Do you follow trends on social media for your business?
So... I like scrolling through social media as a distraction and to get ideas. And honestly... who doesn't? Happy chemicals anyone?
So... I like scrolling through social media as a distraction and to get ideas. And honestly... who doesn't? Happy chemicals anyone?
And I am noticing a lot of really cool trends. Mostly, I do the procrasti-scroll on my art account, not my work one, because liking cat and dancing videos on my work account will apparently ruin the algorithm? I don't know, but I keep those separate.
And I wanted an account to post only my art on, but that is definitely going out the window soon and I will be posting whatever I feel like because... fuck it, why not?
Anyway! So these really cool trends I am noticing are mostly on my personal account. I follow dancers, artists, writers, travellers, cats, clips from my fav shows, space facts, photos, random fan cams... it's an eclectic mix.
But I've been feeling very artistic recently, so I've been watching a lot more art reels with some truly amazing pieces and I noticed a few really cool trends. Then I had to try one of them out... and BAM... my art account (which has just under 50 followers) suddenly had 1.5K views on one of my reels.
And I immediately thought I got this! I can totally rock social media and get popular. And of course, I started thinking about how I could implement that trend on my work account. Because the personal one is honestly... I don't care for the attention on there (not saying it's not nice when I get it). But I want the attention on my business account because... business, right?
Now, I do want to mention a few things.
Firstly, I am in no way an expert on social media. I work with an SMM because I am not and I know this. This article isn't to tell you about how to get popular on Instagram or how to get higher metrics or anything like that. This is the type of stuff that comes into my head in situations like these.
Secondly, I had reels back at the beginning of 2021 on my business account. They disappeared randomly right before I was doing a huge launch. I complained and then forgot about them. Then I got on TikTok and holy shit, that is a lot of work, so I decided to leave this whole short video creation to the experts instead of spending hours on it. Now I have reels on my business account again and these trends!!!
Social media is ruining my sanity. Seriously.
If you haven't noticed from the way this article is written, it's a different style than usual because I am feeling so manic and ready to bounce around the entire room and not caring about my grammar at all (Grammarly can only do so much when my brain decides to explode like this).
The point I am trying to get to, somehow, is that TRENDS DON'T MAKE YOUR BRAND BETTER!
Phew... that took a while to get out.
Here is what I wanted to share with you regarding my recently returned passion for reels.
1. I spent way too much time the first time reels came out to try and create something and reach more accounts. This included...
Almost throwing my phone at something multiple times when reels crashed on me
Downloading countless video editing apps (see reason above for this)
Getting annoyed at the limits, ads, lack of features, and bugs in those apps
Getting distracted by cool features, filters, or effects on those apps
Avoiding my phone because I felt like I have to do this because everyone else is doing it
Wracking my brain for cool reel ideas when I wasn't in that frame of mind
Putting myself down because I am supposed to be creative and I couldn't come up with shit
Let's just say that in the 2-3 months I had reels, I created seven of them with a combined total view count of 2K.
Quick reminder, I dropped one random one on my personal account and was at 1.5K views in the first hour. The one I dropped after that got stuck in the double-digit views (as in 99 views). The one after that... 10. Not 10K, 10 views (and I'm pretty sure half of them were from my sister).
Now, this leads to my second point...
I started getting a lot of really cool ideas for reels based on the trends happening and this brought me to a realization. But before I got there, I ended up...
Spending way too much time scrolling through reels using a specific trending sound
Spending way too much time planning on a cool reel to create
Spending way too much time on filming, editing, and coming up with a caption for said reel
Spending no time at all on thinking about my services or audience
Losing a potential client. Yes, seriously. I forgot to reply to her enquiry because I was so focused on these stupid reels that by the time I got back to her, she said she found someone else. That was embarrassing!!
Yes, we all like the scroll... but do you really want to watch videos of me dancing or booping my cats?
They're cute, personal, you can get to know me... but one of my biggest brand values is sharing knowledge and it is really hard to connect my cat's toe-beans to brand strategy. Trust me... I've tried. It is possible, but it is also kind of stupid.
Now... going back to my original message with this email... cool artist trends on reels.
I want you to think for a moment, I have a few questions for you for when you are scrolling through reels (or TikToks) for a distraction...
Do you like the reel even if it's not related to your business?
Do you stop to read the caption?
Do you stop to open the account?
Do you look at other reels/posts on the account?
Do you follow the account?
Do you click the link in the bio?
My answer for most of those is no. I do, sometimes, read the caption when I am curious what it's about or to get some ideas for my own captions, but even that is rare. In fact, there are only a handful of accounts I've started following because of reels and every single one of them, I started following because I was sitting with my sister, looking for that one really cool reel I wanted to show her, but I can't find it, so I remind myself to follow the account next time I see them. And then she never sees that really cool reel anyway because I forget about it.
Now, I'm not saying everybody is like that. What I am saying though is, do you honestly want to spend hours on creating a reel that may get that treatment, only because it's trending? If you create reels regularly, if this is your thing, if this is what your audience loves, do it. But don't do it for the trends and the views.
Personally, I hate it when people tell me just be yourself, that will attract people. No, Karen, it won't. No matter how obsessed I am with my cat, her sleeping position will not get people to buy my services. But I will be doing more of these random rants because while reels aren't my thing, manically trying to get crap out of my head through writing is. Enjoy!