Social Media Trends for 2022: What You Need to Know with Andréa Jones

[00:00:00] Emily Thompson: Do you have a plan for your business in 2022 yet? If not, it's time to get it on your calendar. What exactly your CEO day. CEO days are the days you set aside to focus on creating and holding that big picture vision so that the work you do every other day is truly aligned with where you want to go. And as we switch over to a new year, it's the perfect time to host your big beginning of the year CEO day to align with your vision and make a plan.

[00:00:27] And if you need help, be sure to check out our CEO day kit. A set of tools, including seven steps to guide you through your CEO day, complete with videos and worksheets to help you through not just one, but every CEO day you ever have. Plus if you don't want to go it alone, I'm hosting this year's annual CEO day live for kit members on Tuesday, January 11th, an all day virtual workshop, taking you through each step and helping you make your plan for the year ahead.

[00:00:56] It's one of my very favorite events each year, and I would love to meet you there. You can learn more and join CEO day kit at beingboss.club/ceo.

[00:01:12] Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host, Emily Thompson. And in this episode, we're continuing our series on what you need to know as you move into 2022, as a small business owner with a chat with Andrea Jones on what's happening in the world of social media marketing, including what's working, what's not working and what you need to be doing.

[00:01:36] You can find all the tools, books, and links we referenced on the show notes www.beingboss.club. And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and share us with a friend.

[00:01:50] Sometimes seeing someone else's path to success helps us clearly map out our own. It's why we all like a business podcasts. Right? Well, I'm here to share a show for you to check out the Female Startup Club Podcast, an amazing resource that shares insights and learnings from the world's most successful female founders, entrepreneurs, and women in business.

[00:02:11] And a recent episode. I loved hearing about how Michelle Grant, the founder of lively, the lingerie and swimwear brand built and sold her company for $105 million in just three years, total boss move. So if you're looking for a new pod to inspire your next steps, listen to the female startup club podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:02:39] Andrea Jones is fiercely committed to empowering businesses to utilize the power of social media in a positive and impactful way without being overwhelmed and drained by it. With over seven years experience in the game, Andrea hosts, the acclaimed podcast Savvy Social podcast leads a team providing done for you service inside of her marketing agency

[00:03:00] that was named a top digital marketing agency in 2021 and served over 200 students in her membership Savvy Social School.

[00:03:10] Welcome Andrea to Being Boss. I'm so excited to have you here.

[00:03:13] Andrea Jones: Thank you so much for having me on the show.

[00:03:15] Emily Thompson: Of course, of course. I'm excited to bring you onto the podcast because we've actually done some things together in the Being Boss Clubhouse earlier.

[00:03:26] Well, so full disclosure, we're recording this at the end of 2021, although it's going live in 2022. So earlier this year earlier in 2021, that you came and did a really great LinkedIn workshop for our Clubhouse members. And for months bosses were talking few things more than LinkedIn.

[00:03:47] Andrea Jones: Yeah. Hey, I love it.

[00:03:49] And I love the Clubhouse. It's such a fun place to hang out as a business owner.

[00:03:53] Emily Thompson: Oh, I appreciate that. I think I agree. I like to be in there as well. It was in there the other day, asking you about gallery walls in your house. Also sometimes serious business things as well. But bosses are fun people and I'm glad, I'm glad you're a part of the community.

[00:04:10] And glad to be sharing your expertise to our wider audience today.

[00:04:15] Andrea Jones: Yes. Thank you. Yes, I love it.

[00:04:18] Emily Thompson: Perfect.

[00:04:19] So before we dive into all the juicy things, I want to talk about what might also be a juicy thing, which is your entrepreneurial journey. I'd love to give everyone a bit of a background to this conversation.

[00:04:31] So if you don't mind opening us up with how it is that you got to where you are today and what it is that you do.

[00:04:37] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So I am a social media strategist, and I run an agency and also teach social media in my membership program. And I actually really enjoyed social media as an introvert. In 2004, I found a little part of the internet that was talking about Harry Potter books on forums and things, and started my own blog.

[00:04:59] From there I started blogging and I'm talking about my personal life, created my YouTube channel in 2007 and just enjoyed showing up in that way because I got to choose how to communicate. And then I could just tuck it away when I didn't want to, or what I felt like it was draining, which led me down the path of wanting to do more content creation and social media

[00:05:20] in my job. I was at the time, this is 2013. I was a manager at a spa, worked at Marriott hotels and spas. And, it was just put on the social media team as one of the youngest people on the team at the time and really loved it. And I remember saying to my boss, I want to do the social media part, just that part of my job.

[00:05:42] And they were like, this isn't a real full-time job. It would never be.

[00:05:46] And in, in the mix of all of this, I met my husband on YouTube. So we were both creating YouTube content. We collaborated together. We met, I ended up putting my job and moving to Canada to be with him, live with him, get married. And so that move kind of launched me into freelancing and starting my own business.

[00:06:09] So I took that as that my leap of opportunities started freelancing and just kind of grew from there.

[00:06:15] Emily Thompson: Oh, okay. I think you might be the first boss ever on the show who got married from someone they met on the internet. I love that.

[00:06:26] Andrea Jones: At the time too, my friends and family were like, are you sure about this person?

[00:06:33] Emily Thompson: Right?

