A successful blog is an essential part of keeping your brand alive. Social media platforms have come and gone (RIP Vine), however, blogs have withstood the test of time. Blogs will likely exist long after TikTok, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the app while waiting out its demise.

TikTok’s average user in the U.S. now spends about 29 hours a month on the platform while Facebook users are clocking in at 16 hours, and Instagram is only capturing 8 hours of attention.

In fact, Bloomberg reports that TikTok is on track to generate nearly $12B in revenue this year, after raking in nearly $4B in 2021.

Why is TikTok so popular? 

For starters, TikTok has positioned itself as fun, casual and authentic, attracting all age groups. Add to this the fact that younger generations have been using TikTok as a search engine more and more versus the more traditional Google Search, and you have a massive amount of activity centered just in the platform alone. 

Additionally, not only does TikTok have a low barrier to entry by encouraging more amateur — or “real” — videos versus stylized productions, but it also allows users to edit videos directly in the app. The app is designed to be easy and intuitive, allowing anyone to create content that will impress audiences.

The platform has also nailed personalization. The app creates an individualized feed for each user called a “For You Page” (FYP) that pulls content from the app that it thinks you will like based on posts you’ve engaged with.

Customizing your FYP is as easy as tapping the white heart button on a video you like. Or long-pressing on a video you didn’t care for and choosing “Not interested.” TikTok will use these signals to show you content that’s more aligned with what you prefer.

How can creating content for TikTok help my blog?

TikTok is a powerful tool with a massive audience. Harnessing even just a little of its power can expose your blog to new audiences that you probably are not reaching on other social media platforms.

If you have a business account with more than 1,000 followers, TikTok allows you to add a link to your website in your profile so that you can cross-promote your site across channels.

TikToks can also be shared across social platforms. In fact, many creators repurpose their TikTok videos on Instagram Reels, Facebook Stories and Pinterest (note that you’ll likely want to remove the TikTok watermark before posting).

Can TikTok get me more sponsored work?

Yes! Brands know that short-form video is one of the most lucrative ways to generate brand awareness and are actively seeking out bloggers who can write SEO-optimized content in addition to creating TikToks and Reels. Sixty-six percent of companies who have dedicated Influencer spending are already working with creators who regularly post on TikTok and rank it #5 in ROI according to Hubspot.

Our Influencer Partnerships team has seen an increase in interest in short-form video content and have been including it in nearly all the proposals we have created for campaigns this year.

We especially love the results we see from TikTok. Not only do TikTok videos receive great impressions and engagement, but they also drive audiences who are looking for more information back to blog posts. 

In the time it has taken you to read this blog post, nearly half of TikTok’s 700 million daily users have more than likely logged on to the app to start their scroll. Your content could be the first thing they see on their FYP. So, now that you’re in the know about the benefits of TikTok and why it should be an essential part of promoting your blog, go create an account and get posting!

The post Is It Time for You to Embrace TikTok? appeared first on Mediavine.

As an avid Android user, Google Discover is one of the main ways I consume content on a daily basis because Discover is a curated collection of articles from around the web that Google’s algorithms know I will be interested in.

This is all based on my search habits, the things I ask Google Assistant or sometimes even say around my phone.

It can be amazingly useful at times, especially when I’m bleary-eyed but I want to make pancakes for my kids at 7 a.m. If I talked about it the night before, it’s likely a few web stories about pancakes will be in my Google Discover without me ever having to type a search term into my browser.

And my favorite thing about Google Discover? Seeing Web Stories of content I haven’t read yet, from bloggers I know and love. (Psst that’s you.)

Stories aren’t live in every country, so if you haven’t seen them on your Android or iPhone yet don’t worry! They’ll be coming soon.

Here’s an example on an iPhone:

Over the Christmas holiday I had the opportunity to play around with Web Stories and see how they can drive traffic to a site right away, which is huge! A part of Google you can affect right now.

The best way to explain Web Stories is… imagine if your highly-ranked blog post and Instagram stories had a baby. You’ve now got an evergreen, extremely visual and interactive way to reach someone interested in a specific topic.

Unlike those other platforms, let me say again – Web Stories are meant to be evergreen, or live forever. That means they should tell a full story on their own, for the best user experience.

As Eric described in his post, you can also think of a Web Story as preview for your post content, to an entirely new audience.

From Mediavine’s perspective, ideally any Web Story will be compelling enough to get the viewer from the Story to your actual blog post.

This will earn much more money for you as opposed to being served AMP ads in a Web Story, though you can potentially do both, depending on your website setup. Make sure you email us if you have questions!

We’d like you to think of this the way you do your newsletter audience; tell them a compelling story, but also get those viewers onto your site to see ads. To us, it’s better to do that than it is to try to monetize this very unique, engaged Web Story space.

The viewers don’t have to follow you; they just have to be interested in the topic you’ve got a Web Story about.

According to Google, “You’ll find more videos and fresh visual content, as well as evergreen content — articles and videos that aren’t new to the web, but are new to you.”

To me, that means the Story lives forever, so if the content you’re planning a Story around is evergreen, make sure that Story is timeless, or update it often for seasonality.

It is possible you’ll see a Story “drop out” of popularity overnight, but that may mean the search trend is done for the season on the Story’s topic. It doesn’t mean the Story will never be served again, or that it won’t become relevant again when the search trend picks back up again.

Web Stories can be used by any type of blogger, around any type of content. The first thing I suggest is using Google Discover to see how other content creators are using Stories.

For example, Google mentions Refinery29 in their blog post about the best Web Stories.

There are fabulous clues for how to make evergreen content that resonates with an interested Discover reader, no matter when they’re served the Story — today or next holiday season.

And, as Eric pointed out, having Web Stories for articles you already rank well for can remind Google that you’re an expert in the topic and may even help you rise higher in search results, which might then help your content show up more often in Discover.

It’s important to remember that a Web Story should be a solid piece of content that can stand on its own. Tell the full story, even if you want to compel readers to visit your site too.

CONTENT IS STILL KING.

There are a couple ways to make a Web Story. There are third-party apps like Jumprope that cater specifically to Google Web Stories, and if you’re using a non-WordPress CMS to run your blog, you’ll need to use one of those.

For WordPress users, there is an official plugin that was released by Google itself, and that is what I’m here to teach you about today!

I’m going to assume that you’ve already read Eric’s post, set up a separate Google Analytics profile for your stories and excluded the _gl parameter from your view settings, downloaded the Web Stories WordPress plugin and are ready to generate UTM codes for each Story’s URL.

If you haven’t, please hit up his post first!

Let’s Get Started!

If you’ve used Photoshop or Canva, you might find the user interface of the Web Stories plugin familiar. I’ve spent years in both, so I found the interface straightforward, if a little clunky and buggy. It’s brand new, so don’t go too hard on ‘em!

I am a food blogger, so I tell my best stories about food. Since I haven’t blogged in a while, Jamie, our Influencer Marketing Coordinator, was kind enough to let me borrow her blog and content to learn — now I’m sharing our experiments with you.

Here’s Jamie’s Story for Easy Hot Ham and Cheese Sliders that we are going to be making together:

Add A New Story

First things first, name your Story. As Eric said, pick a name for your story that makes sense for your keyword, but is enticing for the reader. It’s the first thing they’ll see, along with your cover image.

The main thing is to avoid Google filtering out one of your results with its “duplicate name” filter, so make sure your Story title is slightly different from your post name.

Working In Layers

Photoshop users will be very familiar with the idea of layers, as that’s a key component of design in that program. Each Story slide you’re working on contains its own layers to create dynamic content from slide to slide.

Layers will vary by type, from images to text to shapes to videos, and each layer will get its own settings and details, but each slide you create contains a locked background layer.

You can access any layer’s settings in the Layer Editor by selecting it in the lower right corner. The settings appear in the upper right.

You may need to scroll up and down within the individual settings area to see all the options.

Pro Tip: If you want a call to action or “swipe up” feature on every slide that links to the blog post, set it now on your first slide’s background layer, in the section called Page Attachment. When you duplicate the slide to make your next one, the link will remain and you can delete the other layers and begin fresh. Make sure the link you add here contains a UTM code, so that you can see how much of your traffic to a post is coming directly from a Web Story.

Calls to action take up space (so that they can grab attention!) and putting them in place FIRST helps make sure you’re not creating a slide design that doesn’t work well with where the CTA is placed.

You can’t change the CTA location, so adding it later might mean redesigning the whole slide.

You can create your next slide by “duplicating” your first one, which means the CTA will stay in place as you continue to design.

Layers allow you to work individually with each content piece and move it, change it, etc. without affecting the layers around it unless those layers are selected too.

Adding Text To Slides

Adding text directly to slides using the Web Stories application is best practice. If you upload an image with text already on it, that text will not be accessible for differently-abled viewers. The Web Stories tool makes sure the text is accessible for those viewers.

Remember that Google’s advice is to use roughly 10 words or 280 characters per slide.

Font choices are limited to those Google has provided, but there’s enough here to keep your viewers interested.

I’ll also pull out an old design adage from my college graphic design classes: Don’t use more than three different fonts per slide, and consider that in this small space, two might be your max for great design that readers find appealing.

Access Your Media Library

While Google does recommend photos with a 3:4 aspect ratio, it doesn’t seem to affect the success of the overall performance if you grab what you have in your Media Library and stretch or shrink it to fit.

This is where Canva users will feel some familiarity with the plugin; adding photos is extremely similar.

You can also use Shapes (one of the content layer types) as Masks for your photos. What does that mean?

Place a shape on your slide. Then add a photo from your Media Library and move it around until it’s hovering over the shape. The application should attempt to fit the photo inside the shape. This is another way to get versatile with what the slides look like.

Pro Tip: Make sure there is alt text on any photo you upload. The Stories app should pull in the alt text you’ve already got in WordPress, but if you need to make changes, do so.

Also note: there is an acknowledged bug (confirmed in the WP Support forums) in the Stories app that will tell you there’s no accessible text when there is. Google is actively working to fix this.

Animations & GIFs

Just like when creating a PowerPoint or Google Slides deck, you can quickly and easily add animations to any layer of your slide — this includes photos, text, etc. Doing so can make your story a bit more engaging.

You’ll notice I did this on slide 1 for the ham and cheese sliders, adding a slide-in animation to the post title and a “drop” to the Happy New Year GIF since we were targeting this to New Year searches.

Since then, we’ve updated the story to remove the “New Year” aspect so that if it’s served to new viewers they aren’t considering it outdated.

There are quite a few options to choose from in the Layer editor, and you can even change the amount of time the effect lasts. 

My best advice is to play with these things. Preview your Story with guesses as to what will look best and then adjust from there. You’ll find a style and form that works for you and your audience.

Other Features of The Layer Editor

The ability to change alignment, orientation, size, position and opacity are available for each layer, as well as the ability to hyperlink any layer.

Additionally, for text you can change fonts, add fill or highlight behind the text; add borders around text and access all the traditional formatting options like bold, italics and underline; adjust kerning and padding around and between letters; change the color of the text.

For images, you can change the corner radius (to make rounded edges), add a border or link and add accessibility text.

Document Editor

Before you ever publish a Story, you must make sure this section in the Story Editor is filled out completely.

Add your Logo. You can also add this in Story Editor Settings so that it’s automatically there in each Web Story you create.

Add a Poster Image. Typically we pick our favorite vertical hero image from the post.

Story descriptions seem a lot like meta data you would write for post content. You have 200 characters to describe the Story, so use your keyword and make it enticing! According to a sub-note in the Story Editor, “Stories with a description tend to do better on search and have a wider reach.”

Permalinks are automatically created when you type a Story’s name. If you changed the name at any point, or want something different, change the permalink before you publish.

Page advancement! This one is important. It’s how you speed up or slow down auto-advancement of your Story when it is viewed.

I don’t see a reason why anyone would ever choose “manual” here (that means someone has to click or tap the screen to see the next slide), but paying attention to how your Story flows is a good idea. If the advancement is too slow, your viewers might get bored and keep scrolling their Discover feed instead of waiting for your next slide.

If it’s too fast, they can’t read what’s on the slide or have to hold it in position until they’re finished reading, and that’s not a good experience either. Play with this based on your individual Story and what you’ve added content-wise so that it flows in a way that feels good to you.

You’re ready to publish!

Go through the notifications on the Checklist tab and make sure there are no glaring errors that would prevent someone from reaching your Story. Preview your Story to make sure it flows and that the call to action links where you want it to.

Hit Publish. Then, visit the URL for the Web Story and grab the permalink. Go to the original post and link to the Web Story somewhere in your content, where it fits naturally, on the keyword you’re targeting.

Adding a link to even a highly ranking post shouldn’t affect it negatively in SERPs, but you can always roll it back if the change seems to have upset the Google algorithm gods. Internal linking is such an important part of SEO strategy, having the link there should only help, not hurt.

You’ve published your first Story! Hooray!

Now What?

When you view the separate analytics profile set up for Web Stories, you should be able to see what is getting the most traffic. In your main analytics profile, if you’re using UTM codes, you’ll be able to see specifically how your Web Stories are converting into actual pageviews on your website.

It can’t be overstated — converting Google Discover traffic into a pageview on your website is incredibly valuable. Those are dialed in, interested readers already looking for content like yours.

Monetization of Web Stories

Web Stories can be monetized via AMP ads, but our opinion for now is that you’ll get far more value from your reader if you can convert them over to your website to see display ads there.

Web Stories are still in alpha, making monetization currently a very manual process, with not a lot of availability from advertisers.

Web Stories use AMP ads, which mean they’ve currently only got access to AdExchange, rather than having competition from a multitude of partners like your website display ads. Less competition means lower CPMs.

The AMP ads are only allowed to appear once every seven slides — which means your Story would have to be at least that long to serve even one ad.

Given that Stories are only live in the US, India and Brazil, advertising competition and availability will be even further diminished, meaning ROI on running an ad in your stories is hardly worth it. Get viewers to your website instead through quality story-telling.

Make sure you’re running Grow to capture them as logged-in users who favorite your content and they’ll be even more valuable — and very likely repeat readers.

I am hopeful that this inspires you to create your own Story, no matter what kind of content you Create.

How To Create A Google Web Story

Yield: 1 Google Web Story

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Active Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

A Google Web Story can bring new-to-you, engaged readers to your site. Make them for your top content and new content that readers might be searching for.

Print

Materials

• Photos
• Blog post
• Video relevant to blog post content (optional)
• Short descriptions

Tools

• Google's Web Stories Plugin for WordPress

Instructions

1. Plan out your story. Using a storyboard format can be helpful here.
2. Set the "Call to Action" link on the background layer of your first slide in the Page Attachment section. (This allows slides duplicated from the first one to automatically have this in place, and shows the call to action button on your slide as you design, so that you can design around it.)
3. Make slides for each point in your storyboard. Use a combination of images, text, shapes and video to engage viewers in Google Discover. Make sure all items that need it have accurate alt-text.
4. Check that all items in the "Document" tab are complete, and any errors in the Checklist tab are remedied to the best of your ability.
5. Publish!
6. Take the permalink from your story and make sure to link back to it in any post content on your site where it makes sense to. i.e. if you make a web story about the best places to eat in San Francisco and you have multiple blog posts about things to do in San Francisco, link to your web story in them!

The post How to Make A Google Web Story appeared first on Mediavine.

LaShawn Wiltz of Everyday Eyecandy joins Jenny Guy, our Director of Marketing, in a conversation about the new Instagram features and how you might want to distribute your time to maximize engagement.

LaShawn has a whole lot of knowledge on how Instagram and its algorithm works so you don’t want to miss this one! (Originally aired 9/24/2020)

Watch the video here or check out the transcript below.

Navigating the New Instagram

JENNY GUY: It is Thursday, September 24, and you are watching Teal Talk^®, the show where twice a month we force experts from the digital content creation industry to talk to me for an hour, sharing their expertise with our audience. I’m your host, Jenny Guy, Director of Marketing for Mediavine, and someone who has yet to have an edible pumpkin spice anything in 2020. This is criminal, and I feel like a failure.

It’s fall, or it’s autumn, which one do you guys say? I don’t know.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Fall.

JENNY GUY: Fall, fall. I like to say fall has fallen, but I was told that sounded kind of fatalistic, so, you know, whatever. Are you a fall or an autumn person? I have yet to– so, I haven’t had a pumpkin spice or anything, but I have lit up some very basic seasonal candles just to commemorate the season. Some apple stuff. So I feel like I’m in the mood.

But today I am so excited. Everyone’s saying they’re so excited. I’m so excited. We’re talking about something we either love to hate, or hate to love. Long story short, our relationship with Instagram is complicated. And guys, go ahead and kick us off right by telling us your favorite filter in the comments.

But however we feel about Instagram personally, we can say with certainty that a lot of brands that work with influencers love the ‘gram. And it’s a metric that a lot of people ask about and pay attention to. And my guest today is an Instagram whisper, and is here to help you harness the powers of that platform for the good of your business.

LaShawn Wiltz is the creator of Everyday Eyecandy where she blogs about motherhood, simple solutions for moms like her and her passion for capturing everyday moments through photography and Instagram. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, you can find LaShawn on Instagram, and we will share those links.

Capturing the beauty in life’s everyday moments. Documenting her days as a wife and mom with half-finished coffee in one hand and her camera in the other. She is wonderful. We’re so glad you’re here.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Thank you for having me.

JENNY GUY: OK. So. Guys, if you’re sharing a filter or just sharing love for LaShawn, either way, we will take both. I want to kick off by learning a little more about you, LaShawn. Your journey as a content creator and what brought you to Instagram, and why you love the platform so much that you teach others about it.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Well, it started off when I got my first iPhone. I was late. I was late to the iPhone game.

JENNY GUY: Samesies.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I got my first iPhone and I was like, I can get on Instagram now! I was a new blogger at the time. I just started blogging just because of my son. I like to post pictures of him. It was the easy way to let my family follow along, and I got on Instagram.

You know, back then it was just cute filters.

JENNY GUY: Sure.

LASHAWN WILTZ: And, you know, you just posted. And it went out there in the world, you didn’t worry about who saw it, it just went out there. And somewhere along the way people started wanting to pay me to post these pictures. And I was like, oh, OK. And it grew from there.
And I started randomly giving people advice. You know how–

JENNY GUY: Yes.

LASHAWN WILTZ: –somebody asks you, well what do you do, what are you doing. And you say it. And they say, oh that worked for me. You’re like, oh, so it works for other people, too. And it just kept going like that, because I love Instagram. I love Instagram mainly because of community.

I’ve been on there a long time now. My son is going to be turning eleven, so at least 8 years, maybe.

JENNY GUY: That’s awesome.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So I have a large community on Instagram that is actually a community. And I’ve always said, if you want to succeed on Instagram, you have to build a community because that’s where it is. And so I started teaching other people that.

And then people started asking me to talk about it. I was like, OK, and it grew from there. I think I love to teach about it because it’s like one of those things that I can talk about and not get bored. So that’s why I started going ahead and talking more about it.

JENNY GUY: I love that because that’s a totally different approach than what a lot of people would say with Instagram. And I also think it’s something that we always talk about on here, it’s that you have that expertise. That it’s not something you think that you’re necessarily an expert in, it’s just something you’re natural– like, you talk about it and people are like, whoa.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I just like it.

JENNY GUY: And you go, oh, it’s just what I do. I just like it and it happened.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah. I’m one of those people who are obsessed with it, you know. Somebody posts about it and I’m like, oh, what did you, did you do that. I’m always asking my friends, test this for me, could you do this. So, yeah, I love it.

JENNY GUY: That’s awesome. And I love the idea of creating a community. So we’re just going to jump right into the elephant in the room, whatever you want to call– whatever filter is on it. There’s no doubt that the Instagram algorithm is the source of a whole lot of hand-wringing and hair pulling amongst this influencer community.

And it happens at least, in part, because we have all seen, I’m sure, what Instagram popularity can do for your traffic, and your work with your brands, and your bottom line, really. It’s a thing. So how do content creators get out of this grind of comparing stats? And if you’d explain this by telling us, how does Instagram work?

LASHAWN WILTZ: OK. So the thing that everyone needs to understand about Instagram is Instagram has one goal. One goal. And that’s to keep you on the app as long as possible. So whatever you do on Instagram to keep someone on the app, i.e. on your post, or on your stories, or on your video, Instagram will reward you for it, because they’re like, yes, that is all they want.

That’s why video leads to more engagement. That’s why Stories and Reels work. Because people fall down the rabbit hole and they just keep watching, and clicking, and scrolling. And that’s what Instagram wants. And so as long as you make content with that thought in mind, you’ll succeed.

JENNY GUY: That is extremely helpful. So another thing that I think a lot of people have talked about, especially amongst the influencer community in recent years, is the buying followers. And the pods, and the giveaways, and the bots, and all of that. How do you feel about that type of thing in terms of buying followers versus– or giveaways, or I talk about that. I know you’ve heard it. We all have.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Another thing about the algorithm is– pods were originally made– the way pods were originally supposed to work weren’t this, but a group of accounts that were alike, that had similar type of content. They band together to help each other out.

Because back then it used to be that, if somebody gave you a like or a comment in the first 30 minutes after you post– 15 to 30 minutes after you posted, it would boost you in the algorithm. Not true anymore. But that was the original thing about it.

But the way the algorithm really works is that, when someone likes your post Instagram not only shows that person more of your content, but it shows a teeny portion of their followers your content, too. And because if they like it they think their followers might like it. But what happens is, when you have pods, it’s the same people liking your stuff each and every time. So you never get any more impressions, any more reach, than those people.

And then Instagram stops showing your content, because they’re like, OK, it’s the same people every time. The algorithm is smart. You cannot game it even though people think they can. So that’s why pods– I always say it’s OK to have, like, personal pods where you tell your friends, hey, I got a post up.

And in some pods that are– because of the algorithm, you might never see these people. If you have pods like that where you’re like, oh, friends, I posted something. You know, that’s fine. But those pods, those big pods, where it’s like thousands of people who they’re a car account and you’re a mom blogger, that does not mesh. Their followers won’t care one bit about your baby, at all. They care about cars.

