EP 71: TikTok Bans, Meta Madness, and Why Organic Marketing Still Reigns
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Acquire podcast. I'm your host Jenny Wright and this is a special solo episode. I had a completely different episode ready to go and I've had to sit down and the night before basically and record this because we are in a state of complete and utter social media chaos and you 1000% know what's going on when I say that.

Not only did we have a less than 12 hour TikTok ban for all of my friends in the United States, and I'm in Canada, so I didn't have that ban. And let me tell you, wow, did I see some really cool stuff coming up from our friends in the UK and Australia and New Zealand and places in Europe. Their content was just popping up on my For You page. And it was amazing. I mean, just fabulous.

12 hours later or less, the United States, boom, my friends are back on, everybody that I was following, great content was coming back on, but it is absolutely chaos. And the reason I wanted to talk about this and how it pertains to marketing and launches is we're seeing a change in how we're going to be able to get organic content out and also paid content. And I'm literally talking about this from a point of view of

The fact that I've recently become the CMO of a company, and it's a venture that I'm being part of now while still running my own business and taking care of clients. And we're starting from scratch, and I'm about to launch an SLO, a self-liquidating offer, which you typically run ads for. And so it was really important for me to sort of think about this as a CMO, as a

How am I going to effectively put out offers and will everything change? Won't it change? I really don't know yet. And I don't think anybody knows anybody who says they do. I'm not sure. So I don't know about you, but are you exhausted yet by this social media rollercoaster? I mean, I,

Wow. All right. So we have the TikTok ban, which we just spoke about, and meta being very meta right now. It's like every platform is in a full-blown identity crisis. And do not get me started on X. I will never call it X for long. I always call it Twitter or whatever Elon and his buddies are calling it this week. Social media has become incredibly unpredictable and incredibly unreliable. Like,

leaving businesses and content creators scrambling. You were seeing US content creators who were making their living or partial part of their living or some funds from the creator platform and all of a sudden they couldn't do it anymore. And we never had the creator fund in Canada, so we couldn't monetize any TikTok channels up here, but my friends to the South definitely could and they were making some good money.

So today I want to really drive, you know, really get into why organic marketing is not only the same, but the scalable and sustainable choice and the way forward in this insane dumpster fire, which we find ourselves. So,

you know we we still have a looming threat of a tick tock ban in the future and this is definitely impacting creators it's definitely impacting brands i will say that uh some brands really came out ahead in the past like 72 hours before the ban you have like duolingo and a whole bunch of other companies that just had some of the best content come out as this thing was kind of ramping up um

But if you are trying to get your content in front of your ideal audience and you want to build a thriving community,

Well, you need to figure that out. And if you're putting all your eggs in one basket and that basket being something that may or may not be banned, you're going to find yourself into some trouble. So let's talk about it. We have constant algorithm changes happening right now, especially on Facebook, especially on Instagram. Anything with meta, we're seeing a really big change in the algorithms. We're seeing pay-to-play dynamic. And now we're seeing a subscription frenzy happening.

Hello, MetaVerified. I still haven't done it and I won't. But remember when Instagram was about sharing like cute photos of your friends and your pets, right? Now it feels like a slot machine and it's incredibly pay to play. And I have no idea. I do not have a crystal ball as to what's going to happen in the not so distant future.

And along with X, you know, this reign of chaos over there, there's a lot of loss of brand trust, right? And there's a shift away from what its original purpose was. Whether you align left or right or in the middle, it doesn't matter to me, okay? I'm not American. So the politics down there, I just, I stay out of, basically. And this podcast has nothing to do with that. But...

I can't advise my clients to spend money on a platform where things are just in chaos. So let's get into this sort of like organic marketing because it is the safe zone right now, okay? It is the absolute safe choice to be looking at. It is where you can have control. So your email list isn't gonna change its algorithm. You own it, you control it, and no billionaire or anybody else can mess it up for you. And so when we're looking at

Creating content for our email list and even growing our email list, you have to look at the places where that can happen in a really flowy way with a lot less of the day-to-day work.

you know, just craziness that's going on. And this is where I'm going to recommend, and I'm going to be launching these for this, this company where I'm the CMO, we're going to be doing some summits. So we're going to be doing a Q2 summit. I'm doing a hybrid summit and a slightly modified, it's kind of like a hybrid mini summit. So it's, you know, about 12 speakers and some really cool stuff. And so summits are still an incredible opportunity.

way to organically reach your audience without having to pay for ads because I honestly do not know what's going to happen. I've been having great success with ads for clients and I have somebody who supports me and my team to do these ads. She's amazing.

But what's going to happen? I really don't know. And so when we look at organic marketing, we're looking for the authenticity of it, right? So people are super deeply craving those real human connections and they're looking for organic strategies. Obviously, we just talked about email marketing. Blogs are still having a really good impact and I suspect they'll continue to have a great impact. And personal branding, building trust and loyalty, right?

