Q&A With Beth Gladstone - Social Media State Of Play Masterclass
Beth and I have known each other for many years, we connected after I spoke at a conference in the early 2010’s, to appearing on her podcast in 2019 and it was great collaborating on a project in recent years.
Beth is one of those people who is brilliant and understands SEO strategy and social media like very few others. I wanted to have a quick-fire interview with Beth as I greatly respect her and also to shine a light on her masterclasses and how to think about the future of Social Media.
Q1/ Social media is evolving and the channels we love are changing quicker than ever, from Instagram to TikTok, what are the most important changes for in-house marketers to know and leverage?
Absolutely, social media looks very different now to even what it was a year ago. As an in-house marketer I’d be thinking of not just a channel strategy, but also a sub-channel strategy for example how are you using reels vs explore vs stories within Instagram, or your YouTube channel videos and playlists vs Shorts. Secondly, marketers need to think about what Adam Mosseri (Head of Product at Instagram) describes as “connected vs unconnected” reach, which basically means creating content for those who already know you and buy from you vs those who are coming across your brand for the first time. Which is something we naturally do for our website or email campaigns, but that’s new for social media.
Q2/ You are running a brilliant masterclass at the end of September on the state of play, what are some of the most important reasons why social media managers and marketing leaders should take the masterclass?
As marketers it can be really tempting to begin social media creation by asking “what do we want to share?” This often leads to brand messages the company is happy with, but that don’t inspire sharing or engagement. To be truly effective on social media today I believe we need to ask: who is my audience, what matters to them and how can I create that in a way that the channels will want to share? The masterclass is a deep-dive into how to do those two things based on where the algorithms on channels such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are today.
Q3/ User behaviour is changing on each channel, Instagram is slowly becoming more private for consumers and then shifting brands to broadcast running channels, whereas TikTok wants to own QVC-style sales and be the live streaming platform, do you have any thoughts on where these shifts in user behaviour might be taking brands and creators?
TikTok Shop is extremely lucrative for those who are adopting it early, but like all social media strategies, the benefit of early adoption is likely to fade over time. We also have to remember that what’s best for the channels (in Instagram’s case, very short-form video under 9 seconds, shared person-to-person) usually isn’t best for brands or creators. Which is why I’d also be looking outside of short-term tactics on these channels, to longer-term strategies on more evergreen channels like YouTube, or even decentralised platforms such as Threads or Mastodon.
Q4/ You have a unique knack (many don’t) in clearly explaining big shifts on social media platforms (via your Instagram stories and main feed), what should brands do next when reacting to the recent big shifts? Can you share 3-5 recommendations for adapting their social media plans to drive success in Q4?
For the upcoming quarters, I’d be thinking about:
Experimenting with how to “package” your content on social i.e. video vs text-on-screen vs carousel statics to see what’s most effective
Repurposing previous content that performed well, with something as simple as a different audio track or different type of packaging (something I see the biggest creators doing often)
Using keyword research on social media channels to find what phrases and entries users are searching and then using this to create content that answers those queries - social SEO is only going to become more important as users begin their discovery with a search
Connect With Beth
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-gladstone
Website → https://www.builtbycontent.com/
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/bethbycontent/?hl=en
Unofficial Mentor Newsletter → https://theunofficialmentor.substack.com/
If you would like to see Beth on my previous podcast on the future state of content together listen below ↓
Read the other quick-fire Q&A
With Paddy Moogan highlighting the issues with management roles and promotions agency side and how to improve your management skills
With Carl Hendy highlighting why SEO has to tie back to business goals and lead revenue conversations
Why Telegram Encryption Is Different
I am a big believer that where there is a network or a platform there are hundreds of people trying to work out if it will fit their use case, how they hack it for their use case or how to leverage it for their own gain.
Chat apps are no different. WhatsApp dominates Europe, WeChat dominates China, smaller iMessage groups still dominate the US, and Telegram is an essential resource in Russia and Ukraine.
Importantly, Telegram has captured several organisers, online personalities, and celebrities for its rich media and broadcast use case, and many movement leaders have leveraged its scale to have huge groups. FWIW If you have ever seen a t.me link that is a link created via Telegram.
In the video below, Ben Thompson goes into great detail on why some chat apps are more secure than others and why Telegram’s USP of allowing groups to be huge (into the tens of thousands) impacts their ability to be more secure and encrypted.
On the whole, Telegram is a very strong product, has many better features than the likes of iMessage and WhatsApp and despite what you think happens on platforms like Telegram, for a lot of the bad, there is a lot of knowledge sharing and groups for good on platforms like Telegram.
Instagram Views Metrics
Social media metrics change, constantly, it can be the most hotly contested subject by creators, influencers and brands.
Instagram updated “creators” yesterday that they were shifting to views as their primary aka most important metric (the video below explains this).
