 Stop over focusing on hashtags because if the content isn't good, the hashtags won't save you. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of Smarter Building Materials Marketing. I'm your host, Beth Popnikolov. And in the studio today, we are bringing back our very own social media expert, Ashley Stephenson. As you may already know, we have an advanced social media masterclass coming up that Ashley and I are hosting together. It's going to be on May 9th. And to get ahead of that, we wanted to dive into social media platform changes. There has been so much happening on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. We thought, hey, before we get into talk about how to get the most out of it, let's talk about what's actually happening on these platforms right now, what's potentially the future for changes, which I don't know if Ashley brought her crystal ball. But if we could start predicting this stuff, I think people could bet on it and we could make a lot of money. I'm just saying. So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to give you the latest and greatest updates on what's going on with platforms, what's happening, what's not happening, and how you can get the most out of it going into our masterclass. So, Ashley, as always, thank you and great to have you. Absolutely. I always love coming on the podcast to talk about social media because up until like probably five minutes ago, everything was different and now everything's different again. So it literally is just late breaking news. In five minutes, something else amazing will happen to all of the platforms in which we'll need to do this again. So at least I can be consistent with that. Yeah. Big asterisk reporting date is April 24th. This information might have changed. All right. So let's break it down platform by platform. Let's start with Instagram. I know for the majority of manufacturers that we know, they've been working for the last several years to build a presence on Instagram. Talk to us a little bit about what's been happening on the last 30 days because it's been a lot for the last year, maybe the last like 30 to 60 days on Instagram. Yeah. So it has been a lot. I'd say that obviously a lot of the building material brands have been building up video content and visual storytelling is still extremely important. It's crucial for any type of conversation that you're going to have with your community online, especially on Instagram. It's still going to be highly visual. However, the platforms made slight transitions and the CEO came out at the beginning of the year saying, well, we kind of made way too big of a thing about reels. We over focused on it. And now we need to slide back a little bit and focus more on carousels and focus more on the in-feed posting and talking about actual engagement and conversation instead of the rush of creation of reels in an entertaining space in an entertaining way. That doesn't mean that Instagram doesn't still want to create entertainment. I'd say that it's just on the contrary. They still are very heavy on entertainment, but it needs to be in an educational opportunity. It needs to be in a way that is teaching your viewers something. It needs to be in a way that is allowing them to experience you and then add value to that as well. So I would just say that it is more diversifying the portfolio of content that you have. So it's not going all in, all the chips, everything moved to reels. It's more just making sure that you have consistent messaging throughout stories on your reels, on your feed posts, that you've got actual conversation happening in which a lot of platforms are transitioning over to focusing on incoming messages. So direct messaging is important. Doing more collaborative posts where you're tagging potential partners and you're using the opportunity to echo off of those voices that are saying the same information, but to a different audience. So you're allowed to grow that opportunity. It's reducing the number of hashtags again. So it's no longer, yes, you can do 30, but let's stop that. Let's just focus on three to five. And then probably as soon as this gets updated, they'll go back to 10. This will probably be a hill that I die on. Stop over focusing on hashtags because if the content isn't good, the hashtags won't save you. Like focus on the meat of the meal and the meat of the meal is never going to be the hashtags. So that's probably my soap blocks on Instagram for now. Yes. If we were having this conversation like six months ago, it was video or die. What's really interesting is at the end of the year last year, Ashley and I were looking at one client's social media report and we saw this huge uptick in followers over three months as they rolled out reels. And then we started to see that plateau and even drop off their follower growth. Didn't stagnate, but it just wasn't seeing the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people per week that they were before. We started to do a deep dive into, man, is our content not hitting the mark? Are we just not creating content that's interesting? Are we not getting the right audience anymore? And right on the heels of that conversation, I think it was honestly like that same week Instagram came out and said, hey, we over corrected for reels and that big push that you saw were actually taking it back. So we've seen the impact of that in real time where they were just pushing reels out and pushing engagement on reels like no one's business. And the same great content is still really good for your audience, but it just may not be getting you the exact same results. And I think that's a really important point because it doesn't mean you've got your content wrong. It actually means your content might be getting more to the right niche audience and it's now being narrowed down from the really wide reach that it was getting to earlier. If you were doing Instagram planning for a building materials company over the next 60 days, what would your strategy or approach be for Instagram? So for Instagram, I would say that I think if you've been doing a heavy amount of reels, I don't think that the strategy needs to drastically change because of the transition on the platform. I think that if you've started to create a form of consistency with your community, then it needs to be a slow tailored approach to then adding in other types of content. So I wouldn't want you to kill yourselves to get to posting once a day and doing reels four times a week. If you were posting anywhere from two to four times a week and if 50% of that content is reels, then I think you do a tapered approach in which you continue to stay on that approach for two weeks and then you slowly back off from that the next two