Guess what happened last week?

I’m writing this on the 8th, which is Wednesday, and this is slightly important information, because it’s been just over a week of #thewritersjanuary and I wanted to share the results with you from my own little experiment.

I know it’s JUST A WEEK, and you can’t really expect or read into it all too much, but, the power of social media has surprised me again and it’s been eye opening stuff.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, #thewritersjanuary is a social media calendar, with a strategy in building engagement, connection and growth with a prompt for each day throughout the month.

I did it especially for writers and creatives, as most social media calendars hopping around at this time are for small business owners, or people who just want to grow their accounts where the metrics we’re looking at are slightly different.

Yep, we all want to grow, of course we do, but having a connected community is so much more valuable when you have a new book out, or a new work of art to sell. You want people who are invested in you and your work when that happens and so, that’s what my prompts do. They build you an audience and get you visible.

POST EVERY… WHAT???

You can still join in, we’re only into the first week and the results have been pretty dramatic considering that it’s just a week, just seven days, and I always say to my clients where social media is concerned that you need a good couple of months to see any results, but here’s what I’ve found so far.

First off, (and you absolutely don’t have to do this) I decided to post everywhere.

All platforms that I’m on.

And this was because I really want to see which one was most effective for me. I adore Instagram, but lately my content has been a bit all over the show and I needed more focus on there.

I’ve been sporadic at best with my other platforms. Doing everything that I tell people not to.

I also wanted to increase my Facebook engagement and get closer to that 10k mark on TikTok.

So yeah, posting on seven platforms everyday for a week, and here’s what I’ve found.

Consistency Is Key

Posting daily has seen an increase in reach across engagement on all platforms.
And engagement breeds engagement, asking questions, inviting in opinions and just using the platforms to make connections has been a keen reminder of how powerful they are.

It’s OK, more than OK, To Repurpose

I didn’t have time to create brand new content for all of these posts.

I need to work smarter not harder, and repurposing has been my secret sauce to doing this.

More on how I did this further down for paying subs, but if you’re reading this on a free sub, just know that repurposing is your bestie.

People Are Watching

This past week, I’ve had two DM’s come through on the platforms that have been excellent.
One from a national publication just after I’d made this post, wanting to review my book (eeek!) and one from a someone wanting to work with me. Visibility is KEY.
Don’t think just because you’re stuck in the 200 views club or that you have no comments that the silent scrollers aren’t watching. They absolutely are.

The Results

Instagram and Facebook have seen me lose followers.
This is not unusual at all, in fact, it’s to be expected.

When you start posting consistently, and get seen by more people, there will be some who forgot why they started following you. They’ll see your stuff and think, ‘hey, who’s this lady. I don’t remember following her.’ And hit unfollow.

It always happens when I work on someone’s account and is a sign of more people seeing your stuff, which makes sense as reach, engagement and profile activity (people curious to find out more about me) is through the roof.

337% increase in fact!
Which for this time of year, when most people are off their phones is encouraging. My reach was up by 107% and impressions up by 132%

The platform that gave me most followers, reach and engagement was….drum roll please…Threads, with 60 new followers the last week and lots of lovely new connections.

TikTok was also fantastic in terms of views and reach, with a 520% increase in views and a 240% increase in engagement. I lost followers and gained followers on there so am back to where I started in terms of growth!

LinkedIn also up with impressions by 324% and I’m having more search appearances and profile views, which is a good thing. A lot more connection requests as well, so who knows what will happen there?

Bluesky doesn’t yet offer any inbuilt analytics, but I know I’ve had an increase of 20 followers and people are liking my posts, but yet to see anything really happening on that platform yet. How are you finding it?

I haven’t got a premium subscription to X, but know that my views have increased but tbh, I never really got on with this platform, even when it was Twitter, so its the one I least engage with.

This is such a long post - if you’re still with me, hurrah and thank you!
Now let me tell you the secret sauce to doing this without losing hours and your mind, and what I plan to do with the content strategy going forward to make it even more effective.

Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

The key to being able to do any of this, has been to repurpose my content. It’s been easy, quick, got me results and not taken much time at all.