[00:06:34] I mean, now it's just like everyday occurrence. Right? We meet everyone on the internet, but to hear, and to hear it, I haven't heard that story before here on the podcast. I'm so glad that that's how that happened. But related to social media, how funny it is that Marriott was like, that would never be a full-time job because I wonder what just their payroll is for social media teams these days.

[00:06:59] Andrea Jones: Yes, exactly. And it it's so interesting how quickly things change too, because they were telling me this and, you know, 2011, 2012, 2013. So it was still a relatively new, but even by 20 14, 20 15, it was fairly common for, businesses of that size to at least have one person on social media solely, and now there's teams of people and whole departments now built around this.

[00:07:26] So it's just fascinating how quickly this industry has grown.

[00:07:29] Emily Thompson: What was the, what was the landscape of social media? Like whenever you made that request, you remember?

[00:07:35] Andrea Jones: There we were on Facebook and Twitter. And I remember we were really struggling with just creating content. Every piece of content was, had to go through this extensive review process and we were only posting once or twice a week.

[00:07:50] And it was just very different. There, wasn't a way for them to really have much tracking, they couldn't figure out how to get people to follow the pages, but just kind of like we're doing this because everyone else is starting to do it. Whereas now there's, you know, there's personalities behind brands.

[00:08:08] There's, you know, whole campaigns that are built around these things. So it is interesting how much, how more seriously it's being taken.

[00:08:18] Emily Thompson: Yeah. And what did the transition look like for you sort of quitting that job and going into, I guess, just freelance, social media management. What, what was that like?

[00:08:29] And then, and then the next transition to, of in building your own agency.

[00:08:35] Andrea Jones: Yeah. And, you know, I watched both, my parents are business owners. I watched them growing up, creating a business, and I honestly didn't want to do that. Because it looks the good times are great. It was hard times are great, but I watched him work so hard and, I was like, I wanna, I want a corporate job.

[00:08:53] Like I want a regular job, regular job, quote unquote. But when I moved and I started freelancing, I was doing all sorts of things. I have a degree in English literature, so I was doing research. I was writing blogs. I was writing product descriptions. And then I sort of started nestling into social media and really found value there because it's so repeatable.

[00:09:16] So that's where I built my business is on this repeatable service that I could deliver to people who need it fairly consistently. And I actually didn't call my agents myself an agency until about two years ago. I always called myself a freelancer who just happens to have other people on her team. And that transition was a huge mental shift for me before I actually started, changing it.

[00:09:40] I remember hiring my first person because I went on vacation and I couldn't relax because I was so worried about the posts that were scheduled. Would they go out responding to comments and questions that would come in for my clients? And so I really hired my first person as like a secondary me, a backup person, and then just sort of built from there.

[00:10:01] I'm structuring out the team with hiring graphic designers and copywriters and, you know, other people who can help deliver their service. And now, my team does a lot of that. They run all of our client's accounts and I get to be the lead strategist of sorts, kind of creating the vision for our clients and for the company.

[00:10:22] And in taking a stab at what's to come with social media marketing.

[00:10:26] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:10:27] Oh, and you know, let's sorry, not sorry, but like you are kind of one of those social media dinosaurs, right? Like to have been in this industry, literally from the beginning and one way or the other, and it's, you know, learning it as it's getting started and, and being a part of the corporate conversation, even of like, is this valuable enough for you to like, put someone on the payroll to do this thing and do freelancing in an agency building like in, you know, 10 years.

[00:10:58] You're going to be like a T-Rex. [00:11:00]

[00:11:01] Andrea Jones: I feel like I've seen a lot of the evolution of the internet. And I do feel like I have a lot of emotions around it because of that. Like, I remember that old days, quote unquote, where you could just post something on Facebook and it would go viral or, you know, you would stumble upon like the most amazing little corners of the internet.

[00:11:21] And it feels a little bit crowded now, but I definitely see it going back to that in the future, but I do feel like that. That granny who's like bill back in my day.

[00:11:34] Emily Thompson: Right.

[00:11:34] I feel the same way too. I always like whenever we're talking social media stuff and I'm like, don't forget everyone that business operated before social media was a thing.

[00:11:42] My first business, I operated it when you, there was no such thing as a business Facebook page, like Facebook was for college kids only right back in the day. And there was no such thing as a business page. And so similar it's I hadn't quite thought of it that way though. This idea that, because we have been there for the birth and early evolutions, there is an attachment to that.

[00:12:09] I also like, now that you say that I feel that within myself, I'd never quite connected them. Yeah. Okay. Right. Getting all, all kinds of feels about these evolutions. Well, this is why I've had you come have this conversation with me today because I want to look out where social media is now. And I love that you can give it, you can talk about this through the lens of having seen at evolve literally from its inception.

[00:12:42] Right. So it really gives that really, deep lens through which we can view this. So I think to just sort of generally get us started. I would love to hear from you from a bird's eye view, what is happening in the world of social media marketing for small businesses? I think specifically right now, what does it look like from up there.

[00:13:04] Andrea Jones: Yeah. You know, it's, it's been a challenge for small businesses over the past couple of years, because there's this idea on social media that, no, it's no longer a place for personal connection. We have to show up with this professionalism. We need a professional photo shoot. We have to have, you know, the videographer and every post has to be perfectly designed.

[00:13:28] And so it has been a challenge for business owners over the past year or two showing up in that way, because it can increase costs for showing up on social media and investing in that platform. And at the same time, we're seeing our content not getting the reach that it used to. So not as many people are seeing it, we're not getting, you know, the same sorts of likes and comments and messages that we used to see.