So you know, things like that. Buying followers, it’s the same concept. These people don’t know you, they don’t like you. They like any and everything, and they confuse the algorithm because the algorithm’s like, I don’t know what they like so I don’t know where to categorize you.

And giveaways? Giveaways don’t really work because, I mean, they give you more followers in the short term. They work like that. But the problem is, most of these people either leave after the giveaway is over or become dead weight because they never engage with your content. And Instagram wants people to engage with your content.

And so that signals the algorithm that your content in trash, and then they don’t show it to anybody. So that’s how I feel about it.

JENNY GUY: Well, thank you. I mean, guys, I asked. If anyone’s out there– I’m the one who did this. I asked the question. That’s helpful. That’s really helpful because a lot of time, like we said, there’s a lot of pressure to have these high numbers and to engage.

What would you say– would you say that Instagram has really helped your work with brands? Like you said you were starting to get paid like, that’s how it began.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. I can say right now, about 75% of my income comes from Instagram. And I always like to point that out because I’m not huge. I am not like this big, big, Instagrammer. You know what I mean? I have under 50,000 followers. But I have a core engaged audience.

So if I put a link up from a brand that I trust, and that they know I trust, they will swipe up. You know, they will click on it, and brands have figured that out. Sometimes you have to show them, but they figure that out. So I always say, if I can do it with my size following, anybody should be able to if you do what you’re supposed to do.

JENNY GUY: OK. Two questions. Follow ups. One, can you tell me about your– do you mind telling me how big you are? Two, will you tell us– you said sometimes you have to show them. Give us some tips on how you would show a brand. Demonstrate that type of selling power.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So I think I have 33,000 followers today. I know 33 and some change.

JENNY GUY: Loosely that, yes.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah, loosely that. But show– like for instance, I had a brand came to me last week. I told them what my rate was. And they came back and said, well with an account of your size usually this is what we pay.
And I proceeded to– I took screenshots of my analytics, of my last sponsored post that was like theirs. Same type of brand. And I showed them the back end. I was like, remember, likes on Instagram are not the same anymore. But I’m going to show you my back end, how much reach that post got, how many impressions that post got, and in the story, how many swipe ups that got to the brand’s link.

And they’re like, oh, OK, here you go. So I got my rate. And that was something I learned from one of my friends, but it worked. So I’ll always say, do it.

JENNY GUY: That’s awesome. I love that. And I love that you kept negotiating with the brand and let them know that size doesn’t matter. OK, not necessarily. It matters to a certain extent, but it’s not the only thing. And like you said–

LASHAWN WILTZ: It’s not the only thing.

JENNY GUY: –likes are very different now. We’re going to talk about that in a second. But how are likes different now? Let’s just jump in.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Likes are different because you got to think about the fact that there are some countries in the world where likes are not a factor anymore. They took them away. And in the US, of course, we still have them, the majority of accounts. There are a couple that don’t. But for the majority of the world, there is no likes.

So you got to think about that. And then a lot of people don’t hit like anymore. People are stingy with their likes now. People are more likely to comment, actually, than they are to like. I know I forget to do it sometimes. Sometimes I forget to like and then I have to go back and go, oh, oh, let me like this post.

JENNY GUY: Yes, same. Same.

LASHAWN WILTZ: And it’s like, you’ll see it, you’ll laugh about it, you’re engaged with it, you’ll read all the other comments, you’ll even like some of the other comments, but you won’t like the post. That’s how Instagram works these days. And so you always have to remind brands that is how it goes. Sometimes they need educating, so you just got to remind them.

JENNY GUY: Definitely. OK. So while we cannot control the Instagram algorithm, we are all about focusing on what we can control. So what should we focus on with our Instagram strategy now?

LASHAWN WILTZ: You should focus on Stories, Reels, and your engagement, which we talked a little bit about. But those are the three things that you really need to focus on right now because that is what matters to Instagram, and that’s what matters to brands. Even though they’re not going to come out and say it, but that’s what matters.

JENNY GUY: You may have to tell them that that’s what matters.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes.

JENNY GUY: But that is what they should be look– in terms of what’s going to give them the results, give them the return on their investment and working with you, it’s that. So let’s start with Stories because, I love a good Story. They’re my favorite.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I do too. So Stories are Instagram’s darling. It’s the one thing they stole from Snapchat that they made their own that actually is great. Everybody– people scroll this way now, instead of this way first. I know there are some days where I get on and I might scroll my Stories and get off.

JENNY GUY: Yes.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Not even look at my feed.

JENNY GUY: Same.

LASHAWN WILTZ: And I know other people do the same thing because Stories are entertaining. You know, they keep us on the app, which is what Instagram loves. They’re personal, it’s like being a voyeur. I always tell my clients, you are the reality show. That is why people are watching.
It’s like a reality show on your phone you can go to, you can come back to, and keep watching. That’s why good story matters, because you want to keep people engaged. They help with that like, know, trust factor.

JENNY GUY: Say that again. Talk to us about like, know, trust factor.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So when people like, know, and trust you they’re more likely to become your super fans and they’re more likely to click your links. They will always leave a comment. They will respond and heart every Story. And when you ask them to buy something, they will buy it. That’s what you want.

They will swipe up and go to your newsletter. They will get off the app, which– let me break and say that’s what your ultimate goal should always be. Get them off the app. Because we don’t own Instagram, Mark does. So get them off to something you own. OK. Off my soapbox.

JENNY GUY: No, but no it’s the truth. No, I love that. I love hearing that. And the truth is, yeah, they don’t own it so what you’re doing is at odds with Instagram. So how do you balance that out? Because you said their goal is to keep people on the app, your goal is to get them off the app onto your own stuff. So how do you balance that out?

LASHAWN WILTZ: So you balance that out. That’s part of the like, know, trust factor. Because if they don’t like, know, and trust you, which is what you do with Stories, you get them– you let them in. You let them see the you behind the frame, you know, and everything.

Which, once you do that, you can subtly direct them to, oh, do you want to know more about this meal I cooked, it’s on my blog. And then you put the little swipe up where you say, go to the link in my profile. They’ll go. Hopefully, on your blog, you have something where they can sign up for your email list and, you know, there you’ve got them. You have captured them.

That is why I always say Stories are the most important part because they help you with that like, know, trust factor. They help people like, know, and trust you so that they like you, and they click your links, and they swipe up, and they buy your things.

JENNY GUY: They become your people. They become your–

LASHAWN WILTZ: They become your super fans, your super fans. That’s what they are. Like Pat doesn’t know what you’re saying.

JENNY GUY: OK. So I’m going to pause you here because I want to hear– if you don’t follow LaShawn you should because she has amazing stuff. I find her Instagram Stories to be incredibly– they’re like my ASMR. I love listening, I love her music, I love her whole aesthetic. I love her coffee. Like, it all– And it becomes routine for me to watch, and listen, and engage with her.

So tell me, how do you make a great Instagram Story? And how do you decide? Because your aesthetic is so yours. It is yours so uniquely. How did you come to that?

LASHAWN WILTZ: So when someone goes through Stories you want them to know it’s yours. You want them to be able– because I know I follow people where even before I look up and see whose Story it is, I know even if they’re not in the frame, because of the aesthetic. Because of how it is, how it starts, how it goes.

What makes a good Instagram Story, is that it’s a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, just like a story. So, you know, people always post, like, these one frames and then they leave. And I’m like, OK, that’s boring. No one’s going to come back to follow up to see what else went on, you know what I mean?

They’re going to quick tap through to the next person because you boring. And then you will not show up the next time that they’re on Instagram because, you know, they didn’t follow through. Bloggers, you know, we are all influencers. We are storytellers. We have to do the same thing on IG that we do on our blog, tell a story. So that’s what I always say.

People always say, well what do you post about? I’m like, your life. I think my life is boring, but my coffee Stories, that’s me. That’s one thing that’s mine. I have a friend who posts coffee Stories too, but hers are completely different than mine, and that’s OK.

So, you know, I watch her, because I think her’s are funny. You, know, she watches mine because mine are just different. So you have to find something that is your own, something that keeps people coming back, and go for it. Post it.

JENNY GUY: Yeah, post it. And trial and error is where that’s going to happen, right? I’m sure you didn’t wake up one morning and go, my coffee Story emerged fully formed from my brain.

LASHAWN WILTZ: No. I always say, everybody should have what I call content buckets. You should have them for your feed, and you should have them for Stories. Like things that you always– that you pull from that you always post about.

So for me it’s coffee, motherhood, work-life balance, health care, or me time. So every time I post on Instagram, it’s going to be about one of those things. I rarely deviate. Of course I’ll deviate for, like, important events, like, you know, current events that pertain to my life.

JENNY GUY: Of course

LASHAWN WILTZ: I will post about them. But for the most part, when you come to me you know that’s going to be something that you’re going to find. I’m even going talk about my son, my coffee, how much work I got to do, you know, you going to see me on my Peloton first thing in the morning. Something like that.

So you have to start making yourself a routine. It’s like you said, you want you to be a part of their lives, where you are part of their routine. So remember beginning, a middle, and an end though, please.

JENNY GUY: So in terms of the content buckets do you have, like, spreadsheets where you keep ideas for stuff that you know that work because– in case you run out? Like do you ever just go– I mean coffee is great because you’re going to drink that. That’s going to be every morning.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Every day.

JENNY GUY: You’re going to drink the coffee. So it’s there. But if, for other content, are there other, like, do you ever have ideas? How do you do that?

LASHAWN WILTZ: OK. So most of the time I have an editorial calendar for Instagram. And not only for my feed, but I have one for Stories. So I basically know, on a given day, what type of content I’m going to post. So I know if I talked about one piece of content a lot yesterday I might not talk about it as much the next day. I have it spread out.

So I might not know exactly what– no I’m lying, I know exactly what’s going to be posted, in general. Some of it’s live, some of it’s recorded, and some is just shared from other things that I’ve already found on Instagram. So it’s a planning thing, and that makes my life easier, too.

JENNY GUY: What do you use for your editorial calendar for Instagram?

LASHAWN WILTZ: A calendar.

JENNY GUY: OK, you just use a regular calendar. Awesome. I love it.

LASHAWN WILTZ: A basic planner. A basic planner. I’m like, yeah, you know. Yeah. I just need a basic planner.

JENNY GUY: It’s whatever works. OK, so Christine had a question. She said, I’m curious about LaShawn’s thoughts on longer text and feed posts. I know she’s focusing on Stories and Reels, but I still love the feed.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So Instagram is like micro-blogging these days. So the thing about the longer posts on your feed is, are you saying anything interesting. Are you keeping the user’s attention. So I always say if you’re going to have a long caption, you have to capture their attention in the first sentence, like when they’re scrolling. When they see, you know, because it cuts off after a certain amount of characters.

JENNY GUY: The ellipses, yeah.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah. You have to capture their attention with that first sentence. That’s what I call a call to action. You’re telling them, you’re asking them a question, you’re telling them to do something. You’re telling them to double tap, you’re telling them to post an emoji of how you felt today. Something in that first sentence that makes them want to stop their scroll.

Otherwise, they’re going to just keep going. And sometimes with a longer caption it’s better to put something at the beginning and at the end. Because, otherwise, they’re going to get bored. Unless they are loyal followers. Now your super fans will read everything. You know, they’re regular people, you’ve gotta capture their attention.

JENNY GUY: And that makes– that’s a lot of sense and you want to have, I’m sure, a balance of that content. I want to talk more about balancing all of the different things out. But I also want to talk– we talked about the new Instagram, and so let’s talk about Reels.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Ah, Reels.

JENNY GUY: Oh. Not a big fan, eh?

LASHAWN WILTZ: No, I actually like Reels. This is Instagram’s new baby because Instagram loves video. Let me repeat, they love video. I always say, whenever Instagram introduces something new you have to try it. You have to do it. Because whatever is new, that’s what they’re going to push.

And the main reason that you want to do Reels right now is for the potential. The reach, the discovery, the engagement. It’s crazy right now because Reels, of course, are being prioritized in all the ways that people search for content on IG. You can find when you open up the explore tab, it’s the first thing there. It’s the top piece of content that is on there. It is like they’re trying to force you to do it.

JENNY GUY: They really want you to like Reels.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. If you do a hashtag search, it’s there right at the top. If you go to the Reels feed. Reels has its own feed, I mean, come on. And even if you do an audio search, like if you tap on the song that somebody used for Reels, it’ll take you to an audio search where it will show you every Reel that used that song.

It is so many ways that Instagram has made it so that you can find Reels. They want you to use Reels. And even today they just updated it so that they’re 30 seconds long instead of 15, and there’s a 10 second timer instead of a three second timer. So, I mean, Reels are here to stay. They want us to use them.

JENNY GUY: They’ve gone all in.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes, they have gone all in. So now we have to. So that’s my thing about Reels.

JENNY GUY: All right. So, Larisha asked a great question. She says, I’d love to hear tips on creating them, especially for people who did not, or do not, or refuse to, do TikTok.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So I don’t– any Reel that I create I don’t create in the app because it’s clunky. And until they fix that a little bit more I will not be creating in Instagram. So what I usually do is, even like when I did my 15 seconds of summer, because that was, like, the perfect way to do a Reel, I just recorded little scenes every day, all day. So, like, 5 seconds here, 5 seconds there.

And then you can stitch them together in an app. I use InShot, so it helps me to stitch together my Reels. And then I take the Reel into Instagram and add the music. Why? Because when you use it– it’s just like TikTok in that regard– is when you add the music in the app it will boost you in the algorithm more than if you use your own music.

JENNY GUY: So My Quiet Kitchen, good question. Ugh, Reels, what is it, and what should we put in them? I mean, fair enough.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So they can be anything. They can be fun. They can be– I’ve seen Reels where they’re, what do they call it, educational. Like there are people who do quick little cooking videos, cooking Reels. There are people who do quick informational– like there’s one girl, she talks about IG a lot. She does little informational Reels.

There are people who do funny Reels. There are people who just do the snap Reel where they’re changing clothes. They are basic. Don’t over think it. You can sit there and just snap, snap, snap, and change clothes if you’re a fashion blogger.

You can sit there and do a quick this is how you boil an egg. Simple things like quick bites of content. That’s it. And now they’re 30 seconds long so you can get a little bit more content in them. 15 seconds was kind of hard, but 30 seconds you can definitely get more into them.

JENNY GUY: Love that. OK.

LASHAWN WILTZ: It’s just, don’t think too hard, just do it.

JENNY GUY: Jump in. Jump in, make a Reel. Do it today. Engagement. Let’s talk about that.

LASHAWN WILTZ: All right.

JENNY GUY: Because you’ve said likes are different. So what are we looking at if we’re not looking at likes as much?

LASHAWN WILTZ: So saves and shares are the new likes on the ‘gram.

JENNY GUY: OK.

LASHAWN WILTZ: OK. So, why? Because it gets your content in front of more people. It makes people physically interact with your post, which is important. Because when people physically do something to your post like comment, like or share it, or save it, Instagram is like, oh, they’re on the app longer.

Remember? That’s what Instagram wants. That’s all they want. So remember, engagement is down right now, which is–

JENNY GUY: Overall.

LASHAWN WILTZ: –which is a question I always get from people. I always have to remind people, especially right now, you have to look at what else is going on in the world. People are tired. This is not going to be– Instagram is always like this. It goes in cycles.

And really, in September it’s always down, mainly because people’s kids are going back to school. Parents are trying to get back into their rhythm. And with the way the world is right now, we’ve got virtual school over here, we got people trying to do Zooms all day, you’ve got to manage everything, and people are tired of being online.

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So it’s not us, it’s them. But this too shall pass, as it always does. I always say, keep doing what you’re doing, because when people come back in full force you want Instagram to still know you’re there. Because if you thought, just because you’re like, oh, ain’t nobody watching anyway, then when people come back, you’re behind.

So I always say keep going. And one more thing that I have to say. One reason why engagement is down for a lot of people, especially a lot of influencers, is because you didn’t pivot during Covid. You did not pivot.
People are at home and you were still posting these aspirational, I’m going on this fabulous trip, look at this fabulous trip I went to last year. Don’t nobody care no more. That’s the thing. Now it’s all about relatable content.

How can they relate to you?

You can have relatable aspirational content, but you have to spin it that way. Just continuing to post your fashion posts with no context. You know, not saying this is my outfit for Zoom today instead of saying, oh, look at me, this cute sale I went to at Target. You know? Some people lost their job, they don’t have money. You know what I mean?

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

LASHAWN WILTZ: You have to know your audience. If your audience is not responding to your content most likely there is a reason and you are it. So you have to learn to pivot and see what do they want. What do they want from me now.

And find out. You can do that simply as just, like, poll your audience. They will tell you. People have no shame, they want to give their opinion. So that’s my soapbox that I’ll get off of now.

JENNY GUY: I think it’s a great– it’s a good soapbox to be on. And as you were saying, we’ve been in here for six months. You don’t know what people want. And like you said, if you don’t know, ask. Why not? Why not just ask?

LASHAWN WILTZ: Ask. Instagram has those lovely polls, and question boxes, and then when people like–

JENNY GUY: I don’t have to type. You can just push the button.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. And when people comment and like and use your polls and everything, that gives you engagement. So I’m always, like, come on, people. Just do it. Just do it.

JENNY GUY: So Quiet Kitchen said, perfect, love that explanation with regard to Reels. Carly Anderson says, yes, the pivot, yes, yes, yes. Sally says I love LaShawn. Larisha says, keeping up with trends, pivoting, literally all helps so much. So smart.

All right. So I’m going to follow up. When you were talking about shares and saves being the new likes, love that. What have you seen with the type of content that encourages those saves, encourages those shares.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So things like educational content. Like if you’re educating somebody. Memes. Right now, memes are– memes are hot.

JENNY GUY: Memes are life.

LASHAWN WILTZ: That’s an old way to put it. People will share–

JENNY GUY: Give me memes, give me gifs, and give me carbs, and I’m done for the rest of my life.

LASHAWN WILTZ: People will share a meme. People will share a good infographic. People will share a good carousel post that educates. I always say, every once in awhile– I have like a, what do I call it, Instagram mastermind– and we always say, every once in awhile, you need to share one of those posts that make people click and save.

It’s just– that’s something you need to start incorporating into your strategy. Either it’s a joke, it’s a recipe. Oh, you can say, save this recipe for later. Or you a graphic, or a craft, anything tell them to save it so that they can.

JENNY GUY: Very smart, love it. It’s just as simple as telling them to save it.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes.

JENNY GUY: I’m sure it makes a huge difference as opposed to thinking that people do know that they should.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Right. No, you have to tell people what to do. It’s a fact.

JENNY GUY: Always. Always. We’re getting lots of informative carousels right now. Sally says LaShawn has helped me with my Instagram account. She knows what she’s talking about.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I know Sally.

JENNY GUY: She’s a smart cookie. Quiet Kitchen says, you guys have done this brilliantly. Thank you. I don’t know if that was for LaShawn or Mediavine, but either way, we’ll both take it, and we love it.

OK. So how do you balance all those different forms of content out? How do you take Stories, Reels and your feed and get a cohesive Instagram strategy that works for you?

LASHAWN WILTZ: So like I mentioned earlier, I have a content calendar. I literally, every Sunday, I plan out my week. Not only plan out like what I’m going to post on my blog, I plan out what I’m going to post on Instagram. And I can always tell the weeks when I’m successful.

So, like, last week, I was not successful. This week I’m doing a little bit better. But it’s like, if you plan stuff out it’s easier to remain consistent. So, just like I said, I have the content buckets. I plan my Instagram within an inch of its life.

I know what I’m going to post on Stories. Sometimes I do what I call, I say, be a part of that prerecord life. I will prerecord stuff, and I have folders on my phone that say “for Instagram.” And I have folders that say “for Instagram Stories.” Even in Instagram, if I see a meme, or I see a post that I know I’m going to share sooner or later, I save it to a folder called “to share to Stories.”

Just so that I already have that content ready, pulled up, and I can just share it and keep it moving. If I’m going to do a post, I already write out that caption beforehand, I’ve already picked my hashtags. I do this for the week. That way I’m not scrambling at the last minute trying to say, oh, I need to post, what am I going to post. I don’t have any of that.

I have a friend who plans a month ahead. I’m not like that, but the concept is the same. Like I said, choose your content buckets. I’m always about that prerecord life. Pre-write your IG captions.

And my favorite tip is, don’t go on Instagram. So people are always like, well, what do you mean, you’re always responding to your Stories and everything. I’m like, I’m responding from Facebook. I am not on the actual app because the app is a time suck. I will start scrolling and watching people’s stories.

But on Facebook, all I can do is see when people respond. And I’m on there. So I have specific times where I can go on Facebook anyway, just like Instagram. And so then I will respond to all my comments and then keep it moving, but I’m not on the app.

I spend about no more than two hours a day on that app, if that, on a good day. So that’s on a busy day. I have time limits, because otherwise I will– I got too much else– too many other things to do. I can’t be on Instagram. And I’ve learned that that is the only way to have a life. Stay off the app.

JENNY GUY: And I love that. It’s so smart. It’s hard. So Larisha says, it’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. Schnelle says, dedicated to the craft, I love it. Suzanne says, this is gold, thank you. Jennifer says, I do the Story share folder. That folder to share within the phone is brilliant.

Brenda says, that is so smart to save things to share in Stories later. I feel like I’ll see things in bunches and on some days, not so much, so it’s a good idea to save it.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Exactly.

JENNY GUY: And cue it up. Jennifer says, how can you respond on Facebook? I think I broke something.

LASHAWN WILTZ: You responded? I don’t know. Oh, oh you mean on Instagram. Oh, so you can either do it in Creator, Facebook Creator account, or mine is connected to my alerts. I think you have to agree to it.

