Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Mindful Bytes podcast presented by KillerB Studios . Open your minds as we dive into conversations about the world of tech and the art behind using it purposefully .

Speaker 2 0:18

Let's get to the buzz for today . It's something that I think we've probably all noticed and I know for me . A lot of clients have asked us about it as well and some people that aren't clients and they're trying to figure this out . It's called people are not engaging on social apps . I don't know if you guys can notice . Let me know in the chat if you notice that , hey , engagement seems to be down . I want you guys to hear what this has

Decline of Social Media Engagement

Speaker 2 0:42

to say . It says most people don't engage on social apps according to the latest social media benchmarks reported from rival IQ . Now the digital buzz will have a link . You guys see , don says engagement is definitely down . Because you guys will definitely want to check out this report from rival IQ , it'll be posted again . The link will be at the bottom of the digital buzz . If you're wondering where's the digital buzz , just check out the channel digital buzz . We drop those pretty frequently .

Speaker 2 1:07

There's always new things coming out , some of those things we'll talk about during this podcast segment If I feel like it's something we really need to be paying attention to and be thinking about . This is a question I want you to be thinking about . Is social media less effective as a marketing tool . Today . This is definitely something that we've been discussing as a team . I've been discussing it not only just as a team , but I've been discussing with other business people . They've been asking me about it . This is why I decided to bring this up , because social media today published an article that said they stated this in their article from they were reviewing the rival IQ benchmarks on the social media . Here's what they said . They said fewer people actually look at actively participating in social apps , preferring to only consume content instead of engaging

Re-aligning KPIs Around Other Metrics

Speaker 2 1:55

.

Speaker 2 1:55

It may be worth realigning your KPIs , which is your key performance indicators . For anybody that doesn't know what a KPI is , it might be worth realigning your KPIs around other metrics , like actual sales , email signups and things like that , in order to track relative performance . I know that's something , shana , that we've been talking about . I know Olivia Nuss has talked about seeing the decrease in engagement . I'm like , especially businesses , even what we've done . Now we've got some things up our sleeves that we're going to test , but I'm not telling anybody about it because I don't want them to know it's us . I don't want them to know it's a brand . So , shana , you'll have to keep that hush-hush , okay , so you can't talk about that , but no problem , all right , you're like , I don't even know what you're talking about .

Speaker 3 2:40

Well , I know .

Speaker 2 2:43

But we've got some ideas , but we're going to test some other things out as well . I would love to hear your thoughts , because I know you're working with clients as well . What are your thoughts about this , because I know of other businesses . That's what a lot of us are asking . Like wait a minute , we're not getting the engagement . How much resources and time and money are we dumping into these things ? And we see less and less engagement . Should we be thinking about something else ?

Speaker 3 3:06

So , starting kind

A Personal Look at Social Change

Speaker 3 3:08

of on a personal note , I've noticed , if you think about , I think we joined Facebook in . Was it like 2009 or something like that .

Speaker 3 3:16

Is that some right yeah just thinking about the progression of Facebook , how it used to be so much more of a conversation . You know , at that point I wasn't paying that much attention to brands and things like that . But on a personal note , you know , maybe because it was newer , maybe because you know new people were constantly getting on , that you actually know . But just to see the decline and even on your personal page , how you can put something out and I know it has to do somewhat with algorithms and stuff like that as well but there's definitely been a change in human behavior as far as there's so many things competing for our attention , we use Facebook and Instagram differently than we did in the beginning . You know it's turned into this scroll , scroll , scroll , scroll and you're like consuming all of this information and all of these things that are happening pictures , memes , all of it and it takes so much thought now to respond to something . So there are lots of things that I come across on Facebook that I think I have something to say about that , but either I don't have time to do it or I don't have the energy to think it through , or it's just too much . You know to type and it's nuanced and sometimes it's hard to get into those fine details on Facebook , so I do nothing , I just scroll right on by .

Speaker 3 4:34

So when it comes down to the clients whose social media I manage , personally , I think about all of those things . So I try not to put on content that's too deep , that people will think I do not have the energy to answer this , but on the other hand , I don't want it to be frivolous either , I don't want it to be disconnected from their purpose and their mission . So that's a balance that I try to find . You know , I'm sure that you are going to mention but I'll just do a little blip on this the clients that we actually post their content and coach or , you know , consult , for I feel like their engagement has been able to stay at a higher level because we're helping so intimately with getting out content that really ties in , and then they're really good at engaging and making that community and making people feel involved and a part of a bigger thing .

