by David Andrew Wiebe | Jan 24, 2022 | Entrepreneurship
I don’t know at what point digital marketing got reduced to creating an Instagram cat meme account, but such ephemeral tactics are hard to tie to real results in the business world, and if your neck is on the line with your business and making payroll each month, such advice is thoroughly unhelpful and even perilous.
That said, I am not anti-social media. As with anyone else, though, I like to be liked, to be appreciated, to see engagement on my posts, to see my email subscribers go up, and ultimately, drive sales. This is where the real transformative difference is made in my life. Likes and followers are as meaningless as ice to an iceberg. I make no bones about the fact that sales are what light me up. And so, I experiment widely.
And recently, I’ve had traction on a handful of platforms. When all others seem to offer nothing, after I’ve given, given, and given some more, these are showing some appreciation in return.
Tealfeed
Tealfeed is fast becoming my favorite Medium replacement.
No matter how many great posts I write for and add to Medium, no matter how much I promote them, no matter how much consistency and tenacity I bring to my publishing efforts, I only see small amounts of engagement and a trickle of new followers.
I blogged daily for a year for crying out loud (I’m up to 18 consecutive months now).
It’s a completely different story on Tealfeed. Several of my posts have already gotten over 500 views (in 365 days, I never saw any of my stories on Medium exceed 300 views until after the fact). And my follower count on Tealfeed, while humble, reliably goes up every week if not every day.
I’m not planning to abandon Medium. But by the same token, I’m not seeing it amount to more than a few fruity Starbucks iced teas per month. And so, it’s not deserving of more attention from me.
I will go where the audience is. I will go where I’m appreciated and wanted. And let the cruel mistress of Medium meander meaninglessly in the mess of missed potential and moronic mockery of so-called Medium masters.
Now I’m just waiting for Tealfeed to add monetization options.
BitClout
Twitter? Nah, I’ll take BitClout any day.
Any time I go on a clout storm (which would be the equivalent of a Tweet storm), I see a ton of engagement on my posts. And my following count on the platform is incredibly humble. No matter – BitClout users are more active, generous, and engaged. And that makes a difference.
I see some engagement on Twitter, but never to the same degree.
After buying a couple of eBooks and learning everything I could about Twitter, I took it very seriously for about six months last year, only to see my follower count go up by 30. No, not daily. Not monthly. Total. And I’ve gone backwards from there.
I know some people are going to chime in with:
Yeah, reading two eBooks on Twitter isn’t going to make you a master.
Understand – I’m an old guard tweeter. I joined the platform in February 2009. I’ve taken multiple Twitter courses on HubSpot. I’ve shared original content, curated content, images, videos, threads, polls, practically everything you can think of. I’ve branded and re-branded my profile to appeal to my target audience. I’m pretty sure my tweet ship is not coming in. Twitter is dead.
Again, this is not to say I will not use Twitter. My sister continues to schedule my tweets for me (thank you!). But beyond that, there’s no way I’m going to give it as much time and attention as BitClout. No way.
Odysee
YouTube? Well, I have no intention of writing off YouTube, but in terms of engagement per capita and overall monetization potential, I can honestly say Odysee is far superior.
My daily publishing efforts and channel makeover efforts did lead to about 180 new subs on the Music Entrepreneur HQ YouTube channel last year, which is great, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of movement since.
And I’m not going to say that engagement on Odysee has been better by leaps and bounds. It has been better, but my impression is that audiences are still small.
What is quantifiably better is monetization, which is available to you as an Odysee user from day one, versus YouTube where you must get 1,000 subscribers first (and even then, you’re earning pennies on performance).
I haven’t entirely cracked the code on video yet, but for the extra five to 10 minutes it takes me to distribute my videos to Odysee, I can’t see why I wouldn’t.
Wisdom
Plenty of platforms are pushing audio-based conversations right now – Discord. Clubhouse. Didn’t Twitter create something similar too?
Who cares? I will go where I can get engagement and be rewarded for my work. And that’s Wisdom.
I have only gone live once on the platform (last week, in fact), and I have already seen more interest in my content there than on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter combined (because I usually multi-stream using StreamYard).
I have ranted on this very topic before, that in the world of social media you’re the donkey, and the platforms are the masters, shoving carrots in your face so you’ll stay. After a while, though, they take away even the carrots, knowing full well that you’ll be hopelessly addicted and keep coming back after their algorithm has taken a giant dump on your hard-earned engagement.
I, for one, turn away from such abuse, and cut off boat anchors as quickly as possible, because they can only weight you down. Give me a reason to go on the date, before asking me to commit to a nagging, sexless marriage.
I like what Wisdom is doing. They’re moving in a good direction. I don’t expect the gold rush to last forever (it certainly didn’t with NewsBreak), but I will take advantage of it while I can.
Final Thoughts
Beyond the platforms mentioned here, I also have TikTok in my crosshairs, because engagement on the platform is stupid. And by that, I mean you create stupid, lowest common denominator feeder content and get a stupid number of views on it.
Look, no matter the platform, ultimately, if I can’t tie it back to business results, I could give a hot damn. And that will always be my prerogative. That doesn’t mean I won’t be friendly, courteous, value-adding, as awesome as I can be in every situation. It just means I don’t care about your one million views unless you’re growing your email list or converting them to customers after the fact. Show me that you’re filling your funnel, or I don’t care.
Anyway, if you’ve any recommendations for viable Facebook and Instagram replacements, or other platforms you’re excited about and are turning hot right now, let me know.