So when I go on Instagram I see the alerts for IG as well as the regular. So sometimes, I mean, my inbox is busy, because I do respond to lots of my people. And I purposely create content that makes them want to respond, because the algorithm likes you that way.

So it takes me– it takes me a while. So I see a lot of responses. But I have a set time, like it’s a timer, I only let myself stay on for like 10 minutes answering those questions real quick, and then I get off. The only time I’m really on Instagram is early in the morning and in the evening.

Like most of the time I post a post in the evening, so that’s usually when I’m on. Or I post once early in the morning. And usually for Stories I go on briefly and post something, because I already have it ready. Or either I’m getting ready to record it right then and it’s going on. So that’s all.

JENNY GUY: Love. Now are you using– so Jennifer is saying, Facebook Creator, she’ll look for that. On desktop are you using it?

LASHAWN WILTZ: On desk– on desktop. Or there’s also an app, if you just want to go on and look at just your responses on Stories, Facebook’s Threads app actually will let you do that. And the thing about Threads app is, you can record Stories in there.

And you know how we always tell you to caption in your Stories, it will caption them for you.

JENNY GUY: Oh.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah. Just something to think about.

JENNY GUY: OK. So you said you don’t personally scroll, you’re not on there for longer than two hours a day, you’re using Facebook to keep you from going down the rabbit hole. How much actual content are you posting via all these different places a day? Like, what’s an average for you?

LASHAWN WILTZ: I don’t post on my feed everyday. My feed is maybe every other day. But on Instagram Stories, remember they have a beginning, a middle, and an end, so that’s at least three frames for me.

JENNY GUY: Got it.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So I usually post a group in the morning, in the early morning. I post a group mid-morning around 10:00-ish, 11:00-ish. I post again around 11:00 or 1:00-ish, something like that. Usually I put a transitional post in between. That’s usually one of those memes or a post that I’m sharing. I call them transitional posts.

Then I post something around dinnertime and maybe in the evening. So maybe four times a day. But that’s by design, because it keeps me constantly in the little– when they first come on I’m there. It’s something new for them to see. So that’s what I do.

JENNY GUY: Very smart. OK. Question for you from Jenny Fielding. What should travel influencers be posting while we can’t travel? My niche is cruise travel so I’m very wary of posting irrelevant content that’s not about cruising, should I be?

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. So unless you’re posting about how you are cruising during COVID. And no one is cruising during COVID right now.

JENNY GUY: If it were an option, please don’t.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Right. This is where you have to have the pivot. You either have to start talking about other aspects of travel and what you can do now, because that’s what keeps you in a niche, but it’s a broader niche. And this is also a time for you to branch out.

I always say, this whole year has forced all of us to find another content bucket. So now it’s time for you to pivot and find another content bucket. That’s the only way you’re going to stay relevant, because like you said, no one is cruising right now. I mean, when we start cruising again, maybe. Then you can be like, yes, this is how we cruise with COVID. But right now, no. I mean, no.

JENNY GUY: Yeah, yeah, totally. OK. So Jennifer says, I can type faster on my computer, this will save me so much time. You may have changed my life. Christine Koh said again, what’s the app that captions Stories, Story videos.

LASHAWN WILTZ: It’s called Threads. T-H-R-E-A-D-S. You know, threads, just like threads. And it looks like a little Instagram box with a circle in it, like a video.

JENNY GUY: Brenda says, I just go to my Instagram account directly on my desktop and reply to things there. It’s much easier for me to avoid the time suck on my phone.

LASHAWN WILTZ: See. See. We don’t have time to have time sucks anymore. At least, I know I don’t. So that is the way to get it done and still respond to your people, because they need responses. We’re not Beyonce, we must respond to our comments.

JENNY GUY: True.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So that’s a good way to do it and still save yourself time.

JENNY GUY: It’s such a crying shame that we’re not Beyonce. God.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I just want her money, but moving on.

JENNY GUY: I mean, yeah, it’s the woe of my life. Somebody– somebody respond to my Instagram comments. The peasants need to be responded to. OK.

Jenny Fielding says, also would love to know how much time we should spend engaging on other people’s content, and how important is that as a part of your Instagram strategy to growth?

LASHAWN WILTZ: So you have to use Instagram like a regular person. Posting and ghosting does not work. So I have– you know those folders on Instagram where you can save things? Every day I have a different folder, or group of people in those folders, where I go to their content every day, and I make sure that I comment on those people.

Now some of those people are what I call my super fans. The people who always comment on my stuff. I may not follow them but I try to at least once a week go in and comment on their stuff. Some of my friends are in that folder because I’m not on Instagram all the time, so I might miss their post.
So that is the way I keep up, in general. And then in the morning, in the evening, when I have what I call free time on Instagram–

JENNY GUY: Right.

LASHAWN WILTZ: –that’s when I just scroll and like. That’s when I go on the explore feed and I see what’s going on there. That’s when I’ll just go through and if I see an interesting comment, I might go to that person’s feed and look, like, oh, that’s nice. But it’s constantly using the app like a real person. You still have to do that. Just set aside 15 minutes. Set a timer. Go for it.

JENNY GUY: And we had heard earlier this summer that you have to, if you’re using your business account, if you’re using your branded account, you need to be strategic about what it is that you are liking and following because you’re teaching the algorithm that entire time. So if I’m like–

LASHAWN WILTZ: Sure are.

JENNY GUY: –if I’m a vegan blogger and I’m like a closet– and I’m sorry, I don’t think anyone out there is– but I’m like a closet bacon person and I go like all the bacon accounts in the dark of night when no one is there, they know, right?

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. That is why I have a whole separate private account where I follow a whole bunch of stuff on there that I would never follow on my regular place. That account is ratchet. But, you know, that is like my follow all the things that don’t have anything to do with my brand, you know, person.

So people are always like, oh, you didn’t follow me back. I’m like, no, I didn’t, I’m sorry. And it’s nothing personal. I might follow you on my personal account, but not on that one. So, yeah, you have to be strategic about that.

JENNY GUY: I love that. Larisha says, I’d love to hear LaShawn discuss any tips on diversifying content between Reels, Stories, feed and IGTV. We have not hit on IGTV yet.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Diversify how? So are you meaning like what type of content?

JENNY GUY: I think she’s saying, and I asked this a little bit earlier, how much are you focusing. You said you post on your feed every other day usually.

LASHAWN WILTZ: That’s me.

JENNY GUY: And about three feed posts a week, roughly. And then you’re doing about– you’re doing four bursts of three Stories a piece a day. So how much of that is Reels, and then do you do IGTV?

LASHAWN WILTZ: IGTV. [SIGHS] I hate IGTV. I’m not even going to lie. I do it every once in a while, though, because Instagram still likes it. So I always say, depends on what your brand is.

Larisha, you do food, right? So I would say, for you especially, IGTV should be big. You should be making food videos. You should be making quick little food Reels. You should be posting, you know, your food in Stories.

Shopping in Covid times. How to– you guys are vegan or vegetarian now? I can’t remember. But things like that is what you should be doing. You can spread it out, little bite size pieces of content everywhere. You don’t have to do it every day because that’s just too much.

None of us are super like that, unless you plan ahead. But I would say, at least once a week you need to use one of Instagram’s favorite things. Reels, Stories, IGTV, you need to use them.

JENNY GUY: And I think that’s what she just clarified in her question. She said how do you keep up with it all, basically. And that, yes, you said at least once a week it’s a good thing for yourself to go and try one, even if you don’t like it, try one of their things.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Right. And that’s another thing that has to do with planning. If you plan it out, it’s easier to keep up. So if you plan at the beginning of the week, you know you need a Reel. You know you need an IGTV. You know, you can split some of your IGTV and make a Reel out of it.

You know what I mean? You can post your Reel to your feed, and that is a feed post. You have to be strategic and also save yourself time. But plan. Plan it out.

JENNY GUY: Plan. Planning is so important. And however you choose to plan.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes.

JENNY GUY: A planner of her own. Just a paper planner, which I love. Is it a fancy paper planner?

LASHAWN WILTZ: No. It’s a basic one from Dollar Tree. And it’s just for Instagram. I wish I had it with me, but I don’t. But it’s just for Instagram. It’s just basic. And it has the weekly one sheet, and I use that for stories. Yeah, it’s basic.

JENNY GUY: I love that.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Basic.

JENNY GUY: Tiffany says, hi LaShawn. When you say you share your favorites to folders is it actually in Instagram? And Jennifer said yes, Tiffany, when you click save there’s an option to put it in– create a folder.

So how many folders do you have? Do you use those a lot? She’s embarrassed about her folders. Y’all, I’ve uncovered a secret.

LASHAWN WILTZ: OK. I have over 30 folders. I’m not going to keep counting.

JENNY GUY: Wow.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Because I have different– because sometimes I’ll save accounts because some of my clients, I’m interested in showing them something from them. Or sometimes I have categories of people. Sometimes I’m doing research. So I have folders for everything. I use those folders.

JENNY GUY: So you mentioned clients. Tell us a little bit more about what you mean by clients.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I do Instagram strategy reports where it’s like a one on one with me where I deep dive into your Instagram. I basically tear it apart. And I tell you what you should be posting, what you’re doing wrong, what you could do to improve.

I give you a whole plan. Basically, those content buckets, I tell you what they should be, what I think they should be.

JENNY GUY: Great. Yeah.

LASHAWN WILTZ: I help you with Stories, Reels now, IGTV ideas, plans, I give you homework. And we do it with a Zoom call, too. So it’s like a whole thing.

JENNY GUY: Yes. There are all sorts of things that you have. You do the one on one consultations. You also have– and you have an Instagram book. You have a book that you have to offer that we’re going to actually share all the things in there. So tell us– and this isn’t something that we’ve talked about yet but, hashtags on Instagram.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Oh, hashtags. I hate hashtags. Right now hashtags are not doing what they usually do.

JENNY GUY: OK. Fair enough.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Instagram is tweaking something I do believe. But hashtags, I always say, are the keywords of Instagram. They help Instagram group us into categories and things like that. So it’s good to use hashtags to help people find you.

They’re like exposure. You’re not necessarily going to get a follow from it like you used to. You might not even get a like from it, because people scroll. But you will get that impression. You will get that reach from the hashtag.
So that is something to consider. I always say, you can get banned, shadow banned, they want to say, for spammy behavior with hashtags. Like using too many, using the same ones over and over again. Using what they actually have as banned hashtags.

So I always say, with your hashtag strategy, be careful. Lately, I’m trying to use less hashtags–

JENNY GUY: OK.

LASHAWN WILTZ: –simply because I want to train Instagram to recognize my posts without so many of them. So that’s just my new thing right now that I’m trying.

JENNY GUY: Give us some numbers. Give us a ballpark on what is too many. Or what is less than what–

LASHAWN WILTZ: I would say 10 is a good number to use.

JENNY GUY: OK.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Anything over that you are– I mean, you can use them. But it’s more about the combination of hashtags. And are you using hashtags that are too big. Because some of them are huge. You’re not going to get seen unless you, too, are huge.

I always say, the smaller ones, like the 50k to 100k, in that range, those are community-like. So people are in those actually looking for stuff. Anything under 50k, you run the risk of not that many people being in it and not that many people using it. So that is a thought.

JENNY GUY: It’s a lot like keyword research and SEO. Like you said, they’re the keywords words of Instagram. You’re looking for the low hanging fruit that you can actually make an impact on as opposed to–

LASHAWN WILTZ: That’s exactly it.

JENNY GUY: — I’m going to try and knock Beyonce out of this hashtag.

LASHAWN WILTZ: So instead of saying– right– instead of saying food, which has millions of searches.

JENNY GUY: Right.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Even instead of saying vegan, you might want to say vegan casserole. You know what I mean? Something like that. Break it– niche it down when you think about hashtags.

JENNY GUY: I love that. And we put this in the comments, we’re going to get back to your questions here in a second.

But if you go to any of LaShawn’s great stuff, from the Instagram one on one strategy sessions, to her book and she’s also got a Stories course that’s in there, you get 10% off. You get that discount with the code MEDIAVINE in all caps. That’s in there.

How long is that good for LaShawn? How long will you let people use that?

LASHAWN WILTZ: Oh, you can use it infinity right now

JENNY GUY: Infinity! That’s my kind of code. So go over and check out everything she has to offer if you need more, because I certainly need more. I’m very interested to hear about her Stories course. OK.

Larisha said, since you aren’t a huge fan of IGTV, I’m curious if you will pivot to doing more of them now that Instagram is in alpha testing of ad revenue of Instagram TV?

And I actually wanted to get into this before Larisha mentioned it. Ads are becoming a thing.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes, yes. Of course. That’s why I always say, I always add one eventually. Like I don’t aban– I hate them. But I will do one because I know that, eventually, they are going to add ads to them. And I want the content there when they do.

So I, let me see, I did one maybe a week or two ago. But I try to do one at least every couple weeks, or at least once a month. Right now, it’s really once a month, I’m not gonna lie. So as the holidays come there are more opportunities to do IGTV.

I used to do them a lot last year, but things are different this year so I didn’t do them as much. So that is something I need to get back to. But yes, I do always tell people in my strategy do as I say, not as I do. Do more IGTV because they’re going to have ads.

JENNY GUY: We’re also hearing that there’s a rumor going around out there that the Instagram algorithm favors ads. What are some better resources to understand how ads are working on Instagram and if they should become a part of your strategy.

LASHAWN WILTZ: It’s like, well, listen, Mark owns Instagram like he owns Facebook. And you know Facebook is pay to play now. It really is. Instagram, I believe, is heading that way, albeit a little slower than Facebook got there. Facebook, just, one day we were fine and then one day it was like, bam.

Instagram is taking its time getting there, mainly because no one is taking the bait. Big brands are, but influencers, we are not taking the bait, yet. It is a way, if you do it right, to get your content in front of more people by boosting and things like that.

But once you do it once, just like Facebook, you have to keep doing it. So just one thing to think about.

JENNY GUY: It’s like when you shave your legs. You can’t go back.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yes. You can’t go back. I mean you’re just prickly. If you color your hair, you got to keep going.

JENNY GUY: Well, you don’t.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah, now you should see all this gray. Moving on.

JENNY GUY: Everyone’s like, I love that choice you made. I’m like, it was a real great choice, wasn’t it? Not a choice. All right.

LASHAWN WILTZ: This is life. Yep.

JENNY GUY: It’s just the way it is, and I’m here now.

So Brenda says, I started using hashtags a bit more intentionally a couple months ago and it has been slowly helping me grow my count. Slow and steady, but it’s working for me for organic growth because my account is small.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yay. And that’s the thing about Instagram now. We cannot expect the monstrous growth that you used to even two, three years ago. Everything is slow and steady on Instagram now. So you cannot judge your growth by one post or even, you say, oh, I posted every day for a week, and nothing happened.

No. You got to do it consistently over a longer period of time. I will say, though, Reels, if you really– right now– if you want to really grow do a Reel every day. Watch them come in.

JENNY GUY: Love that. All right. So we are, unfortunately, about out of time, which I dislike because this has been an awesome hour. And so much to learn. I’m going to make an announcement real quick. But before, I’m going to give you the final question.

Which, I want to know what accounts do you follow that are inspirational for you in terms of learning? Either about Instagram or just learning about how to create beautiful posts. So it can be straight up knowledge for Instagram, or it can be your favorite accounts to follow just to look at beautiful stuff and to talk about the anatomy of a great post.

Guys, the next episode of Teal Talk^®— we are not on next week, but we are back in October. Thursday, October 8 at 3 PM Eastern time. I have Daniella Flores of I Like To Dabble and Schnelle Acevedo of Brooklyn Active Mama. We are talking about living your best graphic design life with Canva.

We’re going to get into branding. We’re going to get into organization. We’re going to get into, obviously, social media templates and how to create the things you want for that. But take it beyond that and how to really organize what you have on Canva. And use some of their new tools that are out and how to maximize those for content creators.

So that is October 8, don’t miss it. If you are a fan of our show, and I certainly hope you are, and you want to see more of this great content from people like LaShawn, and Schnelle, and Daniella, please like us on Facebook at Mediavine.

Go to our YouTube. That’s where all the episodes go when they’re done, they’re edited, and they are on our YouTube channel forever. And they’re also always still available on Facebook. So we want you to watch these.
We’re not going to hide them from you. Promise you that. LaShawn, tell us about those Instagram accounts that we have to go follow right now.

LASHAWN WILTZ: OK. First one is Cookayemonster. Kay is, she’s not even– she’s a photographer. And normally I would not follow her because she does a lot of fashion posts, but her Stories are excellent, they are marvelous. They are beautiful. They are creative.

And I spend a lot of time stealing her filters and things like that, because she is truly awesome and a creative and it’s very inspirational for me. Shavonda, S. Gardner Style, she is a, what do they call it? A home decorator account.

JENNY GUY: A DIYer.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Yeah, DIYer. Her home is beautiful. She lives in Sacramento. But what I like about her account is the engagement. She has an actual community.

And the way– like if you look at her Stories, and even her posts, the way she interacts with her audience, I love that. And so I’m always following her for tips and things like that.

Style Fit Fatty does an excellent job of the share and save type posts.

JENNY GUY: Yes.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Excellent job with it. And you don’t even realize that’s what she’s doing to you.

JENNY GUY: Which is the best way to do it, of course.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Right. Unless you’re like an Instagram nerd and you’re like, oh, I see what she did there. It’s very subtle, and her aesthetic is beautiful. Her family is beautiful. And you’re just like, oh, I just like her. I want to like her post.

A-S-E-K-Y-B. And she does have a pretty account. When you say you want– everybody is like, well what does a cohesive account look like? That is what it looks like. It’s just her family, you know, and they’re cute. She has the cutest kids.

But they all– it flows together. Everything she does flows, from the filter she uses, the content. So I’m always like, do that, do that, do that.

Jennifer, who is on here. Jennifer Borget. Just because it’s, once again, it’s one of those pretty cohesive accounts. And then even in her Stories the way it all– like her Stories and her feed usually flows together. So that’s always– I always say that’s a good thing to do.

For Instagram, there are not a lot of really good accounts on there. I’m not gonna lie. Some of them don’t always do the right thing. But there is one. What is her name. Natasha. Sol Studio Marketing.

And you all should follow her right now because she’s doing a 30-day Reels challenge. And she’s teaching about Reels as she learns about it. So I’ve been finding that fascinating. And I think she’s going to have a real course at the end of the 30 days.

So if you’re interested in that, that’s the type of thing– you might be interested in her. I do like her, though, yeah. That’s it.

JENNY GUY: And follow LaShawn, obviously, at Everyday Eyecandy. Go there.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Oh, yeah, me!

JENNY GUY: Yeah. Follow her. Love it. Coffee Stories. Can’t get enough. And definitely use the code MEDIAVINE, all caps, to get 10% off all of her excellent Instagram help and trainings.

And if you really feel like you just need a deep dive she’s there, she’s available. LaShawn, it’s been so good to have you. Thank you so much for your time.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Thank you for having me.

JENNY GUY: You’ve been a delight. OK. Everybody, we’ll see you in two weeks. Go out and get a pumpkin spice latte something, and enjoy the season. Bye, you guys. Thank you.

LASHAWN WILTZ: Bye, guys.

The post Teal Talk®: Navigating the New Instagram with LaShawn Wiltz appeared first on Mediavine.

As you may have heard in the news or from other publishers, Google’s AMP story format has recently been rebranded.

Welcome, Google Web Stories!

Stories are all the rage online these days, and with this new name change, they’ve at last become a “first class citizen” over at Google.

Web Stories will have their own dedicated carousel in Google Discover, which means a whole new opportunity for publishers to position their content for coveted, organic search traffic.

So how do you build Web Stories for Google and optimize them for SEO? Glad you asked, because we’ve got answers for you with the return of Mediavine’s SEO Like A CEO series below!

What Are Google Web Stories?

Google Web Stories are mini-AMP pages, or embeds that you create for posts on your site. They end up looking like the visual slideshows you’ve likely seen grow in popularity on Facebook and Instagram stories.

Think of Stories as a series of quick images or videos that a user can flip through and, well, tell the story you want to tell.

When it’s over, there’s a nice little Call to Action (CTA) that can encourage audiences to visit your site for additional information.

How Do You Make Web Stories?

If your website is powered by WordPress, you’re in luck.

Google has released an official Web Story plugin for WordPress, and that’s literally all you need to make Web Stories. It’s a great little drag-and-drop interface that includes templates to help get you started.

We’ll save the full web stories tutorial for a Amber’s blog post, and Google has some great documentation on the plugin to walk you through that part too.

Once you create the story, the plugin makes a new Web Story custom post for you to publish – though it won’t appear on your homepage feed.

So where does this post live, and how do you start getting traffic to it? That’s where this guide fits in.

How Do You Get Traffic To Web Stories?

Web Stories live on their own mini-pages within WordPress, and you don’t actually have to embed them or send them traffic yourself.

In fact, you don’t want to.

We’ll talk a little more about ads for Web Stories in a bit, but in short, they will not monetize as well as a regular blog post.

You want to use Web Stories to augment your blog post, and make readers want to read it as well as enjoy your web story. You do not want to divert traffic from the blog post to its Web Story.

For that reason, we do not recommend embedding Web Stories.

The goal is to bring in thousands of new visitors to Web Stories from Google Discover. Then, the CTA at the end of those stories will entice readers to visit your site, where your ads are optimized.

Sound good? We had a feeling it would. Follow this short guide to Web Story SEO to make it happen.

1. Create Stories For Top Posts First

This may seem counterintuitive, as you obviously want to rank on your latest content. However, this follows my usual mantra:

If Google thinks you’re an expert on a particular topic, they’re going to think you’re an expert in a Web Story about it.

Creating Web Stories for a top post is the same strategy as making a Recipe Card or a video for it. Think of it as an ad for your content.

The reason you’re doing this is twofold. One, you’re likely to rank well on that Web Story and two, this is a NEW spot for Google to show off your expertise.