weeks. So you're still creating the content, but you're just not laboring that heavy side of your creation on the reels side and you are creating more of a diversified story approach that is engaging and sends more opportunity to direct messages. You are still putting really informative content in your carousels and then your reels are still either behind the scenes or doing installation work or answering questions that are burning for your your current community or you're doing a product launch. So I think that in every single instance, all of those types of posts have a need, but I think it's tailoring the approach based off of what are you saying in each one of those moments? And is any of that content something that can be evergreen that lives forever or is something really specific, very timely, has to be done that moment? And if it has to be done that moment, then I could see you doing a heavier push for reels just so that it gets that initial energy and movement but then restructuring that same content in the other places as well like stories and food posts. Who's your favorite building products company on Instagram? Obviously, we love Pella. We obviously love watermark designs. The faucets are just beautiful. The imagery in general is just gorgeous. And they've stayed consistent throughout as well, which is which is a wonderful thing to see on the platform. Cambria Quartz always delights visually and really packs a punch anytime they are doing anything that is interviewing. Their interview opportunities are really great. The way that they go after their surfaces is really dynamic. So anytime you have an opportunity to showcase beautiful product, but then not just talk about the product and see the product but get into the details of how it's made, who it's serving and why it's really beautiful. I think that that is a really great way of going about it. But I also really love some of the accounts that are doing the nitty gritty behind the scenes that are heavy on user generated content. The ones that are adding the trending audio and showing someone build a deck all the way through. A lot of the providers out there, a lot of fastener companies are really doing a great job of that. So I'm seeing a lot of that behind the scenes, you know, blue collar sweat on the brow kind of gritty videos that are doing really great in the platform. All right, let's jump to the next one. Don't turn off your podcast. Let's talk about TikTok. What on earth is happening with TikTok today? Again, maybe it'll change tomorrow, but what's going on with TikTok today? Well, today, I mean, as far as the platform goes, the user interface is very much the same. Nothing has really changed about its functionality. I think that what winds up making the headlines is the, you know, is it going to be banned? Is it not going to be banned? Is this state going to allow it? Is this state not going to allow it? And then you get into the regulatory issue and then it becomes a political conversation. So TikTok as a platform, nothing has really changed about the platform itself. Other than you're seeing them dump a lot of money into promoting people talking highly about it. Their PR game is on point right now. You can see where they've literally run up a flag to everyone saying, you know, we're in trouble, we're in trouble. It's blatantly obvious that someone's someone's turned to switch on and is trying to get TikTok back in a positive light. The best thing to say here is if you've been doing content on TikTok, we said this before. We're not saying to go all in again on it. We're not saying to pull out of the game. You know, if your community already exists there and they're interacting with you and they're enjoying your content, then I'd say continue to do that. Keep up that relationship and stay consistent. But we're just going to continue to watch it and see how it unfolds. I really loved the update you gave about this a while ago, which is, you know, there's always going to be that new emerging social media platform and it's a yes, let's always test, no, let's never have all of our eggs in any singular basket. That advice also aligns with existing platforms. You should never be all in on any single platform because just as we were saying for Instagram, algorithms change literally overnight and suddenly the strategy that you've had in place for two or three years and you've got this great content machine that you just know how to work the system will all of a sudden not work and you will lose significant momentum spinning your wheels, trying to figure out what's the next thing. That's extremely accurate. And we've seen a huge shift in the way that we even work with influencers and that'll be a part of the masterclass that we cover and that's influencers and brand partnerships in which influencers are now having to get a lot more specific about how much they're being monetized with brands and their partnerships because the platforms are not monetizing them in the same way that they used to or they never actually monetize them in an appropriate way. YouTube still monetizes in one of the best ways and has a proven track record of monetizing influencers. Instagram completely stalled out on their Reels program because they pulled back from that. So influencers who were making anywhere from $500 to $5,000 a month on the platform just from Reels now are seeing zero. So you're seeing a shift from where they paused and the only thing they're making now on the platform is from collaborations or from actual subscribers. That feels like such a mess. They did a 180 literally in 30 days of where they stopped the Reels program and then they started charging for the blue check verification. It's like, okay, we're done paying influencers for creating things and now we want you to pay us so that you can have the verification and have more things. It's like, I see you. But the power that influencers have right now, that feels like a very odd alignment. I know it really does. It's one of those situations where we see headlines but we don't always know what's pushing them. And so it is odd that at the same time there's the TikTok ban happening that Instagram is one of the biggest proponents of the ban at the same time that they are trying to monopolize an entire platform. