are things that people are going to connect with. I’m also an actor, you know, like that’s part of my story. And SAG after I just went through a very long battle about this AI, which people probably know a little bit about, but I am not at all worried that in the future I won’t have a job as an actor because.

Lauren Litt (00:27:29) – An AI version of an actor doesn’t have a soul, and it is not going to connect with people the way that an imperfect human will. It just won’t. And that’s the same for all of you. You know, like when you are talking about, you know, your blogging. Yes, information is now free. It is free and people don’t need to go to your blog. But I bet you anything, Julie, they want to know how you are going to interpret it and so they will show up for you because now we get the information everywhere. But I don’t get you.

Jillian Leslie (00:27:59) – Absolutely that you are speaking to the choir. That is exactly what I tell people and that’s what I’m seeing. So like I share this people using my cart to grow their businesses, sell sell digital products, but ones making the most money have memberships, online memberships where they are showing up live with people because that is the magic. If I can create a group of people who want to show up with me, who want to pay me monthly for a specific thing, it could be anything from crafting to parenting to social media, whatever the thing is that pulls us together and they’re drawn to my energy or what I’m teaching or the community I have built, if I can pull that off, which isn’t as hard as it sounds, because it’s less about already the content, people will be like, I need a library of materials.

Jillian Leslie (00:28:56) – And I’m like, no, you don’t. You just need to show up and be present, hold the space and be somebody that somebody feels connected to, and you create a warm, welcoming environment. And like that I’m shouting this from the rooftops. This is where I think the money is. Now. You need to set yourself up as an expert, as somebody who has knowledge, and that is something you do through, say, Instagram. And that’s kind of like I was thinking about it yesterday. I was thinking because I’ve been doing these reels, it is like journaling. If you’re a journalist in in terms of like, it makes you think about your thinking about a certain topic and just what you said when I told you about the reel that I just posted about. All the bloggers say the one thing they wish they had done was grow their email list and you go, God, that’s not sexy. Yeah. And I will tell you, I want to put the truth out there. I don’t want to put the sexy lie out there I see on Instagram.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:00) – And I’m sure you do too. If you’re in like the marketing world on Instagram. How I made seven figures in three months, how I grew my Instagram from I just started a new account from 0 to 210,000.

Lauren Litt (00:30:18) – Yeah, yeah it is.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:19) – Yeah, crazy. And by the way, those get a lot of likes and a lot of views. And I’m like the opposite of that. Meaning I hope you go viral and I hope that’s the case. But I want to say my messaging is go do it, test it, go like down and dirty, hack together something, make it imperfect. Put yourself out there even when you don’t have mascara on, like go. And is there a filters?

Lauren Litt (00:30:49) – There are filters. Totally.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:51) – So exactly that. But that’s what I want. I want to be somebody saying Jillian speaks the truth. And even if the truth is ugly or messy or complicated or whatever, I want to tell it to you. And yesterday I realized that’s my message. So it was funny when you said, oh my God.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:12) – Like, not not in a bad way, but like, this is not sexy. I’m like, that’s great, because this is real.

Lauren Litt (00:31:18) – Yeah. And it’s like, I wish that there were a magical thing that we could do. Right? But when you really scale back what those plans are when you look into them, because I’ve clicked on the videos, y’all, I’ve been like, I would love 10,000 followers tomorrow. That would be fantastic. There’s a lot of money spent and a lot of time spent gathering those 10,000 followers that actually aren’t going to benefit your audience. I have a client. I had a client, um, who blatantly refused. I had all their numbers, and I was like, okay, so like last November, it looks like you purchased around 100,000 followers. So I just want to know that that’s the truth. So we can clean this up for you. And they’re like, no, no, we didn’t we didn’t purchase 1000 followers. No, we no, we didn’t purchase 100,000.

Lauren Litt (00:32:06) – I was like, okay, so here where I see a big spike and a whole bunch of people from India starting to follow you when your business is on the West Coast in a tiny little mountain town, and none of those people can actually come to your event. You’re telling me that you didn’t purchase those people? Oh, no, no we didn’t. Okay, cool. I can’t work with you. Right? Because I can’t help you. None of those people are going to come to your event. It is a live event in a tiny little mountain town. And you want those people to come here. And they were more interested in the vanity of the situation than in building actual money for their account. Right. I’m so glad.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:41) – You shared that, because that’s the thing. And I think as we move into this world with AI, as you’re saying, like fake videos, which is becoming a thing and fake everything, and you can just have ChatGPT do whatever I feel like the scarce good is not, as I said, it’s not information, it’s not content, it’s trustworthiness.

