Screen Time: On TikTok

When do you think TikTok launched? Go ahead, guess. Did you say 2020? You’re wrong. TikTok launched in 2016. That said, the platform saw something like a 30% user increase in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic and it was downloaded more times than any other app ever during Q1 of 2020. All that to say, as we careen headlong into 2025, TikTok is not just some new fad. The app has been around for nearly a decade and, despite rumblings of a US ban in January, I don’t expect the growth to slow down.

If you’ve never been on TikTok, you’re not alone. It should be noted that 55% of TikTok users are under the age of 30, with 25% under the age of 20. So while TikTok the app isn’t “young,” the user base certainly is. As we consider how screen time factors into TikTok’s algorithm, don’t lose sight of that fact.

There is a reason why I’ve held TikTok for the end of this blog series. TikTok is, far and away, the MOST linked to a user’s screen time. While screen time is a factor for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, it takes a back seat to user experience. On TikTok however, screen time IS the user experience. When a user opens TikTok, there is no blank space. There is no landing page or home screen, no sign posts and no welcome mat. The moment a user opens TikTok (and maybe after an ad) they are fed content. And, to be clear, that isn’t necessarily content made by someone they know or follow. In fact, it’s more likely that the first video is from an account the user does not follow.

TikTok revolves around something called the “For You Page” or the “FYP” if you’re young and hip. The FYP is completely unique to each user and is algorithmically filled with things TikTok thinks the user will like. It can be a mixture of accounts that user follows, accounts followed by the followers of accounts that user follows, accounts similar to accounts followed by the followers of accounts that user follows, or videos of tweens dancing to catchy songs. The real question worth asking is, “how does TikTok build my FYP?”

I have two answers. The first answer is proprietary information held by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. The second answer is literally everything you do on the app. Follow me here, this is an extended metaphor. Do you remember the game “Guess Who?”? It’s a two player board game where each person selects one of 30ish characters on their game board and the other player must ask questions to eliminate options until they can guess who the other player chose. With me so far?

So the TikTok algorithm is trying to play “Guess Who?” with you. But instead of a game board with cartoon characters, it’s choosing from 34 million posts daily. Because finding one needle in 34 million haystacks is a tall order, TikTok takes every single piece of information it can from your app usage as an opportunity to ask a “Guess Who?” question. Instead of “Do you have blonde hair?” TikTok gets “user searched for ‘easy recipe.’” TikTok may then combine that information with “user trends towards shorter content” and “user’s IP address is based in the midwest” to show you a slew of videos about easy recipes you can cook with fresh midwestern ingredients in 60 seconds or less.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things TikTok will include in your user profile:

• Type of videos you engage with

• Type of videos you don’t engage with

• Length of video you watch the most frequently

• Particular sounds or songs you engage with

• Your in-app search history

• What videos you’ve saved

• What videos you haven’t saved but came back to watch again

• How long you spend typing comments

• How long you spend posting videos

• How long you spend scrolling videos after you’ve posted videos

And so on. This is an infinite list. The limit does not exist.

But, to go back to my metaphor, “Guess Who?” is a two player game. TikTok will take into consideration whatever you give it. That means, by understanding your screen time, you can pick your character portrait in the game. You can present TikTok with who you’d prefer to be, as opposed to who you are. Or you can let TikTok follow you down the degenerate rabbit hole of your choosing. The world is literally your oyster if you consider that the world is TikTok and the Oyster is also TikTok.

So that’s the TikTok algorithm from the user perspective. Hopefully that helps inform how it may work from a creator's perspective. If TikTok is constantly trying to match a user as closely as possible, it needs every video to be clear about its subject and that subject can’t be too broad. If TikTok is sorting through 34 million haystacks and one of those haystacks isn’t like “HEY I’M A HAYSTACK,” TikTok will probably skip right over that haystack. This doesn’t mean that you’re only allowed to do one thing on your account, (I actually made a TikTok about that very subject), but it does mean your content needs to be pointed and strategic.

You should also be prepared for TikTok to frequently not choose your haystack. 34 million posts per day is a truly insane scale. If every single person in Texas watched one of those videos, they’d still come up 4 million short. By the numbers alone, every post you add to TikTok will not go viral. Even if you do everything right, use the right hashtags, edit your video well, follow the trends, there is a solid chance your video will be lost in a field of haystacks. You need to be ok with that because it’s ok! Content marketing is a game of quality AND quantity. What should you take away from this? Great question, reader.

I believe the important thing to remember is this: screen time equals value and TikTok values your screen time more than anyone else. Thus, when you’re creating your TikTok content, do your best to strike a balance between a perfect enough video for you to publish and the perfect video for your perfect person. Do what you can to optimize your video for this game of “Guess Who?” and keep fishing. TikTok won’t pick your haystack unless you keep reminding it to check, but eventually it will.

Finally, remember that TikTok is watching your literal every move on the app. Because it can only see your screen time, it wants you to give it as much as you can. If you’re posting content to the app, it wants to see that you took the time to upload it natively. It wants you to add the captions through TikTok so it can more easily understand the video. Most importantly, it doesn’t want you to leave and it certainly doesn’t want you to lead others off the site. Invest your screen time into the TikTok algorithm and it will invest its gifts back into you.

And here we stand, on the precipice of a completed blog series! Come Monday I’ll have a final installment of this screen time series with a final word of advice. 

