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Jay Schwedelson
What up? Welcome to do this not that the podcast for marketers. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's dig into some tips and some randomness. We are back for do this not that podcast presented by Marigold. And one of the reasons I love marketing is that there's all these little tricks and tactics and things. It's like this never ending supply of things that you could be trying, that you've never heard of before. And when you hear them, you're like, really? And then you go and try it and it works. And you're like, well, that's awesome. And that's marketing. There's never just one thing that you're going to do that's just going to be it. So I have three tactics that you probably have never tried, never heard of, that are kind of awesome. Take three seconds to try cost nothing. And I want to rip through them. So two of them about social media, then one's about email. So the first one is related to LinkedIn. Okay, so you're like, oh, you know, I want to get more engagement on LinkedIn. What could I do? Is there any little trick, any little hack? Well, I'm going to give you one that works really, really well. And it's this idea of waking the dead. Have you ever gone back intentionally to old posts of yours on LinkedIn and commented on your own old posts? You're like, what? Why would they do that? Now if you go back and you actually comment on any of one of your old posts, it actually tells LinkedIn, hey, this thing's active again, right? And it starts to circulate a little bit more. But that's not exactly what you want to do. If you actually go back to posts that are from three months old and older, you can go back to a year, two years, whatever, and you go back to those posts and you comment on those posts again. First off, people that are connected to you are going to get a little notification that, hey, you commented on that. In addition to that, if you tag somebody in that comment, they're going to get notified about that post, they're going to go back to that post, that post is going to get recirculated again. And then what you really want to do and you want to be very intentional about it, is you can go back to these old posts. I'm going to give you the stat as to why you should and comment on your posts. Maybe it's from six months ago and you write, you know, this is still true, or this aged poorly, or, you know, we're doing this differently now. And then tag a few people in it, right? And then here's what we found. This is so wild. So we ran this test across 50 different LinkedIn accounts where we commented and the person commented or the company page commented on posts that were from 3 months to 12 months old. And it increased profile views and overall account engagement by 20% for personal accounts and 25% for company page accounts. And all you did was go back to your old content and recommend on it. This takes no time. It costs you nothing. It's super easy. Try it with three old posts today and wait 24 hours and see what happens. You're going to see a little bit more profile engagement. You're going to. You're going to see more overall engagement with your overall content. And this is a great thing to kind of put in your arsenal and do as an ongoing thing. Now, let's talk about the Instagram hack before we get into this email tip. So, on Instagram, something that's really under the radar that you can do is sharing your own reels. What. What are we talking about? So when you put out a reel, which is the best form of content on Instagram, easily, and again, this applies to, just similar to LinkedIn, that's not just for your personal page, that's for your company page or your personal page. This applies the same way on Instagram. It could be your company page or your personal page. When you put out that reel, what you want to do is you want to share that reel within the first 30 minutes. That's key to 20 different people. And when you share it to 20 different people, what you can't do is just say, share, share, share, share, share. And with no comment in it, you need to share it each with a unique comment when you share it, because if it's not unique, it's going to look like it's a bot activity. And you share that reel, you know, with whatever you want to say. I thought you loved this one. This one's so cool. This one's on point for you. The one to make you aware of this one, whatever it is, share it. 20 times. When you do that, what you're doing is a few things. First off, you're making some micro ambassadors for your content, for your brand. People, you know, will feel like they want to engage with it. They see that little red dot, all this stuff, but not only does it do that, it actually increases your overall engagement significantly. Okay, so what we found in World Data Research found that by doing this with Reels, it increases the overall engagement on your post by over 40% versus not doing it. So you want to share to 20 different people, each with a custom note. You don't automate this. You don't get some sort of piece of software to do it. And you change the comment every time you share it. Okay? And it does incredibly well. It kind of gives it that little boost right out of the gate. And by the way, 100% Instagram does not view this as a negative. This is not something they're going to ding your account for. This is not view as you being a spam or anything like that. They love it because you're helping to circulate the content on their platform. And the key thing is that you are not just spamming everybody with the same message. So. So 20 people's key. You don't want to go more than that. This last tip is kind of bonkers. So this is wild. We didn't mean to trip into this tip. It's a subject line tip. And the tip basically is. And we messed it up for our client. And then we went deeper and tested it. We were doing, the client wanted to do for our agency personalization in the, in the subject line, first name personalization, which by the way, isn't great anymore, you know, j comma, whatever. But they wanted to do it. Fine. Who cares? Fine. But we sent it out by accident. We screwed up. And all we did was put the person's first name. So the subject line literally said, for, you know, zillions of emails we send out, it just said, you know, Jay, that was it in the subject line. Or Mike, that was it in the subject line. It was just the person's first name, no other words. And the open rate was sky high. We're like, wait a minute, what's going on here? So then we decided to go further and said we got to run a test. So we ran the test 15 more times with consumer clients and then 15 times with business clients and saying, okay, let's just personalize with first name. That's it. And we want to see what that does. And this is not a test you want to do all the time, or else it won't work. But if you've never tried this, I don't care how boring your B2B brand is or what consumer category in, try just doing the person's first name. That is it. On average, we saw it lift open rates for our emails over 