Jillian Leslie (00:33:03) – Yeah. So I don’t believe that unsexy, trustworthy person that you can know. I’m going to I am going to tell you if you have spinach in your teeth, I’m that. I am that friend, by the way. Yeah. Like, even if it’s awkward and even if you’re, like, then embarrassed and then I’m embarrassed or whatever. Yeah. Even if I don’t, I’m not like your super close friend. I might just go like, hey, you got a little spinach in your teeth because I know you would be. You would want to know that.

Lauren Litt (00:33:30) – Yeah, because how awful is it to go home and look at yourself and be like, oh my God, nobody likes me enough to tell me I had spinach in my teeth.

Jillian Leslie (00:33:39) – Oh, totally. Absolutely. So I wanted to parse break down some of the different platforms. One thing I’m hearing is people have been reinvesting in Facebook and getting traffic.

Lauren Litt (00:33:53) – Mhm, mhm. We saw this um, I think it was November of 2022 that we started to see a change.

Lauren Litt (00:33:59) – So a lot of our clients were like we’re not on Facebook anymore. We’re not going to pay attention to it. It’s like old photos. Yeah. You know we’re not getting any action. And it’s because the algorithm had changed to the point where you really it was pay to play. That was the only way your content was going to be seen from a page standpoint. So we got it. Now hot tip if you’re going to leave an account or if you have an account somewhere, like let’s say you’re on LinkedIn, but you’re just not there very often, create a post that says something like, hey, I’m Lauren, I’m not on LinkedIn very much. You can go find me on Instagram and then include your link to the platform you are on and just pin that to the top. Almost every platform Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You can pin a comment. And that way you’re not losing traffic or people don’t think you’re out of business. Okay, back to the question of Facebook. So we saw we’ve always like done one post a month just to keep things active for for people who’ve decided to leave from a platform and without changing anything about that one post a month situation, we saw new followers and we saw more engagement with literally nothing else changing.

Lauren Litt (00:35:03) – It’s not like the content got better overnight. We just started to see a resurgence on Facebook. Now, I haven’t had a client return to Facebook yet, so we haven’t been able to really play with those numbers and really get into it. But absolutely, Facebook is having a comeback and it’s because we’ve been talking about this community thing. There is no platform that can build community in the way that Facebook can write, like on Instagram. They yet to have figured out how we can have a closed room where you and I can talk to each other, Jillian, without having to bring the entire group in on our conversation about the, you know, like lamps. We’re in a group for lamps and we’re passionate about lamps and we’re all talking about lamps, and then you and I can have a conversation about lamps that not everybody has to jump in on right there. Right. Like I can talk to you on Instagram, Facebook group.

Jillian Leslie (00:35:52) – Is this on a Facebook group? So I’m in a Facebook group and we can have an offline conversation.

Lauren Litt (00:35:57) – Well, like if we’re in a post, yeah, we can go back and forth. Right. And not everybody’s being bothered by our conversation. Not everybody has to chime in on the conversation. That’s the only thing Facebook has. And we’ve all come through this pandemic. We’ve all come through these weird years and community is what we’re craving. And so there is yet to be a platform. That has mastered community in the way Facebook has.

Jillian Leslie (00:36:19) – Now, what is this new thing on Instagram? I don’t mean I totally like I want to make sure that we close the circle on Facebook, because that is something that I feel is interesting. So you’re saying Facebook groups are not dead? No.

Lauren Litt (00:36:34) – No. Okay. And in fact, I wish like like many of us. Right. I wish they were there in some Facebook groups that I’m like, is there anywhere else we could go? No, there’s nowhere else we can go. In fact, um, I belonged to a business coaching group and we went off Facebook as a group.

Lauren Litt (00:36:49) – All however many members, you know, 100 whatever members hated it, reopened the Facebook group.

Jillian Leslie (00:36:55) – Okay, I need to go back then to Facebook to talk about this. So I’m sitting here telling you, where’s the money in digital products like the money money, right. The recurring revenue and I’m saying memberships. Yes. And when I tell people what it takes to put together a membership, I go, here’s what you need. Military cart for recurring payments. Right. We will charge the credit card. You can cancel the whole like it’s just so seamless to.

