[Mon Marketing Gold] Goodbye Instagram Likes & Alarming Social Media Trends
"The best things in life are actually really expensive."
- Unknown
Hope you had a great weekend!
I spent most of mine outdoors, riding my horses in the incredible spring weather and sneezing my way through the pine forests. Aaah. The joys of being in the deep south in March.
A Simple Book
I also read an incredible book this weekend. While walking through a local bookstore it practically jumped off the shelf at me.
It takes about five minutes to read, and now ranks as one of my top 5 favorite books of all time. It's called the Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse and is awesome if you need a dose of inspiration or a reminder about the real purpose of life.
Keeping On Top Of Social Media
I've themed this week's Marketing Gold around social media. Not because it is my favorite marketing topic to talk about (it is not), but because there are BIG changes being snuck under the radar that you need to be aware of.
If you're already feeling overwhelmed by social media, not even sure what your budget should be or if you're even on the right platforms, don't worry we've got you covered. Start with this blog we just posted on Social Media Marketing Fundamentals.
Goodbye Instagram Likes & Other Facebook Hand Grenades
“Being famous on Instagram is like being rich on monopoly.” - Unknown
Two years ago Instagram tested hiding likes on its user’s posts. The move was met with mixed reaction and ultimately Facebook, (who owns Instagram), decided not to do a platform-wide roll out.
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A month ago, Instagram quietly began testing removing likes again, to different degrees in various parts of the world. Australian likes, for instance, are currently in hiding.
But this time the “testing” hasn’t stopped.
A lot of marketers are spooked.
A lot of businesses who have invested huge amounts of money building their followings and “likeability” feel cheated.
Are likes being hidden once and for all?
What we’re in for
Here’s what a Facebook spokesperson has said, “we are testing this because we want Instagram to be a place where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. This includes helping people to focus on the photos and videos they share, not how many likes they get.”
As you’ve guessed, this is another hand-grenade thrown into the social media landscape.
It’s also very possible that other social media platforms might follow suit.
What this means is that the quality of the content your organization posts is going to be more crucial than ever.
The true metric is going to be much more about who can build an authentic audience that actually convert followers into prospects.
In other words the future of Instagram is going to be about which organizations have actual influence rather than “bloated credit”.
Key Takeaways ..
I hope you have a hugely productive week!
Julie Guest
CEO & Chief Marketing Strategist
Bolder&Louder - Extraordinary Advertising. Ingenious Strategy
MONDAY MARKETING HUMOR
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Excerpt from Julie Guest's New Book (Expected release: 2021)
From the Chapter - Slaying Maketing Myths
Digital Advertising Is Awesome, But...
Extraordinary Opportunities Lie In Overlooked Media Which Your Competition Have Abandoned.
As a marketer I love digital marketing.
In 5 minutes we can create an ad, run it and know within another 15 minutes if it’s a winner or not.
For our clients, digital marketing is a very important component of their marketing system (see Step 6 of the Client Stampede Formula in Chapter 6). We run hundreds of thousands of digital ads for our clients’ marketing engines every month.
We also optimize their online profiles, blog, tweet, post, respond to prospect queries – you know the drill. And digital ads can be run for pennies on the dollar. BUT…
Everyone and their grandmas are also running digital marketing campaigns and are blogging, tweeting, videoing and posting up a storm. The online noise is insane. We are being assaulted with the worst kinds of advertising online all day every day, making it harder than ever to attract the attention of your best prospective buyers.
This is why the vast majority of digital marketing is so wasteful.
Turning up the volume of your online advertising (i.e. running a greater volume of the same kind of ads) isn’t going to give your business a breakthrough. It's just going to make you blast through more marketing budget with little to show for it.
And, another negative thing about digital marketing is that your competitor’s storefront is just one click away.
As Warren Buffet once said, “be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.” To me this means you zig when others zag – a motto I have applied to all areas of my life.
Even Google knows this.
The world’s largest digital marketing platform regularly uses direct mail to reach its prospects.
Billboard, magazine, newspaper and TV advertising? They are NOT dead.
The real strategic question is whether those channels are where your ideal prospects are hanging out... (See Step 6 of the Client Stampede Formula in Chapter 6.)
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