Followers and Likes

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Followers and Likes – my NEW ambition!

Tell me how many likes you have, and I will tell you who you really are

Opinion: A person’s worth nowadays seems to be judged according to social status, material possessions, AND the number of followers on social media.

Fact: As of September 2020, 63.2 percent of the world’s population has internet access – that is, an estimated 4.9 billion people have access to a world that primarily exists on a cell phone or computer (Internet World Stats, 2020).

Truth: Traditional marketing is dead! Social networks are the new norms. If you want to win the game in this fast-changing environment, be prepared to build a thrilling social media presence where followers and likes play the main role!

Nowadays, social media is potentially a gold mine for leads and new customers for most businesses. Nevertheless, to rise above the noise, you must first stop sounding like every other company (i.e. ‘Click to learn more,’ ‘Sale ends today!’) and instead learn how to be more personable and relevant. Your story is how customers will remember your company, and your persona will influence customers and help you increase brand awareness and attract new idea-believers. 

While advances in technology will continue to make the world a more connected ecosystem, you must focus on people and platforms to ‘future proof’ your business for a 2030 society.   Eventually, Facebook and YouTube will replace cable television providers, while Twitch will become the only platform to watch the next World Football Championship. Sounds crazy at first? Now you will see that it is just a reality covered by the thick layer of denial.

Social media networks are not created equally. Each social media platform has its own strategies, algorithms, and tools to create a thrilling and eye-catching personal brand. My passion is to be a constant student who evolves on the topic daily from those who paved the path before me, such as Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Carlos Gil. Having evolved from a start-up entrepreneur to a social media and marketing executive that has worked with more than 500 clients on all social media platforms has given me valuable hands-on experience and a great perspective about the business of social media marketing. Currently, as a Head of Sales and PR at CHISELL, I would like to knock down all of the most important aspects of top-notch platforms on the company’s example. 

In today’s personal branding and selfie culture, a strong social presence is as important as a good appearance.

In recent years, the men’s beauty industry has renewed interest in facial fitness and grooming categories. CHISELL is an action-oriented beauty brand for men. As the jawline development industry leader, CHISELL is making a splash in the men’s fashion and self-care industry by breaking beliefs about facial attractiveness and natural development. CHISELL, a pioneer of the jawline industry, gives people a chance to be the master of their faces and naturally customize their faces with time and patience. 

As a progressive Latvian startup, CHISELL testifies all possible and impossible marketing and brand positioning strategies to be one step above its competitors. Without a doubt, it implies a strong social media presence. In our case, not just having an account on all portals; rather, being highly active on ALL relevant social media networking places. Each of them is unique and requires a certain approach. Picking up the right key to each platform is the ultimate key for our marketing team and me. 

Wondering which social media networks to use? It is simple: go where your customers are. Then, be relevant by having a platform-specific strategy.

By placing yourself on the social media portals where your target demographic spends their time, you will dive deeper into certain social networks and immediately be competing with fewer people for digital eyeballs. Becoming more educated on attractive content creation and personal brand optimization is the single most important thing that will distinguish you among thousands of other brands 2 years from now. 

Knowing your audience implies knowing their needs and wants to serve those later on. Rule #1 of successful social media growth: a new platform – a new approach. Rule #2 – never forget Rule #1. The most appealing categories you need to be aware of today are:

  • Visualization platforms, where consumers buy with their eyes and emotions (Instagram);
  • Professional business media that acts as a short business almanac (Linkedin, Facebook);
  • Entertaining networks to stay energized and spend the hours of boredom (YouTube, TikTok);
  • The one where consistency acts as your advantage, not lack of lexicon (Twitter);
  • People trust people; therefore, people buy from people (Influencers);
  • Future social media stars (Twitch, Reddit, Snapchat).

Living a Tinder world through the lens of Instagram

Yes, I completely meant it! We are now living in a Tinder world, not just in terms of using apps to facilitate dating but in terms of people quickly reacting to what looks appealing to them. Instagram is the place where your good reaction plays a huge role when scrolling down the feed. Today, the visual appeal of your digital content is what sells your product or service. On Instagram, content format matters less than its quality.