Lauren Litt (00:37:22) – Make it very simple to.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:23) – Thank you to zoom. Right. Zoom because you’re going to do like your zoom sessions. And everybody, even my mom knows how to get on a zoom call. Mhm. Three you need email like ConvertKit or MailChimp or something where you can email the people because email matters. Remember this. People do open their email once a month and you say, hey, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to meet the first Wednesday and the third Wednesday of the month.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:49) – Here’s what we’re going to talk about. Here are the links to the zoom. And then I say this and a private Facebook group and people cringe and they go, what? No, I don’t want to be doing that. I don’t I don’t like Facebook. And I go, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like Facebook because everybody knows Facebook. And so again, do you want people to have to download some random app on their phone that they’ve never heard of to have community? Are you going to then try to teach people how to get into this kind of place of community? And by the way, you all you’re going to do in the Facebook group, upload the zoom videos, ask a question or two, and have a place where people can talk to each other and maybe ask you some questions. It’s just for like a a way to kind of house everybody. The people who hate Facebook don’t have to be in the group because you’re going to email them the link to the zoom afterwards if they couldn’t be.

Jillian Leslie (00:38:43) – So it’s not like they have to be on Facebook, but it’s a repository. It’s like a place to hold the group, and chances are most of your members will have been on Facebook. Understand how the platform works and it’s an easy ask.

Lauren Litt (00:38:59) – Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. We all like look. We’re all constantly searching for a way to replace Facebook. We are. Nobody has done it yet. If someone can create a social platform that builds community in the way that Facebook has figured out to build community, fantastic. I will be all on board. But until then, we’re all on Facebook, y’all, and I don’t know if it will ever change. So because it’s so easy and it’s so a part of our, you know, like it’s just a like zoom now has become like, oh it’s a zoom. Yeah.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:30) – Like oh like Google Meet. Sometimes I’ll have like a business call on Google Meet and I hate it. I’m like, why are you not on zoom? Now? This is Google and maybe there are lots of people on Google Meet.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:41) – But to be honest with you, I’m always like, I don’t know how to share my screen on Google Meet or I don’t know, whereas zoom, I got it. And that’s like where I say go where people go use tools. People. No.

Lauren Litt (00:39:56) – And that and yes, it’s the unsexy answer, but let’s go with the unsexy answer. Okay. Like let’s just do it.

Jillian Leslie (00:40:03) – Exactly. And that’s again, like when I think about the messaging that I want to be putting out there, it’s like, go use tools people. No, don’t. Even if there’s a better quote unquote community app that you have found that you think is awesome, you it’s like herding cats. You really want to make all of your members learn this. Know that. What if they don’t like it? So anyway, it’s just interesting that you say this about about Facebook, because this is a resurgence that I’m starting to see.

Lauren Litt (00:40:37) – Yeah, but what exactly.

Jillian Leslie (00:40:38) – Oh go ahead.

Lauren Litt (00:40:39) – No. What were you going to ask?

Jillian Leslie (00:40:41) – What is this new thing that I got invited on Instagram to somebody like community or so.

Lauren Litt (00:40:47) – Yeah.

Jillian Leslie (00:40:47) – What is this?

Lauren Litt (00:40:48) – This is Instagram trying to replace Facebook, basically. Um, I don’t use them yet. I don’t have anybody has that has a need for it. Now there are it becomes kind of like a text string, basically. Like if you’re in someone’s community there, it’s like in your DMs and it’s a text string that happens where they message, and then other people can respond to that comment and there’s like a whole bunch of stuff going on with it. Um. I have. Obviously they’re working. There’s a few people that I follow who have these set up and I see that it’s happening. You know, my Instagram boyfriend, Adam Missouri has one. I’m in his community. Um, but like, it’s kind of annoying and it’s a little overwhelming because there’s just so much that goes on with it. And so it’s to me, it is not that replacement. If you have a large following and you want to be putting out messages that people get and are made sure to pay attention to, it’s great.

Lauren Litt (00:41:48) – If you have less than 10,000 followers. You don’t need to worry about this yet.

Jillian Leslie (00:41:52) – Got it? I joined one with like an influencer just so I could watch. Like, what is this? What is she doing? Why is this necessary? And it’s interesting because it’s a lot of like, you got this girl, it’s Monday. You, you know, you go and then it becomes though, hey, like kind of your thing of like give, give, give and then take. Yeah. And so it’s a little bit like, hey, I’ve just opened my coaching group. Here’s the link. So I get it. She’s trying to cultivate this relationship. Yeah. With a lot of like, you got this and then, hey, you know, you want more from me. Here’s how. So I’m just kind of paying attention and seeing what that’s about.

Lauren Litt (00:42:35) – Yeah. And we’ll see how it grows I just. It’s. Things like this are exciting to me and that’s why threads is awesome.

