A random post here, a minor profile tweak there. Before you know it, you’re aimlessly meandering through your social channels like a kitten on roller skates.

It’s not pretty and, well, it’s not very productive.

(Not to mention dangerous!)

Reel it in for a moment and get back on steady ground. We’re here to share our secret sauce to social media productivity.

As our guest today Sagan puts it:

It’s hard to get stuff done when life gets in the way (as it has a tendency of doing!)… but that doesn’t mean that the time doesn’t exist, or that you can’t be more productive (in your personal OR your professional life). Instead, it’s all about maximizing your time and energy, figuring out your particular organizational style, getting past your personal obstacles, and taking action. 

The truth is, anyone has it in them to be more productive. You can be a busy mom juggling a side hustle with your full-time 9 to 5 job and still make progress… without sacrificing your time with loved ones or losing yourself in the process. That’s right: you CAN have it all. You have it within you to take ownership of your time and energy, to do more in less time! 

Tune in for more productivity powerhouse tips!

Learn more about Sagan: https://saganmorrow.com/about/

Learn more about Edgar: www.meetedgar.com

Check out the full post over at https://meetedgar.com/blog/grow-your-podcast/

Transcript:

You started a podcast! Congratulations! Those first weeks after a launch are exciting and you might be filled with hope.

But things can slow down a little after that initial launch and it’s common to see your numbers slow down. That’s when you move from launching a podcast into running a podcast and part of running a podcast is promoting and marketing it so you can see that growth!

Promoting a podcast is work but it’s also fun! When you love your content, marketing feels good and we know you love your content 😉

There’s no silver bullet for success in podcasting but there are a few things you can do to grow your podcast. Here are 10 ways to grow your podcast

1. Dedicate 10-15 minutes every day engaging with your audience

This may sound very obvious but sometimes the solutions ARE obvious! Taking 10-15 minutes to engage with your audience on social media every day can make a big difference in whether or not that audience stays loyal to you.

Many people enjoy podcasts because it feels conversational. Listeners often feel like they’re hearing from their good friends when they listen to a podcast so keep that conversation going.

This doesn’t have to be hard either! It can be as simple as responding to Instagram comments or asking questions and starting conversations on Twitter. Allie Casazza of The Purpose Show takes the time to respond to every Instagram comment. It’s a small touch but it can strengthen the connection between you and your audience.

2. Listen to your audience

Your audience will give you feedback, whether or not you listen to them. That feedback might be tough to hear but it’s necessary for growth. You want your audience happy so listen to their concerns and be open to them. Many podcasters simply don’t do this but the ones that do can make fans for life.

3. Network with other podcasters

The podcasting community is a friendly one and if you want to get noticed, you’ve got to play nice. Don’t think of other podcasts as your competition. Think of them as your peers! Podcast listeners listen to an average of 7 different shows per week so there’s plenty of room for your podcast too!

There are many podcasting Facebook groups that are filled with engaged podcasters sharing their advice, asking for support and trading tips. If you find a podcast you really like, share it with your audience because they might like it too. You’re creating goodwill with another podcaster and creating your network of support. Bonus tip! You can use Edgar’s RSS feed to automatically add other podcast episodes straight into your social media schedule.

4. Pitch yourself as a guest

Once you start making those connections, you can pitch yourself as a guest on other relevant podcasts. You can even do a mutual trade where you are a guest on their show and they are a guest on your show.

This is a smart approach as long as you don’t make it strictly promotional. You want to provide value to someone else’s audience. That way the host provides a quality show and their audience hears your expertise, which can pique their interest in your podcast.

5. Make it easy for your guests to share

When you have guests on your show, make it really easy for them to share the episode with their audience. Tag them on your own social so they can repost and encourage them to share on their own as well. It’s helpful to create images for each social platform and swipe files so your guests can easily promote their episode.

6. List your show in podcast directories

This is something else that is low hanging fruit but lots of people skip this step! You should make it easy for people to

Check out the full post over at https://meetedgar.com/blog/successful-podcast-launch/

Transcript:

Did you know there are about 700,000 active podcasts today and there are more launching every single day! It’s safe to say we might be reaching the “Age of the Podcast.”

