Navigating social media: My personal journey and insights
Last time I presented some short- and long-term goals for social media and suggested thinking about what you want to use your social media presence for.
This time, I’m going to share some experiences from four social media platforms that I have found useful. I’m not going to be talking about goals, though I can say that my approach has been aimed at gaining visibility. Needless to say there are others that may well be more useful for you. As mentioned in my previous post, you'll want to find out where your potential customers are and consider what kind of medium works best on which one.
When I first started using LinkedIn, I saw it as an online contact book for all the people I had worked with and wanted to stay in touch with. However, the platform has developed and improved, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
I have found LinkedIn to work best if you post several times a week and comment on other people’s posts. Everyone talks about influencers and how following them is smart. I personally don’t like the term as for me it brings up superficiality and consumerism. However, the term can also refer to influential and inspirational people. I rather refer to them as that.
Who inspires you? Find them on LinkedIn, follow their updates and engage with their content. What’s even better is finding active people in your area of work and commenting on their posts. Try to find your niche when you post rather than being too broad. You can’t become renowned for ten different topics. Make your pick and stick to it.
My best posts
I couldn’t write about my experience of the platform without sharing some real life analytics from my own account on LinkedIn. LinkedIn analytics allows you to see how your posts have performed over a given timeframe (7, 14, 28, 90 & 385 days). You can see your top performing posts in terms of impressions and engagement.
At this point, you should go back and look at your goals (see my previous post). Are you after visibility or building a deeper relationship with your audience? I’m after visibility.
LinkedIn defines these terms as follows:
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“Impressions: The number of times your posts were seen on LinkedIn. This number is an estimate and may not be precise”
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“Engagement:
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Reactions: The number of times people reacted on your post
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Comments: The number of times people commented on your posts
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Reposts: The number of times people reposted their posts to your feed.”
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When comparing my content performance in terms of impressions and engagement, it’s easy to see how the two relate to each other. The two curves follow each other pretty closely, showing that where I got more impressions, I also got more engagement.
Source: LinkedIn analytics, 30.01.2025
Source: LinkedIn analytics, 30.01.2025
To illustrate this, two of my top 3 performing posts in terms of impressions and engagement are the same (and the remaining two in the top 5 appear in both categories):
Impressions:
Source: LinkedIn analytics, 30.01.2025
1) Book name drop (book 2) – 1,481 impressions
2) Take off (book 2) – 791 impressions
3) The Eye of the Woods (book 1) – 606 impressions
In fourth place was an update about a blog post on social media, and in fifth place, a season’s greetings post.
Engagement:
Source: LinkedIn analytics, 30.01.2025
1) Book name drop (book 2) – 34 reactions, 12 comments
2) The Eye of the Woods (book 1) – 16 reactions, 28 comments
3) A blog post (SoMe) – 13 reactions, 4 comments, 1 repost
In fourth place came the update with a picture from my second book (Take off), in fifth place another picture from the book, and in sixth place the season’s greetings post.
So what did I get right in these posts?
It can be hard to know exactly what makes one post successful and another not. So many factors can come into play, not least timing.
Timing:
Advice on when to post is often changing so it's best to check this out for yourself and try several days and times and see what you think.
I often post on a Friday, to create some regularity for myself and for my followers, and as I assume that people will be winding down for the weekend and perhaps slightly more available for external input in their lives. Some of these work very well, though I cannot be sure that the timing was generally a good choice.
However I would not publish a newsletter on a Friday, in comparison, as I tend personally to find that I am happy to leave my inbox when the weekend is just around the corner.
Tags and hashtags:
In some popular posts I tagged specific people, in others not. This approach does not seem to be important to the success of the post in terms of impressions or engagement. I used a handful of hashtags each time, and I am now using fewer, perhaps 2-3 general ones that define the content, like #naturephotography or #poetry.
CTA (Call to action):
There was always a call to action at the end of my post, a question to the reader and a link for more info. For example, “What ONE WORD do you associate with this picture?”