Lauren Litt (00:42:42) – So yeah, let’s talk briefly about threads.

Jillian Leslie (00:42:44) – And I want to touch on on TikTok and what your thoughts are on that. So threads let’s talk threads.

Lauren Litt (00:42:49) – So threads. Um, you know we all got very excited about threads. And it came out and it made a splash because it was the biggest, you know, launch of a social network ever. Which, by the way, is kind of a lie because we all already had it. So it was also the easiest, you know, like Twitter didn’t already have all your information and you just had to click a button and say, yes, you know, you had to go in and populate. So anyway, threads is their big splash. People are still dabbling in threads, but here is what we want to know. Instagram is desperate for threads to work. They really, really want this thing to work. So much so that they have created a special line at the very top of your inbox. When you go into Instagram with a special color, with someone’s name, when they say so and so just posted a new thread, that is the first message I get very frequently when I open my inbox on Instagram.

Lauren Litt (00:43:41) – Also, I get notifications when someone that I’ve followed or that I’ve responded to on threads. I get those notifications in Instagram. So if you want to be an extra savvy marketer, you’re going to start using threads because it’s going to remember when we talked about those seven touches, it’s going to give another touch, even if nobody is. Then clicking over to your threads to see what you said, they’re going to see your name at the top of your inbox. And remember, oh yeah, I like Jillian. You know.

Jillian Leslie (00:44:11) – Is there a way to to share a real on threads?

Lauren Litt (00:44:17) – Yeah, yeah, I believe you can actually. Uh, like Instagram has also made it very easy to cross populate the content. I don’t think it shows up. I think it shows up like as an attachment sub the, you know, so there’s like the thread and then the video is underneath. But you can share it over to threads like sharing Instagram to Facebook. It’s still not the perfect answer because by the way y’all, if you don’t know, Instagram and Facebook are the same, same company owned by the same people.

Lauren Litt (00:44:46) – Um, so but um, when you share Instagram to Facebook, people who see that on Facebook are like, oh, they’re not really on Facebook because we all know, oh, that’s an Instagram post that’s been put on Facebook. So when you’re sharing your Instagram comment to threads instead of sharing the reel, I bet you if you just took the text and said, here’s the number one thing most bloggers tell me, and then in the next comment, you go build your email list. That would be way more effective than sharing the actual reel, because it’s a text based platform, not a not a video based platform.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:18) – Okay, that makes sense. Well, that’s interesting because again, I’m trying to like, you know, build my mojo on Instagram and you are building it.

Lauren Litt (00:45:27) – You are absolutely building it. Yeah.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:28) – Thank you. So now let’s talk about TikTok. What are your thoughts about it. Because I initially tried to start TikTok. This is like during the pandemic and then would share, you download my TikToks, take off the watermark and then share them to Instagram.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:44) – Now I’ve decided I’m just right now doing reels, and I know I should be downloading my reels and sharing them to TikTok and sharing them to YouTube shorts. And I’m not.

Lauren Litt (00:45:53) – Going to remove should. Right. That is an option that you can do. I like.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:57) – That.

Lauren Litt (00:45:58) – Yeah. Um, so TikTok, it really depends on your audience. Now, we all know that TikTok is super searchable. It’s one of the largest growing platforms. Um, it is a different kind of format. The thing that TikTok really figured out was that we have no, um, focus anymore as a society. And so the way they’ve built videos is to really lean into that very short attention span that we all have so of real often is different than a TikTok video, because your reels are a little bit more languishing. There’s a different feel to the content that comes through Instagram. Um, if you are dealing with anyone under the age of 30, TikTok’s a fantastic place for you to be. Uh, if you want to build on the searchability that that platform has, which is second to none.

Lauren Litt (00:46:49) – You know, like TikTok and Pinterest actually are a couple of my favorite platforms because they are so open about how their backend works. You know, TikTok, actually, when you create a business account, you get this whole platform on the back end that allows you to search terms and see how many people are clicking on certain things in this easy, easy way versus an Instagram you know, you like. You have to click the little magnifying glass and type in a little thing and scroll like it’s very hard to find information on Instagram. And TikTok is like, look, here’s all the info, here’s how to be found. So they’re a great platform to me. I, I think that you need to master one social platform before you start adding on others, because again, engagement is key. The content is only going to get you 50% of the way there. So if you have mastered Instagram and now you’re like, okay, I want to play on TikTok and you have the time and energy to then do the engagement on that platform as well.

