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Acquisition Channel Opportunities: FB/IG/Twitter Organic Reach, AdWords, Twitter's Content Marketing Calendar

If you want to get more paying users, you'll either need to experiment with new acquisition channels, or find better ways to use existing distribution channels.

After looking through hundreds of tech news last week, I've identified 3 acquisition channel opportunities:

  • Facebook/Instagram/Twitter Organic Reach: A social media analytics company has looked into 22 million posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter from 35 industries. Find which social network had the best organic reach.

  • Google Ads (AdWords): Advertising on Google is all about matching the users intent to your offer. A recent Google update made it easier to do just that.

  • Content Marketing: Twitter just released a content calendar for 10 major countries and 2 regions

Let's dive in.

1. Want Better Organic Engagement on Social Media? Instagram > Facebook > Twitter

This was the main conclusion from a major research report came to after it analyzed 22 million posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter from 35 different industries.

The data: In 2020, the average engagement rate per post on Facebook was 0.26%, Twitter reached a mere 0.06%, while an Instagram post scored an average rate of 1.16%:

result

What this means for you: If your audience is both on Facebook and Instagram, and you want to get more followers, consider focusing on Instagram instead of Facebook. On average, you'll reach 4 times more of the followers that you have on IG vs. FB.

What surprised me most about the report's analysis was Twitter's low engagement rate.

An average of just 0.08% engagement rate per post was dissapointing to say the least.

Question: I've tried to look for a recent (2019 or 2020) study comparing organic reach across major social media platforms and this is the only one I found. Are you guys aware of anything similar?

2. Google Ads Now Makes it Easier For You to Appear on High Intent Keywords

If you're a resume writing service and are bidding on "resume services", the last keyword you want to appear (and be charged) for is something like "what are some customer service skills to put on a resume".

In my Zero to Users research on acquisition channels that work consistently for founders, I found plenty of examples of people who have been successful with Google Ads right from the start because they focused exclusively on high-intent keywords and avoided bidding in irrelevant phrases.

Google just released an update that will reduce the chances of that happening. They're ending the support for the broad match modifier keyword match type and are migrating the best parts of it to the phrase match modifier.

What this means for you: A better chance to reach the right customer when they're searching for something related to your product. Google provided a nice before/after table to give you a better idea:

before-after

Why is this good news for founders: Google seems to be going in the direction of simplifying it for your-average-founder with updates like these.

  • Agencies are probably going to hate this update because it takes away their power to customize their campaigns.

  • Founders, however, don't have hundreds of hours to for customization so any update where Google tries to use their advanced AI algos to do this for us is welcomed.

Do you agree?

Do you want to get opportunities like these each week to your inbox? Subscribe here:

3. Need More Ideas on Topics to Write About? Twitter Just Released an Amazing Content Calendar for 2021

"Use this calendar to discover opportunities to connect with your audience year-round through relevant events, occasions, and trends.". This is the purpose of the content marketing calendar Twitter released recently.

It contains all major global events and holidays through 2021.

There is also a custom version of the calendar for 10 separate countries (US, UK, Spain, France, Canada, Germany, Australia, India, Mexico, Brazil and Japan) and 2 major regions ( SEA - Southeast Asia and MENA - Middle East/North Africa) as well.

What this means for you: This is great news if you're out of ideas on what to post. Here are the upcoming events for February, for example:

calendar-feb

  1. 4

    #2 is really good and a welcome change. Search intent is very important, so making the ad delivery smarter, and based on intent is a great thing IMO.

    Can't tell you how much time I've spent inside Google Ads monitoring campaigns and adding phrases to our NKW list.

    Not sure when it will go into effect, because I'm running a new Google Call Campaign right now, and the shit I'm seeing wrt to search terms triggering our ad is pretty crazy.

    1. 1

      Oh, wow. I've been listening to agencies talks, and it seems like 50%+ of their work is REMOVING negative keywords vs. adding keywords to target lol.

  2. 1

    "The data: In 2020, the average engagement rate per post on Facebook was 0.26%, Twitter reached a mere 0.06%, while an Instagram post scored an average rate of 1.16%:" I feel not all engagements are equal (in monetization value), I wonder if there is a monetization adjusted comparison, that'd be really cool. I'd think Twitter engagements might be more valuable?

  3. 1

    I’ve found this to be true (Instagram with more engagement than Facebook) and have wondered if it’s down to Facebook showing your network of friends that you’ve interacted with it.

