Jill’s Social Media Experiment

An experiment we are running on whether an appearance of a larger instagram* audience will impact more meaningful business metrics

I’ve been business since 2010, devoted to supporting this world and humanity in knowing itself better, and more successfully connected to God on a personal, internal level. My business is by most people’s standards successful and I’m grateful for every client, my audience and the reach I have created, in my motivation to help others.

And I love business. My background includes an MBA, a successful corporate career that spanned 3 industries and a major for undergrad in both Economics and in Finance with a sprinkling of accounting.

I love to talk shop and I love to support other small businesses and entrepreneurs.

And then I watched Fake Famous, liking it even more than The Social Dilemma. I realized much more clearly why so many who actively post and participate on various social media platforms feel like our numbers/reach doesn’t grow… and yet many are counting on it for growth. It feels like lemonade stands, well designed and cared for, set up on streets, that have detour signs at either end, but we don’t know it.

And now I know it. And after about 2 days of feeling a bit rant-ish , I couldn’t help but wonder if what happened in the documentary could work… not to fake fame but rather to be able to help and support even more people than my established biz already does…

At first I considered running an experiment on my dog’s insta. But that wouldn’t be directly related to helping the world know itself better, to be better. Then I thought about doing it myself, for my own accounts. But I value integrity and authenticity too much to want or need fake followers or the appearance of fake success. Still, knowing how many entrepreneurs dedicate tremendous energy and time and money to creating and sharing content for social media, and regularly feel ignored, I wanted to see if such a plan to look more credible to potential clients/customers would help one’s success, assuming they have a legitimate, high quality service/offer/product they provide.

So, I am choosing to run an experiment and for my own integrity documenting for you the process. I will also be tracking my 7 day average daily visits on my website, my newsletter list, my subscriber number for my premium content, monthly revenue and monthly profit. The % change in those private numbers will be shared with you. So, if you are interested, here we go!

With love, gratitude and blessings,
Jill
Making sense of life, living and this realm. Beyond religion, science and even spirituality. An updated ideology to base one’s sense of self within this reality, and beyond it.

*March 7 2021 update:

It’s been just over 30 days since the social media experiment began and so far so good!  One measurable result is that session/group reading revenue is up over 25% from January to Feb 2021, with half of the February sessions from new clients. A few that I asked said they had met me via Instagram.

Given that the experiment has been fun and seems to be more positive outcomes than negatives, I elected to increase the experiment with purchases for my Facebook business page and my Twitter account.

A couple of individuals did send me an email expressing their concern or displeasure with my decision. It was clear from their email that they hadn’t watched the documentary that spawned this whole experiment (Fake Famous).  Without having watched the documentary, it is easy to be uncertain about my motivation. This disappoints me, that they aren’t basing their opinion on what I am basing the experiment on. But, I understand. Another reason to perhaps try to understand one’s point of view before being unsupportive or critical of it. But, that’s just me.

I will also add that if I were getting started with my business right now, I would completely start with a purchased base of likes/followers/subscribers. Since starting the experiment and hearing more professional advertisers, marketers, promoters and successful online business advisers, they have validated that it is harder to get a social media account going and get traction now than it was in 2010 or even 2015. There are so many more of us now trying to gain the attention of potential audiences/fans/friends. It is just too easy for high quality content providers to feel almost completely ignored, despite following various business strategies that recommend all the right things. My sense is a lot of those online social media strategies for small businesses worked great around 2015 but then since 2019, not so much. Will a purchased base following help? I don’t know.

But just ask yourself, do you find yourself gauging someone’s success, value, credibility based on their social media numbers (followers, subscribers, likes, friends, etc.)?  Apparently enough of consumers do to warrant the purchased social media followers/likes/etc to have grown into a huge industry, utilized by brand managers, marketers, promoters, agents, publishing houses, and entrepreneurs, all the time, as indicated in the documentary Fake Famous (again, it is depressing, but also good to know info).

For any of us out there working extra hard to deliver original, quality services to our audiences and clients, that doesn’t have to change or be questioned at all, just because someone is realizing that they might be able to help even more people just by having a more established appearance on their social media accounts.

I’ll continue to update you here!

With love,

Jill

Metric Feb 5 2021 March 7 2021 April 5 2021 May 5 2021
Instagram Followers 1,703 6,030 (+4,327 — 4,200 from experiment purchases – these bot numbers move around a lot!)    
Facebook biz page Likes 1,839 5,075 (+3,236 — 3,000 from experiment purchases – these bot numbers move around a lot!)    
Twitter Followers 356 2,758 (+2,402 — 2,300 from experiment purchases – these bot numbers move around a lot!)    
YouTube Subscribers 5,140 5,177 (+37)    
Website 7 day average daily visit % change   +11%    
Newsletter sign up % change   no change    
Monthly Revenue % change   with telesummit payments from Fall 2020 season coming in, difficult to measure    
Monthly Profit % change   with telesummit payments from Fall 2020 season coming in, difficult to measure    
Other notables   Session/Group Readings revenue up over 25% from Jan to Feb