Speaker 3 5:34

It's such a delicate balance to keep that group engaged , you know . And yeah , so I don't know if that's exactly answering your question , because I do see in most ways , engagement being down . But then there's other clients where we're constantly surprised by their reports being that their engagement is growing , but it's taken years of community building and I guess you have to think about . Number one is that where your audience even is . Number two what do they need ? What are they looking for ? Because that's where we've seen the engagement growing , is where they have been able to tap into what those people actually need and are looking for and will use Facebook for .

Speaker 2 6:20

I think that's a really good point

Shifting, Re-alignment, Add Value

Speaker 2 6:22

because it's one of the things that we've noticed , like even for Killer B , there's a lot of shifts , like we've been shifting a lot . I've been shifting a lot right now over video creation and stuff like that , with what we're doing and realizing just really coming to the acceptance of . You know , we talk about all the time , you don't have to be on all the platforms . We talk about that and you start realizing , like well , what are people really engaging with ? First , meaningful engagement is a big thing , but you're right about our clients , like the clients that we've been working with , I think the reason why they're doing so well because I mean , gosh , I mean we've got clients that are looking at hiring people just to handle engagement , because they're getting so much engagement Now but the reason why is because they're not focused about the brand . They're focused about their purpose , their mission , like what they're doing . How are they helping the other person on the other side of that feed , whether it's TikTok , whether it's Facebook , whether it's Instagram , whatever they're on , they're on the right platforms , where their audience are , but they're adding value to them , not promoting , not marketing . And I think that's where the disconnect is starting to happen more and more . I saw that Don posted about you know more she scrolls and more ads she sees . People are tired of that . People are tired of seeing ads . They're tired of to be honest with you , they're tired of seeing brands .

Speaker 2 7:29

I had to come up with the acceptance of saying hey , people probably don't want to hear me keep sharing social media tips . They just don't . And I know you and me talked over the weekend about you know my challenge of like when you meet me in real person a lot of you have met me in person and when you meet me in person , I'm like open book , like I will share things . Probably I shouldn't even share , but I'm like this is just me . I want to be real

What Do People Want?

Speaker 2 7:51

and but when I get behind social media , there's like a different challenge , like it feels like it's a little bit more challenging because it's like well , what do people expect of me as a , as a business leader ? Like I've got to be professional . What does that even look like today ? And people are just phasing out from brands . So it's focusing on adding value to people , which we've talked about over and over .

Speaker 2 8:09

But with this kind of reports coming out , I think it's important . You know what's beautiful about here is I can see the people in the audience right now . I know that the people that's in the audience are in broadcasting and what they're doing is they're in Christian broadcasting and their their whole purpose is to be helping people , helping people across these digital platforms . So I think that there's still a huge opportunity there .

Speaker 2 8:30

If you're not getting the right engagement , it's like you need to start looking at it and say am I including the audience or am I just like , hey , I'm on the , I'm on the podium here and I'm just speaking for all you to listen ? Or are you saying , hey , I want to hear what you guys have to say ? And you're bringing them in and you're having those conversations because that's where we've seen . That's where we've seen the things like . We've seen the accounts really blowing up when it really becomes all about them and way less about it . It's way less about us .

Speaker 2 8:56

But when it comes to what you're doing , whatever your business is , really be thinking about that , because it is our attention that's for sale

How Much Money & Time Are We Wasting?

Speaker 2 9:03

. Now the question is , as a business leader , we have to start looking at these things , and I know like , even like as people that's in social media this might seem a little scary too , but it's important to know where your business leaders are coming from as well , because I mean , for social media today , to say that , to recognize that fewer people are actually looking actively to participate on social apps and , as a business , if our goal is to connect , that we want to connect with our followers .

Speaker 2 9:30

There's some businesses that that's not going to be the right platform for and they're going to be looking at like how much money am I throwing at this and the paid ads ? Paid ads is just . I mean , this is my own view , but what we've seen is just a waste of money . You're just paying for attention , we want to earn it , and it's like if we're not earning the attention , that's because that's not the right audience . Let's go about different ways of earning the attention with the people that we can help , whether that's actually being more personal and going out for lunch and connecting with people that way . We've got to start looking things , looking at it differently . So for social media today , to bring that out , I just thought , man , we need to really drop this digital buzz because we need to really ask ourselves is it time that we need to start realigning our KPIs ? How are we measuring that with more of ? How are we going to connect deeper ? It might not be social media . It might not be what .

Speaker 3 10:16

this is what I want you to address Two things that Nancy said . One is she said I scroll but do not comment because too many people are watching and waiting to disagree with you or call you out . That is so true . But then another thing , kind of adding on to that , is she said honestly I zoned out of posting anything but Bible verses , but I'm challenging myself to post more engaging content , not pushing the brand , but things that are funny or ask a question . So what would you like to say about that ?