To generate genuine engagement that expands your organic reach, you need to create content that people want to respond to and share with their network. For example, a simple picture of an egg on Instagram, @world_record_egg, set the record for the most likes on Instagram with over 55 million and counting. The post is literally just a picture of an egg with a caption that speaks of beating that was then the record of 18 million likes on a post, held by Kylie Jenner.

The recipe for success is simple: carefully map out your story, aka ‘storyboarding,’ then write a short one- or two-sentence caption that attracts, later use a call to action through links or questions to boost the engagement, and lastly add an astonishing photo of a moment that other people would like to live. Marketing is like dating – what looks appealing is what sells. And Instagram is the alpha male in this modern Tinder world. For those and many more reasons, Instagram became the first social media for CHISELL.

That is also the leading social way of engaging with the CHISELL community with a chiseled jawline. Consistency and creativity in visual form took CHISELL to reach over 20 thousand followers on Instagram. 

If you work in sales or are looking to grow your business and find new clients, using Linkedin isn’t an option – it is a requirement.

The good news is that Linkedin is the biggest business contacts database that is easily searchable with just a couple of clicks and completed search fields. Being the #1 business professional platform, Linkedin is used by 1/10 of the world population (Linkedin, 2020). The platform is designed mainly for the jobseekers and active entrepreneurs who want to increase their brand awareness.

Nevertheless, it also plays an online CV for individuals and an easy-to-build ‘website’ for the companies. Throughout the last 4.5 years, I have become the Linkedin profile and content optimization expert with over 30 thousand connections and over 50 thousand views per post.

Meanwhile, 350+ successfully served business clients from 28 different countries taught me the importance of a strong personal brand in the business world. The first project I implemented when joining CHISELL a year ago as the Head of Sales and PR was Linkedin development and optimization.

Earlier in 2020, it reached the first thousand followers and over 2 thousand unique views per post. Not only it created an additional income stream, but it also boosted CHISELL brand awareness significantly. Now it gets over 20 thousand visits per month and creates new opportunities for the company’s further growth and development.

Building a relationship on Linkedin is no different from meeting someone offline and building a relationship organically. Linkedin is the go-to social network for business professionals around the world. 

Don’t be mad at Facebook; you suck at marketing! 

And no, Facebook is not dying. It is still the most popular social media portal, with over 2.74 active users (Facebook, 2020).In the last several years, Facebook – which owns Instagram – has made many feature updates and enhancements to its Stories, Live Video, and Facebook Watch toolset to empower its users to improve the quality of native storytelling within the platform.

Facebook is competing for head-on with YouTube in the race to be the go-to platform for digital video content, so the first type of content Facebook prefers is short-form native videos. Another way to attract more people is to generate posts that ignite conversation. If a post has many comments and shares, Facebook will be more likely to show that content. Lastly, Facebook Ads is arguably the best advertisement tool you can use right now.

Just imagine eye-catching ads being seen by people of certain ages, living in a certain region, and having certain interests. That is called targeting, and it assures the biggest possible sales success rate for your company. CHISELL is constantly posting on Facebook media materials to boost its customers’ interest and educate them on the jawline industry and chew exercise matters. At the same time, Facebook Ads allow advertising the product to the US society that contributes to most CHISELL clients. 

Consider YouTube as an infinite source of information.

On the surface, one might look at YouTube as a place to watch music videos, stream video games online and tune in to one’s favorite vlogger. In one word – entertainment. However, as the second most-searched site online (right after Google), YouTube is an untapped gold mine for business and creators. Being the 2nd most used search engine (again after Google), it will answer you how to unbox your new iPhone or what is the most efficient reading way.