Have a good weekend,

-MC

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This article is the eighth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On YouTube

Did you know next year will be the 20th anniversary of YouTube? It’s almost impossible to remember what YouTube was like in 2005, or even before it was acquired by Google in 2008. Have no fear though, some of us were there. I actually remember my dad showing me “Lazy Sunday” before SNL had it removed from the site. I am still subscribed today to a number of channels that started in 2009. Back then, no one could have guessed what YouTube was going to become. Little did we know the site you had to open two hours in advance to allow videos to buffer would become a household commodity and hub of endless knowledge. These days, I think YouTube is more akin to “broadcast media” than it is “social media.”

On average, around 3.7 million videos are uploaded to YouTube per day. For context, that’s around 4,000 times as many episodes of SNL have aired in its 50 year run. Luckily, YouTube boasts a daily user rate of around 122 million, so I guess there’s not too much content…

If your strategy involves posting to YouTube, understanding the inner workings of the site is imperative. While you may be able to stumble into moderate success on a platform like Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok, you will find zero, and I do mean zero, success on YouTube without this knowledge. YouTube demands strategy and a meticulous approach across multiple steps. If someone has ever told you that YouTube is easy, they lied. YouTube is the Big Leagues, kid.

The first thing to note about YouTube is its absolutely massive scope. YouTube fits into conversations about social media outlets just as easily as it does into conversations about cutting traditional cable television. Not only do you have short-form and long-form user generated content, you have live streams, live television, professional sports broadcasts and feature films. The most subscribed to channel on the platform has 64.7 billion views all-time. The second most subscribed to channel is an Indian music label. Number three does exclusively children’s nursery rhymes. 

I want to pause here, in the fifth paragraph, to declare that this is not a YouTube “how-to” guide. If you want one of those, I’d actually suggest checking YouTube. The point of this article is to examine how YouTube factors screen time into its algorithm and determine how to react to that information. If this is your first in this blog series about how screen time equals value, consider checking out some of the other issues! I’ve already covered Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Or don’t, I’m not your dad.

Alright, the YouTube algorithm. Because of the sheer size of the platform, it’s actually easier to see the YouTube algorithm at work. There have been some monumental shifts on the platform over the past 15 years which really showcase this. For the first eight or so years, YouTube primarily suggested videos based on clicks. This sparked the rise of the “CLICKBAIT title! HUGE YOUTUBE click HERE” style of video titles and the trend towards misleading thumbnails. The first major algorithm shift came in 2012 when YouTube switched from valuing clicks to valuing watch time. Suddenly the power shifted to channels and outlets that could produce multiple videos quickly. It wasn’t uncommon to see channels upload three to five videos every day and if you produced content that took a long time to create, well, tough break.

In 2015, YouTube went public with their new, AI-driven algorithm which promised to feed users videos based on their personal preference. You won’t believe it if you weren’t there, but when you opened YouTube, it used to show you videos from channels you subscribed to before recommending anything else. Also in 2015, YouTube fine tuned their watch time algorithm to consider watch percentage versus total watch time. These changes developed the modern YouTube “Home Page,” a mismatch of content from channels that other people like you have watched and videos YouTube thinks you will watch. Sounds kind of lame, right? Turns out it actually turns users into extremists. So that’s neat.

In 2017, YouTube tightened down on its content moderation due to “ad-pocalypse.” There was also the whole, “the algorithm filled YouTube Kids with explicit content” fiasco around the same time. In 2020, YouTube joined the TikTok revolution with YouTube Shorts, which launched world wide in 2021. All to say, the 20 year old platform has seen a lot of change. And yet, chances are, you hadn’t heard of any of these things. Because for most users, YouTube is the same website they’ve watched videos on since dial-up. I implore you to consider it as more than that.

So where does screen time factor into the conversation? As stated above, watch percentage and watch time are still the driving factors of the YouTube algorithm. If you have watched a video on YouTube recently, you’ve likely noticed the uptick in ads on the site. Well YouTube uses those watch percentage and watch time numbers to sell those ads. Unlike cable TV, YouTube can tell advertisers the exact second users click off a video. They can also tell advertisers what video a user is most likely to watch after another video. And the more ads a user watches, the more money YouTube makes. Again, screen time equals value.

Unlike other social media sites, YouTube doesn’t require active participation. Users don’t need to scroll a feed or engage at a particular level to receive content. YouTube loves a user who pulls up a video in the background and then lets the algorithm do its thing. “But what if it’s a new user? How will YouTube know what they want to see? I hear you asking. Easy answer, they’re going to show that user something the other 122 million daily users have liked. Also, YouTube is owned by Google so their algorithm has access to your Google cookies. They know where you sleep.

If LinkedIn is the most professional dressed flea market, YouTube is a planet-sized scrap yard. (Sakaar for all you MCU nerds.) Every day, 122 million little trash gremlins flood the scrap yard looking for the coolest, shiniest piece of junk. When one of them finds it, they feed it to the scrap yard monster and go back looking for the next coolest, shiniest piece of junk. When you upload content to YouTube, you are setting up an 8-foot folding table on the far reaches of the scrap heap, hoping the gremlins will come to appreciate your wares.

I think there are two takeaways here. Thing one, you should spit-shine all your coolest junk pieces as much as you can. I think perfectionism kills content creation and that’s not what I’m suggesting here. Instead, when you upload something to YouTube, put in as much effort as you can. Title it well, take your time with the description, fill out all the metadata, check all the boxes. Again, this is not a “how-to” article, but those guides exist.
Thing two, gathering 122 million trash gremlins around one 8-foot table is impossible. Aim for your audience and don’t worry about who you miss along the way. Follow up, bring as many of those trash gremlins to your 8-foot table as you can yourself. Share your YouTube content absolutely everywhere possible, pull it up on your phone and watch your content the whole way through, tell people in conversation about your content. YouTube is a platform that requires you to physically gather every single view yourself. Eventually, if enough other people like it, maybe YouTube will show it to someone else.