It’s additional traffic in Google Discover you wouldn’t have received with your organic ranking alone. Even if you’re already ranked #1 for a particular article, it’s still a net gain of new traffic!

According to Casey Markee of Media Wyse, publishers are already seeing serious results from Web Stories.

Markee, who recommends bloggers create stories for their top 3-10 posts, says “the results have been fantastic … I had one blogger who generated 20,000 clicks from Google in ONE DAY from stories.”

To give you an idea of the potential here, another blogger he spoke of has generated 50,000+ sessions in December with Web Stories thus far!

2. Don’t Embed Web Stories in Posts

While Google recommends that publishers embed the Web Story in your posts, I don’t actually like this tactic, and I’ll explain why.

First, featuring the embed is going to slow down your page.

Additionally, if you create Stories the way we’re encouraging – and the way in which they make the most logical sense for both user experience and ad monetization – they’re previews of your content. Putting that preview within the content itself doesn’t serve any purpose.

Finally, and most importantly, you simply don’t have to. If you’re running the plugin, each story gets its own permalink on your site, and its own chance to rank. You do not need to embed them to rank, so don’t.

3. Link to Your Web Story

Google also recommends “deeply integrating Stories” in ways such as linking to them from your homepage or relevant category pages.

That’s definitely a great idea if you have static homepages or category pages, where it’s easy to add unique content, like on Trellis.

If you don’t have an easy way to link from relevant categories, or end up with too many Stories for this to be practical, I have an easier solution.

As with regular organic search, Google is trying to learn about the Story based on what external and internal links go to it.

Can you guess what content will be the most similar to the Story you’re writing? That’s right, the post you’re telling a story about.

Linking to Stories from posts you’re writing them about will definitely help Google find them, without the disadvantages of embedding.

4. Link to Your Web Story Landing Page

Google also wants publishers to create a separate Web Story landing page, which will feature links to all of your Web Stories, and then link to that landing page from your homepage.

I recommend going with the default landing page WordPress makes for custom post types (e.g. yourblog.com/web-stories).

Chances are, the page won’t look pretty, but it will get the links you need. So try linking to this page in your sidebar – less prevalent than your top navigation, but still noticeable enough to get the job done.

Think back to my site structure post. Your goal is to keep the landing page one click from your homepage, so Web Stories are two clicks from the homepage. (Google and SEO Like a CEO, intersecting as always.)

5. Submit Your Web Story XML Sitemap to Google

Assuming you’re running a plugin like Yoast to generate XML Sitemaps, you should have one for Web Stories. It will likely be at yourblog.com/web-story-sitemap.xml.

If not, make sure to configure your SEO plugin to generate these and submit it via the Google Search Console.

6. Naming Your Web Stories

This one is a little trickier, because you obviously know it’s important to optimize the page title for SEO, but it’s also important to remember to avoid creating duplicate page titles on your website.

Your goal is just not to trigger the Google Search duplicate title filter. Pick a name that makes sense for the keyword you’re targeting, but isn’t the name of your post. Make sure it’s enticing for the viewer, because they will see your title in Discover, over the cover image of your story.

7. Content is Still King

Google says the secret to a Web Story ranking is still all about content. In Google’s best practices advice, they recommend 10-20 slides, keeping the content per slide brief, and keeping it visual, with plenty of images and videos that fill up the screen.

They’ve since expanded on that with this article on what a web story should be.

• Make the story have value for the reader all on its own.
• Stories that are only 2-3 slides long and force the reader to the website for any useful information about the proposed topic is NOT good user experience.
• Stories that convey information about a post from a different angle can be great – such as a “making of” for a recipe or craft post.
• Stories should make sense and have a logical beginning and end.

As usual, with any “content is king” strategy, it also means you need to make a lot of content. Create stories for all of your top posts, then consider a Web Story for any new post you create as well.

Yes, it’s work, but once you see the traffic, you’ll find it’s worth it.

8. Use All the Rest of Our SEO Advice

When it comes to SEO, Web Stories are just like any other page to Google. Everything from using alt text to properly using your keywords in your content will make a difference. As Google says, “If it helps rank your non-Story pages, it’ll probably help the Stories as well.”

Additional Technical Notes

According to Markee, who as we mentioned above has already worked extensively with bloggers on Web Stories in this early stage, there are some common technical caveats to be aware of as well:

• If publishers do not have Organization Schema filled out in Yoast, Web Stories will not validate.
• If you use the WordPress Media Library to upload videos for your Web Stories, be careful of consuming too many hosting resources. Video uses a lot of storage and bandwidth. These are NOT running through the Mediavine Video Player, but rather your web host, so proceed with caution.
• If websites are running WP Rocket, you’ll need version 3.7.5 or later. Otherwise you’ll need go under “Advanced” and “Caching” to exclude Web Stories from caching. Basically, publishers can paste the following in under “Never Cache URLs” – /web-stories/(.*)
• Make sure you’re running the most recent version of Web Stories to mitigate potential errors.

Tracking Web Stories in Google Analytics

The Web Story plugin provides a place to input your Google Analytics ID, and it can automatically insert the proper tracking code for you.

You do not need the Google Site Kit plugin, despite the language in the settings page, in order to do this.

My recommendation is to consider setting up a separate Google Analytics Profile to track Web Stories. Why? Because traffic to Web Stories is not really the same as traffic to your site.

As we’ve touched on multiple times above, think of stories as ads that run inside Google Discover for your content. The goal of Web Stories should be getting users to click over to your site, that’s it.

It’s not really your traffic until they leave the Web Story experience and arrive on your website, so don’t count it as such.

If you combine stories with your primary Analytics, you’ll see a surge of users who are virtually un-monetized; all that will do is hurt your RPM calculation, while also making everything harder to track.

Markee and Google recommend you set up a separate Dashboard inside your Google Analytics in order to track the performance of your stories.

Setting up a new dashboard to easily track your Web Stories’ performance, so you’ll know how to optimize them to convert more users into real traffic, but in left inside your regular unfiltered profile or view, will still impact RPM calculations. Here is our help guide on setting up a new Google Analytics Profile ID for your Web Stories.

Additionally, to prevent the Web Stories tracking URL parameter from breaking your dashboard page-level reporting, you should set your analytics profile to ignore the following parameter: _gl .

You can follow our help doc on how to exclude a URL parameter easily in Google Analytics. Reach out to publishers@mediavine.com if you have any questions on how to do this.

One More Caveat: Web Stories Appear in Search

We’ve talked a lot about looking at these as previews or ads, in a sense, for your content. Unfortunately, since Web Stories are their own “pages” on your site, they may show up when a user searches your site.

This applies both on your internal site search itself and on Google results pages.

For internal searches, you can control this; Users can find the “exclude option” for Web Stories if they go into their Web Stories plugin, go to their list of Web Stories, and click on “Quick Edit.”

Nevertheless, there’s always some chance that Web Stories will appear in Google Search Results, and that’s just a fact of life; removing them from Google Search would negate their ability to get you traffic.

Just do your best to make sure your main post ranks better through SEO than your stories, and don’t overthink this.

Mediavine Ads in Web Stories

As of this post, integrating Mediavine ads in Web Stories is still in its very early alpha/beta testing.

If you’re receiving significant traffic from Web Stories and want to help us test Mediavine ads within them, email publishers@mediavine.com. We hope to release these ad solutions more widely in early 2021.

However, even when we’re able to monetize stories at a wider scale, there are some important caveats:

• As with other AMP ads, Web Stories will run on Google’s domain and are largely outside of our control. We can’t provide the full Mediavine ad auction or use things such as first-party data, etc.
• These are specialized, full-screen ads. There is currently low demand for them, and that means a significantly lower fill rate than you’re used to.
• Google, not Mediavine or the publisher, controls the placement of these ads, and they only appear after seven slides, which means typically only one ad per Story.

All of the above bullet points can be summarized as such:

Your ability to monetize traffic will be many times stronger on your post. If and when you can run ads on these stories, we’re still only talking about a single, low-filling ad per story.

Not to sound like a broken record here, but you shouldn’t expect to make significant revenue from the Stories themselves right now. Instead, think of Web Stories as a cool way to access an entirely new audience for your site and its great content.

We’ll keep working to improve how Stories monetize, and continue to bring you updates on this exciting platform as they develop.

The post Google Web Stories SEO: What You Need to Know appeared first on Mediavine.

With Discovery Optimization, you can grow your social media accounts by focusing on how your target audience uses social media to discover content.

Ciaran Blumenfeld of Hashtracking and Juiced Social joined Mediavine’s Director of Marketing, Jenny Guy, in an episode of Summer of Live to speak about Discovery Optimization and strategies for growing a niche social account for your business.

Some of her tips might surprise you and make you be more intentional with your business account! (Originally aired 7/30/20)

Watch the video here or check out the transcript below.

Growing Niche Social Accounts with Ciaran Blumenfeld

JENNY GUY: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Mediavine Summer of Live. I’m Jenny Guy. I’m here every week talking with industry experts and getting their best tips for your business success.

It is Thursday, July 30. Today is the International Day of Friendship, plus National Cheesecake Day. Is that a coincidence? I think not. If you can’t be with your friends in person today, enjoy a cheesecake with them on Zoom. Make the best of the situation.

July 30, which is crazy, also means it’s almost August, bringing us back to school. My guest and I were just talking about that which, in the time of Coronavirus, means rapid social media debates. How often in the last week have you wanted to delete your social accounts and go off the grid, but you can’t because it’s your job? I cannot be alone. There have to be people. There have to be other people out there who are feeling this.

Even in the best non-Covid of circumstances, most people would say that they have a love-hate relationship with social media. And that is especially true for website owners and content creators. Historically, social media has been a great source for driving traffic until those pesky algorithm shifts whack us and our traffic nosedives overnight.

Mediavine always encourages bloggers to make social– or solid SEO a priority as organic traffic is typically the most reliable source. Although we do know that there are Google algorithm shifts. But that is not what this episode is about. We will not derail and talk Google algorithm shifts. But who out there has felt personally victimized by a social media algorithm shift? Who in the audience? Comment and tell us what platform, and how you were impacted slash how big of a drop you saw.

But record scratch. What if there was a different way for bloggers to use social? According to today’s guest, there absolutely is. And she’s here to tell us all about growing niche social accounts that deliver real site traffic. Let’s meet her.

Ciaran Blumenfeld is CEO and founder of Hashtracking, a social media analytic service and Juiced Social, an AI-enhanced service that publishes optimized hashtag lists for 2,000 plus topics. She is an OG blogger at Momfluential. She was named one of the 15 most powerful moms in social media by Working Mother Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, the New York Times and Fast Company. Follow her on Instagram. We’ll share that link and share her website.

Welcome to the Summer of Live, and thank you for applying to speak in Baltimore and for doing a ‘rona pivot and being game for a Facebook live.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Well thank you for having me. I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get to go to Baltimore because I went to Johns Hopkins, and any chance to go back to Baltimore is always exciting for me. But–

JENNY GUY: Oh my gosh, it’s such a great city.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yeah, love Baltimore. I hope we get back there sometime. But this is great too.

JENNY GUY: I mean, we’re making the best of it. We had an awesome site visit there about a year ago, and we were like, Baltimore, hidden gem. This is amazing. And the crab, and the– everything. It was a great city. We were pretty excited about it.

But we are gonna make the best of it today. Guys, if you have questions for myself or Ciaran, please post them in the comments, and we will get them asked. But let us talk a little bit– people are posting how they’ve been victimized personally by social media. And there’s quite a few.

Amy Katz said Facebook. It’s nothing like it was a few years ago. Anna says, Instagram and stuck for a year now at the same level. So different things happening out there. We had someone just say they live in Baltimore.

So Ciaran, you and I were doing a little bit of talking beforehand, and I want to get into some of that now. While many people aren’t fans of social media– there’s complaints about it and backlash on it all the time, especially now– you founded two companies all about it. So you make your living there, and you obviously find it stable enough to literally bank on. So tell us why you love social media.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I love the immediacy of social media. I love the flexibility of social media. I love– most of all what I love about social media is the ability for niche groups to find their tribe on social media. It is such a powerful thing when people find each other.

And there are so many groups on Instagram and on Twitter that you don’t even realize that they’re there until you start doing the kind of deep dive into niche communities like did when I was creating all of the topic categories for Juiced Social. Things like, you know obscure, sports. There’s a sport called skijoring, where people have sleds that are pulled by horses.

JENNY GUY: Whoa.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yeah. You know, there is a vibrant skijoring community on Instagram. There’s slime communities. There’s communities of people who make charcuterie boards. There’s a community for everyone. You know, there’s a niche group for everyone. And these are the good things about social media.

These are the authentic groups of people who are able to kind of come together in this virtual meeting space and interact with each other every single day, you know, and have that give and take. So I think that, you know, in our in our desire to get lots of likes, and to get brand deals, and all of that, we sort of sometimes lose the social from social media. We lose that initial impetus that was why we went there, you know, connecting with our tribe.

JENNY GUY: Yeah, I think that for sure that’s a very– I mean, I’ve always used it to remember people from past experiences and past places I’ve been or worked. But it for sure is a way to– it’s out there. I mean, whatever it is that you’re into, there are your people, they’re there. You can find them on social– we have people saying–

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: The boards.

JENNY GUY: Yeah. The boards– I want– charcuterie boards are life. I’m loving all these companies that are popping up to make charcuterie boards. I think it’s fantastic. OK.

But with all those good things you just said, we have all heard bloggers and content creators— digital content creators say they’re quitting social. They’re no longer investing time in it. How is your method different? You pitched this topic to us. What is niche strategy?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Because I think the frustration that everyone’s feeling is that– and I will blame Instagram for this mostly, because when Instagram first came out, their algorithms operated on very much a velocity kind of strategy. Which means that more people that liked your posts quickly, the more your posts got seen. And that was very easy to gain. And a lot of people gained it.

And it just became this arms race for the number of followers and how much exposure you could get. And people lost sight of the niche community. They didn’t care who was seeing their post or why they were seeing their posts. It was just get the biggest number. And it’s very frustrating because people who wanted to be authentic didn’t want to buy traffic or engage in these sorts of schemes.

JENNY GUY: The pods.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: The pods. The purchase traffic, the pods, the– you know, there’s many different schemes out there. And frankly, they work. You know, even if it’s paid advertising. Some of it works, like, to get that velocity.

But I think that it was a very negative thing for a lot of bloggers and genuine niche community members because they felt like their posts were never seen. And they felt like on the one hand, the posts were never seen because they were comparing themselves to these mega influencers with hundreds of thousands.

And it’s an ego thing also. It’s definitely ego. It’s like, nobody likes me, nobody’s see me, why am I doing this. I’m not getting results. And then there’s also this feeling of it being this magical thing where you can’t control anything.

Like, who knows. Who knows why your post is being shown or hidden. Is there a shadow ban? Does Instagram hate me? Does, you know, Twitter not really want to show my post? Nobody really knew what was kind of making their posts show other than having lots of followers and lots of likes. That was the one thing that people felt like they were in control of.

And oftentimes doing it black hat ways, you know, to get results. I think that algorithm has gotten a lot more sophisticated, particularly in the last year and a half. So some of those black hat methods are no longer working for people.

And a lot more of the niche, kind of original niche stuff, is becoming effective again. But I think people need to sort of have a real heart to heart with themselves and examine what their goals are before they employ any niche strategy and algorithm strategy.

Because I’m not talking about here today, like, how to get a million followers and get brand deals. If that’s your goal, this method is not the method for you. If your goal, however, is to sell your own services, to drive traffic to your website, to build a strong and committed following for your site, or your service, or product, et cetera, then this stuff works.

JENNY GUY: I think that all of that was very– we’ve got a lot of people chiming in about their own personal frustrations with these things. We’ve got Ellen Folkman, she just said, I’m over Instagram. It seems to grow when I ignore it. Michelle Price says, wow, Ciaran is talking directly to me about my Instagram experience.

There are a lot of people that are empathizing with this. And I’ve heard a lot of publishers and content creators talk about how frustrated they are when they’re seeing brand deals go to these people who have purchased followers. And that’s how they’ve gotten where they are. And that’s frustrating.

But as you’re saying, they aren’t your people. And they won’t last forever. And I do think– I don’t know, I would ask that to you and I would ask that to our audience. Do you think that brands are getting more sophisticated about their ability to look at a following and note whether or not their engagement– I know that there was a significant shift from working– being a brand myself and seeing the shift between just follower numbers on social media to actual engaged following, to whether their comments are– you’re getting comments, you’re seeing interaction, you’re seeing– you’re asking about DMS, asking about actual relationships with their followers.

I’ve seen a shift. What about you, Ciaran, and people in the audience?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: It really depends on the brand. So some brands are very, very aware of all of the fake and inflated numbers, and prefer to work almost exclusively with micro-influencers. Like, they don’t even want to work with mega influencers because it’s a lot of money for, know, scattershot and then not reaching your audience.

So some brands are very, very up on it. And other brands are not so up on it. It also depends on the brand’s goals. Like, are they just going for general exposure? Or are they going for sales within a targeted niche? So if you are the content creator, you need to ask yourself, do I want to be a mega influencer and have big brand campaigns that are just going for exposure and going for the scattershot?

And if the answer– if the answer to that is yes, then go ahead and buy yourself some traffic. I mean, that sounds awful. But, you know, do advertising, engage in pods, and all those things if you just want those big numbers for that type of stuff.

But if your goal is really to drive traffic to your own site, and to grow your own community, your own niche, and to have loyal followers and people who will buy your product or service, or buy the product or service of very targeted brands that you choose to work with, then, you know, then you can do that through building your DO. I call it DO.

DO is like the SEO of social. It’s Discovery Optimization. So everyone kind of knows at this point that you can do SEO for your website, but you can do DO, Discovery Optimization, for your social feeds. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Instagram, or if it’s Twitter, or if it’s TikTok. Whatever your social feed is, they’re all algorithm-based. And they all sort of have the same ingredients for discovery optimization, although you may have more of one thing in one platform, and more of one thing and another. But there are known things you can do.

JENNY GUY: Very much true. And I love what you’re saying is that it’s a way to link together all of the pieces, to make those– so if you’re a content creator with a website that you already have, a voice, and a different niches or a niche that you’re talking to, and you’re wanting your social accounts for that website to be an extension of what you’ve already done, it only makes sense that you would only connect to those people that are interested in the things that you’re actually talking about.

OK. People are freaking out. They want to know about Discovery Optimization. Let’s talk about it. So what can you do to grow stronger and more engaged niche communities on social media? Talk to us about DO.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So I think you have– do you have one of my slides?

JENNY GUY: I do. I do.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Just to explain what DO is, you know. People don’t really think about– they don’t think about social media in terms of search and in terms of discovery. So DO is what you do that helps people find your content. DO is something that you do that affects how often your content is shown and how authentic your content is viewed by the platform, which then leads to more discovery.

So discovery is when your posts are shown more often in your follower feeds, when your posts show up in hashtag feeds, when platforms recommend you in their suggestions to users, and when your posts are promoted in roundups, or collected into a hashtag feed, or to a local feed. Basically it’s your post being surfaced and shown more in the same way that SEO causes your URLs in your post to show up higher in search lists. So DO does the same thing, but it’s through discovery.

We could just dive right in if you want to. What happens that causes discovery. How do you train the algorithm to recognize you and to reward you with discovery. And really, I talk about algorithm training in the same terms that I talk about in dog training. It requires consistency, and patience.

JENNY GUY: And that’s a great way to think about it. And I love– the main thing, and we talked about this. I’ve looked at your presentation. It’s so exciting because it takes out that weird social black magic element of having no control, having no ability to do anything about it, rather than just being buffeted around by the social winds, you’re actually able to train. Let’s look at this one real quick, though. Let’s look at the slide real quick.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: OK. So as I was saying, you know, how discovery happens every single day on social media is, you know, when people open up their screen– and whether that’s on TikTok, or whether that’s on the explore page for Instagram– they see your post. And the way that your posts are chosen are not just about how many likes you get. I mean, people think very simply, and think back to the days when you could gain things and show up on the popular page with a number of likes.

But it isn’t just that anymore. The algorithm is actually a lot more sophisticated. And the algorithm knows, for example, whether your followers tend to like posts with the same hashtags that you use, whether they follow other accounts that are similar to yours, whether your velocity– which is how many people liked your posts in the short term– always comes from the same group of people.

That’s, like, one of the caveats of faking it with pods, is that algorithm starts to recognize, OK, they always get 10 quick likes from these same 10 people. We’re just not gonna count that anymore. The algorithm is really, really smart.

JENNY GUY: Excellent. And yes. And, as you said, it’s gotten significantly more sophisticated moving forward, especially, you said, in the last year and a half you’ve noticed a shift. Is that correct?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yeah. So I mean, I guess probably all of this sounds kind of scary. It’s like, oh no, I can’t do this. I have to do this. What am I gonna do? And it’s actually– like, I don’t mean to scare people because the things that you can do are very, very simple things that aren’t all that time-consuming. Like, doing things like engaging in pods is actually far more time-consuming than the very simple things you can do to train the algorithm to recognize you as a niche authority.

JENNY GUY: So talk a little bit about the difference between a niche following and a quote, “big” following. I mean, and obviously that’s a relative term.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yeah. A niche following is really a following where you have followers that are your people, that are your fans. They like the same stuff as you. It’s very targeted. And to really– to get this sort of Discovery Optimization effect, you really have to hone your niche.

You have to know exactly what your niche is. And you have to stay in your lane. You have to really focus on your niche. I know, like, for me personally, with my personal account, that is the hardest thing of all. I just want to post about anything and everything. But if you have a blog, or if you have a business, it’s really critical to hone your niche and only post about your niche.

You’re not using that account to like your neighbor’s baby pictures, or your cousin’s puppy, or anything unrelated to the business. Because that algorithm is looking for patterns. And if the patterns that you’re feeding it are, I like baby pics and dogs, then the algorithm is going to say, your account is about baby pics and dogs. And maybe you’re about soap, like, really is what you want to be about.