[00:13:55] And so not only are we spending more time on social media, but it feels like it's not as impactful as it used to be. So from a bird's eye view, I do see a lot of business owners kind of struggling with how to show up on social media. Is it a good tool to use as a, as a way to grow my business? How much time should I invest here or should I just completely get rid of it?

[00:14:18] Those are the conversations I'm hearing happen right now in social media. And I think, you know, looking into the future, some of the good news is that a lot of that is going away with the rise of platforms like Tik TOK. There is a, resurgence of content that is imperfect, the content that is real and human and really based on building relationships.

[00:14:44] Right now on Instagram, for instance, there's a trend going around where, people are just using a white background, black text, even taking a screenshot from their notes app, writing on texts. And that's how they're communicating their message. It doesn't have to be a whole graphic designed, And so with the resurgence of some of these things, as small business owners, there is light at the end of the tunnel because we don't have to show up with a, you know, professional photo shoot or video shoot.

[00:15:15] And we don't have to show up with, you know, the perfectly designed graphics because that human connection piece is really what people are craving right now.

[00:15:27] Emily Thompson: I also feel like we're at this place where these social media platforms have been testing and changing, right. Their own things. Surely they see one how annoyed we are.

[00:15:41] And two, how many of us have stopped using the platforms as much because we're experiencing exactly what you're saying, right? Where it costs more time, money, and energy to get less engagement than ever before. And I have also seen that some things are changing to remedy some of it, like they tested and changed and then realize that that probably wasn't the best move.

[00:16:05] And so they're backtracking in some ways, I think I saw something the other day that Instagram is planning on going back to a version of a chronological feed. Right. So things like that, like even Instagram is saying, okay, maybe what we did, wasn't the best idea. Let's take a step back to something that did work better previously and sort of start over again.

[00:16:26] And so that's like an Instagram version. Or one version and Instagram, are there any other sort of backtracking things or similarly reflective things that are happening on any of the platforms?

[00:16:39] Andrea Jones: Yeah. There's this return for interactive content as well. So, you know, we got into a groove for a while as business owners have almost like projecting what we want to say out into the world and waiting for people to comment on it.

[00:16:52] But now we're seeing the platforms are rewarding. Those posts that have more interactive features. So on LinkedIn, for instance, right now there's a trend for LinkedIn polls. So, you know, the multiple choice ABCD poll, those types of posts are getting a ton of engagement. As a human being, we almost can't help it.

[00:17:13] When we look at it to put our vote in and tell, you have to give our opinion, you have to share it. We have to, we can't help it. And even then people are putting their vote in and then going to the comments and explaining themselves. And so he loved the internet, but because of that, we're seeing these

[00:17:34] conversations bubble up in places where they wouldn't naturally happen before. And so even as LinkedIn itself is picking up steam, there's just a lot more activity happening on the platform. Right now, we're seeing some interesting conversations happen in the comments because of this. And so LinkedIn is rewarding people based on their posts based on those interactions.

[00:17:56] So what that means is more people see those posts in their feed. And so this return to personal content and interactive content is huge, but it also means as a business owner, we don't have to produce as much of it because the point is now, you know, we have enough content on the internet. Let's connect with each other instead of producing more content.

[00:18:18] And so there's a shift in attention from a user perspective of, from producing content to engaging with content. So I, I actually really like that shift personally, obviously I met my husband from like commenting on a YouTube video.

[00:18:33] Emily Thompson: It has benefited you greatly.

[00:18:35] Andrea Jones: It has worked for me personally. But I really liked the shift because I actually think as business owners we'll be more rewarded for it in the long run.

[00:18:46] Because that builds deeper connections with people instead of, you know, more shallow connection that just has a like, or a follow behind it.

[00:18:54] Emily Thompson: Right. That's just like meeting the quota five posts a week or, or whatever it may be. I also love here. What I'm hearing is that social media is returning from being to media and more on the spectrum of social.

[00:19:09] Andrea Jones: Yep. Exactly. We're putting the social back in social media. And I think it's so interesting to see how this shows up on the different platforms as well, because even platforms like Twitter, we're seeing this, kind of resurgence of people having these deep conversations on Twitter. So Twitter is known for these like one-liner style posts, but what's happening now is these threaded tweets where people are writing almost like mini blog posts or mini essays on Twitter.

[00:19:41] And then the conversation that happens after that is so much deeper than a one-liner ever was. And so it's just really interesting to see how this is showing up on the various platforms. Because I think as business owners, a lot of us aren't content creators. We, we like want to run our business. We don't necessarily want to spend a lot of time, you know, dancing for a Tik TOK video or whatever the case may be.

[00:20:05] And so this. Kind of shift into relationship building can really help us reduce the amount of content that we're creating and spend more time actually connecting with our potential clients and customers.

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[00:21:55] Emily Thompson: Lovely. Yeah, that is so refreshing to hear. So refreshing. I feel like that makes, that makes even me really excited about what social media is going to be doing in 2022. And also because this is such a fresh industry, truly like really, truly a very fresh industry. We're sort of seeing those like windy first couple of years of like, who are we?

[00:22:21] What are we doing? And by that, I mean, social media platforms and the people who like who make up, the communities on them and how do we want to use these things and how are they going to be beneficial? We're seeing those really tumultuous. We're seeing like the terrible twos who were like really the really trying threes or whatever it may be.

