Digital Buzz: Social Media Engagement Going Silent

Speaker 1: 0:15

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: 0:32

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 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: 1:21

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.

Speaker 2: 2:09

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: 2:54

Well, I know.

Speaker 2: 2:57

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: 3:20

So, starting kind 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: 3:30

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: 4:47

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: 5:48

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: 6:34

I think that's a really good point 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: 7:43

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 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: 8:23

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: 8:44

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: 9:10

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. 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: 9:44

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: 10:30

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: 10:57

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: 11:22

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: 12:01

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.

Speaker 3: 12:10

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: 13:14

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: 13:47

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: 14:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Makes total sense, a lot of people 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, awesome.

Speaker 2: 15:31

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Speaker 1: 15:54

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