So if you are setting it up as a niche account, you want to clearly define what your niche is, clearly define who your followers are, and clearly define what sort of content, and what sort of stuff you’re putting out, and what you’re engaging with.

JENNY GUY: So that’s an important key, is to know what you’re gonna engage with. Guys, can we go ahead and share Ciaran’s presentation so everyone has that? We’ve got that– she’s got that available. There are some great links in there. We’re not gonna show every slide as we’ve been doing these last few weeks. But lots of great information for you to follow along on your own screen, see what you can from the screen share, and then look at when we’re done.

And then I’ve got a comment from Leah Ingram, which I think is an important one. She says, this sucks. If the same people like your stuff, you don’t get rewarded. What–

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: That’s–

JENNY GUY: –are the legit people in your niche?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So yes. Leah that’s a very good point. I didn’t mean to say that you don’t get rewarded it’s the same people. I’m talking about if it’s, like, literally the same 10 people who like it in the first 10 minutes every single time you post, you’re not gonna get rewarded for velocity. Velocity is a specific thing that algorithms look at, which is how quickly people like your posts.

If they are legitimate people who like that type of content, you’re still gonna get the benefit of having people who are genuinely interested in your content, you know, that the algorithm will recognize. Like, you have community members who are genuinely interested in your content. But the algorithm will also recognize that maybe you’re using those community members to gain velocity, and won’t reward you for the velocity.

JENNY GUY: So this is another really helpful question. So Ellen Folkman says, so is it OK to share other bloggers content? What if they’re outside your niche? I’m sure– I imagine that makes a difference there.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: If they’re outside your niche, then you’re probably not serving your community or yourself by sharing their content. You know, it’s nice to do as a friend. I would share in your personal feed. But if you’re sharing content that isn’t within your niche, then no, you’re outside your lane. Don’t do it.

JENNY GUY: OK. And that and the same goes for even liking friends content. Is that accurate?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: The same goes for liking content. So I have a checklist of the sorts of actions that– and it’s my presentation, but basically all of your actions on social are tracked and followed. OK. So these are the things that you really have the most control over.

You don’t have the most control over everything with an algorithm, but you do have control over what you post, you have control over when you post, you have control over the ways that you post, whether you’re commenting on something, whether you’re sharing a video, whether you’re sharing someone else’s content. You have control over that. You have control over what you like.

And you have control over what you follow, who you subscribe to, and you have control over your hashtags. And when I talk about hashtags, some people think, like, I don’t use hashtags or, you know, I only use my own hashtags. But you have to think about hashtags more holistically because every time you comment on content that contains a hashtag, you’ve now associated yourself with that hashtag.

And, you know, the algorithm is smart enough to know when it’s an outlier and you just like something with a weird hashtag versus you always like posts that are about cheese boards and charcuterie. Like, that’s really your thing. But you’re associated with hashtags even if you don’t use them because you’re associated with the hashtags that the people you follow use, and you’re associated with the hashtags that you follow.

So it’s a good idea to be really kind of intentional about following hashtags, making sure you follow hashtags that are your hash– that are your topic, that are in your niche. And then also looking at the people who are big posters or well-liked within those hashtags, and engaging with those people. Because by doing that, you’re training the algorithm to recognize this is what you’re about. You’re just reinforcing over and over again with your own content as well as your interactions, if that’s what you’re about.

JENNY GUY: So interesting to think about the fact that even if you think you’re not using hashtags, you are just based on the posts that you’re liking. That the algorithm is looking at everything you’re engaging, with everything you’re liking. So fascinating. Great advice.

OK, Leah says, OK, for the when you post, I use Tailwind to schedule posts to Instagram and Pinterest. Tailwind recommends optimized days and times. Any thoughts on that?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: You know what, if you have Tailwind or another service– I think Later does that as well– it is a great idea to follow the recommendations because they are looking at when your audience is on there and when they’re most likely to respond to your content. And again, the more– Instagram, in particular, still gives weight to velocity. So you want to post at a time when you’re gonna get the quickest return on your posts. So I would say yes, it’s important to pay attention to that.

However, I would not get obsessive-compulsive about it. If you can’t post within that specific time period, it’s still more important for you to post consistently. And when I say consistently, it doesn’t mean you have to post the same time every day. But you want to post the same number of times per week. Because you want to keep waking up your audience. You don’t to disappear.

JENNY GUY: OK. Excellent. Very helpful. Did you want to talk anymore about the problem with good optics and skinny fat accounts?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So I could talk a little bit more about those big accounts. I don’t want to dwell on them too much, but I want to sort of reassure people who are very discouraged by, you know, all the fake out there. I actually had a slide, like the virtuous circle and the vicious circle.
The people who are faking it, it’s getting much, much, much more expensive for them to fake it. And the rewards are becoming less and less. So the virtuous circle is basically a situation where you’re posting authentic content, and the people who are liking your content are doing it in a timely fashion. They’re your true followers, they’re people who are interested in the types of content that you post, they are engaging with your content.

Because it’s really like, wow, this is the stuff they like. And that signals Instagram that you’re an authority, that you’re authentic, that you have a real account. And then Instagram kind of rewards you with more discovery. And this isn’t just Instagram, this is really any algorithm-based platform.
But what happens in the next slide, the vicious cycle, which is how I would describe those skinny fat accounts. I call them skinny fat because they have great optics, but their health is really, really not good. So every time they post, they need to gamify, they need to engage in pods to get those likes quickly, they have to buy likes, they use hashtags to gamify. These are all things that have to– they have to purchase.

Instagram is that algorithm– or any algorithm which is growing and learning. I think there’s something like 90 million posts a day. I mean, think about all that information and how quickly these algorithms can learn. They start to recognize any gamification type of behavior. They recognize when the people who are liking your content have never liked your content before, or have never liked similar content to yours before, when the comments don’t look like they’re human comments, they’re just sort of like a string of emojis.

All of these things– then you get dinged for that. And then you have to spend more money to get better-quality fake. You know, you have to get fake 2.0 that is more expensive. So there’s, like, a whole inflation cycle for people who have these faked accounts. And I think– you know, my one true prediction that I will make a prediction and stand by it, is that it’s going to get harder and harder and harder for people to be successfully fake on platforms like Instagram.

I saw a lot of fakers just abandoning ship from Instagram and jumping to TikTok at the beginning of this year. They were like, oh, it still works TikTok. It’s not working so much for me anymore on Instagram. It’ll get harder there too because the algorithms are smart, and they can see the patterns of fake.

Just like, if you or I looked at an account, and looked at all the commenters, and we were like, oh, this account has no profile picture. This account has one follower. These don’t look like followers if we can do it, the AI can do it a million times faster.

JENNY GUY: And it’s good to hear that it actually does matter, and it is getting smarter. Christina Riley says, do services like Smarter Q, where you loop your content, hurt your discovery?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I’m not familiar with that.

JENNY GUY: OK. OK. Well, let’s go to– can you ever– so let’s talk about training that algorithm. We kind of skipped ahead, but let’s get into the nitty gritty of it. Can you ever really beat this ever-shifting algorithm? And it sounds to me like what you’re saying is it’s not necessarily these seismic shifts, it’s more just improving, and improving, and improving on the algorithm. So talk to us about beating the algorithm, please.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So I don’t think you can beat an algorithm. I think you can be your authentic self and be consistent. I think it’s sort of like going on a diet. You know, you can go– you can eat healthy, and you can take a walk every day, and you can follow best practices, and long-term you’re gonna see the benefits. You may not have overnight results. You may not have, like, you know, some smashing story to tell within a month. But you’re gonna have the benefits of overall health.

And I think, even right now, a lot of people are like, ugh, no one’s on social or, oh, I don’t know what to post on social because the pandemic. But it’s actually a really good time to just lay the foundation for your niche. And you don’t have to set huge goals, but maybe your goal is posting five times a week, and being really niche-specific, and using really niche-specific hashtags and engaging with really niche-specific accounts. And that’s enough because you are signaling your authority, and you’re laying the groundwork for future Discovery Optimization.

JENNY GUY: And love hearing that. Sarah says, no not like a diet. Sarah, I feel you. It is not a good time for diets in our life. Leah says, then why can’t the algorithm find all the I want to be your sugar daddy people on Instagram? Fair question.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: It finds them, but they, like, kill them, and they pop right back up again like horrible mushrooms.

JENNY GUY: They are. They’re like gremlins. You fed them after midnight. OK. Let’s look at what the algorithm actually tracks, OK? Let’s talk about that.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So the things you have less control of– so you can control, like, what you’re posting, and all that other stuff. But the algorithm is also going to be looking at how fast people respond to your posts. That’s the velocity portion. And I wish it wasn’t weighted so heavily still, particularly on Instagram. It’s less weighted on other platforms. But it is something that people look at because if people react quickly to your content, it’s a sign that they really like your content.

They’re looking at who interacts with your content. Are these people who are genuinely within your niche and within your interest. They look at the intent of your engagers. And intent is something that’s just become much more important this year as we’ve had the save button show up on a lot of different platforms.

When people can do more with your content besides just like it, or comments on it, when they can share it, and when they can save it, those are very, very strong indications to an algorithm that people identify with your content, and that they intend to return to your content. And that affects also how much time they spend on the platform. And any platform, any social platform, wants to keep people there. So if you have content that people are marking save, or that they’re sharing with others, then that’s just increasing the overall time on the platform. And they really want to reward you for that sort of stuff.

So it’s important when you’re creating content to think about, is this something that is save or share worthy? Because you’re going to increase your Discovery Optimization when you share something that people want to return to. So it could be, like, a recipe, or could be instructions, it could be a guide of some sort. These are the sorts of posts that lead to more discovery.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. OK. And let’s go to your next slide, and what the algorithms reward. So let’s highlight that really quickly. I like the space background.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Oh my gosh, I can even read it. But the algorithms, as I was saying, they reward you for the actions people are taking, the ways that–

JENNY GUY: –different. There’s more specific, other than just, I like something. Now there’s–

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Now there’s different ways. You know, not all engagement is equal on every platform. You know, for a while there videos were getting a lot more play on Instagram. And sometimes, like, the saves are considered more valuable because people saving things is showing intent. And they’re really trying to build time on platform.

So the things that the algorithm rewards change from time to time, how much they reward each specific thing. However, all of these things are important. So rather than obsess about, oh my gosh, I have to do only video because right now they’re weighting things to video, I think it’s just healthier to be balanced. You know, to say OK, these are the things that they reward. They’re gonna reward things like swipes, comments, sticker interactions.

You wanna make sure you’re giving people lots of different ways to interact with your content. So you’re gonna see greater discovery optimization if you don’t just do feed posts, if you do stories occasionally, and you give people ways to interact by either, you know, taking a poll, or commenting on a sticker, or swiping up, or– you want to give people more ways to interact because the more ways that they interact, the more time they spend on the platform, the more the platform will like you.

So it’s important to be aware of those opportunities. If you can’t do them all, don’t beat yourself up. You can still build your niche and build your authority without taking advantage of every single opportunity. But if you want to supercharge, you know, you should be aware. You’re gonna get more overall exposure, and the algorithm is gonna like you more, if it sees that people are interacting with you in all the different ways they can. If that makes sense.

JENNY GUY: No, it absolutely does. Giving people more opportunities to encounter your content and to interact with it. I love that, getting people involved. And you’re very right. And it still seems to me that while it’s not quite as extreme, video is still getting preferential treatment and weight in the algorithm for sure.

So you said all the things you have control over, some of them you can’t. I want to talk more about that intersection between good SEO and good DO. So let’s break that down.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So I’m not sure what the question is.

JENNY GUY: The interaction between SEO and DO. How can you take the practices, or good SEO, strong as SEO practices, and have them translate over into social.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So you want to think about your Discovery Optimization in terms of search. So good SEO practices include really honing your niche the same way, and really knowing your keywords, and really knowing your audience, and making your content available to that audience and easy for them to find. I think that for Discovery Optimization, hashtags are really important because hashtags are low-hanging fruit. And a lot of people use hashtags inappropriately and incorrectly. They don’t follow the hashtags that they’re actually content that they’re interested in, they make up their own hashtags, they hashtag for brands, which, actually, you’re then sending your traffic to the brand. You’re not getting the traffic from the brand most likely. You’re sending people away.

JENNY GUY: How do you properly use a hashtag? Tell us what a hashtag is. Obviously you’re a big fan.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: The number one thing you want to do when you’re choosing a hashtag is you want to say, is somebody searching for my content? What’s the search term? Don’t even think of it in terms of a hashtag.

Think of, like, what’s the keyword, or what’s the search term, that somebody is going to use to find your content. It’s not happy birthday. It’s not congratulations. Those hashtags are pretty much useless because nobody is searching congratulations looking for content. They may be looking for graduation party cake, they may be looking for graduation card.
So you want to think, what are people searching for. And that is the hashtags that you then want to go out and say OK, what are the hashtags that are the things that I want people to search for and find my content. And you want to look at what hashtags are being currently used, how popular they are.

If it’s a hashtag that, you know, is getting used constantly, you’re just gonna get buried in that feed. If it’s a hashtag that’s used once every five years, nobody’s really looking for it. So you want to look for hashtags that have a decent amount of traffic, but not too much, and that are really gonna lead people– that are the keyword that are gonna to lead the people to your content who want to find your content.

I think it’s really smart to look for hashtag adjacent communities. And an example of a hashtag adjacent community is if you are a home decor blogger, you look for home staging hashtags. Those are people who are very interested in home decor. Or if you are somebody who does recipes, and you have beautiful photographs of your tabletop display, you want to look for a tabletop display hashtags. Something where the community is very interested in the same sort of stuff that you do, and the hash tags are appropriate for your post, you can pull in an adjacent community. And those people could be very loyal to your content because it’s similar enough to the niche that they’re interested in.

JENNY GUY: So if you’re doing your– I wanna hear about how you do your hashtag research other than just going to your site and getting a great keyword list of hashtags– how you’re doing that and are you doing this for each individual platform? Or once you’ve done your hashtag research, does that apply to all platforms?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So I pretty much use Instagram for most of my hashtag research because I find that people use the same hashtags that they use on Instagram on other platforms unless there’s, like, a specific TikTok challenge, or a specific Twitter thing going on. If it’s a community or a niche hashtag, they generally cross platforms.

And the way I like to do research– if I’m doing it manually, I’m going to say, OK, what’s the keyword. I’m literally gonna type it in. Instagram’s gonna give me a list of suggestions, and I’m just gonna start looking at them one at a time, and looking at the feed and saying, do these images look like what I’m about? Or would the people who like these images like my image? Does my image belong in this collection of images? What we’ve done with Juiced Social is we’ve trained AI on this process so that we can look at 100 million posts, you know, in a week or less. And humans cannot do that.

JENNY GUY: No. And why would you want to?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: No, and why would you want to? So, I mean, every single list on that site started out with human research. It started out with us going out and finding, you know– we think that there’s a community around this topic, and there’s some hashtags around this topic. Let’s find the ones that are being used right now, and look at relative speed, or the relative amount of use, and how related they are to the topic.

JENNY GUY: Sarah Auerswald says, how do you see the hashtag stats? Like, how often they are used. Where do you find that information?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So Instagram will show you. They don’t give you a lot of information, but they’ll tell you how many times the hashtags have been used overall. It can be difficult to tell whether that use is recent, or whether that use is all time. So, you know, hashtag could’ve been really, really popular, you know, two years ago, and you see that there’s millions of uses. But everyone kind of stopped using it. You can look at the feed and see how recent the posts are, and sort of get an idea of how often the hashtag is used right now.

JENNY GUY: OK. I want to talk a little bit about what DO looks like in practice. I’m gonna push our faces away and let you talk through this slide because this is the nuts and bolts.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: This is the nuts and bolts, and it’s actually super simple. But, you know, it’s a mental shift for most people because we really think about discovery as being this sort of, like, magical thing if we use the right hashtag, or, you know, people like you enough.

But it really is a very consistent practice of posting consistently in your niche and using your niche hashtags, which means, you know, every day when you post about orange juice, you’re using the orange juice love hashtag. And you’re showing a picture of orange juice or something having to do with orange juice. You’re following accounts that are about orange juice, you’re following hashtags that are about orange juice, you’re engaging with that content every single day.

Whenever you go on, you’re engaging with the content that you’re about. And hopefully– you have less control over this, but– if you’re really being authentic in your engagement, you’re convincing your platform that you are about what you say or about, your stuff is going to be shown, and other people are gonna start engaging with your content that are really about what you’re about. So you’re gonna get engagement from those orange juice people.

So this is like, in a nutshell, the most simple, you know, expression of what we have control over and how you should be thinking about algorithms in general on social media to maximize your chance of discovery. You know, whether you use video, and, you know, how you get people to interact, that stuff matters. But this stuff, on this particular slide, is what matters the most. It’s that you’re walking the walk, talking the talk, staying in your lane, and being really, really conscious and intentional about your content, and really authentic about your content. Because that is the foundation that you really need to get that strong niche following and to build your Discovery Optimization and your authority.

JENNY GUY: And that is– for those that are following along with the slides, we can share that link again– that it slide 17. It’s basically the nuts and the bolts of what we’re talking about here. We did a little bit on this earlier, but I want to just reiterate. Are there specific social platforms– you said this works on all social platforms, but it can work differently. You said you primarily do your research on Instagram, in terms of hashtag research.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: In terms of hashtag research, I primarily look at Instagram because community hashtags, like I said, sort of cross over onto other hashtags. But in terms of your consistency, and your staying in your lane, and your engaging with that content that is, you know, in your lane, it doesn’t matter what platform we’re talking about.

Algorithms are just like a puppy that you’re training, you know. If every single time you say sit, you push its butt down and then you give it a treat, you’re training that puppy that sit means this and that’s the reward. You want to do the same things over and over and over again and very consistently with any algorithm-based platform.

JENNY GUY: Do you recommend focusing on one platform at a time, tackling multiple at once in terms of social?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So it depends. It depends on you, first of all, like, how much time you’re willing to put in. I would say that you should claim your space on every platform where you think you want to have a presence. Claiming your space, like I said earlier, doesn’t have to mean that you’re doing three stories a day, and you’re using all the stickers, and all the polls, and every way that people can interact with you. It may just be as simple as saying, I’m gonna commit to a four posts a week. I’m gonna be consistent and intentional about it. And I’m gonna make sure that I’m following and engaging this much every single day.

I think it was Gary Vee, he had, like, a grow your Instagram strategy that he shared. And I had to laugh because he didn’t sell it as a algorithm-training type thing, but it was really the same sort of stuff. And people were like, wow, his method really works. And basically it was looking at hashtags that are in your niche, following those accounts that are in your niche, and engaging with them daily.

I mean, it’s small consistent practices. How much you want– if you want to do more, you want to spend more time and engage with more accounts, and you want to use, you know, more– you want to do stories, and do more, your results may happen faster if you are putting yourself out there in more ways. But the results are gonna be there, slow and steady, even if you put in minimal effort. So if you don’t have the energy to do it everywhere, then fine, don’t beat yourself up. Just get that baseline of, you know, those very basic things like what you post, what you follow, and what you engage with.

JENNY GUY: That is really helpful. And how much time would you suggest is a good place to start, like, in terms of if you’re wanting to do a bullet calendar or something like that out your day?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: You could get a lot done in 20 minutes a day.

JENNY GUY: Per platform?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Per platform. 15 to 20 minutes. I mean, you know what, personally I think TikTok takes way more time because making videos takes a long time, at least for me. It takes a while for me to make videos. But interacting is really easy, on the other hand, on TikTok, so–

JENNY GUY: OK. So in terms of– this is a question we get all the time for SEO. We talk about SEO and a lot of people ask about cleaning up their old posts and their old content. How does that translate? How does SEO equal DO for social?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So that is a great question because yeah, a lot of people have old content. And I think it is really important to make sure that your feed reflects who you are because when you are, say, using a new hashtag and you’re attracting someone to you, that is your opportunity to gain a new following. The first thing they’re gonna do is click on your profile, they’re going to look at your feed, and if you’ve got a bunch of old, random content that isn’t about what your niche is about, you’ve lost them.
Like, you need your feed to be really niche-specific. And you need people, within two or three seconds, to see it and know that you’re about what you say you’re about both in your description and images that you have. So I think it is really important to clean up and curate yourself. Like, from the get go, hone your niche and make sure what’s there isn’t all that old stuff.

JENNY GUY: And that’s all platforms, regardless of anything.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: All platforms. Anywhere whether there’s an algorithm. The same as you would do for your blog, how you’d get rid of all that extraneous content that’s confusing the algorithm, do the same thing.

JENNY GUY: We actually don’t recommend people delete old content. We ask them to, especially if it’s getting any traffic, we ask them to polish it. We ask them to– but deleting content, it’s just not a great use of time because people– you know, if you have 800 posts, people are not coming to your home page and digging. But you’re right. On a social media feed, if you’re scrolling through– like, you know, if you’re on someone’s timeline or you’re looking at somebody’s feed, you’re seeing it. You’re seeing what those are.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Right. Old content on a blog– like, if it’s getting traffic, it’s great. But people aren’t, like, showing up at your home page and then being like, wait a minute, this isn’t what this is about. You know, when people show up on social media, all they see is that feed.

JENNY GUY: OK. I’m gonna go back because we had a bunch of questions. Pamela said, I just saw this now with Ciaran. I want to go back and listen from the beginning. Cyd, who works here with Food Fanatic, said I should stop watching endless videos of old Olympic gymnastic competitions on Instagram using my primary blog account. Cyd says yes, you should definitely stop.

I mean, we’re not saying don’t watch those. We’re just saying not with your blog account. Anna says, so we have a theme dinner party platform and post the parties and the recipes. Does this strategy mean that we should not acknowledge and post about, say, National Girlfriend Day?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I think it’s fine to acknowledge and post about National Girlfriend Day, and sometimes using those hashtags, it’s like a great idea for content. But you want to make sure that you’re saying, this is the dinner party for National Girlfriend Day that we’re hosting. You want to always tie it into whatever your thing is about.