Here’s my final word of advice: if this article has felt overwhelming and is making you reconsider your strategy around YouTube, I’d suggest not focusing on growing your YouTube presence. That does not mean you should ignore YouTube completely! In fact, I suggest the opposite! Build out your YouTube profile and use it as a database for your video content. You’ll inevitably have videos you want to embed somewhere, and those videos will need a place to live. Take the time to make that place a place worth visiting. You don’t need to focus on growth on YouTube to take advantage of what the platform has to offer.

Four down, one to go! Tomorrow we’re going to break down the new kid in town as far as social media is concerned. No, I’m not talking about Bluesky, hold it together. Tomorrow we’re focusing on the short-form juggernaut, TikTok.

Until then,

-MC

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This article is the seventh in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is like the world’s most professionally dressed flea market. You’ve got a core group of users recycling the same concepts day in and day out. Also, much like a flea market, LinkedIn is somehow both everything and nothing all at the same time. Need to connect with your coworkers? LinkedIn. Need to grow your thought leadership? LinkedIn. Need to find a job? LinkedIn. Need to announce your new job? LinkedIn. Is LinkedIn optimized for any of those things? No, absolutely not.

So far, we’ve broken down the influence of screen time on Facebook and Instagram. When we talk about the influence of screen time on LinkedIn, we must first establish that it is much different than the Meta apps. LinkedIn exists as a self-described “professional” social media. Both Facebook and Instagram are, at their core, entertainment outlets. LinkedIn does it’s best to clarify that it isn’t for entertainment, it’s for furthering your career. Is that how people actually use LinkedIn? Quick answer: it doesn’t matter.

The theme of this blog series is that, across the entire internet, screen time equals value. With that in mind, you should be able to discern at least a few things about what forms of content LinkedIn favors. I try my best not to humanize any forms of “the Algorithm” because it is inherently not human. To suspend that practice momentarily, I think it’s fair to think of the LinkedIn algorithm as a high school guidance counselor. It’s going to give you what it thinks you need, whether you like it or not.

LinkedIn values concrete metrics that determine a posts worth. The more engagement a post gets, the more people LinkedIn will show it to, and vice versa. Growing from nothing on LinkedIn is more difficult than it is on any other platform for this exact reason. If you don’t have a following base to boost engagement on your content, your content will never make it past your following base. That’s a little confusing, let me say it a different way. The only way to grow on LinkedIn is to grow on LinkedIn.

There it is, the ever-present growth paradox of social media. This paradox is actually true of all platforms, but LinkedIn is the most glaring example. See the average engagement rate of all content across the internet has been about 1%-3.5% this year. That means of your 100 followers, only one to three and a half of them will ever click on your content. Social media apps that focus on entertainment combat this with discoverability features. LinkedIn doesn’t really combat this at all because it doesn’t want to suggest your content to people who will enjoy it; LinkedIn wants to suggest your content to people whose career Linked thinks will be furthered by your content.

Now let’s talk actionable strategy. If you want to grow on LinkedIn, you need to prioritize showing your value as it pertains to someone’s career growth. The easiest way to do that is through connections. LinkedIn gives you lots of boxes to fill in and you should fill in as many of them as you can. Previous jobs, schools, certifications, skills, whatever tags you can add to your profile, add them. LinkedIn uses these fleshed out pieces of your profile to build out it’s connection suggestions. LinkedIn wants to show your success to people who can benefit from your success, so you should frame your content to be valuable to the growth of your target audience.

Speaking of target audience, I want to talk briefly about the average LinkedIn user. How much time per week do you think the average user spends on LinkedIn? Seriously, go ask five people and track their answers. Add those bad boys up and divide by 5. What did you get? I think this question is difficult to answer because most people don’t access LinkedIn regularly. In fact, LinkedIn has a daily user rate of about 16% and a monthly user rate of about 48%. So even though the average user spends seven minutes on LinkedIn per session, more than half of those users visit the site less than once per month. 

Let’s tie that last fact back to screen time. Because LinkedIn’s daily user rate is so low, it DOES NOT want people to leave the site. That means any links that lead users away from the app will automatically be deprioritized. Keep that in mind as you develop your LinkedIn strategy. Instead of linking out to a landing page, how much of your flow can you build into LinkedIn. Can you post your content there directly? Do they need to leave LinkedIn at all? If so, how can you keep that process organic or move it down the funnel so as to not limit exposure?

LinkedIn is tough, no bones about it. That doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time. If you provide a product or service directly related to your customer’s career journey, you’re primed for the journey. The true advantage of this model is the built in trust that exists within the platform. If someone has a following on LinkedIn, they must have provided value to someone! Of course, we all know that isn’t always true, but keep it in mind as you define yourself on the platform.

We’ve reached the middle of our social media breakdowns! We’re going to finish out the week talking about the two “primarily video” outlets. Tomorrow is YouTube and Friday is TikTok.

See you then

-MC

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This article is the sixth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On Instagram

Let’s crack open Instagram and see how it works. In yesterday’s blog, I did this with Facebook. Today I want to move on to a more modern outlet and one that may be part of your digital marketing strategy. While Instagram and Facebook are both owned by the same parent company, the way the platforms work are quite different. The game plan here is to take our knowledge of screen time and apply it to Instagram. We’re going to identify what Instagram likes, how users spend time on the app, and how you can use both of those things to your advantage.