Speaker 2 10:43

With Nancy saying that's what she feels about . She's afraid in some ways to write anything . I get it and that's the interesting thing . If you're feeling that other people are feeling that too . That's really the reason why I'm afraid to be vulnerable on LinkedIn , like out of all the platforms I'm like , and I posted a thing today and right now I had to be okay with it . I was like you know what ? If nobody responds , that's all right . I mean , the right people are going to read it and right people respond , that's cool .

Speaker 2 11:08

But it's really about me being more real about the things , because social media has become such as really . I mean we talk about the fake news is a big thing , but there's also the people behind the poster can be so fake , and it's because I don't think that . I think it's because we we can tend to try to impress people and we are afraid to be vulnerable because of the backlash we might get . I won't go too far to this , but I mean we just talked about posting , about feeling guilty into tipping . Don't post that on social media because it will be , you'll be ripped apart but but it was something that we've talked about . So that fear isn't just something , that that concern isn't just something that that you're dealing with too , nancy .

Speaker 2 11:47

So if you're feeling , like that imagine how many more probably probably hundreds of thousands or millions of people are dealing with and thinking of . That's probably why we're not commenting .

Social Media Engagement Tips

Speaker 3 11:57

And Nancy , something that might give you some some peace and less anxiety about it , whether you're posting for the station or like commenting personally , have a plan in place . You know kind of think through like what could people possibly say about this ? I like to write it down , you know , just be kind of prepared . And then you know , number one , have your responses kind of ready , gracious , you know , sometimes you even can just say thanks for sharing that with me . That person feels heard . A lot of times they'll drop it and you don't have to get into a whole conversation . Another thing is bring in help , like have someone who you trust , who you can run it by , like what should I say about this ? That's a really wise thing and you know one of our clients , that's what they want to do . They want , you know , anybody can handle the regular engagement , but when there's something tricky it goes straight to them to handle . And so you know , if you have that option , that could be kind of take the pressure off of you a little bit .

Speaker 2 13:00

That's good . I see your typing yeah once you type in , like you know . I think another good thing too is don't always feel like you have to give an answer , always , you know , look for another question to ask . I mean not to like to purposely look for a question , but if you're like , hey , I wonder why they feel that way , you could ask hey , you know you could ask them that way Because that shows them like hey , you know what . You're not interested in just proving yourself wrong or you're not looking at like starting to debate . You're wanting to ask more about them . Like why do you feel this way ? It starts reversing it and making it feel like , hey , I want you to be a part of this too . Okay , so I saw Nancy's comment come in . Did you want to read that ?

Speaker 3 13:33

Yeah , she said good idea . Used to try to answer every post but it got all consumed . I was no longer having I no longer have a private account . My personal page is now public figure . Too many people know who I am . Yeah , that makes sense .

Speaker 2 13:46

Yeah .

Speaker 2 13:48

Makes total sense , a lot of people

Experience & Test New Ways To Use Social Apps

Speaker 2 13:49

have to do that . Yep , I know , and that's one of the things that we're testing . If I'm going too much into what we're testing , cause again , we don't want people to know it's us , but there's like we're like you know what I was talking to , sean . I was like you know what , if people know who , if people don't want to engage with a brand , then let's take a different approach , because people don't really look at what . Here's the thing about what we do . People don't look at our social media to see , hey , do they know what they're doing ? The people that work with us already know , like , they know our background , they know our team , they know what we like , our strategies and they want to work with us because we've already we've already earned that . So , just to post social media tips out , there's a lot of people out there doing it . It's like , okay , well , it's not really , it's not really adding anything to us . So why don't we do a different route or different approach and do something without any of our names has no title or our brand , to do something that we want to do , but secretly do it and still add value to people , but it doesn't look like a brand . So we're in the process right now putting that in effect . So it's going to be exciting to see how it goes because we're going to be tracking it . But it's even that , like a lot of things that we do , has those brand names attached to it and if those are causing a disconnect , you've got to start thinking okay , well , if we're going to be on social , is there different ways that we can approach this , where we can do still serve our purpose and it become less about the brand and us and more about the people without and I guess right way to say is like to make sure that they know this is about them , it's not for , say , about a brand . If that's the right way to say that , that makes sense . Yeah , cool

Join Us LIVE on Discord

Speaker 2 15:16

, awesome .

Speaker 2 15:17

For any of you that are listening to the podcast replay , we do record these on audio and we drop them on the podcast . But we would love for you to join us live . This is a live discussion right here on our Discord community . It's totally free to join . So why wouldn't you do it ? I don't know . I mean , why would look the links right in the podcast notes . Just go click that . Join us . It's totally free . A lot of cool things that we're doing . We have a lot of plans moving forward , so thanks for tuning in .

Speaker 1 15:40

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