[00:22:41] And I think it will start sort of, making sense and really being beneficial to everyone. If this evolution happens in the way that, that it really should, what are you seeing in terms of, is policing really the word that I want to use? What is the word for like, misinformation and, and misuse of platforms?

[00:23:06] What are you seeing happening there now and moving into the new year?

[00:23:12] Andrea Jones: Yeah. You know, a lot of the platforms, or first of all, a lot of the platforms really appreciate their clients and customers attention. So the people who use the apps, they want people to use the apps. And if a group of people feels like they're under attack or they don't feel safe on the app, then a lot of these platforms are making decisions to help their communities feel safe.

[00:23:36] A great example of this is actually on LinkedIn recently announced that they're going to, really crack down on the people who use LinkedIn to scrape email addresses and then spam people, their offers, which is a common thing that happens on LinkedIn right now. Or even the mass auto bot messages that don't have anything to do with what you're offering.

[00:24:00] They're cracking down on that because they want people to, you know, be on their apps and spend time and feel safe. And so they're promoting it in that way. All of the apps are basically doing this right now. The, the heavy hitters. They're really paying attention to their communities. So on Facebook, for instance, made huge changes this year to how they're collecting and using the data from the people using the apps.

[00:24:25] So they completely changed their ads platform to reflect these changes based on a lot of things that happen in the U S elections previously and other things where, the data. You know, leaked or used in a malicious way. And so when we see these changes to me, it's comforting that the apps are trying to, you know, really protect their communities, but also still offer a place for openness.

[00:24:54] Now it's not all great because sometimes people get caught up in, you know, maybe an automation and. Shut down, even if they're not doing anything malicious. So I had a client recently who is very about body positivity, body neutrality. I'm in a lot of her posts were getting blocked by Facebook and Instagram and her Instagram account eventually got shut down.

[00:25:19] She never could get it back. Even though she's promoting something great because of some of the nudity rules on the apps, even though she wasn't nude, Facebook and Instagram just started marking her posts as inappropriate and eventually her account got shut down. So not all of these rules are great.

[00:25:37] And I do think it makes it challenging to kind of put blanket statements over some things. But I do like this conversation. I like the direction that it's going.

[00:25:46] Emily Thompson: Nice.

[00:25:47] Good because necessary yes, incredibly ness. There are a lot of people who act like they're three, these platforms, so good. I know that is a big concern with, with many bosses as well as just very generally, not wanting to even see what's happening on these platforms, but again, I've also been reading some news and updates that things are happening.

[00:26:09] Things are being put in place and just like no one ever starts anything really, truly imagining or preparing for the worst case scenario. I think over the past couple of years, we've seen a worst case scenario that no one was fully prepared for. And because these companies are so large and far reaching, I think it takes a minute for like real far reaching action to be taken, unfortunately, but I definitely do see it happening as well.

[00:26:39] Andrea Jones: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much farther this evolves as well, because I think the technology is there. When I think about something like I'm a huge fan of Tik Tok right now, because their algorithm to me, as a social media geek, I've just loving how specific it is. And I think there's an opportunity to have that sort of specificity happen in other ways on other apps and be, to be used for good.

[00:27:05] Right. So I think there could be a combination of, you know, a human reviewing content and having an algorithm kind of curate things that could be very interesting for these apps to kind of get on board with. And I don't know, I'm excited to see what happens next.

[00:27:21] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I love it. I mean, same just as you were saying earlier, this idea that you know, where we were not even 10 years ago, right.

[00:27:31] With like 10 years ago, let's see 2012. Facebook was Instagram. Instagram was a thing, but like barely a thing, right. There were 12 people on it, more or less. Right. And, in Twitter had been around, but still like not, not everyone was on these plots. Tik Tok did not exist. 10, like Periscope and vine didn't even, I don't think existed in years ago.

[00:27:58] Think about those y'all right. And so I can only imagine what the next 10 years is going to be, but I don't want to look that far in advance. I just want to look at 2022. I want to look at this year. So zooming in from that, like bird's eye view of those are some big things that are happening. Let's zoom in and look out.

[00:28:18] What do creative business owners need to be focusing on? In the realm of social media in 2022. So creative boss businesses, what do they need to be doing?

[00:28:30] Andrea Jones: Yeah. And as we kind of focus in on this idea of bringing personality to social media, I think there's a huge opportunity for creative business owners to leverage that more for their business.

[00:28:43] And so depending on your comfort level, I always put that caveat in here. There's a lot of things you can do with social media, but right now the biggest thing that's going to happen this year is micro video content. So we're already seeing this happen because of TikTok. Now there's Instagram reels, even Pinterest idea, pens and YouTube shorts.

[00:29:02] They're very similar content placements. And so creating videos where maybe if you're an artist you're showcasing your process from start to finish, or if you're an interior designer, you're going to share your thoughts on different paint colors, and why you choose them. You know, really adding the person behind the brand, and really adding that level of personality and showing what you do as a business owner instead of

[00:29:28] describing it or telling, it's I think that could be really interesting for business owners because that kind of content doesn't need to be highly produced. We all have video creation machines with our smartphones, and even a lot of the apps have amazing editing tools now built in. So something as simple as that can make a huge difference for your.

[00:29:52] The other reason why these micro video content placements are working so well is because a lot of the platforms are trying to copy Tik TOK and with tick-tock. The whole point of it is that most of your feed is people you do not follow. So the whole kind of goal of the app is discovering new content.