Before we begin, right after I posted yesterday’s blog, Meta announced that they plan to change Facebook’s primary metric. Put simply, they’re going to start valuing the number of views a piece of content gets versus variable metrics like “plays” or “accounts reached.” Instagram made this switch in August, both in an effort to match TikTok’s structure. But here’s the reality: none of that matters to what we’re discussing. Screen time is screen time, no matter how you track it. Should you reassess your strategy to reflect this change, absolutely! Should you assume massive change in the larger flow of app usage and function, definitely not.

ANYWAY, let’s talk about Instagram. It’s hard to believe this app was built exclusively for photo sharing. Now a strange amalgamation of what it once was and early Snapchat, Instagram is one of the more robust social apps. Instagram switched to an algorithmic feed structure in 2016, but they remain as one of the more broad outlets. I noted yesterday that Facebook doesn’t have a real content identity.

“Ten(ish) years later, Facebook has become a content wasteland of reposts. Unlike TikTok and Instagram, Facebook doesn’t have a defined content identity. There’s videos, images, text posts, and everything in between. The site has been around so long that inactive pages have millions of followers and something like 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. Facebook has become the social media equivalent of flipping channels on cable TV. Maybe you see something you like, maybe you don’t, maybe you stumble onto a foreign language channel with enthralling content.”

Step one to understanding Instagram is understanding what it’s for. Instagram has one of the broadest, yet somehow most defined content identities out there: visual. I like to say that Instagram is for your eyes, not your brain. Let me say that a third way, Instagram is for pictures and videos. Sometimes those pictures and videos have text in them, but the app exists to give you something to look at. 

Case in point, let’s look at the Instagram user experience. When a user opens the app, they’re immediately greeted with the top post, image or video, in their feed. If they want to look at Stories, they click on little pictures. If they scroll through their feed and see suggestions, these suggestions will be videos. When they click on the Search/Discover tab, they’ll see more pictures and videos than they’ll see text box. Back to the main feed, every single caption is in a small font and automatically truncated. Cherry on top, url links are disabled basically everywhere in the app. Where are they enabled? In Stories when they’re shared within a picture or video. Yes, yes, also in the bio. Lay off dweeb.

Now within that defined content identity, there’s a wide range of options. You can post an image, a group of images, or a video to your feed. You can make a vertical video and upload it as a Reel. You can take either of those and share them to your Story filled with gifs and geotags. For today’s discussion, we’re going to condense those options into two groups: Posts and Stories. Posts go on your feed, Stories go in your Story. If those words are unfamiliar, think of it this way: Posts go on your profile and live there forever. Stories are uploaded to your “Instagram Story” and are only available for 24 hours. Put a pin in that, we’ll come back to it.

Ok, let’s talk screen time. A user can spend their time on Instagram in three main ways.

1. Scrolling their main feed.

2. Watching Reels

3. Flipping through Stories

Each of these three options provide a different user experience and foster a different kind of screen time. 

• Scrolling your feed doesn’t take long, but it’s high engagement. You’re more likely to like, share, comment or save posts from accounts you already follow or that Instagram’s algorithm can feed you.

• Watching Reels generates massive amounts of screen time because of its rabbit hole nature. It’s not exclusively accounts you follow, so it doesn’t have a natural end like your main feed. For that same reason, engagement ratios are much lower.

• Flipping through Stories is somewhere in the middle. You can flip through them incredibly quickly, but you also have to engage with the app to progress through them. You’re also more likely to accidentally click on an ad because they blend in more seamlessly.

Going back to our last pin, it’s crucial to remember where your content fits among these three actions. Anything that we’ve defined here as a Post will fit into the first two, while the third is reserved for what we’re calling Stories. You can share a Post to your Story, but it will only live in that part of the app for 24 hours. The first conclusion here should be to prioritize Posts over Stories. Better screen time, better engagement, higher priority.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore your Story completely. On the contrary, remember what I said about ads? Screen time may equal value, but ads equal money and that is always an app’s priority. Instagram has the most to gain if user screen time is dedicated to Stories. That means Instagram has every reason to favor accounts who post Stories regularly. Second conclusion, post to your Story as regularly as you can, even if it seems fruitless. It fosters community engagement and Instagram will reward you for it in their algorithm.

All the way at the top of this blog, we established that Instagram’s Ken job is Visuals. Let that be the guiding light of your content creation for Instagram. It feels simple, but it’s effective. Consider Instagram as a wholly visual medium and think about it creatively from that lens. Prioritize your visual creativity to your posts and post to your story as regularly as you can and you’ll see your numbers rise, guaranteed.

Two social media down, three to go. Tomorrow we’re going to shift away from Meta, put on a shirt with buttons and talk about LinkedIn.

See you then,

-MC

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This article is the fifth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On Facebook

We’ve covered the topic of screen time in detail over the last week. We defined it, we connected it to the algorithm, and we learned how that ties to our digital usage. Now it’s time to get into the real meet of this blog series and learn to apply this knowledge. To do that, I’ll be dissecting one social outlet each day and explaining how an understanding of screen time can really unlock that platform. Today’s platform: Facebook. No, not Meta you nerd, Facebook.