JENNY GUY: Yes. So make sure it’s clear and that you’re showcasing those consistent hashtags, right? If you’re always posting about hashtag dinner party, hashtag eat at home–

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: But you get– I mean, you get up to 30 hashtags. So, like, you know, maybe 10 or 15 are your sort of niche-specific and consistent ones that you use. Maybe not every single post the same 15, but you have that pool of hashtags, 15 of them are really niche. But you have space for other things and to draw on other people. And it’s OK to use a really popular hashtag here and there because you may win the lottery on it, you know. You may attract a lot of people. Or maybe it’s not specifically your niche, but you’re showing a dinner party for that, so why not use your extra hashtags.

JENNY GUY: #olympics, #olympicdinnerparty. Let’s tie it all together. So then we’re making sure that we’re all on this for– are you saying delete old junk posts on Instagram?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Is the couch still for sale? It’s a yes.

JENNY GUY: OK.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Delete the old junk posts. If they’re not really niche-targeted, then they’re not doing you any favors. People aren’t going to be searching for them, and finding them, and going oh, like, I need to follow them ’cause this is what I’m about, and they’re about. If they’re not gonna serve that purpose, then you don’t need them.

JENNY GUY: OK. Good to hear. So slightly different than from what we would say with SEO. Because that’s not something we would say for you to invest a lot of time in, is to go back and worry about all of these old posts. OK. What kind of results have you seen from this? I think that’s the thing that we all– you said it’s slow and steady. What have you seen from your clients and from yourself, and how do you track those results? What metrics are you really looking at?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So it’s slow and steady, but sometimes people do, like I said, win the lottery. Sometimes people will use a hashtag from a hashtag adjacent community and they’ll go from, like, 100 views on a post to 12,000 views on a post just because that hashtag hit within that feed. And then what you really want to look at, though, is when you get all that traffic, when you are being discovery-optimized and your post is being shown to so many more people via a hashtag, or just via good optimization and, you know, maybe it’s being shown more in people’s feeds that follow you, you want to look at what people did once they saw that.

So did people visit your profile? And once they visited your profile, did they follow you? So this is why it’s really important that, if you use a hashtag you’re getting 7,000 new people who are then, oh, let me check this person out, let me look at the feed, you want them to follow you. You want them to then, you know– you want to capture them and you want them to be your regulars.

You want to look at also how often your posts were saved, and how often your posts were shared because that is something that platforms are looking at to represent intent. If somebody is saving your content, that’s somebody who wants to come back. And if a lot of people are saving that content, then you should be creating more of that content. That’s the sort of content that, you know, people are very hungry for.

And if people are sharing your content, it’s content that they identify with. It’s generally things that, like, oh, my friends will think I’m cool, or my friends will think I’m clever. You definitely want to create more shareable content. And those people then, hopefully, will follow you because they wanna come back to you for that same sort of content. But even if they don’t follow you, you know, the saves and the shares are super, super important.

JENNY GUY: So how do you track all of this, and do you have any recommended tools? Because there are a lot of tools out there that a lot of people are using. So tell us what your thoughts are on that. And now this is not hashtag sponsored by anyone. We’re just asking her for her opinion off the cuff.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: So, I mean, with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, it’s gonna be your own analytics. You should have a business account, and you’ll just go in and look at your own analytics. There are third-party tools that you authorize to sort of present your analytics in much prettier formats, like Sprout does it. There’s a bunch of different ones.
But personally, I think you can just– platform analytics. You can see all of that. You can look at and see how many people found– in the discovery column, how many people found your post from feed versus hashtags or other. I still don’t exactly know what other is. I don’t know if it’s link sharing, or what other is.

And, you know, what I do, what my company does, hashtracking is more about your own hashtag and your own campaign. So we can provide much a deeper dive analytics into who has engaged with a particular hashtag, and how many people have used the hashtag, and the exposure of a particular hashtag. But just as a content creator, when you’re growing your own account, you want to look at how people are interacting with your individual posts.

Another important thing to look at in stories is when and where people are exiting because that’s where they’re bored with your content. And you wanna know.

JENNY GUY: Yep. Absolutely. Very helpful. And what you can do to pull them back in. And, like you said, it’s very much like SEO. When you find that something is hitting with your audience, you’re getting out there, make more of that thing. Do more of that. Don’t copy it, but similar content is very– related content. Huge.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yeah. And it’s often surprising. I have a blog that is about haunted travel, and I found whenever I use a witch-related– witchcraft-related hashtag, I got phenomenal exposure. And apparently those are my people.

JENNY GUY: People are loving the witches. There’s nothing wrong with that. I really did like that season of American Horror Story, Coven. One of my favorites. One of my top seasons. Do you recommend scheduling versus live posting for social media posts?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I am a big fan of scheduling just because, as a creative, as much as I walk the walk and talk the talk about algorithms and all of this stuff, I understand patterns but I am terrible about executing them. I am the least consistent person that I know. I am just– it’s very hard for me. So I am a fan of scheduling because you know you’ve got that baseline. But ideally it’s a mix. Ideally you get things scheduled, and then you go in, and you interact. And maybe you schedule your posts, but you’re liking things, engaging with things, commenting on things in a more human way, like, here and there and everywhere.

JENNY GUY: And as you were saying before, you think that rather than setting a crazy, I’m gonna post five times per day on each platform, you said it’s more helpful to set a reasonable goal like five times per week, like five feed posts. But does it matter in terms of consistency with day and time? Like every single Tuesdays and Thursdays are when I post. Is it just letting it find the best time?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Yes and no. OK, so in terms of the algorithm, the algorithm wants to see that you’re posting consistently. But in terms of your audience and, like, human beings, people want to know that they can tune in on Tuesday. So if you’re somebody who is telling your audience, like, every Tuesday I’m gonna share a recipe, or every Thursday I’m gonna reveal my new project, you want to be consistent and cognizant of that. And that is a great human trick for getting audiences to pay attention to you and follow and convert.

But in terms of the algorithm, you just want to see consistent use over time. So whether that’s five times a week, or whether that’s once a day, or whether it’s three times a week, the algorithm is just gonna say, OK, this person hasn’t quit if they haven’t posted in three days, because their pattern is they post three times a week. They get to know your pattern. And they’re not going to sort of ding you for not posting or think you’re a dead account suddenly if you don’t post for two days.

On the other hand– I just wanted to say, if you don’t post for a while, you should be aware that if you haven’t posted for a while and then you suddenly post, there is an effect of them wanting to– you’ll get higher exposure when you post after not posting for a while. And you should really take advantage of that. But you want to make sure you’re consistent after that because you only get it that one time, and then if you don’t post again they’re like, ah! What algorithm is that?

JENNY GUY: Bad. Dead–

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Psych.

JENNY GUY: Still dead account. Psych, I haven’t heard that one in a while. So you’ve got– this has been so mind-blowing and very helpful. Will you please tell us you’ve got some special offers for our audience?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I do. So if you’re interested in finding some hashtag lists, we have a coupon code for Juiced Social, MV20. We’ll get you four free lists. So it’s $20 off any order. I would recommend you look for some lists in your niche, or some hashtag adjacent lists. The hashtag lists have up to 300 hashtags that are the most recent and most engaged hashtags. So we look every two weeks at what’s being used within each niche. And then I also offer consulting on the site. So that’s $20 off you could use on consulting. And we also have a group. It’s groups slash Discovery Optimization on Facebook. And if you join the group, I will give you a code to download my ebooks. And I have a book on content that converts, and I also have a fun– if you’re somebody who likes workbooks, I have a fun workbook to help you sort of organize yourself and plan for your Instagram account.

JENNY GUY: So helpful. We’re gonna drop some of those links. You’ve also got the links to her presentation, and those are hyperlinked in the presentation so you can click over. The code right there is MV20. And then we had one quick– we’re gonna go slightly over. Do you have any recommendations for a scheduler? That was one of the last questions that we had.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: I use both Tailwind and Later. I use, interestingly, I use Tailwind for my personal account, and I use Later for my business account. I like a little bit– I like the way Later does links and certain things better for the business accounts. But I like Tailwind my personal, so those are my two favorites for scheduling.

JENNY GUY: Very helpful. Ciaran, this has been awesome, and so great. And we’re sharing all of that into the comments so people can find you afterwards. Is there anywhere else they should look for you?

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: You can find me on my personal site, ciaranblumenfeld.com. And you can find me on Facebook. I’m always on social media. I’m Ciaranblu on Instagram and on Twitter. And I’m always online.

JENNY GUY: I mean, I think that’s kind of the nature of the beast with our jobs. And also it’s kind of our personalities. Thank you so much for being here, guys. Next week we have an awesome episode coming up. It is our much-anticipated– Thursday, August 8, 3:00 PM Eastern time– we have our Publisher Support Live.

We’re gonna have Heather Tullos, who is the Director of Publisher Support, and Carmen Stinson, the Assistant Publisher Support Manager, on her first live. We can talk Dashboard, we can talk optimizations, plugins, video. You’ve got questions, Carmen and Heather have the answers that will make you the dollars. Come by. Everyone say a big thank you to Ciaran for an amazing hour. Very helpful. And everyone stay safe out there. We’ll see you next week.

CIARAN BLUMENFELD: Thank you.

JENNY GUY: Bye. Thank you.

The post Summer of Live: Growing Niche Social Accounts with Ciaran Blumenfeld appeared first on Mediavine.

Yes, really! It’s time to get on board. Meredith Marsh from VidProMom was on the Summer of Live with Mediavine’s Director of Marketing Jenny Guy.

She showed us how to take video content beyond YouTube by quickly repurposing it for other social media channels to really magnify the reach. (Originally aired 7/16/20)

Watch the video here or check out the transcript below.

Reach a Wider Audience with Multiplatform Videos

JENNY GUY: Hello, everybody. It is Thursday, July 9th. How did that happen? Welcome to the Mediavine Summer of Live. I’m your host, Jenny Guy. How you doing?

Tax day, day two, is next Wednesday. Where are you guys at with that, all of that? Are you already filed? Are you filing an extension? Tell us in the comments, what — if you are all set to go with your taxes, part deux.

As a year, 2020 it’s been a bit of a doozy. But for today’s episode, we are not going to be focusing on all of the less than positive things that 2020 is known for. We are going back to a simpler time, a time before masks and quarantine hair, although my guest today’s hair is impeccable, when we kicked off the second Roaring 20s in an all-new decade of video, on an echo, video, video, video. I’ll do my own.

Here at Mediavine, we have never made our passion for video a secret. We had the Year of Video, which led to a Decade of Video. And, on New Year’s Eve, this past year, we celebrated a brand-new Decade of Video. So we are forever encouraging, pushing, pleading with Mediavine publishers to produce more original video content so they can cash in on those industry high CPMs and keep up with advertiser demand for their pre-roll.

But those digital advertising dollars are not the only reason to prioritize video creation. Anyone who spends time online — and with social distancing, that is all of us, all the time — knows that video is everywhere, on the social media platforms, on all web sites. So create video content, right? What do you have to lose?

Record scratch. Video is hard. It can be expensive. And the vast majority of us are doing it solo, without a team of filmmakers standing by to help. So how can you make video easier and, beyond creation, make sure that you’re getting the most bang for your video investment buck? Enter my guest, the VidProMom herself, Meredith Marsh. She is here to teach us how to quickly reach a wider audience with multi-platform videos, and I am here for it. Let’s meet her.

Meredith Marsh is the creator of the Video Pursuit Society, a membership community for bloggers who want to reach a wider audience with YouTube and social videos so they could impact more people and make more money in their online business. Don’t we all want all those things? On the VidProMom YouTube channel and blog, Meredith teaches video editing tutorials and camera how-tos while your thriving side-hustle podcast listeners learn about growing an audience and earning passive income as a content creator.

Meredith, welcome. Thank you for joining me.

MEREDITH MARSH: Thanks for having me, Jenny.

JENNY GUY: It is so good to see you. Guys, if you have questions for myself or Meredith, please post them in the comments. We will get them asked. Otherwise, you know that this is kind of special because, as with all Summer of Live 2020, we’ve brought over our guests and topics from our canceled-due-to-COVID Baltimore conference. So we are going to be sharing the link in the comments from Meredith’s slide presentation. She was one of our awesome presenters, and she’s been kind enough to pivot and join us here. So please open those slides in another tab, and you can follow along or bookmark or download for later. But we are going to — we’ll do a screen share if we absolutely have to, but you guys can’t read them anyway, so we’ll just tell you what slides they are.

OK, question for audience, and then we’re going to start doing questions for Meredith. Are you producing original video content, guys? Who out there is doing it? What platform are you using most often if you are doing it, Instagram, YouTube? Please tell us in the comments.

Meredith, all righty, how did you get into video? Where did you start? How did you learn? Did you have formal training, or did you teach yourself?

MEREDITH MARSH: No, I had no formal training. So I’m a total introvert. I’m not an on-camera person at all.

JENNY GUY: Great.

MEREDITH MARSH: (LAUGHS) So I started back in 2014-ish. I knew I wanted to start a blog. I thought, like, oh, I can do that. I had a background in web design, so I did like all the nerdy stuff, but I thought I could probably create content. So I set out to start a blog, and it was just a matter of figuring out, what am I going to blog about?

And I happened to buy a GoPro camera for my family, I think, on a whim, like on a Cyber Monday deal. And I was like, we’re going to use this and we’re going to record stuff and we’re going to go do fun things. And so I created a video with it and I showed my kids, and they were in awe of this video of them. Sledding and making Christmas cookies.

And I thought, I have to teach other people how to do this because I wasn’t seeing — you know, Facebook, at the time, people were just, like, dumping their kids’ photos and dance recital videos on Facebook and using Facebook as an archive. You know? And I thought, we can do better than that. And I’m sure there’s other parents that are like techie, nerdy, gear-type people that are like, yeah, let’s get a GoPro.

So once I did the keyword research to figure out, could this be my blog thing, I realized it could. It was kind of a good time, a good topic. So I started doing GoPro tutorials, like how to use a GoPro camera and then how to edit GoPro videos, which I was kind of just learning my way through that myself. But it seemed like a no-brainer that I should create video tutorials and not just blog about it, and so that’s what I did.

And I kind of just — I applied what I knew about SEO for blogging to my YouTube channel, and I started gaining subscribers and getting comments. And every couple of weeks, I’d go over there and be like, oh, look at, there’s more subscribers. Oh, people are asking me questions in the comments. Maybe I should respond.

And I wasn’t — I didn’t think of it — I didn’t realize how powerful it would be. I just thought it seemed like a no-brainer that I should put my videos there. And so once I started seeing that I was kind of racking up an audience there, and GoPro reached out to me to do a giveaway, and I just was like, oh, this YouTube thing is — this is a thing. Like, this thing people should be doing.

JENNY GUY: (LAUGHS) Yeah.

MEREDITH MARSH: So that’s kind of how I started, but I never set out to start a YouTube channel. I never thought, I want to be a YouTuber. And I just– it was like something I felt like it made sense to do in conjunction with my blog, so I just did it.

And I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. And, I mean, it was really weird. It’s awkward talking to a camera. It’s awkward, you know, like, seeing — you know, I’ll run into people in my town, and they’ll be like, oh, I saw your video. And I’m like, really? Like, which one? Like, what do you — like, don’t talk to me. Like, I don’t talk about it. And it’s just awkward. It’s so awkward.

So it’s not natural. It’s never been natural, but it’s been really, really fun. And so, now, I help other people figure out how to create content, and what content to create, how to start and grow their YouTube channels. And it’s really — it’s fun helping other people get — be where I was at, but get kind of like out of their comfort zone faster than I did.

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

MEREDITH MARSH: So that’s what I do and how I got started.

JENNY GUY: I love hearing — it’s really inspirational to hear that it wasn’t a- I wasn’t — I didn’t take — I didn’t go to film school. I didn’t spend a lot of time learning a ton of tech in college. Like, you learned it on your own just by putting things together.

And we actually have a bunch of questions. Matt Freund is saying, “How about using a GoPro for a food blog, cooking videos?” This, we’re actually not doing a ton of talking about GoPro today. But before we dive into your topic, let’s actually — do you mind answering that, real quick, a little bit about GoPro?

MEREDITH MARSH: Matt, you could. There are people that do that. The problem with GoPros is they’re action cameras. They have a really small sensor, like a light sensor, so they’re really best outside where you have lots and lots of natural light. Otherwise, you don’t really get the best image like you would inside with a DSLR camera or a mirrorless camera. So but there are people that do, so I’m not going to say you can’t, but there’s probably better options.

JENNY GUY: Better usages for it. I mean, what if you had if you’re cooking on the grill or you’re cooking outside?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: That would be great. We have a Mediavine, a Publisher Support Specialist, Karla Greb, who said, “I just ordered a GoPro. I’m going to need to check out your blog to help me figure out how to use it.” Yes.
Matt Freund just said, “So I’m probably better off using my phone,” for his cooking videos.

MEREDITH MARSH: Possibly, yeah.

JENNY GUY: OK.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: Alrighty, we’ve got a bunch of people that are saying YouTube and Mediavine. I have Facebook and YouTube — where they’re posting video content. Mediavine Facebook, and YouTube. YouTube, videos two times a week. Yes, Facebook and YouTube. Adding it to blog posts.

And we also, everyone, posted the slides for Meredith’s presentation, so please grab those. There’s some great information there. We’ll be telling you when to look at what, but we’re just having a conversation, right now.
So I alluded to this a little bit ago, talking about the impact video is having on digital content creation in general. But why is video creation so important? I want to hear it from you, and why should our audience be prioritizing it at this point in time especially?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, well like you already said, video’s on every platform. And I think it’s because it’s so — it’s engaging. It’s like the next best thing to talking face-to-face with somebody. And it’s so easy to create, now. And it’s easy with, you know, everyone has, like, 3G, 4G, 5G internet everywhere they go, so it’s easy for platforms to serve up video really quickly and easily.

So it’s — every platform as a video platform, now. So, you know, even if it’s not your face on that video, it’s still the content that those platforms are favoring, in a lot of ways. So that’s why I like video.

JENNY GUY: Totally. I mean, in terms of busting the algorithm, you do with video. When people are talking — it — we experience it on the Mediavine page. We get the most reach with video. Like, that’s where you can break through with postings, so it’s a part of every strategy. It’s prioritized everywhere.

And we’re going to talk more about YouTube in a minute, but as you’re going to tell everyone, and most people, though, at least know this. You’re going to get into the nitty-gritty of it, but at least most people know that it’s the second most powerful or most popular search engine on the internet is YouTube.

MEREDITH MARSH: Mm-hmm, yeah.

JENNY GUY: So it’s worth it. Guys, how would you — audience, how would you rank your experience with making videos, on a scale of 1 to 10? Drop that in the comments. Tell us how you feel in terms of experience.

OK, Meredith, for those who are Video Pursuit Society members — and say hey to us in the comments if you are — your MEGAphone Method is very familiar. But for anyone who isn’t, will you give us a crash course in your MEGAphone Method? This is where we’re getting into the repurposing.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. So with the MEGAphone Method, you can turn your — I like to say you can turn your message into a megaphone with video content. But there’s so many different platforms, different ratios, different expectations. Like, if you open up TikTok, it’s a very different expectation than YouTube. And so, like, how do you manage all that with your content?
So with the MEGAphone Method, the MEGA, M-E-G-A, in MEGAphone stands for — the M stands for start with your Main platform. So probably for a lot of Mediavine publishers, your main platform may be just your blog, just writing your blog posts. And so if that’s what you focus on first in terms of creating your content, then focus on that. And then turn what you have into a video.

So, for me, my main platform is YouTube. So when I’m thinking of content, I’m thinking in terms of a video. A lot of people, it’s podcasting. And so plan that main content, and then figure out what to do with it. So start with your main platform first.

And then the E stands for Edit once, and then repurpose. So — and everyone has a different workflow and everything– but, for me, I create a YouTube video and I focus on the edit of that YouTube video. And then I turn it into an IGTV video. And I could also turn it into a Pinterest pin, but I don’t. I just don’t do that (LAUGHS). I could.

JENNY GUY: You could. I just don’t.

MEREDITH MARSH: So I’m focusing on the one thing, and then turning it in to all the other things. I will also embed my video through Mediavine, sometimes, not all the time. I haven’t trained my VA to do that yet, so not every video goes that route. But that’s kind of the workflow there. Focus on one thing, and then turn it into all the other things. Make those other things kind of fit what you’ve already done.

And then the G stands for Go long, Go wide, and Go deep. And what I mean by that is use your videos to– go long is like look at the longevity. I mean, we all hear, Mediavine publishers, I’m sure you know a lot about SEO. You know the value of creating evergreen content that people are searching for today and five years from now and 10 years from now.

And with your video content, you want it to be the same thing, right? YouTube is a search engine. It’s owned by Google. It’s the second largest search engine, second to Google. So when — if you’re just focusing on, let’s say, Instagram Stories and that’s the video strategy that you’re adopting, there is no longevity there. Those stories are gone after 24 hours unless you save them to a highlight, but they’re not searchable. Whereas, if you focus on that long-form, long-term content, then you’re going to attract people down the road.

Go wide is just go on all the platforms that you want to. It might make sense for you to post your YouTube videos to LinkedIn. A lot of people do that. I do it sometimes, but I usually forget that LinkedIn exists, so –[LAUGHTER]
But it might be perfect for your niche. If it makes sense to post it on IGTV, post it on IGTV.

And then Go deep is just a reminder to always be getting people to go deeper with you. Get on your email list, join your Facebook group, like what — wherever it is that you’re creating a community or getting people onto your own sort of property, if you will, so all your eggs are not in one basket. Then you can use video and you YouTube to get people to go deep with you.

And then A is just Alignment. You just always want to make sure that your — and this is more for a beginner content creator, but you want your content, your video content, to be aligned with what you’re doing. So, you know, don’t get lost in like Search Engine Optimization-land, where you’re like, oh, I can rank for that. But if that has nothing to do with the people you want to attract to your channel, the people you want to have in your audience, then there’s no point doing that.

