This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey friends, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Your host, Chris Guillebeau, here. Excited to bring you new episodes every single day of September, September 23 and beyond. Let's see what we've got here today.
Next up, we have a question from Wendy. She has been busy posting on Instagram, as one does. I've been posting a lot more. It's been fun over the past few months. She's been engaging her audience organically, but isn't seeing the traction she hoped for.
And this is a common problem, whether it's Instagram or TikTok or any other network. You start posting, you do everything that you're supposed to do, but it's not quite working. You're not getting traction. You're not getting likes, comments, whatever kind of engagement you're hoping for. And so what do these social networks want you to do?
Well, I should say these big companies, 'cause that's what they are, right? They're big companies that are running these networks. These big companies want you to pay. And you'll notice this if you start posting a lot, especially if you create like a professional or business account. They're always like, "Hey, come and boost your post.
"Come and reach more people." So Wendy is like, "Hmm, I'm not getting what I'm hoping for. "I see this little tempting boost post button." And she wonders if she should dive into the world of paid social ads. She's cautious about it, which I think is smart. I think that's wise. Obviously, if you ask Meta, the people that run Facebook or Instagram or ByteDance, people who run TikTok or Google or anybody, any of these corporate overlords, they're gonna be like, "Of course you should pay.
"That's how it works." Well, what do we say? Like, do we think social ads are worth it? Instagram keeps telling this creator to boost her posts, but is it the path to viral fame or a waste of money? Detailed question. My answer coming up in 30 seconds.
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Hello, this is Wendy calling from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I've been trying to promote my business on Instagram with organic posts. I even try to engage with my audience and use relevant hashtags, but I'm not seeing much traction. Instagram is constantly encouraging me to boost my posts for greater visibility. I'm a bit wary as this feels like a slippery slope and I'm not sure if the return on the investment would be worth it.
So I just wanted to know if you think social ads are actually worth it. [Music]
Wendy, it's like this. Nothing wrong with experimenting. I like to experiment with stuff sometimes. If you want to take 50 bucks or a hundred bucks or whatever seems like a small amount of money, it could even be less than that, and try out some boosting and see how that goes, go for it, why not, right?
But I think this phrase that you used, slippery slope, that is key. Spending on advertising is a slippery slope. It never ends, right? Like you could spend some money now and maybe you get some more likes or followers, comments, whatever engagement you're after, but then of course you just gotta keep doing it and you have to keep spending more, and it's not like it really gets easier necessarily. So far more important, I think, in terms of spending larger amounts of money to learn a bit more about it and to try to figure out, okay, what is ROI?
Like what would the return on investment need to be to justify this? And it's often pretty difficult with social ads. Like a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars are kind of wasted. Like it just goes to meta. I still have a hard time calling it meta.
You know what I mean? Facebook, Instagram, it goes to them. It doesn't actually produce the return that you want. So if you start spending larger amounts of money or if you want to go down that road and building your business, then you really wanna get strategic about it and look at some tools and spreadsheets and start tracking things. Use split testing, like A/B testing.
You can actually do A/B/C/D, like lots of different creative and see what really works. And it can be a project. I mean, it's often something that's outsourced to somebody else. So in some ways that makes sense, but of course then it's a little bit out of your hands and you think they're an expert, but they're not spending their money, they're spending your money. So I've had some mixed results with that in the past and by mixed results, I mean, it often hasn't worked.
Like I've often spent money or I've had publishers that are supporting my books and they spend money, which is great. Like thanks publishers for spending money, but in terms of a strict economic return, I don't really think it's often there. So just something to be aware of. So if you wanna go down that road, test different posts, target different audiences, always measure those results. The goal is not just visibility.
The goal is not like, oh, we had all these impressions. Wow, look, millions of people. This is like a trick that is often used when selling social media ads. Like millions of people saw your post or your ad. I'm like, okay, but how many of them did anything about it?
And the answer is often like very, very few of them did. So you need to consider paid ads only if they fit into a broader strategy and if you're tracking the return and you're happy with it. That's what I think about that. In fact, that's the truth. That's not just what I think, that is the reality.
What can you do to create content that's truly resonating and engaging? And that's a hard thing too, but at least it's free, right? So why not work on hard things that are free? My take for you there. Listeners, if you have a question, www.sidehustleschool.com/questions, we'll continue to feature them each week.
New episode every single day. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. It's always completely free. Or just go to www.sidehustleschool.com. That's all for now.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