Lauren Litt (00:47:43) – Yes. Um, but yeah, TikTok’s TikTok’s not going anywhere and it’s going to be really interesting, especially now that the kerfuffle about, you know, the. Where our data is stored as Americans. And all of that stuff and how their algorithm works is kind of calmed down. And people are people have moved past it. So, okay.

Jillian Leslie (00:48:03) – Because that also is my concern. Like, is TikTok going away? Is, you know, is this something that I don’t want to invest in and true, like, are they stealing my data, you know.

Lauren Litt (00:48:14) – Well, yeah, they’re like, y’all, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Exactly. You know, we’re all the product on all of these platforms. Um, but that’s the the world we live in, you know, like Instagram. When I click on dog videos, they know that, like I want dog stuff. And they figured out how to keep me on the platform so that they can, you know, then try and sell me dog stuff.

Lauren Litt (00:48:35) – Great. I’m here for it, you know, it helps. It makes my life better because I don’t have to go search for the perfect running belt to go with my dog. You know, like, right, Instagram’s going to bring it to me. In fact, now that I’ve said it, it’s probably going to show up. Um, but TikTok it is concerning. There are you know, I really I watched the the debates. Um, there are there’s some concerns about how our data is processing and the ability for people to in TikTok, it’s different than the other platforms. There are literally people who are changing the algorithm. So the information that we see is based on what they want us to see, not on what our natural search space is. And they’ve found, you know, like. We all sink to the bottom, you know, the nastier, less truth driven stuff, the things that’s really sensational. That stuff is what’s shared more so. That’s why it’s such a scary platform, because it’s not.

Lauren Litt (00:49:31) – It really? Misinformation breeds very fast on that platform. So it is a.

Jillian Leslie (00:49:36) – House of mirrors versus like I’m seeing something like I like dogs and they’re going to give me dogs. It’s like, well they’re going to give me dogs. That’s going to all of a sudden morph into something kind of dark. Yes. So very quickly that I get that.

Lauren Litt (00:49:49) – Yeah. But yeah, powerful. Great platform. You know I’m not saying don’t use it. Grain of salt. That’s it I get.

Jillian Leslie (00:49:55) – That I get that. All right Lauren, this has been so enlightening. If people have questions for you, if people want to see what you do, where is the best place for them to reach out?

Lauren Litt (00:50:09) – Oh, this is so exciting. So I practice what I preach and that I am only on Instagram, but I recently opened a second Instagram account. Y’all. It’s shocking. So now I have one for my business and one for my personal and my business. One you can find me at at Get social Happy.

Lauren Litt (00:50:26) – So if you want more information around Instagram, around social media, in general, around how to actually make money on platforms, follow me on Instagram at Get Social Happy and I talked about the engagement strategy. You can find that in the link in my bio there too. You can go up and sign. It’s a five. It’s a free series of five videos. It’ll walk you through how to do engagement on these different platforms.

Jillian Leslie (00:50:50) – Well, I just have to say, I’m going to invite you back because I feel like as things keep changing and as I’m going through my own journey, like, selfishly, I want to check in with you to go by doing it right. Or do you have any tips? That kind of thing. So yes, we will definitely do this again. So I just want to.

Lauren Litt (00:51:07) – Say you are my friend. You are my.

Jillian Leslie (00:51:09) – Friend. Thank you so much for coming back on the show.

Lauren Litt (00:51:12) – You’re so welcome. Happy to be here anytime.

Jillian Leslie (00:51:15) – I hope you guys like this episode.

Jillian Leslie (00:51:17) – What I really like about Lauren is her vibe. I talk about people’s vibes a lot, but that she’s all about showing up authentically, showing up as who you are, and especially as a way to fight against AI content. How do you create content that connects human to human? I think that is a very powerful message. I will definitely be having her back on the show to update us on new trends in a couple of months. Now, for those of you who want to be selling products and services to your audience. But God, that seems so complicated and the text seems so confusing. Get on a free 20 minute zoom call with me, because one. I will help you come up with your digital product strategy, and two I will show you how magical Milo Tree Cart is, especially with our AI sales pages. One thing people say to me is, oh my God, I didn’t know I could be up and selling so fast. This is so easy to get on a call with me.

Jillian Leslie (00:52:26) – Just go to Milo tree.com and on our homepage you’ll see a place where you can book a 20 minute free zoom call. I promise, no pressure. This is really just to help you and to see if Milo Tree Cart is a good fit again, go to Military.com right on our homepage. You can see where you can book a time, and I look forward to meeting you. And I will see you here again next week.

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