Remember when I used the wrong form of “meat” three sentences ago? You’ll likely have an easier time remembering that than if I asked you to remember when Facebook’s main use case was to meet people. That wasn’t even that long ago. Way back in the day, Facebook was mostly used to connect with distant relatives and before that, college classmates. But this isn’t your granddaddy’s book of faces. It’s 2024 and we live in a post “Pivot to Video” era. If your impression of Facebook is still tied to the idea of personal connections, you’re already a step behind. 

Let me backup, in 2015, advertisers decided it was time for the industry to “pivot to video.” That’s not the topic of this blog, but here’s the wikipedia page if you need an overview. Many point to Facebook as the spearhead of this movement. That’s because in 2015, Facebook issued a statement that they “received more than 1 billion video views every day.” Then in 2016, Facebook was basically like, “oops, jk.” Turns out Facebook had dramatically overestimated video views on their site. But, because the 2015 statement pushed millions if not billions of dollars into video marketing, Facebook decided to keep pushing video anyway.

Ten(ish) years later, Facebook has become a content wasteland of reposts. Unlike TikTok and Instagram, Facebook doesn’t have a defined content identity. There’s videos, images, text posts, and everything in between. The site has been around so long that inactive pages have millions of followers and something like 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. Facebook has become the social media equivalent of flipping channels on cable TV. Maybe you see something you like, maybe you don’t, maybe you stumble onto a foreign language channel with enthralling content.

So then, how can one go about marketing their content on Facebook and what does screen time have to do with it? Great question, so glad you’re engaged.

Facebook wants users to feel comfortable. It’s got the oldest user base and the most established formula. Facebook wants to make sure that when imaginary user Jan logs onto “The facebooks” on her lunch break, she sees things she recognizes. If Jan has a handful of friends she interacts with regularly, Facebook is going to feed Jan their posts. Perhaps Jan likes to save recipe videos to try with the family; best believe Facebook is giving her some recipe videos. Unfortunately, Jan’s lunch is only 40 minutes and she can find a plan for dinner later. So how can Facebook get Jan to stay online for that 41st minute or, better yet, reopen the app later on her shift?

Enter the dark side of the Facebook algorithm, conflict. Facebook wants users to feel comfortable, so comfortable that they feel empowered to defend that comfort. So while Jan’s feed may be 65%-70% pictures and pot roasts, Facebook is going to fill that 30% with imaginary user Ron’s posts. Ron and Jan went to high school together. They aren’t friends in real life and they hope to never see each other again, but every time the one posts something passionate on Facebook, the other is quick to chime in and disagree. Ron and Jan create a feedback loop of revolving screen time. Ron’s low quality meme will get a rise out of Jan on lunch, then Ron will reply 45 minutes later and blam, Jan’s back on the app to respond. When she logs on, she finds a video about making Baked Alaska in your microwave. She saves the video. And on and on forever.

The key to successful marketing on Facebook is to find where you fit in that endless loop. Are you the update from an old friend? Are you the comfort video or fun new trend? Are you the impassioned image garnering ire? What is your place in an imaginary user's screen time cycle and how can you solidify your place in the routine?

Meta likes to tell you the answer to my last question is with paid ads. Truth be told, in some cases, they’re correct. Because Facebook is so old and the user base so established, gaining traction with a new account can be incredibly difficult. I rarely, if ever recommend paying for ads, and I won’t recommend it outright here either. That said, if you’re struggling to gain traction and impressions are your identified issue, run some short, low cost ads and see if you see improvement. A word of warning though, do not mistake impressions for engagement. A Facebook ad will show more people your content, it will not make them click it.

If you’re looking for free, organic growth on Facebook, this next part is for you. While that growth will come slowly, it is not impossible! I am a huge proponent of Facebook groups. I think it’s one of the best forums of discussion on the internet right now and the options are vast. Find some Facebook groups in your niche and join them. Don’t spam these groups with your content, but monitor trends and conversations to fuel your content. If the opportunity arises, promotion from within a group always does better than promotion from outside. Also, don’t discredit your existing Facebook presence! Most of us have a Facebook page with ~300 followers that we haven’t touched in years. Make sure to like, comment, share and save your brand's content from your personal pages. Invite your existing friends list to like your page or share your content. I have family members who inherited Facebook pages at birth, I know you’ve got a few old crushes you’d like to brag to.

Last but not least, do not forget the name of the game here: screen time equals value. Facebook has nothing to benefit from users leaving its app to view your website or your products. Try to upload content to Facebook natively and limit linking out. Make sure your website is linked to your profile and that the link is working. If someone wants to leave the app to go to your website, they’re capable of doing so. You do not need to, and explicitly should not, add a link to every post. If you’re a brick and mortar business, keep your hours and address updated in your about section. And always keep an eye on your Facebook inbox. Facebook likes pages and accounts that are “responsive.” Even if you don’t get many Facebook messages, responding to the ones you do get will go a long way.

Finally, if you reached the bottom of this article and decided “maybe Facebook isn’t for me,” that’s ok! I’ll be doing this with four more outlets. Tomorrow, we’re tackling Facebook’s artsy little sister, Instagram.

See you then,

-MC

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This article is the fourth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: Controlling Your Algorithm

Let’s face it, spending time on social media in 2024 is a bit of a nightmare. You never see half the things your friends post, it’s riddled with ads, and it’s impossible to log on without seeing something downright upsetting. It’s easy to feel like you don’t control the content of your feed. Luckily, that’s not the case.