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, I'm going to call a space. Instagram is pretty famous for, oh, did something come out? Great. We do that too. And I think that's what I actually heard when the CEO was like, hey, we went too hard after Reels. We're going to go back to, it's literally like a campaign, like hashtag, make Instagram, Instagram again. We have chased competitors so strongly. We've lost focus of why people are here. And I think one important point to think about here from a manufacturer perspective is your audience is in a specific mindset and has actually a specific set of expectations that they bring to each channel. It's not conscious. You can't ask them, but that's true. So currently as an example right now, Facebook is pushing Reels and it feels awkward. I don't know if you feel that way, Ashley, but when I get sucked into Reels on Facebook and then I want to go share it, I'm like, I'm not going to share a Reel from Facebook. I'm like, where, where even am I? And how do I get out of here? And why am I here? It's such a square peg in a round hole. I'm like, man, you, you don't know why I'm here. Like, this isn't why. And it's similar from like an Instagram perspective. They've prioritized influencer and brand content over individual content. So now people who left Facebook moved to Instagram because they couldn't see content from humans. They actually know. So like Ashley and I follow each other on our personal accounts outside of work. And I don't see Ashley's content nearly as much as I used to, because that's just how Instagram is handling their algorithm. I have one expectation on Facebook, one on Instagram, one on YouTube, I don't, or, and one on TikTok. I don't know a soul on TikTok. I don't follow a single person that I know. And I would even think it was weird, but I can spend an inordinate amount of time there because that's what I want to do there. Like I, I have expectations on each platform and it's about creating the content that's going to meet my expectation to get me to engage with you where I am and in the mindset that I'm in. Absolutely. So one thing that I will say that I am absolutely noticing 100% across all different platforms though is that there is the niche of communities. So there is the DIY communities. There's the deck builder communities. There's, if you're looking at other communities, there's the foodies. There's the book readers. There's the, I'm doing, I'm doing all, I'm renovating a house. I'm going tiny. I'm homesteading. There are, there are niches everywhere. And so if you can dig into a specific niche community and start collaborating and having conversations with those niche groups that make sense with your brand, I think that that is a great opportunity for you to be successful. But that takes time. That's not a flip a switch. And now all of a sudden they trust like no support us situation. It's a, I've got to put in the effort. I've got to put in the work with all of the algorithm shifts and priorities and video versus still imagery versus multiple images and everything else. The communities have been consistent throughout. So if you're a manufacturer who is like, Ashley, just tell me that's not a switch because it's not, you can't just turn that light switch on because those are really deeply ingrained, highly loyal knit groups. But you could look for who can I partner with here and how can I start to add to this conversation? Importantly, adding is not selling. It's not promoting it's, but it's answering questions and being excited and championing and cheerleading people who are having a great moment. All of those types of pieces of content would do really well having conversations, partnering with influencers that are trusted in a really highly valuable, not just transactional way. The communities on social are, are what are significantly more steadfast and reliable than the platform and the algorithm itself. All right, we've got one more minute and I, I don't know quite frankly how relevant this is, but I just can't help but ask you. Let's talk about Twitter. Sure. So what I would say is that, you know, there was a big huge, probably skirmish on the playground with Twitter. There was a skirmish on the playground when he took away all of the celebrity check boxes and he added them back now if you have a million followers. So Alyssa Milano and Bette Midler can now be happy about that because they got those back. It is great for brands who did get, you know, actually earn their blue checks and they don't need to pay for it because they are multi-million dollar brands in the building space and it's good that they have them back from that perspective. I'd also say that, you know, there's been some conversation and speculation about how Twitter then kind of rebranded. There's actually no Twitter. It's platform X and how Elon's trying to reach structure. I think he's competing with Zuckerberg on his whole entire universe as well. So we're going to have to table that for a time when I feel like Elon puts a couple more cards on the table because right now we're just not seeing enough of them. I'm scared to see what else he does put on the table. But for now we can celebrate with the brands that got their blue check back and aren't having to pay for it. I do think Twitter was never profitable. Like I would quote this to people all the time. It was one of my favorite party trick stats. It was never profitable. I won't name names, but even when it is the news headline in and of itself because very public facing figures were using Twitter as their own personal platform to push whatever ideas or thoughts or whatever. And like that would lead all major news networks segments still not profitable. So there's a part of you that has to look at you're like, Elon's doing really weird things. However, he spent like $43 billion to buy a company that has never made money ever. So does feel like you need that like only weird decisions to come because there's no there's literally nowhere but up. I think I was watched an interview with him where he said they had one more month of revenue and they were going to have to literally close the doors. Well, it explains why he's doing so many random and crazy things. I'm not saying I agree with anything that he's done. And I think it's caused a lot of frustration and confusion and weird ripple effects throughout social media. Okay, you can only answer one word answers should building products companies be on Twitter? Yes or no? Yes. Oh, I got caught me by surprise. Okay. I said one word answer. So you'll have to explain. I know. I know. We and maybe I'll answer during the masterclass. Maybe Beth will get me in a corner and we'll we'll figure out exactly why that answer is a yes. We will put that first and foremost on the Q&A list. All right, Ashley, I could talk to you literally forever. Thank you so much for your time for our listeners. If you want more great content exactly like this, join us on May 9th for our advanced social media masterclass. And if you want more great content to be a smarter building material marketer, head to venvio.com slash podcast to subscribe. Until next time, I'm Beth Patmucola, your host. See you next time, everyone.