It’s no wonder that podcasts are growing in popularity. They are relatively inexpensive to set up and low-tech so you don’t need to have a huge team to do the heavy lifting. They are also a fantastic way to spread your message and create engaging and valuable content to your audience. Team Edgar has even joined the fun with our newest podcast Social Post!

We’ve heard from some of our audience that they too are planning to start their own podcasts as well so we’re sharing everything we know about a successful podcast launch.

First, let’s chat about why your podcast launch is important.

There are really two reasons you want to plan for and promote a podcast launch.

The first is straightforward: a great launch can lead to better rankings right out of the gate. iTunes rankings are based on the number of subscriptions, downloads, reviews, and ratings collected in the short period of time following your podcast launch. If you can see a big burst of subscribers, downloads and five-star reviews immediately after you launch, you can see higher rankings and have the opportunity of breaking into that “New and Noteworthy” category.

The second reason to plan and promote a launch is that it will act as your springboard to build your momentum and keep you consistently growing your podcast fanbase. When you start seeing that success and excitement around your initial launch, it’s natural to want to keep it going.

Ready for the most successful podcast launch ever? Let’s get to it!

1. Set a launch date and give yourself a deadline

Life gets busy! There are projects to complete, family events to attend, meetings to schedule, friends to see and, of course, your favorite Netflix show to binge. If you don’t buckle down and set a date, that podcast might be sitting on the “To Do” list for months or even years!

Set a hard and fast launch date for your podcast. Write it on your calendar, circle it twice or if you’re a digital person, add a few exclamation points to it

Once you have that date set, you’ll want to work backward from that date to plan your promotional posts. If you use a category-based scheduling system like MeetEdgar, this is easy to do! Simply view your schedule and find ideal days and times to start promoting your podcast. Create a category for your podcast and drop it into those ideal days and times.

Now all you need to do is start building that social content.

2. Create promotional social media content

Even though you haven’t quite launched, it doesn’t mean you can’t start promoting your podcast and generating buzz about it on social media. Remember, social media is your community and your goal is to build connections and conversations. What better way to drive connection than by sharing what you’re working on?

There are a few different types of social media posts you can use to build anticipation for your podcast without sounding repetitive.

Behind the scenes

People love seeing the inside of someone’s business! Do you have a cool podcasting set-up, a brand new microphone or notes from your interviews? Let your audience see those behind the scenes glimpses.

Teasers

While you may not have an entire episode ready to air just yet, you probably have a few recorded that are in editing or maybe you just have your intro recorded or your music ready to go or even a peek at your logo, like podcasting superstar Georgia Hardstark did below. Sharing a look at what’s...

Check out the full article at https://meetedgar.com/blog/click-worthy-social-media-posts/

Transcript:

Have you ever felt that you’re screaming into the void when you post on social media? You’re not alone. In fact, many brands and business owners struggle to see any engagement on their social posts.

According to a study by Rival IQ, brands see an average engagement of:

0.9% on Facebook posts

1.6% on Instagram posts

0.048% on Twitter

Yes, that means on average, most people see less than 2% of engagement on their social media posts.

Sounds like bad news, right? But WAIT, before you throw your computer out the window out of sheer frustration, there’s good news.

The good news is that social media is changing and platforms are shifting to encourage users to focus on building community, creating connections and sharing fantastic content.

As entrepreneurs and brands figure out how to adjust to a changing social media world and refocus on creating real engagement, there’s one thing to note: fantastic content matters more than ever on social media.

So what makes people stop, click and engage with your social media? How can you create content that is worthy of a click, whether it’s a like, a share, a comment or a link click?

Let’s break down what makes a social post “click-worthy”?

The 4 Keys of Content Marketing

Social media is a form of content marketing and there are four goals of content to keep in mind.

Content should

Educate:

Content that educates teaches your audience something new. It is content that shows your audience how to solve a problem.

Inspire:

People are always looking for inspiration and social media is a perfect place to give it to them with a quote, inspirational video or moving story.

Inform:

Sharing breaking news, the latest developments in your industry or announcements about your business are a few ways you can create content that informs.

Entertain:

At the end of the day, humans love pure entertainment. Content that is humorous, creative or just plain fun is fantastic for content to engage your audience. Think GIFs, funny videos or memes!

No matter what you post on social media, it should do one of these things for your audience. If it’s not, you might want to rethink why you’re sharing it!