Having an active presence on YouTube will help you gain precious website visits and drive leads due to the videos you post. As an additional benefit, your YouTube videos are also discoverable via Google search. Get the first 1000 clients and over a million views organically, all without even using the YouTube advertisement, which, by the way, is another great way to drive huge traffic to your website. The goal here is to post educational or entertaining content that will solve other people’s problems, uplift their mood, and become viral.

Optimize your keywords for SEO, have an attractive headline, and be an interesting person to watch. That’s simple. CHISELL has a huge YouTube presence with the help of its huge influencer army. YouTube giants such as Brett Maverick and AstroSky contributed significantly to CHISELL’s popularity on the platform. 

Being viewed by 10 million, with no followers is now possible.

And TikTok is definitely worth eyeing for this reason. Even though its main audience is aged 13 and 18, think of them as potential customers a few years from now. Formerly known as Musical.ly, TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, is an iOS and Android media app for creating and sharing short videos. TikTok was also the 2nd most popular free app downloaded in 2019 from both Apple App Store and Google Play, second only to WhatsApp (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2020).

The only anxiety here is its similarity to the hype around ‘Vine’ acquired, then killed off by Twitter. Nevertheless, TikTok is a perfect place where you can build a strong personal brand and get 10 million views with no followers. Lack of creativity or artistry will not stop you from filming a viral video that can be seen by 800 million active users each month (Oberlo, 2020).

As for CHISELL it has been active on TikTok starting from the end of 2019, where it gets, on average, a few thousand views per video that are x10 the number of CHISELL followers on TikTok. The magic that everyone can learn.

Get in there and have a conversation!

Twitter is a platform where almost every word that is tweeted is made for public consumption and searchable. The ethos of Twitter is a social network that has short content (a ‘tweet’), easy to consume, direct, and to the point. Although a 280-character limit is considered, Twitter is still among the most popular social media platforms for 330 million people in the US.

Take, for example, the current US President Donald Trump. On May 12, it was estimated that Trump had spent exactly 96 days, 22 hours, and 6 minutes tweeting since taking office in early 2017 (The Washington Post, 2020). If it isn’t clear proof of the platform’s popularity in the US, then I don’t know what is. The only point in the cheat list for the platform is to stay brief while being relevant. The reality is that nowadays, people consume quickly by scrolling down the feed. Use it for your best!

CHISELL has used Twitter at the beginning of the journey but quickly understood that no deep thought and detailed information could be covered under 280 characters. Sorry, Twitter, but we have a bit more to say to the world.

Will you buy it now when Rihanna said #MeToo?

Influencer marketing is already a billion-dollar industry and will continue to grow as an alternative to traditional print and TV media advertising, which is typically more expensive. An influencer doesn’t need to be internet famous to be influential.

An influence can be an existing customer who already speaks about you organically without compensation or can even be an employee. And that is the beauty of this field. CHISELL’s influencer partnership department, which is run by highly-skilled specialists, assures a thrilling experience sharing and online presence generated by the product users.

As a result, CHISELL has been featured in posts of a UFC fighter, almost 1 million YouTubers, and musical artists. 

If you are thinking of getting into YouTube at the ground level, look no further than Twitch.

Some believe that Twitch is the next most promising social media portal to start investigating right now. Owned by Amazon, Twitch is a live-streaming video platform with about 80 percent of its users being male and over 50 percent ranging between 18 and 34 years old (Twitch, 2020).

Another fact is that its users spend on average 90+ minutes per day consuming streaming video content, primarily video games, due to Fortnite and Esports’ rising popularity. That is the place where through consistency and thrilling content, you can build an army of loyal fans that later can buy your merch (Ninja), support in case of injustice (Dr. DisRespect), or result in a 3-million-dollar tournament win (Bugha).

Reddit is similar to the ‘old school’ message boards of the 1990s

Reddit, which was founded in 2005, is a news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. It is also one of the most visited websites online. To be candid, if levered properly, it can be a phenomenal source for driving website clicks, email opt-ins, and subscribers.