Grabbing your personal algorithm by the reins is actually easier than you might think. Once you understand what drives an algorithm, you can pave a path in whichever direction you choose. So what drives an algorithm? Here’s a quote from yesterday’s blog:

Across all social media, in every single app, the algorithm exists for one reason, to keep users’ attention. See chronological feeds have an explicit problem, they end. A user viewing posts chronologically will eventually catch up to where they left off on their last scroll. But, if that user sees posts based on their interest, and is introduced to content from accounts they don’t follow, they can scroll forever. So what does the algorithm want? It wants users to stay on the app.

All you need to do to point your algorithm in the right direction is be intentional with your screen time. When you see something you like, a post from a relative, art from a friend, etc, stop and smell that digital rose. Click on it, share it with someone who might like it, or just hover your screen on it for an extra second or two. When you see something you don’t like, something you want to see less of, something awful, close the app. Leave the website, refresh the page, unfollow or disconnect from its source. 

This is not some ploy for engagement, (though I yearn for that side effect) this is very real. Think of what we established at the beginning of our series on screen time: screen time equals value. Algorithms are designed to maximize that value. It’ll serve you whatever it thinks you’ll like, you just need to tell it. The easiest way to communicate with your algorithm is screen time, but the most effective way is engagement.

Next week, we’re going to walk through five social media and deep dive into their interpretations of screen time. Thanks for following along with this blog series, I’ve really enjoyed writing it! A friendly reminder that you can have every issue of this blog sent directly to your inbox by signing up here.

Have a great weekend!

-MC

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This article is the third in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: The Algorithm

The year 2016 marked a major shift in social media. To be fair, the year 2016 marked a major shift in A LOT of things, but today we’re talking about social media. See in 2016, both Instagram and Twitter announced they would be moving away from chronological feeds. Both outlets announced they were following in the steps of Facebook and switching to an algorithmic feed. This meant users scrolling the apps would no longer see things in the order in which they were posted, but instead in the order Instagram and Twitter served up to them based on their usage.

Algorithmic feeds weren’t a new concept in 2016. Facebook actually made this change when they introduced their “News Feed” back in 2011. YouTube followed not long after in 2012. Believe it or not, MySpace actually dropped their chronological feed all the way back in 2009 in an attempt to boost their user base.

Here we are, 15 full years after the introduction of algorithmic feeds. You have, no doubt, encountered advice in your travels about what “The Algorithm” likes. If you’re on TikTok, (which I am right now) you’ve probably heard the phrase “bottom up engagement.” Perhaps if you’re a LinkedIn enjoyer, you’ve been told to comment on your own posts and request people DM you for the sake of “dark social.” Heaven forbid you’re a YouTuber trying to ride the waves of “The Algorithm” in a post ad-pocalypse world. No matter your platform of choice, there is always the question: “What does The Algorithm want?”

If you read yesterday’s blog, you already know the answer. For those uninitiated, the answer is screen time.

Across all social media, in every single app, the algorithm exists for one reason, to keep users’ attention. See chronological feeds have an explicit problem, they end. A user viewing posts chronologically will eventually catch up to where they left off on their last scroll. But, if that user sees posts based on their interest, and is introduced to content from accounts they don’t follow, they can scroll forever.

So what does the algorithm want? It wants users to stay on the app. Forget everything else, every rumor you’ve ever heard and any suspicion you’ve ever had. Algorithm want screen time. Period.

Now what do you do with that knowledge? You’re asking the right questions. Next week, we’re going to discuss how this knowledge can be applied to every post you make on social media. But before we do that, we’re going to identify how you can use your screen time to take control of the algorithm for yourself.

See you then

-MC

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This article is the second in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: What Is It?

Today’s word is, “Screen Time.” Can you say “Screen Time?”

Jokes aside, can you define “Screen Time?” And if you can define it, do you know how “Screen Time” affects social media algorithms or why it matters to you? Heads up, that was the last time I’ll put screen time in quotes or capitalize it.

Let’s start at the beginning. Webster’s dictionary defines screen time as: The amount of time someone spends using a device with a screen, such as a smartphone, tablet, computer or television. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Screen time is the amount of time spent looking at a screen.

But let’s take it a step further. If I told you that each app and website you visit in a day is tracking the screen time you devote to their individual outlet, would you believe me? Well you should because this has been common practice for a long time. In fact, mobile devices typically do this internally and then forward the data to app developers. Here’s a five-year-old article about app tracking if you’d like a source, but again, this is common knowledge.

So why does that matter? And why should you, beyond trying to limit your own digital usage, care about screen time? Here’s the simple answer: screen time equals value.

See when social media companies sell ads, they need a way to quantify value to their ad partners. If Company A wants to purchase an ad on Social Media F, how can Social Media F guarantee that Company A’s ad will be seen? And how can they quantify how many times it will be seen? Social media ads aren’t like newspapers or magazines that have defined subscriber numbers. They also aren’t like television ads, which use viewer ratings as a standard. Social media ads are quantified by, say it with me now, screen time.

Sure, you might see the word “impression(s)” thrown around. But what is an “impression” if not a single instance of screen time? Long story short, social media companies use screen time to define the value of their service. Because social media companies are companies, their goal must then be to increase that value. If screen time equals value, then to raise value, they need to raise screen time.

Enter “The Algorithm,” an omnipresent, omniscient, ethereal force that seemingly dictates everything we see. Social media companies use algorithms to increase screen time to increase value, but that’s a story for tomorrow’s blog.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end! Here’s the takeaway: screen time equals value. Keep that in mind while you’re scrolling today. To what are you adding value by dedicating your screen time?

See you tomorrow!