2. Be personal

Humans want to connect with other humans, no matter what. The term “authentic” gets thrown around often in social media and while it’s become a bit overused, the underlying need for it still exists. Followers can’t build trust if they don’t feel like they know and like you and followers who don’t trust you won’t engage with your content. So even if you are posting as a business, you can still share your personality or personal story with your posts.

3. Tell a story

There’s plenty of science to back up the power of storytelling. Humans are wired to remember stories and social media is a perfect avenue to tell them. Stories have characters, a plot, meaning and most of all, emotional investment. By telling your story or the story of your business, you can connect to your audience emotionally. The story below is Amy Porterfield’s but it’s a story that will resonate with her audience because they may have felt the same emotions she did. She’s drawing her audience in with a story that will build their connection to her.

4. Test headline strategies

Copy matters, especially in social media where most people are scrolling past hundreds of content options. Humans have an attention span of about 8 seconds. This means we have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.

This fact may not necessarily be surprising, it should make a difference in...

Check out the full post at:

https://meetedgar.com/blog/ab-test-social-media/

Transcript:

The big question most people have about their social media marketing is, “Will it work?”

There are hundreds of thousands of articles, videos, and webinars on social media best practices, strategies, calendars, tips, tactics and secrets. You could spend actual years consuming every piece of content about social media marketing that you can find and you might still not have the secret sauce that will work magic on your audience.

The best way to learn what will really work for your content and your audience is to test it! That’s where A/B testing comes in!

A/B testing, which is also known as split testing, is a form of research where you test small variations of your marketing to determine what is most effective.

The key to a great split test is to only test one element at a time. If you try to test multiple elements, you’ll have no idea what works and what doesn’t.

For example, if you want to split test your social posts for your latest blog post, you could post the exact same headline, link preview and text but split test using different images in each post.

Or you could use the same link preview, text and image but split test using different headlines.

But you wouldn’t split test headlines and images in the same test because you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was the headline or the image that was working!

When you first get started with social media marketing, you’re usually making assumptions. Sure, they’re based on best practices but they’re still only assumptions. You’ll never really know what works in your social media until you start testing.

Also, even if you have been using social media for a while and you feel like you’ve got the hang of it, you should still be A/B testing. Social algorithms are always changing and so is your audience. What worked 6 months ago might not work as well today and the only way you can be certain that it still works is if you test it!

You can A/B test just about anything as long as you remember the golden rule of A/B testing: “Only test one element at a time.” 

1. Text

The text is one of the most important elements of a social post and it’s a really easy thing to test. You can experiment with different post lengths, emojis, headline formats, etc. Just don’t forget the golden rule or you won’t be able to tell what’s working.

Pro-Tip: MeetEdgar makes this super easy with our variations feature. You can even create multiple variations with the click of a button with auto-variations. See how it works here.

2. Visuals 

You’ve probably heard the statistic that people process visuals 60,000 times faster than text so you know that visuals should be at the top of your list to A/B test. Luckily, there are plenty of options for your visuals. You can A/B test images, or one image and one video or an image and a link preview, videos and GIFs and the list goes on.

3. Headline and link preview

If you post links to your blog posts or podcast episodes, experiment with different headlines. Traffic can vary by as much as 500% percent depending on the headline, according to one study. You’ll create more opportunities for your audience to click on your content by testing different headlines.

4. Hashtags 

Hashtags started as a Twitter feature but they can now be found on every single platform. You can split test different hashtags such as #contentmarketing or #content and #marketing or A/B test using hashtags and not using hashtags in a post.

5. Time or day of post

When is your audience online?

Check out the full post at https://meetedgar.com/blog/benefits-content-curation/

Transcript:

Content curation is one of the most talked about strategies in social media. Whether you have heard of the 80/20 rule or read “Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook,” or any other article about building your social media calendar (ahem, we hope you read ours!), you probably know the importance of curating content. But while many people employ some form of content curation, not everyone maximizes the benefits they can actually see from this strategy.

Let’s start at the beginning though for any newbies who are kick-starting their social media strategy with us!

Social media content generally comes in two forms: content you create and content you curate. The content you create is anything that drives people to your products, services or websites. It could be your latest blog post, promotion for an upcoming sale, your podcast, your videos, etc. In general, if you write, design or in any way create something, then it’s created content.

