Sam Meller is the Head of Social for The hustle and bustle, but we were allowed to borrow them briefly Masters in Marketing, because she makes everything she touches better.
So I got the opportunity to find out about it A tactical content shift that resulted in a staggering 35,000% increase in visibility on LinkedIn.
When I heard this story, I threw an Asana card into our editorial calendar so quickly that I almost broke my finger.
In short, it’s a cautionary tale that even good content may not be the right content for your audience. And how even in this data-saturated paradigm, sometimes you still need good old human instinct.
A tale of two goals
When Sam first took on her role at The hustle and bustle, She started by checking all the different social media channels.
“I really wanted to get a feel for what was working, what wasn’t working and where we had opportunities for growth.”
She quickly noticed a discrepancy: The hustle and bustle was great on Instagram, but on LinkedIn? They didn’t feel the love.
At that time, both channels used the same content strategy: daily recap videos in which the moderator of The Hustle Daily Show would provide an overview of the day’s headlines. Although these videos were popular on Instagram, they just didn’t seem to resonate The hustle and bustleis the LinkedIn audience.
This is where many marketers simply assume that LinkedIn simply isn’t the right channel for their brand. But with over a decade of experience in content marketing, Sam has learned to trust her gut.
“LinkedIn should be a really strong platform for us,” she explained. “Given that our entire brand is about businesses, careers and entrepreneurial technology, it’s a natural fit. But we haven’t really found traction.”
A tactical twist on themes
Around this time, Sam noticed that LinkedIn had introduced a (then-new) short video feature, similar to Instagram Reels.
“I’m just exploring (on LinkedIn) and I see a lot of these vertical videos from podcasts or explainer videos, and I’m like, ‘We’ve got this! Let’s try this!'”
But creating unique, tailored content for every channel would simply take up too much bandwidth and budget.
“I had the idea to test podcast clips from My first million with Sam Parr, the founder of The hustle and bustle.“And while having the same name didn’t hurt (sample bias? Wakka Wakka), their thought process was more about aligning thematically relevant content with the expectations of the platform.
The results were visible almost immediately.
“(Before the test) we had a total of 71,000 impressions in August and in September we had 25 million impressions on LinkedIn alone.”
Takeaways
Now, the portrayal of a well-known media figure certainly played a role, but before you dismiss this as simply facial recognition, consider this The hustle and bustle found similar success with less recognizable hosts.
After this test, Sam (Meller, not Parr) reached out to the podcast and YouTube teams to collect their top-performing content and turn it into clips that matched the mood of that audience. The numbers have not gone down.
“One of them had over a million views alone, compared to the 400 we had before.”
Here’s what Sam thinks you should take with you:
1. Don’t assume your brand has the same audience on every channel.
Which is obvious, right? How often You I like a company so much that you follow them on Instagram And LinkedIn?
And even if you did, would you want to watch the same video twice?
2. Audiences want to see people, not brands.
Sam attributes a lot of the success to showcasing the people behind the content.
“It’s really important to us that we showcase our talent and our people because I’m a firm believer that people want to follow others. They don’t want to follow a brand. They want to see personality.”
And that starts with your thumbnails.
“In almost all cases, the best videos start with a person’s face. Even if it’s just two seconds, you see a person and they captivate you.”
“I need a little more data before I can say this is 100% the reason. But I’ve been doing this long enough that my senses are tingling.”
3. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut feeling.
If Sam had followed the data blindly, she might have downgraded LinkedIn or abandoned it altogether. And The hustle and bustle would have lost millions of views and untold brand value.
“I respect the data. I use the data. I think it’s a fantastic tool, but I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t live and die by the data.”
Instead, view your data as a guide, not the be-all and end-all of your strategy.
When asked about the moral of the story, Sam puts it succinctly: “It’s really important to trust yourself and try new things. Don’t think, ‘Oh, that worked for us six months ago’.” The internet moves too fast to keep track of.”
