5 builders who never spoke to each other
Republish the winners with a new hook
Only a slice of your followers saw any given post and you have gained more since, so run the good ones again every few months with a reworked opening and a changed format rather than hunting for something novel. Do not discard the flops either: edit them, change the hook and run them again as an informal test, since timing alone sinks plenty of good posts.
The method
- 01
Do not discard the posts that flopped: edit them and run them again on the same schedule to see whether the score moves.
- 02
Run informal A/B tests on your own social content by republishing an underperformer with a different hook, instead of only ever testing brand new ideas.
- 03
Do not simply recycle a post: edit it, sharpen the hook and change the format, for instance turning a short text post into a photo with a text overlay, background music and a Reel.
- 04
Run your evergreen posts again every few months with a reworked hook and some altered content, since only a slice of your followers ever saw it and you have gained more since.
- 05
Old material can outperform its original release by orders of magnitude when the format is changed to suit the platform, so republish rather than assuming it is spent.
What it returned
- 100
A 100 word post that earned only 2 likes is a candidate for a rewrite and a redesign as an image carousel.
- 20
On Instagram roughly 20 percent of your followers see a given post, and Adam Mosseri has said about three of five users open the app on any given day.
His reasoning is that the algorithm only ever puts a tweet in front of part of your following, and the rest of that following keeps changing.
Justin cites the rule of thumb that people need about seven exposures, CoSchedule's per-platform promotion schedule, and his own post that flopped on a Tuesday and took off when he promoted it again two years later.
Sources
- Curse of Knowledge - Why We Buy 🧠Katelyn Bourgoin · customercamp.co · The Psychology of the Curse of Knowledge · undated
- The Spotlight Effect - Why We Buy 🧠Katelyn Bourgoin · customercamp.co · Service Business Repeat yourself on social media, a lot · undated
- Marketing Automation: Sell While You Sleep - Double Your FreelancingKurt Elster · doubleyourfreelancing.com · Marketing Automation Tools · 2015-08-20
- What I learned from Sahil Bloom about building a creator flywheel – Jakob GreenfeldSahil Bloom · jakobgreenfeld.com · Twitter · 2022-08-07
- Your blog could be a partyJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · The reminder · undated
- How to Build a 730-Day Content LibraryJustin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · Step 4: Create Your Library · 2023-08-26
- Same interview. 700x reach.Harry Dry · Marketing Examples · Same interview. 700x reach. · undated
- 3 Common Social Media Mistakes That We Don't Talk About EnoughSparkToro · sparktoro.com · Not testing the same piece of content multiple times · 2024-12-16
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in social
- Concentrate on one platform until it works11 unconnected · contested
- Gather the audience before there is a product6 unconnected · contested
- Fire the launch into the audience you already have6 unconnected · contested
- Post the numbers, not the commentary5 unconnected · contested
- Cut one long piece into weeks of social posts5 unconnected
- Contribute in the group before dropping your link5 unconnected