Curated content, on the other hand, is anything you share that is not created by you but is still beneficial to your audience. Content curation is finding, organizing and sharing relevant information to your audience with the intention of adding value.

That last piece is especially important for content curation. Well curated content is valuable to your audience, not just in its content, but also in your opinion or thoughts on that content. If you’re curating content well, you’re adding your own value to it.

When you consider the two different types of content, the benefit to curated content is clear. It takes far less time to gather curated content than to create content.

This is huge if you’re a busy solopreneur. We all know that creating content is time-consuming and when you’re running your own business and handling everything that comes with it, you might not have the time to create as much content as you want.

So what do you do when you have social media pages that need content and you don’t have the time to create enough content to keep those pages consistent?

Ding, ding, ding! You curate content!

Curating content saves you time and keeps your social media pages looking active and engaging. As an added bonus, you’re giving your audience the ability to learn from a diverse list of resources. They’ll be able to access a well-rounded view of your industry, because of you.

Curated content also breaks up the monotony of talking solely about you and your business.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, no one wants to hear anyone talk about only themselves. Curating content diversifies social media content so that you’re not just speaking about you.

These are the most popular content curation benefits but there are actually a few more benefits. And these lesser-known benefits are actually the most important ones, the ones that will help you actually be recognized as an influencer and a thought leader in your space.

1.Portrays you as a thought leader

It’s one thing to share other people’s content. It’s another thing to add your own thoughts, opinions and context to it. This makes it a unique fit for your audience and it helps to share someone else’s content in your own words and it can encourage a conversation.

Entrepreneur Rand Fishkin demonstrates this extremely well with this tweet. He shares news about Instagram, adds his own context and then makes it fit to his audience, Twitter followers, by talking about Twitter’s efforts in that area. The tweet curates content but includes his own thoughts and sparks conversation. That is how you establish yourself...

Check out the full post at https://meetedgar.com/blog/future-social-media-metrics/

Transcript:

Metrics have changed over the years as the platforms have grown and social media marketing has evolved. While there have been lots of changes, there’s always been a general belief that more followers and more likes will lead to more engagement and that is the key to success.

But now things are changing and the metrics everyone thought were important, may not matter as much.

Earlier this year, Instagram began experimenting with hiding like counts. While users will still be able to see their like counts, they won’t be displayed publicly. According to Instagram, “We are testing this because we want your followers to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.”

There’s no word on if this experiment will become permanent. However, another social media platform made a similar change that is seemingly permanent.

YouTube is changing how they show subscriber counts. YouTube will now show an abbreviated subscriber count for any channel with more than 1,000 subscribers. So, if an account has 4,378 subscribers, the subscriber number would show as 4.3k. YouTube creators will still be able to view their total subscribers in their YouTube creator studio.

These changes may seem small, but could they be the start of a tipping point into a social media world where, dare we say it, vanity metrics cease to exist?

Probably not.

Let’s face it, some brands and content creators will always care how many likes they receive and how many followers they amass. But hopefully, this can persuade more content creators to finally focus on the metrics that really matter.

For years, marketers, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, focused on growing reach and engagement, which typically meant increasing their followers, likes and comments. At surface level, this isn’t a bad thing. Those metrics can indicate there’s an interest in your content and that you have a connection to your audience. But too many creators got blinded by the numbers. Many began to only focus on those numbers, instead of what those numbers were meant to represent.

Creators began scrambling to attract huge followings, obtain massive like counts and receive as many comments as possible. This led to many unethical tactics, like buying bots to automate likes or buying fake likes to make pages appear more influential.

All of these fake tactics lead to overinflated follower numbers and generic “Love your content!” comments, which don’t do anything to build a business. They also fail to highlight what content is great, what content doesn’t resonate or what an audience really wants to see from a creator.

So as platforms slowly shift away from focusing on followers and likes, the big question is, will these changes make any difference to how creators leverage social media to build their businesses?

First of all, it’s important to note that even though followers won’t see those metrics, the content creator will still be able to see their likes on Instagram and their total subscriber count on YouTube in their analytics dashboards. The exact metrics can be measured, but they won’t be as transparent to the world.

You can still share your content, measure your likes and track your subscriber counts. However, because people new to your content won’t see everything, they’re going to look for other indicators that you’re established and authoritative. Optimizing your content to promote authentic comments, conversations, and shares could show fans, followers, and strangers alike that...