[00:30:12] So as a business owner, when we look at similar placements like Instagram reels, most of the people who view Instagram reels, don't follow you. So they're showing these videos to people who don't even know who you are. So as a business owner, there's a huge opportunity to kind of step into that place, show up as you are imperfect and everything, and have people fall in love with you and your business and what you do.

[00:30:37] And so there's a huge opportunity there in 2022 for business owners to kind of leverage that content type.

[00:30:43] Emily Thompson: Okay. I never thought about reels that way. You kind of just blew my mind with that. Thank you very much. And then I will also add anecdotally, I've been, I am, I think my social media platform of choice, if you can call it a social media platform, I'd actually love to know your thoughts on that is Pinterest, right?

[00:30:59] [00:31:00] Where I'm just scrolling Pinterest all the time. Y'all and not quite that bad, but with. I will look for recipes or outfits. I cut my hair recently, so I'm still like, I it's been a decade since I had short hair. I don't know what to do with it anymore. So I'm like filling up my hair board and those sorts of things.

[00:31:20] Like my version of like Instagram scrolling is Pinterest. So I would love to know what your thoughts are in terms of it being a social media platform. But, I have seen, I've like noticed all of the video content showing up in my Pinterest feeds. And let me tell you, I don't care if it's a recipe or a hairdo I'm going to stop and watch almost every single time.

[00:31:44] It is definitely more engaging, more eye catching, and I'm getting sucked in. And if y'all, if it's working on me and I can see through everything, then it must be working.

[00:31:55] Andrea Jones: Yes. Well, Pinterest is an interesting one because it is a search first platform. So it is based on search terms and keywords and things like that.

[00:32:05] But with the introduction of idea pins this year, we are seeing more social elements being added to the platform and it's working for them because they've got an increase of their user base. Like more people are spending more time on. And at my guess would be because of these idea pins, which look a lot like TikTok.

[00:32:23] And so as a business owner showing up in that way, especially a creative business owner, there's so much opportunity on this platform because not only are people discovering you. So Pinterest is also another one of those platforms where it's all about discovery. But it's so specific to the person discovering you because of what they're searching for.

[00:32:47] So, you know, I've been trying to do a lot of vegetarian recipes, unlike you, where I'm scrolling through Pinterest to get inspiration. And if I saw something that was amazing, I'm stopping and I'm watching the whole thing [00:33:00] and I'm discovering new, like have my favorite blogs that I saved and, you know, discovering new things that way.

[00:33:06] To show up in that place as a business owner. I think there's a lot of magic there. And I don't think you have to pin as much, you know, like two or three years ago, common suggestion was, you know, 20, 30 pins a day. I would say now, 2022, you could get away with much, much less. And especially with the idea pins, we've been testing that with a few of our clients, you know, a couple of times a week even is more than enough because that content piece is actually living a lot longer in the feed and it's evergreen.

[00:33:38] So once you create it, people can continue to find it for years to come. And so that's the difference between, you know, Pinterest and Instagram, where Instagram, you know, your content is kind of hanging out for maybe a day or two. If it's a real, I've seen them go up to two weeks, but then it's like buried and no one's ever going to see it again.

[00:33:57] Whereas Pinterest, you have the, the ability there to have a piece of content that can just hang out for much less.

[00:34:06] Emily Thompson: Yeah, for sure. I also want to throw out here, I just, I sort of had a, I remembered something as you were talking about that, that I'm going to throw in here too, as something that is kind of blowing my mind for moving into the new year, I Googled something the other day.

[00:34:19] I cannot remember for the life of me, what it was. But it was just like some generic search term. And the very first search result that popped up was an Instagram post. So, and that, for me, it was like, I paused, I have to go back through my slack. Cause I think even screenshot it, it shared it with the team and was like, y'all looking at what just happened because what this means is similar to what you were just saying in terms of Pinterest being a little more evergreen is if Instagram's work to make posts more search engine optimized is working in my little test there.

[00:34:54] Right? Totally proves that it is working in some capacity. Then we also have that benefit of our Instagram content also becomes a little more evergreen and makes that platform also a little better for discoverability, too. Which is crazy. Y'all we've been waiting over a decade for this.

[00:35:16] Andrea Jones: And I see this as a huge shift in just all of the social platforms is helping people find the right content.

[00:35:22] And this goes back to the idea that there's just so much content now that it can be overwhelming. I can't even imagine if I were to start using Instagram today, I would definitely feel overwhelmed. Like, what's a story, what's a real, what's a feed. Like how do you even get started? And I think that, you know, the, these platforms have a lot of work ahead of them to make them easier to consume and easier for people to find what they're looking for.

[00:35:51] Emily Thompson: Yeah. Oh, I love to see that they're actually like putting the effort into it. And the idea, one of my beefs with Instagram has always been been that I create this piece of content it's relevant for four hours. Right. And then it's buried forever. And so much effort goes into that. And, you know, by comparison podcasting, our entire library of podcast episodes is still getting consumed to this day.

[00:36:18] The entire, well, not the past three, but back to episode number one. And that's, that's very gratifying to me. I can create a piece of content and that will live here forever, Instagram, not so much the case, but for, but for that to be changing, it definitely makes Instagram a more viable option for spending that time, money, and energy to create the thing, because it will last more than four hours.