We're still seeing companies being rewarded for really good SEO, although that SEO is changing. It's not just keyword stuffing anywhere. It is really creating some good content. And we always have to remember that organic marketing is not about selling. It's about connecting and building up that brand and building up that access to a trustworthy company, trustworthy products. And that connection is incredibly... I mean, it has no price. It is priceless.

in what feels like a world full of so much digital noise. And organic marketing is always going to be sustainable. Paid ads are skyrocketing in cost depending on where you're using them. Although I will say that depending on the campaign that I'm running with clients, we're seeing some really great results. You know, I can get like 50,000

I don't know, 50 cents per click or something like that, depending on if it's an awareness campaign or not. So awareness campaigns seem to be doing pretty good. But I just did a campaign. It was, it definitely was a campaign that was to purchase. It was to purchase a course. And the course was $45. And our cost per click at the beginning of the campaign was like $55. And we were still trying to refine the campaigns. And we were still building up a little bit of awareness.

and retargeting. And when we were retargeting, obviously that price came down and we're seeing that price now come in alignment. So that's an SLO, by the way, it's a $45 SLO self-liquidating offer. It's a $45 course that goes into two different offers. And then the backend offer is lucrative for the client. It's like a $9,000 course. And so the SLO, the whole point of it is that it pays for itself.

And, you know, I was a little concerned for the first two or three weeks that we were running these ads because we were seeing that the price was really, really high. And now it's coming back into play, which is, you know, its balance is coming, which is great. So...

Even though you might be seeing skyrocketing costs in ads and the ROI for you might be dwindling and you should really keep a good eye on it, organic strategies are going to help you build long-term equity in what you're doing. It is better, cheaper, faster, stronger to have incredible relationships and build a ton of trust. And so this is where consistency comes in. And I've talked about consistency a lot on this podcast. The consistency is so key and it is

literally the thing that should be what you work on all the time. And I know personally, and I've talked about this before as well, that I struggle with consistency. Consistency is difficult for me sometimes because I get too busy and I always prioritize everybody else before I prioritize my own socials or my own business. And that can, that causes me to, you know, fall into that problem. This is where I rely on my team to,

to create the consistency for me to make sure to remind me, you know, I've got constant reminders to stay on top of these things, because if not, I will forget. I will always put somebody else ahead or before my own marketing, to be quite honest.

And so how we want to lean into this organic marketing when we're looking at the next couple of months, because they're going to be crazy, right? They're already crazy right now, but you need to double down on email. My prediction is that email is going to be the thing that people are actually going to start paying more and more attention to. We've never seen people really leave email, although we have seen an overwhelming email and trends come and go and fads, you know, fast and furious. They're here, they're there.

But...

I really want you to lean into building your list, nurturing your list, and prioritizing quality over quantity. It is your safety net. Your email list is your safety net. If TikTok gets banned again, which it may or may not, I think there's a 90-day stay of the ban that's going to happen in the next 24 hours. But if it goes away and that was your platform, or if Meta is your platform, and I will tell you that there's a lot of people who are

Because of the TikTok ban and how ticked off they are towards Mark Zuckerberg and other people who were participating and trying to get this ban, there's a lot of interest in that. There was a whole group of people. I think they were saying it was millions of people. I really can't verify that. But there's a lot of people who were saying that they were going to start boycotting Meta.

And so if you're using Meta to send out your ads or basically just to communicate with your leads and your potential audience, you have to have a backup plan and your email list is that safety net. So please make sure you're investing time and energy in that. I really want to recommend, this is number two,

is creating evergreen content that is going to serve you over and over and over. So high quality blog posts, high quality YouTube videos, podcasts. Podcasts still have so much staying power. And

When people have nothing that they can do in terms of like, you know, scrolling their favorite content, they're going to fall back on these things. YouTube's not going anywhere. As far as I know, blog posts are awesome and podcasts. And so make sure you're creating this evergreen content and a blog post doesn't disappear into the algorithm abyss, right? It keeps working for you day in, day out. It's awesome.

And, you know, some people are like, oh, I don't want to blog. Actually, a funny thing. And here's a little story. I am working with a new client. This is a completely different client. Just started working with them at the end of November. But we've been slowly building up and I'm going to be working on launching their business with a website. And the website has to be out in April.

And I said, okay, so we're going to get some blogs up and everything. And the client's like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want any blogs. Blogs are a pain in the ass. They don't do anything, blah, blah. And I was like, no, no, no, you absolutely need to have some blogs. It's just, you know, you need to get that content up there because it's going to work for you in the long run. If and when Google starts indexing your site and starts crawling it and starts rewarding you for your SEO, it's

that we will do, then those blogs are going to be valuable to you. If people start creating some search terms or putting into Google whatever search term that they're looking for and your company comes up because you have a blog written about it, that's awesome. And right now with Google's AI suggesting all sorts of crazy content at the top of the page, if you scroll, you should see some really good content that's actually like actual content and not AI generated. And that's what you want your blog to be.

