Instagram Spilled Its Secrets IG’s recent revival has been so inspiring. They’re very much on the up-and-up, AND they just released an extremely helpful guide to better understand their algorithm. Here are the highlights: A big thing for social media teams to understand: each part uses its own algorithm to populate content. Feed rankings are determined by activity, post info, engagement history Stories rankings are determined by viewing history, engagement history, and presumed closeness (ie friends or family) Explore rankings are determined by post info and existing engagement, user activity tendencies, engagement history, and account info Reels rankings are determined by user activity, engagement history, existing engagement, and account info This is a really great breakdown that simplifies the release even further Given how helpful releases like this are, it’s amazing to us that more platforms don’t do this regularly, like Google. It helps us create strategic content and helps

A Weird Blue Couch Stole the Social Media Show This Week. Here’s an academic recollection of how it went down: So, this girl finds a couch left outside, right? Cleans it up, chucks it in her apartment. Objectively gross move. She gets rightfully questioned about this. Then, it spread to all corners of the internet. We saw it first on Twitter after it had been meme-ified. And again. Aaaand one more for good measure. For a few hours, it was the only thing anyone was allowed to Tweet about. What do you think: gross or opportunistic? AI. It’s Still Evolving. Adobe released FireFly, an AI machine used to enhance creative in Photoshop. Its Generative Fill is NUTS and by far the most impressive AI application we’ve seen so far. Okay, maaaaaaybe not. Nevermind, it actually is sweet. Meta: Things Are Going…Really Well? Zuck is having himself quite a year, it

How To Write a Lean Social Media Plan Creating a social media plan used to entail a 20+ page document delivery AND an accompanying slideshow that took approximately 90 minutes to present. That is CRAZY to think about now because that process kinda stunk. It was a 12-hour process at least and typically involved a really quick turnaround. Want to know the worst part? That was considered a best practice. Audit your client channels, audit their competitors, assess their current content, calculate engagement rates, do a ton of industry research, blah blah blah. It was mostly a charade—the real meat was contained in the final pages: what’s the path forward? We recently reworked a client’s social media plan and got it done in way less than 12 hours. Sure, we were a little nervous to present it to our team and felt like we were missing something. But our team

YouTube Had a Good Thing Going—Why Did They Mess With It? Some of the world’s biggest podcast channels moved over to YouTube to kickstart the platform’s podcasting efforts. Their numbers absolutely stink—we’re talking like 45 views per episode. A few takeaways here: This should make you feel a little better about your own numbers if you’re posting podcasts to YouTube. If the guys with massive, established audiences can’t get it right, there’s hope for you yet. This shows that you need to consider content type(s) and existing audiences when posting to new platforms. Of course, it’s easy to make that comment in hindsight but still: evaluate your platforms, people. Basically, no one is listening to YouTube podcasts. And we think it’s because this content isn’t made for YouTube. Its users expect something visual every time they open the platform. YouTube will have to literally train them to use their site

AI is Cool and All, But It Has Some, erm, Limitations. We can’t lie, watching AI generate ideas using only a few, simple text prompts is insane. Obviously, it’s a far cry from the T900, but it’s still spooky. We’ve been thinking about its implications on the creative world a lot lately. And, as always, we have some thoughts when it comes to AI usage in marketing and advertising. The first is this really fun word that is way overused in the industry, BUT it’s still important, we swear: differentiation. To oversimplify, if you’re doing everything that everyone else is doing, you aren’t standing out in the crowd. And if you aren’t standing out, you can’t reach new people, spread your key messages, or convert. That is bad. Imagine for a moment that we live a world where every agency and creative team uses (or is replaced by???) AI. Everything’s

  Some Thoughts on the Twitter Experience Lately Yeah, so, it’s not going great. Generally, the UX has slowly become less interesting to use. Every “viral” tweet has 4-dozen terrible replies from the Worst Account You’ve Ever Seen. The shift in the “For You” page algorithm and general content discovery is going to make it really tough for pages to grow without verification. We’re seeing impacts to reach and follower growth on our end. If your brand has an existing presence on Twitter, you’ll be okay, but expect your stats to shutter. If you’re thinking about joining Twitter, maybe don’t? It does seem like we’re eventually going to return to the pre-Elon Twitter era of verification and content discovery because it was…good and enjoyable. It made sense and people wanted to use the platform. What’s Up in the Social World This Week? Glad you asked. Check these out: When Trends

TikTok Might Get Banned—There’s No Point in Making One Now, Right? Well, it’s probably worth clarifying a few things here. The ban in Montana isn’t happening until January 2024. And when that time does come, it’s technically not illegal for Montanans (Montanites? Montanians?) to scroll TikTok. It’s just illegal for app stores to offer it for download in that state. So, if the Duttons want to download it after then, they’d just need a VPN. (Don’t tell the lawmakers about VPNs. They aren’t ready.) So, with that in mind: yes, you should still create a TikTok account for your brand. Here’s why. Your main focus when evaluating platforms should be your audience: are they on the app you’re thinking about joining? (And if you’re not sure how to answer that, you should think about joining our Mastermind group. Keep scrolling to learn more…) But, consider this: one thing legacy platforms

Just One Week Without Twitter News, That’s All We Want. Yes, we’re going to lead another email with a Twitter update. Actually, several. It’s a little bit like watching a fiery train wreck. Hard to keep looking, even harder to look away. Anyways, here are this week’s Twitter-specific headlines: Here’s a Roundup of Everything We Found and Liked This Week: Pssst… Want more social secrets? Or maybe a little hands-on guidance? Then lean in, ‘cuz we’re about to launch monthly small sessions built especially for content creators, solo social teams, and small businesses. Consider it a masterclass in all things social, from tactical ‘how to post on TikTok’ lessons to strategic ‘how to I find my audience’ tips. If you want in, click below to get on the list.

Twitter spilled the tea, y’all. If you’ve done any sort of work on social media at all, you’ve probably searched for something like, “How does the [insert social platform] algorithm work?” And most of the time, you’ll find out that this information is top secret. Not true for Twitter–at least, not anymore. Not since Elon made it public (which is something we predicted in a podcast episode last year). Big social news like this (and all the drama with it!) can be a pain to dissect, so friends, we’ve done it for you. Here’s everything marketers need to know about the Twitter algorithm reveal: And while these are the big things marketers need to take away, the full reveal is pretty juicy. If you want to dig into the whole thing… Also happening ’round the social sphere… Pssst… Want more social secrets? Or maybe a little hands-on guidance? Then lean