[00:36:43] Andrea Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And because of that as well, I think, you know, when we, when we think back to how the internet was in the good old days, a lot of people were blogging. And when you think about creating a blog asset, the amount of time and energy that was put into a blog asset asset, and then knowing that people would go back through your backlog was part of the enjoyment of it.

[00:37:07] I think it will help business owners be able to spend more time creating quality pieces of content and creating fewer of them because there will be that backlog. So it'll be interesting to see how we shift and I do predict less content, but higher quality content for small business owners in 2022.

[00:37:25] Emily Thompson: For sure.

[00:37:26] I also, there's almost even an asterisk to this cause better quality. This idea of how much easier it will be for that, search engine crawling of social media to potentially spread misinformation. And you know, if someone is Instagramming something dumb about something like that might show up under search terms, which is also why everyone needs to learn how to consume content on the internet, which is not the purpose of this episode.

[00:37:56] Andrea Jones: Oh yes. That's a whole nother episode to be just sharing what we find online.

[00:38:01] Emily Thompson: Indeed. Indeed.

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[00:38:57] Okay. Let's touch on YouTube really quickly. And what do you see happening? What do you see happening there right now?

[00:39:05] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So YouTube is still dominating when it comes to video content, especially long form video content and the searchability of YouTube. It has its own culture, which really helps.

[00:39:16] So people go to YouTube to find something, right. So the other day I was, looking up, so I'm pregnant. I was looking up, you know, different things about breastfeeding and having a baby and like the, for, I didn't even go to YouTube first. I mean, Google first, I went to YouTube. So for me, it's like, I want to watch a video from like a doctor explaining the process.

[00:39:39] And so when we think about the culture around YouTube, that is something really strong that it can stand on, but they're also adding in more social elements. So things like YouTube shorts, for instance, they look exactly like tic talks, and they're more discoverable. And they of. They kind of show up differently in the apps and on the feed.

[00:40:01] And so as content creators, it'll be interesting to see how, we can discern those longer form pieces of content, those meatier pieces of videos versus the YouTube short. Was there more engaging in community building and relationship building? So be interesting to see the distinction of that going into 2022.

[00:40:22] I still think the long form videos are going to win and the videos where someone searches for it, they find the answer that they're looking for. They watch the entire video. Those are the videos that are going to dominate in the next year.

[00:40:35] Emily Thompson: Nice. I love it. Perfect. Then moving along, I sort of have a two part or question for you.

[00:40:42] I'm going to start with the first one, and then we'll obviously go into number two, but in terms of social media, what has been working in the past that you see not working anymore?

[00:40:54] Andrea Jones: So. With social media specifically in the kind of like this business influencer space, a lot of what was working in the past is this idea of like showing up with your perfection.

[00:41:10] So, you know, seeing the big houses, the cars, the, you know, pools, the lavish lifestyle, the beach mentality of working on the beach, that used to work. And what we're seeing now is even with our clients, she recently did a photo shoot for Christmas. The posts are working as well when she just posted a selfie, does amazingly her professionally shot photo shoot.

[00:41:36] It's almost painful to look at the analytics because it's just not working like it used to. So it'll be interesting to see in the next year, how that changes. I think this is a good thing for business owners because. I honestly am so awkward in photo shoots. And I think I just, I always look awkward. I don't know this is how I look.

[00:41:58] So I'm personally excited about it, but also it'll be interesting to see what that imperfection shows up, like in other ways for business owners as well.

[00:42:08] Emily Thompson: Oh, and how great for everyone's mental health that is going to be just in general, just in general. Okay. That's great. That's great news. Anything else?

[00:42:22] Andrea Jones: I think some of the things that used to work, things like, you know, having a really nice design graphic and posting that graphic across all platforms that used to be really easy to do. But now there's so many different placements, right? So like even an Instagram square graphic could work on Facebook.

[00:42:40] Doesn't really work on Twitter kind of works on LinkedIn. Definitely doesn't work on anything like, Pinterest or, Instagram reel. And so it's a lot harder to just take that same content in posted everywhere. You really have to create multiple assets for the same piece of content. Now a work around is, you know, you can still have the same idea and maybe it's recorded as a video for one platform and an image for another, but just kind of taking the same post and copy pasting it to other platforms isn't working as well as it used to.

[00:43:14] Okay,

[00:43:15] Emily Thompson: perfect. There you go. Everybody don't do that anymore. And we'll actually get into choosing platforms in a moment, but next part of this question is, is there anything that has not worked in the past that you do see working now?

[00:43:31] Andrea Jones: Oh, so when I think about this idea of long form video, you know, in the past, Not a lot of people were hanging out on social media like that.

[00:43:44] And I really think this is the evolution of how we use our phones and how we use our devices. Where in the past, if you wanted to watch something that was an hour long, you would like set up your computer or sit down at the TV to watch it. Whereas now we're seeing people will watch from their mobile device.

[00:44:03] So I had a client over the summer, who wanted to do these live streams on Facebook. And he did the first one and it was two hours long. And it was like, no, one's going to watch this. Who wants to watch a Facebook live for two hours? But the engagement he got was incredible. And so when I think about

[00:44:22] his user base and how they consume information. They thought it was a huge bonus that he was doing this two hour long Facebook live stream. And so in the past that wouldn't have worked, you would have got people popping in and out now we're seeing people stay from the majority of the time. So it'll be interesting to see a couple of weeks ago.