I always use a picture to illustrate my updates and this was helped by the fact that my most popular posts were about my book project, which means that I had a large supply of relevant photos. For the update about my blog, I also chose a relevant, high quality photo from Unsplash, which helps to catch the eye. Never underestimate the power of imagery.
To begin with I used Instagram to post pictures from my day to day life and to follow topics of interest. As the platform developed and stories arrived, I jumped on the bandwagon, and now I post more stories than I upload posts. Instagram stories are playful and fun. They tend to engage more than posts. As Instagram and Facebook are both owned by Meta, you can also post the story on your Facebook profile at the same time. This is a feature that I have used most of the time and which has broadened my reach. More about that below.
I use Instagram mostly to share moments from my life and I have also done a handful of reels about my book project. I see it mostly as a way of showing how I spend my free time. I share my passions and hobbies.
I guess you could say that I use it as brand building by showing who the person is behind the company. I have not used the platform actively for getting work or jobs, though I have used it for promoting my book project. I posted a picture of my first book when I had it printed and ready to distribute. I decided to use reels to share pictures from my second book, which is a work in progress, and asking for people to “give me a word” that they associated with the picture.
Some of my popular reels
Here are three reels where I posted a picture from a different chapter of my book and asked people to give me a word they associated with it.
This is the way
1,207 views but no likes or comments (without music)
Source: Instagram
Turmoil
379 views, 9 likes, 8 comments (with music)
Source: Instagram
Reflections and perceptions
161 views, 11 likes, 12 comments (music)
Source: Instagram
I then made a list of the terms and saw how they could be integrated in the poems I was working on for the book. I wanted to use the platform to gather input from interested viewers. I tagged women from my women's network – Women that inspire, to gain more attention. This was not always successful, so I adapted who I tagged to who was more active on the platform. My journey with SoMe had been learning by doing.
Personally I am starting to experience some tiredness with the platform as more and more, I see ads and content from seemingly random accounts popping up in my feed. To the point where I quickly leave the platform as I find it to be invasive and showing me content that I didn't choose to see.
As mentioned, Facebook and Instagram being owned by Meta, you can integrate both platforms easily. Any story, reel or post that you share on Instagram can be instantly shared on Facebook as well. That way, with one click you can post on both platforms and get double the exposure.
I have used this function for stories and reels. Although I cannot see stats for the stories, I regularly get dozens of views, and a handful of likes and comments. As for reels, I posted six and got between 131 views and 506 views and up to four extra words for the photos I shared.
I use Facebook mostly to show who I am as a person, in my private life, and to share moments from my life. I use it sparingly for promotion of my book project and mainly to show my interest in nature, animals, adventure and photography.
I do not have any set goals other than showing more personal aspects of my life, and staying in touch with friends across borders.
My reels from 2024
Source: Facebook
X (ex-Twitter)
Having used X (formerly Twitter) for over a decade and mostly as an employee, I was seeing little engagement from my personal account (@Eleanor_RES), so I posted less and less, as I prioritised my other SoMe platforms.
The platform’s main appeal for me was connecting with journalists and following live events. I used it a lot when working with media sensitive topics in my days of writing press releases in Brussels. I created various lists for both professional and private interests. I connected with journalists, professionals and organisations that I was interested in.
However, now that I work for myself and that I no longer use the platform for promoting news or events from my past employment or for following press events, I have found it of less use.
In addition, the platform has undergone a major change of ownership that has seen the quality of the content and conversations diminish. I feel like most people and organisations, if they are still there, are either just maintaining a presence, or have neglected it altogether. I still need to make up my mind about what to do. People are moving over to Blue Sky and I just recently created a profile there (@eleanor-res.bsky.social), so more about that soon.
What's up next?
Next time I will help you build a communication strategy for your business, one that makes sense to you and that's easy to use and update.
Do you need help with your SoMe channels? Drop us a line at syper@syper.eu.