    I know we shouldn’t think everyone is just like ourselves, but I know I don’t interact with Facebook posts because of this reason, but will happily like or engage with an Instagram post because it won’t be pushed to everyone following me.

    1. 1

      That's really interesting. I wonder if there's a study that not only compares engagement, but REACH of FB vs. Instagram vs. Twitter. If the reach is the same both on IG/FB, but the reach-to-engagement ratio is lower on FB, that would confirm your theory.

      1. 1

        Looking at my numbers from the campaign I've done across both platforms with the same ad, I had more reactions on IG than FB with roughly the same reach.

        Although the demographic who use IG are more likely to actually like my product than those on FB. It's a specialty coffee related product (physical goods) which the older generation don't really care about. So my results could be skewed for that reason.

        I still stand by my original theory though. It would be good to see a proper test.

  4. 1

    That twitter marketing calendar is pretty handy...but just noticed they didn't have the Super Bowl on it :/

    1. 1

      Probably because it was published 2-3 days before the Super Bowl? Interesting observation though.

  5. 1

    Pretty good content calendar. Anyone knows what's the "go-to" source when it comes to content calendars?

    1. 1

      Not that I'm aware of. Twitter is in a unique position to make such calendar, because they know which events cause the biggest reaction on their platform.

  6. 1

    Those twitter engagement rates are quite a shocker. 😐

    1. 2

      But what about reach? Maybe people from Twitter see stuff more and don't engage as much vs. Instagram?

      1. 1

        I'm really struggling to find any studies on this. If anyone can link to a decent study that compares fb/twitter/ig reach, feel free to reply here.

    2. 1

      I was thinking of focusing more on Twitter, but stats like these kinda dissuade me, hm.

      1. 3

        I suspect #1 is dependent on what type of entity / creator you are.

        If you're a style/lifestyle/similar influencer or a product brand (visual focus), I suspect IG would always be the winner.

        News entity, technology influencer / indie hacker, etc. -- maybe Twitter would be winner.

        Not entirely sure when/where FB would win, outside of using FB Groups.

        I've tried using all the platforms at different times for two entirely different brands, even hiring "growth hackers" to help from time to time, and got very little true traction. Maybe I just suck at social media :)

      2. 1

        Darko's tactic sounds like a smart approach, first the list followed by socials.

    3. 1

      Yeah, it would be nice if some IHers who are active on Twitter chime in on this.

  7. 1

    Great post! The first point just shows how important building your own email list is. These social media platforms can limit your reach any time they want. Also, organic reach on any platform seems to be going down as a trend in general.

    1. 1

      First the list, then the social.

  8. 1

    Twitter wants you to tweet more by releasing a calendar, yet, their average engagement rate is very poor compared to IG/FB.

    I wonder if this is because of the brands surveyed. A lot of brands tend to push a lot of promotional content with links, which (I think) Twitter de-valuates, which pushes down the overall reach of their acc.

    Anyone with a personal brand can chime in on their Twitter engagement rate?

    1. 2

      My problem with Twitter (and all centralized social media) is that they can increase/decrease your reach at any time. Just compare Facebook organic reach over time...

      This is why I first want to get people on my email list and then send them my Twitter/IG/Facebook. But that's just me...

      1. 1

        That's the way to go generally. Having social media followers is good but you never know when the plug is pulled under you. With email, you own your list, nobody else can dictate what you can do with it.

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          I once heard this great analogy: Having an email list is like having your own currency. With social media, it's like someone else owning your currency, can take it away on a whim, and is always in charge on what % of that currency you could have.

  9. 1

    According to that report, Twitter's engagement rate for the tech industry is a mere 0.03 (compared to Facebook 0.2% and Instagram 1.5%). "On average, software brands had 20 posts per month on Facebook, 14 posts per month on Instagram, 77 posts per month on Twitter."

    Are tech people on Instagram, though?

    1. 1

      Harry from MarketingExamples has 10.4k people following him on Instagram. I wonder if he can chime in on this, since he has a big following both on IG and on Twitter.

      1. 1

        This would be an interesting convo @harrydry maybe a Clubhouse chat even :)

        1. 1

          I haven't got an iPhone haha. So not on Clubhouse

          But yes @dare0505 and @LHopivo @founderinc54... undoubtable that more people press like on Instagram...

          I can get 600 likes with 10,000 followers. And on Twitter with 95,000 followers I'll only get a few more...

          However... I think people with money / influence are on Twitter.

          I'd say 10 Instagram likes === 1 Twitter Like (in terms of making money)

  10. 2

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 3

      Answer: No they won't, you need to bring them over :)

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