This is your reminder to never — EVER — let go of your branded social media handles. Why? Because there is always someone ready to claim it. And that’s exactly what happened to Tourism Regina. In March it rebranded to Experience Regina (and a very edgy campaign related to genitalia), and apparently released its Twitter handle (TourismRegina) as part of the rebrand. Also in March, someone grabbed the old handle and turned it into a parody account. That is bad enough, but now Tourism Regina is going back to its old branding due to backlash over the campaign. And that Twitter handle is now gone (and the owner seems to be intent on keeping “Experience Regina” going). Here’s my recent TikTok video if you want the full story.
In today’s newsletter:
A Tale of Two Short-Form Videos: Getting Caught Up in My Own Vanity Metrics
Reels Gets New Editing and Discovery Features
Twitter Expands Creator Subscriptions
Wendy’s National Roast Day: 😂 or 😳
A TALE OF TWO VIDEOS
“I just got over 2,000 views!” I excitedly told my husband one night. I’ve been experimenting with short-form videos on TikTok, and after posting several videos with an average of 200 views, I felt like I had hit the jackpot when I saw how many views my recent videos got. But when I took a closer look at the metrics, I realized that I couldn’t be more wrong.
I wasn’t wrong about the number of views (which now sit at over 2,800 views), but I was wrong to get excited, because that video actually didn’t meet any of my goals for the platform (and even annoyed a few people, lol). Let me explain…
1/4 My Goals
Views can be a great metric, particularly for content creators and influencers who earn passive income based on this metric. But becoming a content creator isn’t one of my goals, so views alone aren’t really going to help me succeed.
Here are a few of the goals I’ve set out as I focus on creating content for TikTok (which I’ve only been doing for about six weeks or so):
Long-term goals
To become better at creating short-form video (it really is the future)
To build brand awareness of my email newsletter
Short-term goal: To get to 1,000 followers so I can add a link to the TSP newsletter in my bio (that’s the minimum threshold for this feature with a business account)
2/4 The video
There are so many great content creators on TikTok who are willing to share their tips on how to get better at short-form content, and how to create engaging content. And one of the tips I came across was about building anticipation.
So, I thought I would try a video where I held back a bit on the actual topic. I chose social media audits, which isn’t the sexist topic, and I thought I might be able to tease people into the video a bit more. Here’s the video. Based on the number of views, I did, but only kind of. This is what actually happened:
I annoyed people. (and these comments don’t hurt my feelings; at least one person was actually trying to help!)
No one actually watched more than a few seconds of the video. This actually bothers me a lot more than the comments. Because while the video looks successful, viewer retention was terrible. I didn’t get any new followers. And engagement on the video — other than people telling me how terrible it was — was very low.
3/4 Lower, but better
Many of my other videos are now averaging around 400 views, and while that doesn’t sound as good as 2,800, I tend to pick up more subscribers from these videos, engagement is much higher — and the comments are actually about the content in the video — and retention is much better. Here is the retention rate from my Tourism Regina video.
4/4 Lessons learned
I’m going to keep experimenting — I’m still so new to short-form video, and while this video didn’t work, I still need to keep trying out new intros and types of videos to see what will work. And I really don’t think I’ll have any idea what I’m doing until I’ve filmed about 100 of these (at least, that’s what Mr. Beast says).
I’m happy to fail — When I first posted the audit video, it had about 91 views for about the first 12 hours (I almost deleted it to be honest). But when I checked after another 12 hours, I saw a big jump in views, which again, I was pretty excited about — until I dug into the metrics and saw the comments. But I think you learn more from failing than you do from succeeding.
I’m going to keep my goals in mind — It’s so easy to get excited about a big jump in views, likes, etc. But unless your goals are to get a lot of views, then this metric really doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is whether the effort you are putting into something is helping to meet the goals you’ve set out.
🍓 SOCIAL SNACKS 🍓
Reels gets new editing and discovery features
Meta just announced new TikTok-like features for Instagram Reels, which will start rolling out over the next few weeks. The new editing features seem to be the most popular (based on the responses I’m seeing). Here are all of the updates:
Reels Trends: In the professional dashboard, you’ll soon have an option to view Reels Trends (globally), including trending songs, topics, and hashtags
New Metrics: Reels creators are also getting improved insights, including average watch time and total watch time
Gifts: Instagram is expanding its digital gifts program, which is currently just available in the U.S., to Canada, Australia, Mexico, France, New Zealand, and the U.K. You will also be able to see who sends you a gift so you can send a thank you.
Editing: And last but not least, Instagram is rolling out new editing features. “We’re making it easier for you to edit your reels on Instagram by bringing together video clips, audio, stickers, and text on a unified editing screen,” Meta said in a blog post.
Twitter Expands Creator Subscriptions
Creator Subscriptions (currently only available in the U.S.) are about to become available to more creators, in more countries. “Creators in Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can now enable subscriptions on this platform. Our goal is to maximize the prosperity of creators!” Musk tweeted. Want to apply? Go to your profile and click on Monetization, then Subscriptions, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on “Check eligibility.”
***Note: The three criteria are listed below. I actually had to add my birth date to my profile before I qualified for the last one.
ICYMI
LinkedIn announces new, free verification features [LinkedIn Blog]
Snapchat expands the sounds music library [Snapchat Blog]
YouTube shares tips on how creators can optimize for connected TV viewing [Social Media Today]
Twitter’s new API rules just blocked National Weather Service alert accounts and others from working [Mashable]
WENDY’S NATIONAL ROAST DAY: 😂 OR 😳
I get so excited every year for Wendy’s “National Roast Day.” In case you’ve never heard of it, it was invented by the fast-food burger chain as a way to engage with its online community in a sassy way (here are some examples of past campaigns).
But this year, it looked a lot different. Instead of happening in January on Twitter, this year it ran from April 12-14. And the brand announced it would be exclusively on TikTok.
I agree that this is a great way to build an audience on a new platform. But I’m not too sure about the execution. The fact that they had an animated face delivering the “roasts” (rather than text-based tweets) made it seem “meaner” somehow. Maybe it was the tone or facial expressions? What do you think?
Here are a few examples from Wendy’s TikTok account:
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