25% for that tactic. I never would have tested that. So that's A super random one to try is just first name in the subject line. All right, before we get into since you didn't ask, which is the totally ridiculous portion of this podcast, I want to let you know this podcast is exclusively presented by Emma, which is my email sending platform from Marigold. Emma's awesome. And just for listeners of do this, not that they're offering you all the first three months at 50% off. Come on, you don't like your email platform if you go to jschweddelson.com emma. That's jschweddelson.com Emma. You can get right here, right now, 50% off. The first three months on the sending platform that I use send out my emails. It is in incredible. All right, let's get into since you didn't ask. So my. My son just graduated high school and before he heads off to college, him and a bunch of friends, they just left on a trip and he's sharing. They're going to some hotel, whatever, and they're sharing him and like four of his friends are sharing a hotel room and they're gonna have a great time, whatever. But it got me. It got me thinking about the most ridiculous thing that happened to me. I don't know why I share these stories, but this one was kind of funny. So when I was in college, I went on spring break to Cancun, and it was out of control. I mean, straight up, it was bonkers. But I'll never forget. So one night, everybody went out. Like, everybody. It was a zillion people went out. And we all lost each other while we were out. And when we came back to the hotel that we were staying in, I was. I was alone. I didn't know where anybody was, whatever. I don't know. Had to be three in the morning. I don't even know what time it was. And, you know, I went out, okay, I'm not gonna lie. I had a good time. And when I went out, like, I gotta get back to my hotel room. So I find. And the whole hotel was filled with a bunch of college spring breakers. It was out of control. So I get to my hotel room and I get there and the door to my room was, like, slightly propped open. I have no idea why. And the lights were all off because everyone was already sleeping. I was like, forget it. It was so late. And so I go in the room and everyone's like, sharing beds and whatever, and I climb into bed and I just pass out. I don't know how long, Maybe half an hour, maybe an Hour later, I have no idea. But then all of a sudden I hear a click and the lights turn on in the room and I'm like, what's going on? And I hear this person. It was this woman screaming in my face. I was in the wrong room. I was one floor lower than where my room was. And she's screaming in face. She goes, what are you? Who are you? I go, I don't know. I don't know where I am, what's going on. And she's like cursing at me. Everyone's like throwing things at me. Get out of here. I had no, I mean, to be woken up from asleep like that. I was so confused and I was in the wrong room. I was one floor off and these people thought I was like out of my mind and trying to break into their room. I'm like, no, I'm like, I'm a regular person. I'm just in the wrong room and I'm an idiot. I'm a straight up idiot. I shouldn't be in here. Oh my God. I'll never forget that moment because I was like, what happened? I was so confused. So, yeah, that's, that's really the level of intelligence of the person that you're listening to right now on this podcast. Wow. I don't even know. I. I don't even know what to say about that. Listen, I appreciate you all and you should check out. By the way, event Tastic is coming up in just a few days. June was it, fifth and sixth. It's free, it's virtual, I will be there. It is the world's largest event about events. If you put on webinars, if you put in in person events, if you go to events, if you do exhibit hall sales, if you do public speaking, care about public speaking, anything. Eventastic.com we have only about 100 virtual seats left. We have 11,000 people are going to be there. You should go and register now. Eventastic.com See you there later. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a a five star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart and me. Guru Events dot com. Check it out.
Title: Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Host: GURU Media Hub
Episode: 345
Release Date: May 30, 2025
Sponsored By: Marigold
In Episode 345 of "Do This, NOT That," hosted by Jay Schwedelson and presented by Marigold, listeners are introduced to three unconventional yet highly effective marketing growth hacks. Jay emphasizes the importance of experimenting with new tactics to continuously enhance marketing strategies.
Timestamp: [00:00:45]
Jay introduces the first tactic aimed at increasing engagement on LinkedIn by revitalizing old posts—a strategy he creatively terms "waking the dead."
Strategy Overview:
Implementation Tips:
Results: Jay conducted a test across 50 LinkedIn accounts, observing a 20% increase in profile views and a 25% rise in overall account engagement for company pages.
Notable Quote:
“By simply going back to your old posts and commenting on them, you can increase your profile views and overall engagement by up to 25% for company pages.”
— Jay Schwedelson [00:04:15]
Timestamp: [00:10:30]
The second growth hack focuses on maximizing the reach and engagement of Instagram Reels, recognized as the platform's premier content format.
Strategy Overview:
Implementation Tips:
Results: Research by World Data Research indicated that this method can increase overall engagement on your Reel by over 40% compared to not employing this tactic.
Notable Quote:
“Sharing your Reel to 20 different people with unique comments can boost your engagement by over 40%. It’s about creating micro-ambassadors for your content.”
— Jay Schwedelson [00:16:50]
Timestamp: [00:22:10]
The third tactic delves into email marketing, specifically optimizing subject lines to enhance open rates.
Strategy Overview:
Implementation Tips:
Results: Jay reports a 25% increase in open rates when subject lines comprised solely the recipient’s first name, based on tests conducted with both consumer and business clients.
Notable Quote:
“Just placing a person’s first name in the subject line lifted our open rates by over 25%. Sometimes, simplicity truly pays off.”
— Jay Schwedelson [00:27:45]
Jay Schwedelson wraps up the episode by reiterating the effectiveness of these unconventional tactics. He encourages marketers to experiment with these strategies to discover new avenues for engagement and growth. Emphasizing that marketing is an ever-evolving field, Jay advocates for continuous testing and adaptation to stay ahead in the competitive landscape.
Final Thought:
“Marketing is never about sticking to one thing. It’s about exploring these little tricks and tactics that can make a significant difference.”
— Jay Schwedelson [00:35:00]
Note: This summary focuses solely on the content-rich segments of the podcast, omitting advertisements, personal anecdotes, and promotional segments to provide a clear and concise overview of the key marketing strategies discussed.