-MC

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This article is the first in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the announcement of this series, you can read it here. 

coming soon: an in-depth look at screen time

This week, I’ll be running a series on Blogfyre aimed at demystifying the concept of “Screen Time.” Why? Because understanding “Screen Time” is the first step to understanding “The Algorithm.”

We’ll start by defining “Screen Time,” then we’ll take a look at how it impacts different social media. Finally, we’ll identify some actionable strategies you can use to influence your audience’s “Screen Time” and break down how that will impact your marketing.

Sound cool? Good, I hope so! If you want to keep up with this series as it’s published, click here and I’ll send each issue straight to your inbox. If you’d rather binge the whole series after it’s complete, I’ll archive it as one piece over in Free Stuff.

See you tomorrow!

-MC

This is nothing #1

Welcome to This Is Nothing, a special series on Blogfyre devoted to examining content marketing opportunities and solutions. If you’d like to submit something that you think might be Nothing, email it to us with the subject line “Is this Nothing?” and we may feature it here! Matt@bahnfyrepr.com

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In my many years marketing on the internet, I’ve seen a myriad of tactics that are Nothing. So what does it mean to be Nothing? Well, I’m glad you asked. I deem things as Nothing when they:

• Cost more than they’re worth, either in time or money

• Promise great impact with no infrastructure to produce results

• Generally have no benefit to a marketing strategy.

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The Subject

So, for the first edition of This Is Nothing, I’d like to examine an email I received this weekend. It was an invitation to be interviewed for a magazine. Initially, I was pretty stoked! This email wasn’t just for me; it was sent to the inbox of a podcast that I cohost. We’ve literally spent the weekend tabling at a local convention and I was really jazzed that we were seeing immediate pay off. But, as I do with all things, I did a cursory Google search. And what I discovered was that this invitation was, in fact, Nothing.

First thing’s first, let me show you the email. I’ve blacked out last names, emails and physical addresses. While I think at least one of those three is fake, no one needs to get doxxed for hustling schlock.

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The Investigation

Right off the bat, what human being addresses an email like this? Could have used a cohost name, could have just used the podcast name, hell, you could’ve just swapped “Cast” for “Team” and I would have let it slide. But, our email address is “DebateThisCast@...” and clearly that’s as far as they got.

Next, let’s talk about my cursory Google Search. When I typed in “CanvasRebel Magazine,” Google auto-filled “is scam?” So we’re off to a bad start. Anyway, I denied the auto-fill and Googled on. Within the first five hits, I found this reddit thread and this article from Ease Up Consulting. Read through both at your leisure, but to sum them up, CanvasRebel Magazine feels like spam.

I tend to trust the opinions of Reddit and I have to give a second shout out to Ashley from Ease Up because her article did a lot of the heavy lifting for me. Both of those things aside, I still wanted to check out CanvasRebel’s website. You can check it out for yourself, what you’ll find is a field of links just begging to be clicked and about as many pop-up ads as a local news affiliate. You’ll also find ZERO information about the magazine itself, their interview process, their team, or their strategy. I consider all of these must-haves for the website of any journalistic venture.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about the “journalism” of this “magazine.” Their homepage features links to 29 articles all of which have been posted in the last 9 hours. Hey, genuine question, could you write 29 feature length articles in 9 hours? Didn’t think so. The 6 or so of these 29 articles that I opened read as though they were written by the article’s subject through some fill-in-the-blank style form. Last time I’ll reference Ashley’s article on Ease Up’s website, but that article leads me to believe this was exactly how these articles were produced.

Ok. We’ve dissected the email and it sucks, we’ve done a google search and it sucks, we’ve checked the website and it sucks, let’s do our due diligence and check the social media. CanvasRebel’s Instagram, which is linked and featured on their website, has made one post in 2024. I’ll say that again. This digital magazine has made one, singular post on social media this year.

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Is this nothing?

You bet your sweet ass this is Nothing. Minimal internet presence, minimal effort, minimal benefit. It’s as simple as that. To assess by the three metrics I laid out earlier:

• I don’t know how much time an interview will take, but anytime at all would be an overinvestment for the perceived outcome.

• To CanvasRebels credit, they don’t seem to make any egregious promises about impact upfront, so they get a pass on this one.

• I see no benefit here to a larger marketing strategy.

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Why would they do this?

This is a question I hear from clients on the daily. “If this is Nothing, why does it exist?” Quick answer: to make money. Websites like CanvasRebel sell ad space for their websites and guarantee advertiser return based on their clickthrough rate. This means the more time someone spends on their site and the more links they click, either the more money CanvasRebel receives from advertisers directly, or the higher they can price their ad space. Once you’ve created a link-dense website, you can hire a click farm (yes, that’s real) to run up your clickthrough numbers. In conclusion, they’re using you to harvest content.

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Should I do it anyway?

Here’s the M. Night Shyamalan-ian twist to this blog: maybe! Citation in a digital publication can be a good way to validate or legitimize your business. In fact, you can’t start a wikipedia page without having third-party digital sources to reference. If you need a free and easy digital footprint, a CanvasRebel interview may be worth your time! That said, if you expect to gain any more than that, in reach or sales, pass on this opportunity.

Oh, and if they try to make you pay for anything, tell them no.

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In conclusion

Congratulations CanvasRebel, we here at Bahnfyre PR have determined that you are Nothing! I do not feel bad about saying this. The time I spent on your website to write this blog probably made you a nickel.

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This Is Nothing is an ongoing feature produced and written by Bahnfyre PR. If you’d like to submit something that you think might be Nothing, email it to us with the subject line “Is this Nothing?”