[00:44:43] There was a, kind of viral moment on Instagram where this woman, gave birth on Instagram live. It was a seven hour live stream and kind of went a little bit viral because of that. And it was amazing to see how many people watch the whole thing. And so I think. Interesting to see how much time people spend on social media.

[00:45:06] That's definitely increasing from a consumer perspective. And so it'd be interesting to see how that changes, how we show up on the apps. I know me personally, I just won't spend that much time. I just can't spend that much time, but some people do.

[00:45:23] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:45:23] Right. And I think, I think plenty of people are even replacing like TV time.

[00:45:29] Right. Instead of sitting there watching shows or whatever movies even kind of makes you want to see a comparison chart, right. Between the consumption of, you know, Netflix, Hulu, et cetera, and time spent on social media and see if there's any sort of reverse correlation. Yeah. But, I agree. One of the things that we do at Almanac that continues to be really successful is our YouTube crystal parties, which are live crystal sells, an hour, two plus hours long, and people will come, they're not shopping, they're just watching.

[00:46:08] And I love that. I love that it is, it has become such a thing. So I think that there are places where, where that's happening and what an amazingly, I don't want to, what word do I want to use here? Finding words, w just opportunity, I guess, for everyone to have the platform, to create the content in the way they want to create it.

[00:46:32] So a lot of people don't want to show up in reels, right? Or TikTok's then create a really great Facebook live show or have a baby on Instagram live, or, you know, YouTube. And just as long as you want. This is also something that we see in the podcasting world, which I think, I think of as like the cousin of social media, right?

[00:46:53] Not quite siblings, but definitely related. And there is this trend back towards longer form podcasts. So hour and a half to three hour long podcast, two years ago was like a death sentence for your show. Right? These days people are more engaged in some of that content where, you know, maybe we don't have to be so concerned anymore about our attention span because maybe it's returning.

[00:47:28] Andrea Jones: This goes back to that idea of really understanding kind of your audience and creating content for them. Because I think that where the, I think, where the idea of like attention spans are shortening is that people weren't really connecting with the content to begin with. So, you know, seeing a post in the feed, they would maybe, you know, doubles, have them Instagram and keep scrolling.

[00:47:51] There wasn't enough there for them to stop long enough to kind of connect with it. And so I think we're not seeing as much people looking at our content, like as many people looking at our content, but we're seeing a higher quality or higher caliber people, the people who will hang out with you on a YouTube live for, you know, a couple of hours and stay the whole time, much more valuable than getting hundreds of thousands of people watching for 10 seconds.

[00:48:18] Right. So. I really like that because I think as business owners, the data that we're getting is so much truer to who's actually consuming our content. And it's not those vanity metrics of, oh, great. This, you know, a hundred thousand people saw this. Well, how many of those people actually connected with it?

[00:48:37] Emily Thompson: Yeah, right. Knowing your conversion points for sure. We talk about this, we've talked about these in a couple of Monday meetups and the community, this idea of, you know, being so excited because our reel goes viral or, or something, but what did that mean for you? Like, did you get an influx of followers and if, no, then like, so what if yes, then high five, it actually worked it's I mean, it's definitely [00:49:00] making room for us to more clearly define true metrics for success, for the things that we're doing.

[00:49:06] And I definitely see someone who's willing to stay two hours to see a bunch of crystals on YouTube, I'm way better than 50 people showing up for, you know, five minutes, whatever it may be. What I love most about this is that it prompts us to rethink things, which I think is something that we have to do in the world of just online stuff in general, because things do evolve so quickly is that, you know, whether it is part of the earlier conversation of even Instagram going back and being like, okay, actually maybe chronological feeds was better or long form content, video, or audio content, not being something that people consumed previously, but is now working.

[00:49:49] It teaches us all to go back and try things that maybe didn't work in the past. Maybe you haven't tried before to see if they're going to work now and understand your metrics along the way.

[00:49:59] Andrea Jones: Exactly. And I think part of this is a relief for business owners as well, because I think it's so much harder to have that cookie cutter strategy to what works on social media.

[00:50:12] It really comes down to your business if you're the sole business like operator too, it's how you personally want to show up in that role. And then how your audience wants to consume information. And once you kind of nailed down those three things, then I think there's so much of a beautiful potential with social media rather than having to, you know, post, you know, twice a day or do this, or do that.

[00:50:42] It's really just leaning into what works for you.

[00:50:46] Emily Thompson: Perfect. That's what everyone wants to hear. Just that, just do what works for you. You don't need to follow anyone else's rules. So other than that, what recommendations do you have for bosses, to do as they are moving into 2022 with their social media strategies.

[00:51:04] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So when we think about the social media strategy, there's a few things that I like a few questions I want you to think about. The first is defining social media for yourself and for your business. So I think a lot of times as business owners, that definition gets kind of in tangled. And I've been seeing a lot of conversation lately about being overwhelmed or wanting to delete the apps off our phones.

[00:51:28] And I think that comes from this confusion of using social media as a personal tool, maybe to connect with friends and family and using social media as a tool to grow your business. So my question would be, what is that for you? And what is social media for your business? I'm really thinking about it.

[00:51:43] Maybe even write it down and then that can help you decide how you're going to show up in those places. So social media is my job and I still don't have any notifications turned on? I can't live that life. Like I've tried it, it doesn't work for me. So for me, social media is a tool for business.