So make sure that your content’s aligned with your ideal audience, your ideal client, aligned with if you have a digital product or program or a service. Or make sure it’s all aligned with that and not just like, oh, this looks like it’s trending, I think I can go viral, because it just won’t make any sense.

JENNY GUY: Having a goal in mind for what you want these people to do, you can get these people to look at you, but once they are looking at, you what do you want, and how do you retain them? And, like you said, with going deep, you don’t — get yourself an audience that is not subject to an algorithm shift, a social media algorithm shift or a Google — like any of those things. Make sure that you — and your email is where those people live. Those are your people, so do it.

OK, let’s talk a little bit about different formats and orientations for the different platforms. And let me grab that slide. OK, so you’re talking about landscape first, and how you worked through all that. You talked about the orientations here?

MEREDITH MARSH: Mm-hmm, yeah. So, for me, this is an example of what I do, visually.

JENNY GUY: Oh, great.

MEREDITH MARSH: So I have my YouTube video. It turns into an IGTV video, the full video, the full thing, so I put that on IGTV. I also send an email to you my email list to let them know I have a new YouTube video, and I link it back to the YouTube video. If I’m sending the email, like right when I publish it or within the first couple days, I send them directly to YouTube.
| then I can, and sometimes do, put that video as a Mediavine video on my blog, but I always embed the YouTube video either way, right, into my blog. So it’s going to — those are my three kind of main places that I sort of distribute my video to.

And so that would be perfect for somebody who’s creating that landscape content first, so a YouTube video, a Mediavine video, Facebook Lives, you know, that’s landscape, or horizontal.

If you were going the other way, which I think there’s a slide for, if you were focusing on doing Instagram Lives, for example, if that was your main platform — and so now you’re vertical. All your videos are vertical. You can turn them into a landscape video pretty easy with almost any video editor. And so you have — you can kind of see, in that slide, on the right, you have your vertical.

And then where your video is not, you can have a background, you can have branding, you could have slides with words, back there. You could have like, I don’t know, stock video footage or something back there. So you can create a video file that is horizontal that you could put on YouTube or put on wherever you want to have your landscape video. So embed it into your blog post or upload it to Mediavine.

I’m not sure if the Mediavine video player is optimized for like if you put a vertical video. You’ll have to tell me, Jenny, because I’m not sure. And then, the same thing, you can send it right to your email list. And you can also use your email list to — so you’re sending videos to your email list. Then you’re also using your videos to get people to sign up for your email list, so it’s like a little bit of a cycle there, which works with any dimension of video.

So that’s a workflow that you could use if you’re focusing on vertical videos first. So Instagram Lives or Instagram Stories would work for that as well.

JENNY GUY: So in terms of– we are getting confirmation on the vertical video format, I would encourage everybody– so, Meredith, where are you with YouTube subscribers currently?

MEREDITH MARSH: I am, I think, just under 47, something like that, 47,000.

JENNY GUY: 47,000, right. OK, so you are already in a good monetization place with your YouTube strategy. For those that have smaller channels and are working on growing it, and even those with larger channels, the monetization and the ROI is going to be much higher when you’re uploading the videos through the Mediavine dashboard. So we would encourage you to do both and to — especially if you’re creating longer-form content for YouTube — then edit it down to a 30 to 45 second video clip, and put it into your blog post there. That makes sense for that.

That way, you’re still reaping the benefits of those. The highest CPM, basically, that we can offer for a single ad unit is with pre-roll inventory, so do that, please. And then you can also put that title card at the end. With the Mediavine video player, you can put that title card at the end, which enables you to direct people to your YouTube where they can subscribe to your channel there, see the full video there, however you’re doing this.
We don’t recommend those long-form videos. Like, we would not upload a — this Facebook Live would not be uploaded through the Mediavine video player. No one would watch that on your website. No one’s going to watch an hour-long video on your website or a five-minute-long video, really, for the most part. It’s a different platform, so you’re wanting to edit to the greatest hits or the 30 to 45 seconds of the best thing, stuff like that.

We have a lot of questions. Let me go back. OK, we’ve got people saying that — they’re ranging from the 3 to 5 range, a lot of people. We’ve got some 9’s, people that are super into video. Vikkie Lee says she’s a 9 for YouTube. She shares DIY videos to put back in the community what I get out of it too. She now has about 50,000 subscribers. And then she tries to write posts after and optimize them on her blog.

So that’s really a good workflow. That’s similar to what you do, Meredith. Lori says she’s about a 2. She’s made a few videos and knows the basics of editing and Premiere Pro, but is still struggling to understand the big picture and how to put them to use. I think that Meredith would have a lot of tips on that, both on her website, in her Facebook group, in her podcast, all those things.

OK, we had a question here from Vikkie Lee. “Meredith, what’s your stance on Facebook pages such as Bored Panda and LadBible asking if they can share one of your YouTube videos?” And Larisha said, she’s not sure what Meredith will say, “but my understanding is that it goes against Facebook’s new terms or original content and you could be penalized.”

MEREDITH MARSH: I don’t have a stance on that. I’ve never done that. They’ve never — I don’t make viral videos, so they have never approached me (LAUGHS). So but I know people who have, and I think — man, it’s so easy, I think, to — for them to find people who don’t know that they should, like, research it or ask around. They’re just like, oh, yeah, cool, sure, go ahead. Take my video. And then they’re like massively profiting from it. So I don’t really have a stance.

I mean, if it’s something — it’s totally, I mean, it’s a personal decision. I don’t know that it helps you grow in any way. I’m not totally sure on that.

JENNY GUY: I mean, from an SEO standpoint, we talk about syndication all the time in terms of — but you’re getting the backlinks, you’re getting– which gives Google, gives authority to your profile, whether you’re letting them take an excerpt of your post or — but if a brand or someone wants to use your video content or your recipe or your craft or whatever it is, they need to be paid.

So Morgan Smith McBride says, “I have started creating one-minute videos for Mediavine from my longer videos. I was embedding YouTube videos in my blog posts, but I believe they’re slowing down my page and hurting viewability because of decreasing page speed. Should I just leave the full video on YouTube only and not put it on my posts at all?”

I talked about this. Morgan, no, I think you should edit a small clip of your video and upload it up through the Mediavine video player, and tease to that. Tease to go into your YouTube channel and subscribing there where they can see the full video. But if you’re creating this video content, you want to monetize it in every possible way that you can. And you’re going to get much, much higher returns on your investment that it takes to create a video by uploading it as well at the Media — I mean, double-dip, triple-dip, quadruple-dip.

That’s Meredith’s whole thing. You gotta get a multi-dip sundae.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: Do that.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, and I think it’s — I mean, YouTube is a discovery platform because it’s a search engine. So, in a way, it’s almost like you don’t even have to embed your YouTube videos into your blog posts, especially, obviously, if you have access to Mediavine’s video player. But it’s more so your publishing a piece of content on a discovery platform and bringing people into your overall audience. So it almost– it’s totally up to you whether you put it into your — it may have no benefit having it in your actual blog post because the benefit is that that YouTube video is on YouTube, not that it’s in your blog post.

So but I like Jenny’s advice of create a shorter video, use the Mediavine uploader, and benefit there. But, I mean, you can always link out to your YouTube video and — but it’s more like the other way around. Use YouTube to get people into your overall audience, onto your email list, and so forth.

JENNY GUY: And Morgan was clarifying there. She was saying, “I’m definitely putting the one-minute video on Mediavine.” She meant embedding the full-length video into the post as well. I don’t know that I have a strong — I mean, Meredith would you embed an hour-long video into-

MEREDITH MARSH: An hour-long video?

JENNY GUY: Or a long video, a full video, let’s say five to seven minutes?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. I mean, that’s what I do now.

JENNY GUY: Yes.

MEREDITH MARSH: But, honestly, I do that because it makes sense in terms of that video is my main — that’s my main piece of content. So the blog post is kind of a supplement to the video. So I don’t think — if a reader landed on my blog posts, I think if they just read it, they would be like, yeah, I don’t get it. I’m lost. They kind of need that video. So it’s, you know, I think it depends a little bit on your content and on your readers.

JENNY GUY: Definitely true. OK, we’ve got a question from Sue. OK, we have an answer on the vertical video. People are — to the Mediavine video player, we believe you can upload that vertical video to the Mediavine video player, but you need to choose the 16-by-9 format so you get the black, or whatever color you choose, for your box.

OK, Christina said, “We upload our whole video tutorial to Mediavine and YouTube. If the videos are long on Mediavine, are there less ads? Would short ones mean more RPM?”

So yes. In short, yeah. The sweet spot is about 45 seconds because we believe that’s pretty much what audiences are anticipating and what their attention span holds. Plus, an ad runs as a pre-roll to that and then runs afterwards, in-between.

So when you set up the playlist, you’re Up Next feature — I’m sorry, not playlist, your Up Next feature in the Mediavine video player for the way you want your videos to play. It will auto go to the next one, but another ad will run. It’s somewhat similar to having a short sidebar. You want to give a chance for that ad to refresh with another premium paying ad. So a 45 second video, as opposed to a five minute video, you can have an ad. So yes, correct.

OK, let’s — we’re getting a lot. “Could you show a screenshot for people to click to view the long video on YouTube?” We will work on getting that in for you. In the meantime, I can’t get that here on mine now.

OK, Sue says, “Should my videos that I upload to –” well, we’ll talk about– let’s talk about video uploading in a minute to Mediavine video player before we get too lost in that, down that rabbit hole.

“How much editing do you recommend doing as you repurpose videos for different platforms? Is there a universally recognized sweet spot for video length on each one? Speaking of that, how much time is reasonable to spend editing for repurposing, and do you have any favorite video editing tools? Because editing is kind of the name of the game. You can get out and shoot it, but —

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. Yeah.

JENNY GUY: How do we make it usable and professional-looking?

MEREDITH MARSH: So what I have been doing, I don’t edit anything — I don’t re-edit things for other platforms. So I’ll repurpose it, turn it into a vertical for IGTV, but it’s the full YouTube video. So I’m even, in that video, I’m saying like, this is — welcome to my YouTube channel, or whatever. I don’t actually say that, but you know I mean. I’m referencing the fact that this is a YouTube video or subscribe or whatever, and that’s going on IGTV the way that it is.

If I had to do more than that, then I wouldn’t do it. And so it’s like done is better than perfect, for me. So for your brand and your audience, it might be totally different.

So how — what was the question? How much time?

JENNY GUY: So I asked a lot of things, all at once. Yeah, how much time is reasonable? So with the MEGAphone Method, you’re creating the content. Then you’re editing it for the primary platform, for its primary use. Then when you’re repurposing it, how much time are you putting into that repurposing?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. So to repurpose it into a vertical format, I use ClipScribe, so which entails uploading it to ClipScribe and then choosing the template that I want, and so a vertical format. When I put my video in the middle of that vertical, because it shows up in the Instagram feed, so I want it to be in the middle so people can actually see it as they’re scrolling through the feed.

And I — with ClipScribe, you can create your template so you can like — you have a spot for your title and you have a spot for your captions. It does automatic captioning, and so it’s pretty quick. My VA does it. I don’t know how much time he spends, but it doesn’t– I’m not really editing it. I’m just uploading it, changing the title, checking the captions are spelling my name right and —

JENNY GUY: That’s helpful. I mean, always.

MEREDITH MARSH: And, yeah, and then I export it, and then I upload it to IGTV. And so I usually save it as a draft in IGTV. I just, same title as my YouTube title usually, same — the top description, top part of my YouTube description is usually the caption for IGTV. I just — like, it’s just copy and pasting. And then I’ll save it as a draft so that I can publish it whenever I want to publish it.

But you can schedule IGTV videos through Facebook’s Creator Studio, which is something that I recently found that I could do. So there is that option as well. So it’s just a few — I mean, it might take half hour, 45 minutes to do that part.

Like I said, I could put that on Pinterest. I just don’t. I really don’t have a reason. I just don’t. So but that same video could be put on Pinterest because it’s in that vertical format already.

And then, yeah, does that answer your question?

JENNY GUY: It does. Yeah, talk to me a little bit more about ClipScribe and why you love it and how much expertise you need to have to really make use of it, would be great.

MEREDITH MARSH: Oh. Yeah, you don’t really have to have much expertise. And I have a couple of videos on my YouTube channel about this, about using ClipScribe and repurposing your videos into vertical. So there’s – and there are — there’s ClipScribe, there’s Kapwing is another one. There’s one called Zubtitles. There’s Quicc, but it’s not spelled like the regular quick. And there’s a couple others, and they all basically do the same thing.

And a lot of them have the automatic captioning, which is really handy. So, with all of them, you upload your video. Or, like in the case of Kapwing, you can actually just pull your YouTube link to that video, and it will just like pull it in and download it. And then you just choose how you want your vertical video to be laid out.

Like, I put title at the top, video in the middle, captions at the bottom. You could put your logo on there. And then you export it, download it, and then upload it wherever you want to put it. It’s really pretty easy.

JENNY GUY: We love hearing super easy. And there are videos, like you said, on your website that people can get quick tutorials on starting ClipScribe. You’ve mentioned a lot of different editing tools. What made you arrive on ClipScribe? What made you land here?

MEREDITH MARSH: I think I just had a friend that was using it. And I was like, hey, how do you do that? And so she told me what she — it’s kind of — it’s hard. They’re all new tools. They’re all like — it’s like the Wild, Wild West. So they all work differently, and it’s hard to kind of like search for the type of tool that you’re looking for because this is — like, repurposing your videos, it’s sort of like a new concept because of all of the different platforms that we have.

JENNY GUY: Very, very true. We had other people — so could you do a rundown of some of the other programs that you listed in addition to Kap– ClipScribe? I’m sorry, I was thinking — I’m thinking Kapwing. I’m thinking all — this is it, Quicc spelled differently than quick. So I’m trying to go through all of them.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. Yeah, there’s ClipScribe. There’s Kapwing, Quicc.

JENNY GUY: Can you spell that, or come close to spelling?

MEREDITH MARSH: Kapwing is K-A-P-W-I-N-G.

JENNY GUY: Got it.

MEREDITH MARSH: Larisha has it in there, in the comments.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic.

MEREDITH MARSH: There’s Quicc, which is, I think, Q-U-I-C-C, or something like that. Zubtitles, with a Z, is another one. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

JENNY GUY: They’re all good, and they’re all — we’re dropping links in there for people to grab them and go check them out. See what you like the best. I think a lot of it is what interface makes you happy the most.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. Yeah, and you can also create vertical videos in a regular video editor. Like, not all a video editors, but a lot of them — Premiere Pro, Premiere Rush, Final Cut Pro, Filmora — most of them allow you to create a vertical video. So you can edit your horizontal video just the way that you would, and then just pull it into a vertical format and do whatever you want with it.

But the other — like Kapwing and ClipScribe have that automatic captioning, which is really helpful.

JENNY GUY: Super helpful. OK, well that’s really helpful. So just try things out and see what works the best for you.

OK, so what is your filming and editing and publishing schedule like? When do you publish videos? Do you post all in the same day or do you drip them out? And everybody’s biggest question, how do you stay consistent with your creation?

MEREDITH MARSH: Hmm. I don’t stay consistent with my creation. (LAUGHS) That’s the answer to that.

JENNY GUY: I mean, yeah, that’s very — it’s — we love honesty here on Summer of Live.

MEREDITH MARSH: So I have had varying, like, schedules. So back when I started my blog and my YouTube channel, I had a full-time job. And I was much more consistent when I had a full-time job because I knew that I had to do a little bit every day.

So I would publish videos on a Thursday for no other reason other than the first one, I think, was a Thursday. So I was like, OK, the next one goes up next Thursday. And so I knew that in order to have it published on Thursday, by Wednesday evening, it had to be done, edited, ready to go. The blog post had to be created. So in order to be ready for that, then, on Tuesday, I had to edit the video, or at least create a rough edit. And so, by Monday, I knew I had to have had it shot.

So, over the weekend, I would usually figure out, what am I creating this week, and then spend a little bit of time, if I could, to shoot the video on the weekend. If not, I would just do it when I got home from work on Monday and then worry about editing it on Tuesday.

And so that kept me consistent because there was no way to just wait till the last minute. There just wasn’t time for that. So, now– and those videos that I was creating were like how-to videos.

JENNY GUY: Right.

MEREDITH MARSH: I was talking to the camera. Hey, this is Meredith, blah, blah, blah. And then, a lot of times, it was a screen tutorial. So that’s easy-ish to record because you don’t have to do your hair and your makeup. You don’t have to have good lighting. You can just do it when your kids go to bed. And you do it at midnight. Nobody knows.

So — and that’s what those were. So intro, screencast, outro. I call it a tutorial sandwich because it’s just easy.

JENNY GUY: Sounds delicious.

MEREDITH MARSH: Now, my videos are a little bit different. They’re not really a tutorial sandwich. It’s a lot more talking head, a lot more B-roll. The videos I create now are more difficult to create, like from a creative standpoint. So I spend a lot more time shooting and a lot more time editing my videos now because it’s like an art form. You know, it’s like it takes more time to draw– like to paint something, to paint a real painting, than it does to draw a stick figure. But you have to start with a stick figure, right?

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

MEREDITH MARSH: So my workflow, now, is I shoot a video, and I try to get one up every week. And so I kind of spend all week stressing over getting my video done for the week, but I don’t have a regular schedule. But they usually come out on Friday or Saturday.

JENNY GUY: So one of the biggest things we talk about on all, the SEO like a CEO series and on Theory of Content that our co-founder, Amber, was involved with and all of those things is that the best way, the best SEO strategy is to continue creating content. And that’s the truth with YouTube as well. YouTube really values content, new content being pushed out and consistent content being pushed out. So, yeah, it’s something that the best thing you can do to have good SEO and to improve yourself in those search results on all platforms is to make more videos constantly. It’s a monster, and it needs to be fed.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, and I will say, too, that I spend a lot of time upfront planning a video, doing the keyword research and figuring out what I need to cover in the video, what I need to say, like exactly what I need to say in the video. So I kind of — I’ll do that on my computer, and I’ll kind of batch plan a handful of videos so that when I am ready to film, when I do have my hair done —

JENNY GUY: Yeah. Yeah, you can knock them out.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, I — it’s, yeah, because other — there’s — the more time you spend planning and preparing, then the quicker it’s going to be on the back end when you’re editing. Because it’s not — like, you could spend 12 hours editing a video. But if you were super-prepared and you had a script and you knew what you needed to say and you knew what B-roll you needed or what tutorial screen thing you needed, then you just have all that stuff ready to go and you can greatly shorten your editing time.

JENNY GUY: And so you answered one of my follow up questions in with what you were saying. You do script yourself, then?

MEREDITH MARSH: I script — yes, I do script my videos. And I just recently sort of changed how I do it. So what I do is I think, like, what is the actual content that I’m covering? What are the three tips or what is it, like the actual content, the meat, right? And then I will go in and figure out what to do for the intro and what I need to do at the end to finish the video.

So one of the things on YouTube that can be kind of tricky is you don’t want people to leave your YouTube video. So you want people to keep watching as long as possible. That’s what YouTube wants. That’s what you want. And so when you start saying– like wrapping up the video, like, thanks for watching, hope this was helpful, the viewer knows they can get off the bus now. There is no other value coming. And so they’ll leave to go watch something else, and you don’t want that to happen.

So I don’t really do much of an outro. I just kind of like get to the end of the content and be like, OK, now go watch this video. So–

JENNY GUY: Yeah, love that.

MEREDITH MARSH: So, yeah, so and I have an iPad Pro.

JENNY GUY: You Irish goodbye your YouTube videos basically?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. I have an iPad Pro, so I’ve been writing out my scripts lately, which I find to be really helpful, versus typing them out. So, yeah, that’s how I do it.

If I don’t — and I don’t necessarily say word for word what my script says, but if I haven’t run those words through my brain already, like, I can’t spit them out. Like I just can’t. It’s like 12 takes, and I hope I got it and I have to figure them out ahead of time even if I go off-script, and which I do a lot. But if I don’t have those words there, then I find it takes me a lot longer to shoot.

JENNY GUY: It does.

MEREDITH MARSH: And I feel — like, I get sweaty and I get stressed. Like, did I really cover everything? Did I say everything I needed to? So, yeah, I like to be as prepared as possible.

JENNY GUY: I — yeah. Again, it’s not fully scripted by any stretch of the imagination, what we do here with our lives, but I know generally what I want to talk about. I have some points. Of course we go off script and read comments and do all the things, but if I don’t it’s — it’s just throw and smearing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. Like, you don’t want that.

I also wanted to circle back around and ask you about SEO research on YouTube. When you’re talking about doing research for your videos, are you doing it in YouTube? And tell me how you do that, please.

MEREDITH MARSH: So SEO, so keyword research, you can just use YouTube for that. If you were going to do that, you’re basically just typing in stuff into the Search bar in YouTube and seeing, are people watching videos on this topic? Yes or no?

You know, look at the videos that are in the search results. Does your video belong there? Does it make sense for it to be there? Are there other videos there that have a million views, hundreds of thousands of views? That’s a good sign that people are watching videos on that topic. And so that’s kind of the simple way to do it.

There are other tools. Like, TubeBuddy is a favorite of mine, where you put in your keyword or what you’re thinking your keyword will be, and it will tell you. Like, basically it tells you yes or no, either, yep, you’re good to go or, no, you should really refine that or change it up a little bit. And what’s really nice about that is, if you have the paid version of TubeBuddy, it’s actually looking at your channel and the data on your channel. And it’s comparing and saying, like, for you, yes, you should do this or, no, you shouldn’t.

So the other thing about TubeBuddy is it helps you to optimize. So I mean, like, it’ll tell you, yep, your title looks good, your description looks good, or you need to add some more of your keyword in there because you said this was your keyword, but it’s not in there. So it’ll tell you those things to help you optimize.