Third thing is SEO. And I'm not an SEO expert, but I know enough to be dangerous. And that's enough for me to get by. And I want you to optimize your website and your content to ensure that it is discoverable. Okay. Your website has to have the right elements. That could be a plugin.

to help it get discovered that is a, and doing all the meta tags and all the descriptions. Um, I, and also making sure that it is, uh, accessible now that's not SEO, but I also love some accessibility. Uh, so putting on those descriptions, those alternate descriptions on photos so that people who are, uh,

not able to see the photo or have some impairment in that way can still have their services on their computer or their phone tell them what that picture is. Really helpful, by the way. So SEO is not sexy. It's a pain in the ass and it is boring AF, but it is the gift that keeps on giving. And if you invest a little bit of time effort into it, you will get rewarded. So absolutely don't forget about that.

Number four is community building. I really, really want you to lean into memberships, into forums, into private communities, and connect with people on your own terms. Make it authentic to you. You know, why put all this energy into platforms that you don't own, where you can only create content, but it could be gone tomorrow, when you can create your own little content and your little corner of the internet just for yourself and the people that get you, right? So,

And so I really want to recommend that you do that. And then last but not least is your strategy and being strategic with social. So use platforms as tools, not your entire strategy. Do not put all your eggs in one social media basket.

Focus on repurposing your content and driving traffic to the assets that you own. And you might be on the bandwagon of joining things like Lemonade. Some people have gone all the way over into Redbook and other ones. Blue Sky, Neptune is coming out and that's in beta right now. And Blue Sky is still pretty small at the time that I'm recording this, but it is growing. So

Be strategic with your social. And there's a lot of opportunity to do some really cool things on some of these new platforms. I'll tell you, if you know who Katie Brinkley is, she's one of my good friends. And we've worked together for a number of years. And, you know, I had the pleasure of sharing a hotel room with her in September when we were in D.C. for a conference yesterday.

And she's amazing. Okay. So she's fabulous. And when clubhouse came out, she jumped on that thing so fast and she had a meteor, like just this massive growth in a very short period of time. Like she had so many followers incredibly quickly and it actually helped her business like extensively. But it's because she was an early adopter. I'm typically not an early adopter. That's just my nature. Um,

But I know and I see the opportunities and I jump on them when and if I feel comfortable. I wasn't loving Clubhouse at the time. I mean, I saw the power in it, but it was just honestly, for me, it was a huge time suck and I couldn't get into it. But Katie did an amazing job with it and she flourished on there and it grew her business and it grew her renown. She got speaking gigs and so on.

just because of Clubhouse. And I remember distinctly building a funnel for her, selling her like Clubhouse trips, like tips, Clubhouse tips and tricks. And she made a ton of new leads off of that and some good money too. So those are the top five things that I'm like going to tell you to lean into right now. So that's email, evergreen, SEO, community, and being strategic where you're putting your time and efforts into social.

So just as a recap here, you're absolutely feeling this insane amount of chaos right now with social media, but you don't have to play the game and the same game as everybody else because you're going to lose. So organic marketing is your lifeboat. And I really want to encourage you to audit your social media or your audit. Well, audit in general, your marketing strategies and your social media strategies in particular, and ask yourself, okay,

How much of your business relies on platforms that you simply cannot control? And when you can look at platforms that you can control, and I mean a platform like a summit, you can host or you can be on one. You can host or have a bundle. I have a continuous bundle running called Many Bundles. And you can apply to be a contributor there if you want. You can go to manybundles.com. I will give you a spot on this bundle for 90 days. I give you 90 days of exposure. And that means you can grow your list. Most bundles last 10 days.

My partner and I were like, nope, we're doing it for 90. We're going to give people as much exposure as possible. We saw what was coming down the pike and many bundles was the answer. So make sure you're putting your time and effort where you should. And I want you to make sure that you're also taking the time to up-level certain things in your business that are going to have an impact. Like make sure your lead magnets are on point. Make sure if you are in a bundle, that's a really great product. Up-level your landing pages. Make sure your email marketing...

Your, you know, your renewal sequence, not renewal, sorry, your registration sequences are fabulous. Update them with new information. Have you created a Seinfeld sequence? If not, maybe you should. And so on and so forth. So remember, your business does not have to be at the mercy of social media. This madness is crazy. You've got the power to build something completely sustainable, scalable, wildly successful, and

And all by doing it organically. So I really want to see you do that. And I really hope you take this advice. All right, that is enough for today. Social media craziness is here to stay at the moment. I am not loving this roller coaster, but I am watching it with a bag of popcorn because it is pretty cool.

Thank you so much for listening to the Acquire podcast. If you like what you're hearing, make sure you do follow or subscribe wherever it is that you're listening. Leave me a comment or review. I would love to hear from you. And make sure you're checking out all the great episodes that we have coming up. I am so excited. I have some really great friends and they are absolutely amazing.

Just like really great episodes. Like next week, we've got Brad Sugars on. We've got Whitney Bateson coming up. Jen Espinoza Goswami, who is adorable. I adore this woman. Susan Diaz. She's amazing. She's all about AI. Steph Blake is fantastic. So she's ADHD and entrepreneurship and just these really great sort of like entrepreneurial hacks.

We've got Natalie Amlani coming up as well. And I've got a couple more up my sleeve. That takes us basically to April with all those guests. So make sure you're tuning in. Thank you so much again for being here. And we'll see you all soon. Take care.