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That’s it. Happy Halloween!

-MC

Building a one-match fire

I was a camp counselor for years.

Here’s the thing about being a camp counselor: you build a lot of fires. You build so many fires that you start to differentiate between their types.

• You’ve got your standard teepee fires for your long, all-night campfires.

• You’ve got your standard log cabin fires for cooking mountain pies or banana boats.

• You’ve got your standard pile-of-logs-and-quart-of-gasoline fires for satiating a hoard of screaming ten-year-olds who only have s’mores to look forward to after a day of rain.

I’ve built all these fires dozens of times, but none of them are the type I actually like to build. Teepees, log cabins, even the under-appreciated lean-to, none of them compare to the power, the satisfaction, of a one-match fire.

As the name suggests, a one-match fire is a fire that you light with only one match. One single match to light a fire that burns and burns until it has to be extinguished. That’s the real accomplishment; a full evening of warmth and revelry born from a single spark. That’s a one-match fire.

That’s also a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to build a one-match fire See, one-match fires don’t come from a single spark. Sure, they’re lit with one match, but they’re built through careful planning, diligent preparation, and applied effort. Taking the time to build a good base, create tinder, gather kindling, taking the time to assemble it all carefully, that’s how a one-match fire is born.

So hear I am once again relating business to building fires. Currently, I feel like I’m in the “assemble it carefully” phase. I set up a business email this week (matt@bahnfyrepr.com), I’m sending Monday’s newsletter (subscribe here) via actual newsletter software, and I’ve spent a lot of time working on a marketing plan. Soon, I’ll be ready to strike the match, and it will only grow from there.

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Something that would REALLY help me build this one-match fire is a full calendar! I’ve got some open time for consultation calls and I would love to help you with your messaging. Book a call with me here or shoot me an email if you have any questions!

give me an hour of your time

One hour, that’s all I ask. One hour and I will recontextualize EVERYTHING about how you market your business, event or offering. I promise.

I did my first consultation call under the Bahnfyre banner last week and it went incredibly well! The Butler AM Rotary reached out to me because they were struggling to sell tickets for their annual event, Ghosts and Giggles. When we had our consult, they were 3 weeks out from the event and something to the tune of 70% undersold. That’s a scary place to be, but they won’t be there for long!

While they were ~70% undersold, they were also leaving ~80% of their marketing possibilities on the table. In less than 60 minutes we:

• Established a social media strategy

• Identified a plethora of local businesses to partner with

• Changed their ticket-sale URL

• And reworked some of their print marketing.

That’s a broad overview; we tinkered with our fair share of specifics as well.

My point here is this: It’s hard to see what you’re missing. When you’re creating a business or leading an event, marketing tends to be low on your list of priorities. That’s understandable! But with low priority comes low effort, and with low effort comes missed opportunity, or whatever Uncle Ben said.

So give me an hour of your time. Let me see what you’re missing. Every single suggestion I had for The Butler AM Rotary cost exactly $0, so I promise not to sticker shock you. This is what I’m great at. Please, let me help you.

Bahnfyre Day 1: Clear a Spot

• 7:30a - Crunch on website to be ready for 11a launch

• 10:30a - Acknowledge that I could tinker with website forever

• 10:55a - Create “Coming Soon” graphics

• 10:59a - HIT PUBLISH

• 11:00a - Host first master class on content marketing

• 11:55a - Change sweaty shirt

• 12:00p - Social/Email announcement blast

• 12:03p - Silence notifications

• 12:05p - Breath and eat

• 1:30p - Check notifications

• 1:31p - Tear up a little bit.

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If you want to build a fire, the first thing you have to do is find a spot. Make sure it’s free of debris and contained, then let everyone know where the fire will be so they can be mindful of it too.

Here’s to more good days and thank you all for the love and support!

-MC

you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

“It all begins with an idea.”

Every time you insert a new textbox on Squarespace, that’s the first filler sentence. Now, I love “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” as much as the next guy, but I’ve been particularly inspired by this new placeholder. Because it does all begin with an idea, and, if you’ve got a few moments, I’d like to tell you mine.

In late 2022, I finally landed my dream job, albeit my third dream job. For the first time since I graduated college, I was able to add something that felt “professional” to my resume. I got to go home for the holidays and tell my family that I was “an Account Manager at a marketing firm.” Not particularly flashy, I know, but it was what I set my mind on after flaming out at my two previous dream jobs.

Fast forward to early 2024 and I was about to flame out again, but this time for a different (re: better) reason. I spent over a year at a firm that wasn’t providing results. We peddled a content marketing service that myself, as well as a number of my coworkers, knew wouldn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, my coworkers and I tried our best, but blood, sweat and tears can’t grow success out of thin air. I loved my clients, I loved the content we made, but leadership was so adamant we stay the course that I was forced to watch many of those beloved clients file for bankruptcy. I wouldn’t do it anymore, and that was my idea.

I finally developed the courage and resolve to put my foot down. To puff my chest out and say, “No. I know what I’m talking about. I know how I can help people. And it’s time for me to do it.” So I quit, and I’ve spent the last three months building on that idea. Building Bahnfyre.

Bahnfyre is my way to share my knowledge, skills, and experience, sure. But it’s really my way to help people. To balance the cosmic scales of digital hucksters promising virality for double the price of rent. To show people that social media, and by extension content marketing, doesn’t have to live behind a shroud of overwhelm and special skills. To do what I’m good at: starting fires.

-MC