10 tiny tweaks that had a massive impact on our social media growth

How we grew a social media following of ~60,000 in 1.5 years (organically)

Image by Mariam Chagelishvili 

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Want to know the secret to the social media shitstorm?

Be privileged enough to hire someone else to do it.

Can’t do that? Neither could Ben and Karina, that's how I got my job (;

I’m Shelby, Chill Subs & Write or Die’s Social Media Girl. I joined the team when CS was 8 months old, my qualifications being that I’m Ben’s girlfriend and have a smartphone.

Those things weren’t gonna get me far, so I hard launched into learning everything I could about social media. After taking various courses and burning through gurus I began to notice some repetition in the advice;

1. Post 5 stories a day.

2. Get on tik-tok.

3. Buy my E-book. 

This isn’t bad advice, but it's not how we grew. I’m too self-conscious for tik-tok and we don’t have enough to say to post 5x a day. Maybe the good stuff was in the E-book I was too cheap to buy. 

Regardless, it irks me that most social media advice is useless if you don’t plan on becoming an influencer. There are way more people using these platforms like my dad than Kylie Jenner. Where is the advice for them? 

That's why I wrote my E-book…… kidding. It’s why I made today's post, hope it helps.

If you are a magazine/business/someone who is looking to build a personal brand through creating informative social media content, read all of these tips.

If you’re a writer/creator/person who wants to be show up casually but as effectively as possible, you’ll mainly get value from the tips with *stars next to them. 

*1. I’m going to be selfish 

And tell you to optimize your bio and your damn username. So often I go to tag a writer and spend forever scouring screen names, only to find out that the brilliant poet who’s words brought me to my knees’ username is sugarkitten95 -_-

Unfortunately not everyone will spend the time looking and you’ll miss out on exposure and opportunities to engage with new audiences, so just give it a little love. 

This is the best guide for doing this I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of guides.

2. Your hook/title is 90% of it

The hook is what gets people in, the first 3 sentences get them invested, and connection and sunken time keep them reading.

Recipe for an effective hook:

• Start with a number

• Make it super easy to understand (shouldn’t require context)

• Use sexy adjectives

• Address a pain point

• Plainly state a benefit

Something like ‘10 tiny tweaks that had a massive impact on our social media growth’

3. NEVER save the best for last

Ok hooks all set, now let's talk about those first 3 sentences. 

Start off with your best stuff first. Naturally people are going to think “there's more where that came from” and feel motivated to keep reading if you start with something good.

Same thing happens when you put something shitty first, they will think “there's more where that came from” and click away.

Bread crumbing IS a technique you can use where you lead people to the final slide to get the good stuff, but this only works if the content along the way is also engaging. 

*4. The biggest social media booster that almost everyone ignores 

Is engagement. Divvy up your allotted time between engaging and posting. Getting your content in front of people is hard because there are many accounts and Instagram's search mechanisms suck. 

When you comment on posts in your niche, you support fellow creators and put yourself in front of their(and your)audience. THE COMMENTS HAVE TO BE GENUINE THOUGH <3

Why it works: People only read comment sections when they are interested in a topic. When they see an interesting comment with a niche relevant username, they're likely to check out that profile.

When they’re met at the door with your great content - boom.

*5. A plug and play 15 minute engagement routine 

• Reply to every comment and dm.

• Thank everyone who shares your stuff. 

• Leave one GENUINE comment a day on a post within your sphere that resonates - Think of this comment as micro-content: Make a joke or share a tip.

This comment from Karina makes me laugh every time - but there’s a little lesson here:

AT LEAST 14 people saw this comment.

Let's say writing 1 comment a day put you in front of 14 new people, if you did this 365 times you’d land in front of 5,110 faces that are interested in what you’re doing.

*6. The best advice ever (for real) 

When I first started building our socials and had no clue where to start, Ben gave me a piece of advice that changed my life.“Find people that do things well, figure out what it is that makes what they’re doing good, and apply those same techniques to what you’re doing” 

I did that and it worked. Every time I found myself enjoying someone's content, I figured out why.

I kept revisiting Kalypsodesigns page because the slides evoked the same feeling Apple products do. I reasoned that if he knew to create that feeling then he understood how to capture people’s attention. I wasn’t about to rip off his signature design, but I did observe how he taught concepts through storytelling in a simplified way and I figured out how to bring that onto our feed. 

I found myself frequently caught by the hooks on the covers of sugarpunchmarketing’s carousels and loved that the advice that followed was equally as interesting. I felt respected as a reader and vowed to do that for our folks too. 

“The artist is a collector… Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.” 

-

Austin Kleon

Steal Like An Artist (PS EVERY CREATIVE HUMAN SHOULD READ THIS BOOK) 

7. If you don’t wanna read it neither will they

This isn’t my advice actually, I don’t remember where I heard it but it's good. Basically it was “If you, the writer, the person who has more vested interest in the piece more than anyone else can’t be bothered to finish reading through it, no one else is going to.” Oof. Stings but it's true. 

Any content we post gets at least 2 read throughs and nothing publishes till I can read it cover to cover without venturing off into thoughts about what kind of dog I would be or if the stanley cup is worth the money.

To deliver a delightful scrolling experience prioritize…

8. Readability over style every time

If you have to make any sort of effort to make out what something says - fix it. Change the font, colors or make it bigger.

9. “Why waste time say lot word, when few word do trick” - Kevin Malone 

If trying to share lots of words, try not to make the writing take up more than half the page. Less words will make people read longer, which will end up delivering your point better than if you used more words for a thorough description. 

I struggle with this cuz I think everything I have to say is important, it's not.

When this does happen to be the case, the best results come from dividing the content into multiple posts or a series.

*10. If you take one thing from this post please god make it this

Social media is overly saturated and bad for us. If you’re a writer, creator, magazine whatever the fuck and you find yourself discouraged/too burnt out to work on the your actual project because trying to promote it on social media is a full time job I strongly urge you to do this: 

Turn your socials pages into landing pages. There's a million ways to do this and there is no shame in it. Spend a month building these up, then just post whenever you can. No schedule, no pressure, nothing. 

You’ll likely find yourself showing up MORE because things feel manageable. I can make a followup post about how to do this if you want, just please PLEASE don’t let social media steal your joy.

 

Let’s circle back to privilege 

Chill Subs is naturally easy to promote. The database is useful, there is name recognition and I swear to god the people in this community will go above and beyond to help you out because they know how shit it feels to pour your heart into something and have people ignore it.

Also I’m not doing this alone. There are pieces of all of us in our posts, words from Karina, Ben, Kailey, ridiculously talented contributors the list goes on and on, and they are beautifully packaged by Nikita, a brilliant designer and even better friend. 

We’ve had selfless people with strong social media presences such as lilith noah give us a hand and magazines constantly hype us up.  Sometimes I feel like my position may actually be tits on a bull because our community just takes our  content and runs with it. 

The real secret to social media is fucking luck.¹  

Okay, now I gotta do my thing. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA ⬇️

• Submitting advice & opportunities: Chill Subs Instagram

• Writing memes & motivation: Write or Die Instagram

• Industry discussions & updates: Chill Subs Twitter

• Published works & magazine updates: WoD Twitter

• If you prefer facebook: Chill Subs Facebook / Write or Die Facebook

1. Note from the rest of CS team: She’s full of shit here. She runs like 12 social medias and all we have to do is clap and occasionally send pictures. Our luck has a name.