[00:52:01] Almost strictly. My personal life is almost completely separated and that really works for me so I can show up when I'm working and when I'm not, it doesn't exist. Right. So that really works for me. And then the other thing to think about is how you want to show up. I talked about video as an example, and for a lot of us who like speaking and talking video can be a great tool for communication.

[00:52:26] So if that works for you lean into video, but I do also know a lot of creative business owners who don't want to show their face on the camera. That's fine as well. There are a lot of other ways to use video without having to do that. So for example, one of our clients this week created in Canva, a quote that they put a little video background behind, which is also now free in Canva and posted it as Instagram reel, and it got 33,000 views and she didn't have to say anything or show her face.

[00:52:57] And so there's ways that you can leverage these tools without having to be, you know, the dance or the trend, or the, some people are acting out full of scenes. You don't have to do it that way. It's a really kind of deciding, you know, what is the role that social media plays in your life and your business.

[00:53:16] And then how do you personally want to show up on the app? Those are two questions. Once you have them answered, it would really help clarify what you should be doing in 2022 on social media.

[00:53:27] Emily Thompson: Beautiful.

[00:53:28] Okay. It's sort of a follow-up question to this. And part of our earlier conversation is the overwhelm, the content creation and choosing which platforms to, beyond what are your recommendations for choosing a platform or multiple platforms for your business to exist on?

[00:53:51] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So if you are the sole operator, I do recommend just one platform. So picking one platform and that platform really depends. You can Google your space. So for instance, if you make ceramic pottery, you can Google, you know, best platform for pottery or something like that. And you'll get some answers to that question.

[00:54:14] A lot of the platforms right now that are popular, we're talking about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tik TOK, YouTube, to some extent as well. So you can really pick any of those and likely you'll find your customers and clients on that platform. But the second choice you want to make is if that platform works for you.

[00:54:36] So for my B2B business owners, I almost always recommend LinkedIn. It's such a great platform for that audience. However, I have a handful of clients who try it out and they go, I don't like it here. I don't want to be here. And so we'll find another option. So if you try out a platform and you don't like it don't feel like you have to use it, you can probably find your audience on other platforms.

[00:55:01] When to start expanding to multiple platforms is when you start hiring. So either hiring someone to help you with social media or other aspects of your business. So you can spend more time on social media, cause your time does multiply as you get into other platforms. So proceed with caution as you add in and layer in other platforms.

[00:55:22] Emily Thompson: Wonderful. Thank you for that permission. Everyone, you heard that you heard that now do something about it one way or the other. Perfect. Andrea, this has been a total treat. Thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this. Is there any sort of last thoughts you have for social media in this next era?

[00:55:43] Andrea Jones: Social media is so easy to be a comparison game. So that's my, my warning for business owners, because everything is so perfect. Quote unquote, and we could just see the highlight reel of everyone else's business. We don't know what's happening behind the scenes. We didn't see the ugly shower cry that morning.

[00:56:04] So I think that, you know, as business owners to really be cautious about how much you're comparing yourself to other business owners on social media, because social media does make it very easy to do that. You know, just be cautious about how often you're doing that, curate, who you're following and how you're consuming information on social media as well, because it's very easy to kind of slip into that

[00:56:32] almost despair feeling. And I know this because my company, we run social media accounts for other people. So the, you know, effortless selfie, we planned it two months ago or, you know, the heartfelt video was like a script that was written. So, you know, I see the behind the scenes of a lot of these things, and I don't want you to compare your chapter one to someone else's chapter 10 and feel bad about it.[00:57:00]

[00:57:00] Emily Thompson: Perfect advice. Thank you so much for that. And where can our audience learn more about you and what you do?

[00:57:07] Andrea Jones: Yes. So I am everywhere on all the social platforms @onlinedrea. I'm the one exception because it's my job.

[00:57:16] And then you can find me at my website onlinedrea.com. That's online D R E A. And if you want to dive deeper into social media, the trends that are coming up for 2022, I did just release a podcast episode all about that on the Savvy Social podcast, which is my show. So you can search Savvy Social podcast, 2022 trends, and you should be able to find that episode.

[00:57:40] I talk a lot about Tik TOK. So if that's something that you're interested in, you can definitely check that out as well.

[00:57:48] Emily Thompson: Perfect. And my last question for you, what makes you feel most boss?

[00:57:53] Andrea Jones: What makes me feel most boss? You know, at this very moment, it's the opportunity to create the future. I'm I am in the process of planning my maternity leave and it feels like such a powerful thing to just be able to choose what's next for me.

[00:58:11] And so that feels like a super boss move. So I'm really excited about that.

[00:58:15] Emily Thompson: Yeah. That's like the most boss move, defining your own maternity leave and making it all look like exactly what you want it to have five!

[00:58:25] Andrea Jones: I'm excited.

[00:58:27] Emily Thompson: Perfect. Well, congratulations. And thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this with us.

[00:58:32] I appreciate you being here.

[00:58:34] Andrea Jones: Oh, thank you so much for having me on the show Emily.

[00:58:36] Of course.

[00:58:40] Emily Thompson: I'm just going to take a minute to shout out to all the small business owners out there because it's hard work, balancing your bottom line and taking care of a team. That's why Gusto built an easier and more affordable way to manage payroll benefits and more. Automatic payroll tax filings, simple direct deposits, free health insurance administration.[00:59:00]

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[00:59:18] once you run your first payroll, just go to gusto.com/being boss. That's gusto.com/beingboss. Now until next time, do the work, be boss[01:00:00] .