Adam Mossari the Head of Instagram shared - ““Views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos and carousels.”
He also clearly references the top new important metrics
Views (Adam Mossari rightly points out there can be multiple views per piece of content, so keep this top of mind)
Sends per reach (how many people are sending your content via DM)
Reach
Core Takeaways To Consider As A Creator, Influencer Or Brand:
Views as standardised metrics are smart for Instagram but may be a little misleading for creators, it will be moving creators and brands to create more compelling (most likely video) content that is built less for public engagement but created for “sends”
Views (count) are a critical metric on Threads too - highly engaged views will likely come next, and high-value views will also be considered by Instagram in the near future (who viewed, from where, how long or how many times)
Engagement will always be important, however, engagement is lowering across the board, reactions have dropped because we live in a constant flow of content (which is too much for most of us) - engagement in public and private via sends will be critical in working out away from watch time what is
Finsta’s (private friend accounts) and sinsta’s (meme-created accounts) have sent content via DM for a long time, this will likely see many more of these accounts created - a core internal Instagram metric
Instagram have openly talked about its creation problem, but many aren’t creating (pareto law aka the 80/20 law is likely at play here - 80% viewers, 20% creators) this is a way to see curation and potentially create playlists
Brands and creators - When creating content what you are creating, why you are creating this piece of content, who will be consuming and how it will prompt a share (in DM) - this will lead to smaller accounts with more influence and reach
Follower counts will likely drop, many don’t need to follow creators and brands anymore and rely on other signals to power your FYP. Inbox shares and any comments connected to shares will enable Instagram to add more juice into certain videos, creators and the content they create
Context of the share will be important, understanding why the content was shared, how it was viewed, the reaction and interaction around that content will be critical for Instagram to improve their product and beat out competitors like TikTok.
With an unique ability to improve Threads and potentially improve WhatsApp products from this learning.
My long-term view is Instagram is pushing users to create private groups (as this was naturally happening by users, even before the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram - these are core reasons why Meta invested so heavily) and networks of sends.
Private becomes the default and the culture of these apps, an important however here is - Instagram can build their new private graph (working out who and how people are connected) to change content consumption habits away from one feed into an inbox of content curated by friends, family and creators (sorry brands it will be highly unlikely you are included in this).
Brands You Don’t Have To Say Anything
One of my biggest bug bearers is how brands fell into the trap to say something every time something happened or every time there is a calendar event happening.
Brands let the social media companies mislead them, chasing engagement and using these channels as news platforms hasn’t brought you closer to customers or fans, it has cut your reach and diluted important things you need to say.
Quality will beat out quantity almost every time.
Why? In every training workshops, in most c-suite coaching and founder expert calls I am always asked questions along these lines, should we talk about this news story or should we share something on National X or Y day, the answer 99% of the time, is don’t say anything unless you are directly helping, immediately impacted by the event or you are the go-to resource.
A free tip: Unless your brand is directly involved - it is often smarter and more authentic to say nothing externally. You will have to cut through internal pressure and say no, this is your job as a leader, knowing when no beats yes and being focused on what makes you win.
Remember this deliberate approach doesn’t mean you (and your brand) don’t care, it means when you have something important to say you will get cut through and it will land with your customers.
The less time you spend in a ‘war room’ making hard decisions and press statements (and social posts) - the better for you, the team/department and the brand.
Chat Apps New Fight Your Love & Attention
For the last couple of decades I have been working with brands to think about the customer and potential customers more than just transactions, I have pushed for brands to become community led businesses (I have embedded my recent keynote deck below).
WeChat (1.35 billion MAUs) and Telegram (+900m MAU’s) have led the way for chat apps (instant messengers) to create community and enable brands, KOLs and influencers to engage with their audience/community.
Discord, Slack and Teams have become professional alternatives to community with some boasting thousands of paid subscribers.
WhatsApp has slowly but surely become an option for brands to cut through the algorithmic filtering of social networks and email and engage with broadcast and polling options.
What has struck me is the reach off the channels within WhatsApp, here is an example from my team Arsenal (football club) official channel with over 5m subscribers.
What - Arsenal’s official channel with a poll
Why - Brand new kit launch with adidas
How - Offering a poll to then post an update with their favourite player
Arsenal then shared the most popular player Bukayo Saka as voted by fans.
With over 4700 reactions (as time of writing this) and counting it shows how engaged football fans and communities could be.
The bigger question for brands to answer is could WhatsApp be a way to stand out for free until they flip the monetisation switch and turn it into another pay to play platform?
My take: If I was in a growth or marketing leadership role (again) with a company today and our brand was consumed weekly and a loved brand I would be pushing my team to test the channel and offer audio, behind the scenes looks and push for engagement from my most loved customers and superfans.
Maybe worth the extra few minutes every few days for your social team to dive into…