JENNY GUY: Kind of like Yoast for YouTube.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and it can be hard, at first, to — when I just got off of a group of coaching call with my people, and they’re like, but it says there’s too much competition for these things. So I’m like, that’s because you have a channel with no videos on it. So it doesn’t matter what you choose, it’s going to be too much competition because you don’t have anything to compete with. So you have to start somewhere.

So it can be kind of, I guess, sort of off-putting or disappointing to use tools like TubeBuddy at first. Because it’s like, of course you can’t compete with that. You never created a video before, but you have to start there. So I more so like to look at, are people really searching for this and really watching these videos? More so than, can I compete, when you’re first starting out.

JENNY GUY: That makes a lot of sense, and it’s very helpful. And I love the idea that they’re analyzing your channel. Are they analyzing your subscribers and seeing what types, other types, of content they’re consuming and helping to —

MEREDITH MARSH: That, I don’t think they go that deep.

JENNY GUY: OK, I was just curious.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, they’re kind of — I think they’re mostly looking at your topics and how those topics have performed for you. Yeah, and they’re not all, it’s not always accurate. Because, sometimes, I pull it up for a client who’s like — does archery, and I’ll put it in and it’ll be like, yeah, VidProMom you should do an archery video. And I’m like, what? Why is it telling me that? Like, that’s kind of concerning.

[LAUGHTER]

JENNY GUY: It’s a personal recommendation. They just want you to learn it. Why not?

OK, Sue wanted to know, “Can you re-explain what the sandwich video is?” You were talking about the how-to tutorial, that you made the tutorial sandwich. She said, “What is in the middle of your tutorial sandwich?” It is not bologna.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, it’s not bologna. So the middle of the sandwich is the actual content. If you’re doing a — for me, my tutorials are usually a screen recording, so that’s the meat of the sandwich. If you’re doing like a craft video or cooking video, it’s the crafting or the cooking part.
And so you have your intro, where you’re talking to the camera. And, you know, it’s a talking head video like this, and then you have the meat part. And then you would have an outro. And so —

JENNY GUY: What about condiments? I’m just saying.

MEREDITH MARSH: (LAUGHS) Yes. So, yeah, that’s what I just call it a tutorial sandwich.

JENNY GUY: No, it’s helpful. It’s good because your bread is your intro and your outro. And then your meat, it’s the stuff in the center. Although, I’m a carb lover, especially during the time of Corona, so I will take just the intro and outro because I love carbs.

All right, Larisha was saying, “When we added a second video every week on YouTube, we noticed faster growth. It’s exhausting, though.”

MEREDITH MARSH: Mm-hmm.

JENNY GUY: Yup. She also was commenting, they do so much video content, Larisha and her husband Andrew, was talking about shot lists and scripts, so helpful, very much so, and storyboarding.

We’ve done some storyboarding in the Marketing department when we need to create a video. Susannah, our Senior Graphic Designer is amazing at that. And this is what you want. Think about what your goal is. Think about what kind of adjectives, what you want people to feel when they’re watching the video. That’ll help you, like all of those things. Use feel words. Have feelings.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, storyboarding is something I just started doing.

JENNY GUY: Yeah?

MEREDITH MARSH: And because I have a fancy iPad Pro, I write out my script, and then I go back, kind of like in the margins, and just draw in what I need to have on screen there besides just me talking.

JENNY GUY: That’s awesome.

MEREDITH MARSH: So it’s kind of like storyboarding in the margins. And then I’ll go back in and make little notes on things like emotion, as like little reminders of, this is the emotion that the viewer should be feeling, so make sure you’re putting that emotion out there, just as little reminders. It’s sort of like lazy storyboarding.

JENNY GUY: I think it’s awesome, and now I want an iPad Pro.

MEREDITH MARSH: You should. It’s great.

JENNY GUY: It sounds amazing. I think that, yeah, it’s like a neglected part. Like even if it’s a how-to video, you want to think about what experience you want your viewer to have, always. And when we’re writing, we think about that too. Answer it, take — think about your viewer. Put yourself in their shoes. Why do they want to keep watching, and what do you want them to take away from it? And how do you want them to feel?

MEREDITH MARSH: Right.

JENNY GUY: April said, “What do you use to make the videos were the top part is video and the bottom part is a photo? Can you add music to that?”

MEREDITH MARSH: You could use any video editor to do that. You could also use the online editors that we mentioned. Like, I think you’d be able to do that with Kapwing. I’m not sure about the others. I think you’d be able to do that and ClipScribe too.

And, for music, you can add music and Kapwing. I think if you’re going to be doing music stuff, to me, that sounds like I would just pull that into a regular video editor rather than using an online tool, unless it’s like– I mean, if it’s like a 30-second video, that might be different.

But, yeah, I’ve never added music using those online tools because I’m always doing it in my regular editor, which I’ve been using Final Cut Pro.

JENNY GUY: Awesome. OK, so all sorts of options there for tools. Let us have another question for Meredith. So how do you drive your email list to your channel and blog and videos? How do you keep that loop closed and keep things moving?

MEREDITH MARSH: So my — when I publish a video, I open up my email editor, which I use Kajabi because that’s where my courses and stuff are, so just use their email platform. So I just — I take — usually break up my — the top part of my YouTube description into something that’s a little bit more like human, like it sounds like an email. You know?

JENNY GUY: Right.

MEREDITH MARSH: Copy, paste, do a little bit of rejiggering of the words. I usually put in a screen grab of the thumbnail, and then link out to the video, and only to the video. I don’t link out to other stuff. And so that’s how I send people from my email list to go watch the video. If it’s — like, I have some old, not old, but I have email sequences, like evergreen sequences.

JENNY GUY: Sure, drip campaigns?

MEREDITH MARSH: Those I extend to my blog, because those I’m like, go watch my media finance. Right?

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

MEREDITH MARSH: Whereas with a fresh YouTube video, I really want those eyeballs on that video right then. And so, yeah, that’s how I do it.

JENNY GUY: Because that first 24 hours is really important on YouTube, correct, in terms of where you’re going to get placed in search results?

MEREDITH MARSH: It is important because, yeah, I mean the more views that you have, YouTube recognizes like, oh, this must be a good video because look at all these views we’ve had in the first few hours.
So, yeah, it does help, for sure, the first 24 to 48 hours, usually.

JENNY GUY: Do you ever prime your audience for a new video? Like, get ready, this is going to drop, to try to boost those views?

MEREDITH MARSH: I never have, but I know sometimes people do. I’ve seen people they’ll do like an Instagram Live, like 10 minutes before the video is scheduled on YouTube. And so, which I think is really smart. I just have never tried that before.

JENNY GUY: Interesting, I just was wondering because I’ve heard many people attended a lot of sessions on YouTube, and I heard people talk about that that 24 hours, not 48 hours, or YouTube places a lot of weight on the traffic on that first time period, so it’s important to get a good start.

Michelle Platt says, “Do all of your current videos feature your face? That’s the hardest part, getting myself camera-ready. Any tips or filters?” No.

MEREDITH MARSH: Tips or filters (LAUGHS), I like that.

JENNY GUY: It’s like cardboard box.

MEREDITH MARSH: So my videos do feature my face. Hopefully, they feature my content and my face is just delivering it. But, yeah, I — this, being camera-ready is definitely a barrier for me, for sure. And, sometimes, I just don’t feel like doing my hair or doing my makeup. Especially now, when I don’t even have to leave the house, sometimes, I am like doing my hair and makeup at 3pm to shoot a video or to like join a live.

JENNY GUY: Today, yes.

MEREDITH MARSH: And then —

JENNY GUY: I was like, bye, guys. I’m about to go get 20 minutes and do this.

MEREDITH MARSH: And then I’m like, have dinner and go to bed, and it’s like, why did I spend all that time on my hair? So, yeah, it’s definitely a barrier.

One really great tip that I have is if you have — if you get your hair done at the salon, just plan to shoot a couple of videos that day.

JENNY GUY: Very smart.

MEREDITH MARSH: I have done that before. And I always — I’ve done it like once, and then I think I’m going to do this every time, but I never have videos ready to be shot on my salon day. So it hasn’t happened, so–

JENNY GUY: And you can never make — I mean, I’m not saying you. I’m saying any, me. I can never make my hair look the way my hairstylist makes it look ever, ever, even when they’re like — I’m like show me how to do this, step by step. Like, I’m five, show me, and they do. And then I get home, and it never — I would say, Michelle, yeah that’s a huge barrier.

Ring lights are huge. Natural lighting is a big thing, so always go into a place that has natural light, and then augment it with a ring light. They’re not expensive. There’s a ton of them on Amazon, and it’s a game-changer.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, I am a big fan of really like flooding your face with light. It really does hide just like little skin imperfections and blemishes and stuff. You just have to make sure that, like, if you wear makeup, that you put on a little extra eye shadow, a little extra lipstick and blush so you don’t look ghostly.

JENNY GUY: Contouring is helpful, too, a little bit, just a little bit of like, you know.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah. And, also, too, if you can, just plan to batch film some content. And so that you’re only doing your hair and makeup once and then recording three videos, instead of doing it every week or something like that. But, yeah, I guess those would be my tips. But I totally — you’re not the only one with that barrier, for sure.

JENNY GUY: No, everybody feels that way. Like, everybody feels that.

Is that your puppy, Meredith?

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, my dog is barking. I think maybe my husband’s home. I’m not sure.

JENNY GUY: Is there a name?

MEREDITH MARSH: Somebody could be breaking in.

JENNY GUY: Is there a name for that dog? Well, I hope someone’s not breaking in.

MEREDITH MARSH: No, his name is Aries.

JENNY GUY: Hi, Aries. It’s good to hear from you.

OK, we’re almost out of time, but we’re going to tell everybody where they can find you, coming up next. And then what is the number-one thing you want someone who is just starting out with video to know? Like, a crash course, they’re going to start or they’ve just started creating video and they want to get into the repurposing game?

And I’m going to have you come back in one second. I’m going to say that. I’m going to quickly announce– and I’m going to mute you while Aries is making his presence known. It’s for your thinking.

Guys, we have had an awesome episode today with Meredith. We are going to share that link to her presentation one more time so you’ve got it, and we’re going to share some more links of where you can find Meredith. The Summer of Live continues next Thursday, July 16th.

We have guests, names that you’ve probably heard before, Eric Hochberger and Amber Bracegirdle, our Mediavine co-founders, we’re going to talk playlists and indexes and Grow.me (editorial note: now known as “Grow”) and all sorts of fun stuff about where we are, give everyone an update, and it’ll be a lot of fun.

I don’t think — I’ve never had the two of them on at the same time. It’s going to be a party!

Meredith, back to you, please tell us — first, thank you for all of the amazing information. You are such a resource. Please tell everyone where they can find you and what you can offer them in terms of services if they need help, and then how to jump-start their video content career.

MEREDITH MARSH: Yeah, so thanks for having me, first of all. But the best way to kind of dive into what I have to offer is just go to my YouTube channel, if you search VidProMom if you just search Meredith Marsh, you’ll probably find it.

And I have a really great download called the Social Video Blueprint —

JENNY GUY: Yes, please do that.

MEREDITH MARSH: — which it gives you some kind of ideas of different ways that you could repurpose your content, whether you’re going from horizontal to vertical or vertical to horizontal. So that’s where I would tell people to start, if they’re like, oh, I don’t know how to wrap my head around all of this.

And, of course, reach out to me on Instagram. My handle there is @meredithmarsh.co. I love to get DMs from people and questions, and that’s kind of where I really like to connect with people.

JENNY GUY: And we’ve got all those links shared in there. You’ve got Meredith’s presentation, you’ve got her YouTube channel, we’ve got your Instagram. And then that Social Video Blueprint is shared in there. It’s a free download. Pick that up and get started.

Just get making video. It is, it’s hard for everyone. Like, everybody does not like this.

All right, Meredith, thank you so much. You’ve been great to have.

MEREDITH MARSH: Thank you so much for having me.

JENNY GUY: All right, and go tell Aries hi. It sounds like he needs some attention. We’ll see you next Thursday, you guys.

The post Summer of Live: Reach a Wider Audience with Multiplatform Videos with Meredith Marsh appeared first on Mediavine.

We are coming close to the end of Q4, also known as the magic months in the influencer world.

This is the time when everyone is trying to capitalize on holiday traffic, higher RPMs and increased ad revenue.

Advertisers spend a lot of money leading up to the holidays, but tend to spend less on actual holidays, so a Dec. 24 RPM hike is normal, as is a drop on Dec. 25.

Remember ad revenue changes by the season.

For a lot of publishers Q4 is the most lucrative so it can be helpful to put your focus on posts that do well.

Since Mediavine loves to help make your life easier, we want to make sure you know how to work smarter not harder.

Then you can take a little time to relax before a new year begins (I know relax isn’t a word you often hear from bloggers).

In order to make that happen we have some simple tips for how to capitalize on holidays as a content creator.

Ways To Update Old Content

Luckily the Mediavine dashboard lets you easily see your top performing pages.

Google Search Console is another great tool and especially helpful when it comes to identifying posts that could benefit from an update. Utilizing this could help boost your rankings and increase traffic.

You might be surprised to find posts you had forgotten about, that with a little refreshing, could really help you capitalize on the holidays.

Start by going through some of your old posts, especially if you have any holiday or New Years themed content, to see if they can be updated and optimized in any of these ways:

• Join the Mediavine Content Upgrade Challenge which can help you audit and optimize your site. There is even a challenge Facebook group to not only provide more information but also help hold you accountable.
• Add video to some posts because having video adds value. Even if you don’t have any actual video you can create a slideshow with photos on a site like Animoto to use in your post. In case you need a little guidance we have a Teal Talk you can watch on this very topic.
• Check your in-content ad settings and quickly self-audit your site. You might not even realize you are limiting your income potential simply by the way you have your Mediavine dashboard set up.
• Backlinks, because they are still the holy grail of SEO. Build content that is worth linking to and you will be amazed by the results.

Creating New Content

To make it worth your time and really be able to capitalize on the holidays, when creating new content make sure you are being strategic when it comes to keywords.

Choose keywords that are right for your site (not for someone else’s or just because it’s trending) in order to get more traffic from Google.

We have a great list of SEO resources to really guide you with optimizing your site.

Use this ultimate SEO checklist each time you write a post so you can make the most out of every single pageview.

Print it out and keep it handy so you can review it before you hit publish on a new blog post.

Sharing Content – Social Media Tips

Make work (and life) easier for yourself, especially around the holidays, by sharing and promoting content in a more streamlined way.

Think about when to share your content and schedule it for the best times.

• Check your Facebook Page Insights to see when your readers are online and schedule your content accordingly. For example, readers might enjoy seeing a holiday cookie recipe or a craft on Friday ahead of a weekend of baking and crafting.
• Utilize the current trending hashtags on Twitter (like #holidayseason or #giftguide) when sharing your holiday themed content to attract a wider audience.
• For Pinterest create new pins for old content that you have updated and start repinning it to relevant boards. Tailwind is your best friend for quickly getting all of those pins scheduled out.
• Keep your Instagram feed pretty or create a theme that makes your account unique and stand out. Create captions that your followers can engage with (ask where do they like to travel to for the holidays or what special gift would they like) and share updates plus behind the scenes on stories.

Use Airtable, which we love because it’s so customizable, and create a calendar. Then you can plan out your content so you aren’t wasting time throughout the busy month deciding what posts to share.

A great social media strategy to promote your content not just around the holidays but all year long, is to schedule everything out. Then that frees you up to work on other things like SEO and updating older posts.

CoSchedule and Tailwind are marketing tools that we use here at Mediavine to schedule both our own and our MVPs content on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Want another great way to capitalize on the holidays?

Create a newsletter that includes links to your holiday themed posts and send it to your email list.

Once you have done all of this, don’t hesitate to start prepping for Q1. Hope you have a great rest of your Q4 ahead!

If you have any questions about optimizing your content, feel free to reach out to our amazing support team at publishers@mediavine.com!

The post How to Capitalize on Holidays as a Content Creator appeared first on Mediavine.

If you haven’t been following along, the Summer of Live is our weekly Facebook Live series about all things Mediavine and blogging. (more…)

The post Summer of Live: Season 2, Part 2 appeared first on Mediavine.

The post How to Make Your Sponsored Content Authentic appeared first on Mediavine.

With the ever-changing algorithms and fickle fans, I completely get that Instagram can seem like a fruitless way to spend your time.

Why Instagram is still important

To play devil’s advocate, Instagram is a great place to find a community of followers who really love you and look forward to your next posts. With things like Instagram stories and IGTV, you can delve deeper into your brand and allow your followers to get to know you even better by showcasing life behind-the-scenes.

It’s also a place where brands will look to see your photography skills and style at a glance, to see how you handle sponsored Instagram opportunities and to learn more about you.

Though the Instagram founders have resigned, this platform is still relevant because it has more than 1 billion active users per month, and more than 500 million daily active users, according to the app itself. Even still, more than 200 million users visit business accounts daily, they said.

That’s not chump change.

As a blogger myself and a member of the team that handles the Mediavine Instagram account, I have a few tips for you if you are looking to develop a more cohesive brand on Instagram that resonates with your audience and increase those likes and followers.

How to Build an Instagram Account that Your Audience LOVES to Follow

With a few easy steps, you can build an Instagram account that not only evokes your brand, but that followers will come to love and trust.

1. Write a bio that clearly describes your brand.

When a potential follower stumbles across your page, you have just a few seconds to capture them before they move on.

Capture their attention with a short, sweet and informative bio. Explain what your brand is about in just a few words. Think about what you want to convey to a new fan. Now’s not the time to be cutesy, but some personality is good. (Emoji can help bring some pizzazz to your bio!)

“Travel blogger who loves to find hidden gems around the world” gets your point across more so than, “Cat lover who travels” (unless, of course, all of your travels revolve around cats!)

Also, make sure to link to your site in your bio! You don’t have to update the link each time you post a new blog post, but a link to your homepage or a landing page for your Instagram followers works great!

Nothing drives me crazier than when I want to check out your latest blog post, but I can’t find it! Think like a reader and make it easy for them to find you elsewhere online.

2. Pick your best shots and plan ahead.

This should go without saying, but you’re going to want each image to be pretty and crisp. We’re talking your very best photos. Great content goes a long way!

Followers who don’t know much about photography might not know why they don’t like something, but they will definitely notice when your images are too blurry or too dark.

Do your best to edit your photos and make them look extra nice. Go the extra mile to rotate them slightly so the horizons are even, or crop out a telephone pole if one is hanging out in the sidelines. Little touches like this can go a long way in making your feed look totally gorgeous.

Mix things up, too. If the last photo you posted was of your adorable dog, maybe your latest dog snap should go in your Stories instead, or save it for a few days from now after you’ve posted a few of your usual cocktail photos.

There are apps like Planoly and A Color Story that let you plan out your feed before you ever post anything, so you can see how your new photo will look against what you posted previously.

You can also schedule your posts with apps like Later, Grum or CoSchedule, so you can get ahead and share your posts at a good time for your readers and not be rushing to post before it gets too late in the day. (Or is that just me?!)

3. Edit all your photos similarly.

Think about all of your Instagram photos as a whole. The whole gallery, even your Instagram stories. Do they look like they belong in the same family?

For every photo you post, each one should fit into the “family” that is your brand. Whether someone is looking at your profile or just seeing your photo in their feed, it helps to develop a cohesive look.

The goal here is to help your followers to recognize your imagery before they even read who posted the photo — and they may not even realize that. I know that sounds crazy, but this helps with brand recognition. Your brand might be the one they tell a friend about because they remember seeing your photo recently.

What I suggest to achieve this is to develop an editing process. In your favorite editing app, choose 3-5 favorite filters or presets that are all pretty similar, or come up with a process that you repeat for every photo. For editing apps, I am a big fan of VSCO, A Color Story and Adobe Lightroom.

I won’t get too deep into photo-editing specifics today, because photo style can vary from niche to niche and brand to brand. What makes sense for a food blogger might not make sense for a fashion influencer.

To give you a few ideas though, the filters you choose might add warmth or coolness, saturate or desaturate, brighten or darken. You can add more or change these up over time, but start with a handful that will help you give your photos a similar look and feel.

For example, on the Mediavine Instagram, I try to edit the photos with cool tones and I include our brand colors, teal and navy, as much as possible. On our Instagram Stories, I try to use navy and teal text, emoji and gifs to keep things branded.

On my blog’s Instagram, I use lots of white in my photography to carry my branding through my photos. This is something I do on my website as well, so it helps to echo my brand all the way around.

If you want to try something like this, you can use a tool like Color Kuler or My Insta Palette to get an idea of what colors you are already utilizing in your photos, then post photos using those hues for a more cohesive look.

All of this goes for Instagram stories too — try to keep things consistent. Use your brand colors and similar styles of text to establish some conformity. Adobe Express has some neat-o tools you can implement for Stories as well and is worth playing around with!

4. Engage with your followers.

Comments and likes help to fuel the algorithm, but the way you engage back matters too. Brands will look to see how you are interacting with your followers.

If your account is a business account, you can use the Insights tools to see when your followers are online, and post then so you can capture their attention when they are at their most engaged.

This should go without saying also, but when you get comments and messages, write back. Duh!

To use a personal example, I love it when a blogger replies to me when I ask where she got her cute red jacket, rather than me having to guess or think she doesn’t care about my questions — silly as they are.

Replying also means you show up in the user’s notifications again, which means more algorithm juice for you if they click back through to the photo.

You can even pick a few favorite emoji that you use in comments to help bring that brand recognition through to your comments. I have a pal who always uses the yellow heart emoji because yellow is her brand’s main color — it’s adorable and very on-brand for her!

Instagram can definitely be the long game, but if you’re able to implement some changes in the way you post, it will take your Instagram up a notch. Brands and followers will notice.

Want some more social media tips? Check out our posts on managing the blogging chaos and Pinterest’s newest features.

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