However, here is the catch – the Reddit community is anti-marketing; therefore, participating in Reddit discussions should resemble the dialogue of an everyday person, not a brand. There begins by engaging in community discussions related to your industry or topics relevant to your customers to grow your presence. 

Think of Snapchat as a place where ‘Twitter meets YouTube’

In 2015, Snapchat began to catch a ‘buzz’ as an alternative to Facebook. It was wildly popular among younger Millennials and college students who didn’t want to post content that would stick around ‘forever’ as is the case for Facebook and Instagram.

The key to the success of Snapchat is built around storytelling. It is also the early pioneer of augmented reality through its popular face filters and lenses that offer alternative entertainment. Post visually interesting and short content to keep users coming back regularly for an additive, and you are set to conquer the world in the 21st century.

Eventually, younger consumers will ‘grow up,’ and you should be fully prepared for them once the day comes.

Start looking at these emerging social networks right now! CHISELL, as an innovative and constantly-developing startup, ensures its presence in all platforms directly or indirectly. You can find plenty of mentions of CHISELL and suggestions on how the jawline training works and how to get a chiseled jawline, while the CHISELL team sometimes participates in Rocket League tournaments that are also streamed on Twitch.

The biggest secret no one else will tell you – You are only as good as your last post!

And it is the same on any social media platform: you are only as good as your last tweet, post, story. A social media post has a relatively short lifespan and is only relevant as long as it has engagement. Of course, it will be there indefinitely, at least for some platforms, but it does not guarantee relevance in a few months or even weeks from now.

Why on earth would someone like to listen to you when you are 22 years old when you are already 23?! Engagement on a post is a form of oxygen; therefore, you should always aim to post content that delivers value through education or entertainment to your intended audience.

As Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Become a practitioner. Please don’t underestimate the social network ecosystem … it’s communication. It’s not social media.” He added that “Communication is fundamentally how the world turns; and I implore this audience to triple down on their efforts of being a written, audio, or video communicator on the platforms.”

If you want to know what the future holds, look at the previous decade for insights.

Evolve, or you will be irrelevant, as they say. When it comes to marketing, your goal is to reach the target audience where they are paying the most attention. And for the past 10+ years, that has been social media. 

Here is a thought to ponder: Millennials will soon become C-level executives at most corporations. As a good example, it is estimated that by 2030 the Millennial generation will have 78 million people in the US, while the Baby Boomers generation will have only 56 million people (Statista, 2019).

What is moral? Start planting the seeds now to create a strong personal brand then. Use Facebook and Linkedin as a professional business CV for the company, Instagram and Pinterest to illustrate the beauty of your craft, YouTube, and TikTok to entertain and stay in trends, Twitter to express your thoughts. So, the easiest way to ‘future proof’ your business is to be where your customers are.

Yesterday it was Facebook; today, it is TikTok, tomorrow it will be something else. Just be prepared for it!

The last remark from my side

When I set out to write this article, I knew I wanted to write something different from thousands of social media self-help articles already out there. I wanted this to be not just an article; but rather a wake-up call for all of you who are still wondering whether “to be or not to be.” 

Yes, I am only 22 years of age, and you have just read 3000 words of consultation on social media importance from my side. And there somewhere hides the irony. But my age is also the answer to why you didn’t stop reading after the first paragraph.

I can analyze the topic from the perspective of 3 different generations: 15-year old students who are crushing it on TikTok and, by the way, will become your potential customers just a few years from now; newly university graduates who start breathing deeply; and Millenials with whom I interact daily in the business world. And the conclusion from it is as follows: be social, be real,  and you will be able to make waves in this digital ocean that has already covered ⅔ of the world’s population.

Regardless of what products you sell or industry you represent, we are all in ‘the people business.’ People buy from people. People trust people. While marketing, as we know it, is dead, the need to sell and grow revenue will never die. If cash flow is the life support for a business, engagement through social media is its oxygen. 

That is all why followers and likes are my NEW ambition! 


Nikita Cikaluk
SSE Riga Class of 2020, Head of Sales and PR at CHISELL

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