Jennifer Johnson, CEO and founder of CinchShare, joined us once again on the Modern Direct Seller Podcast not only to talk about the incredible scheduling tool she created, but also to give us a broad look at social media in 2023. There are plenty of features to love on CinchShare, but how can they be used effectively to grow your online presence? Why would you want to add a third-party app to your toolkit? And how can tools like this help direct sellers serve their social media audiences and keep people interacting with their posts? Jennifer answered these questions and more, sharing plenty of tips to help you stay consistent, save time, and see continued success in your content creation.

Learn more about Jennifer and CinchShare at ⁠CinchShare.com⁠, or connect on ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, or across other social media platforms @CinchShare.

Time based notes:

• 1:09 Jennifer Johnson introduction
• 2:53 CinchShare introduction
• 6:42 Underutilized features in CinchShare
• 8:36 Social media in 2023
• 14:02 What type of content to post
• 15:51 Visibility and third-party apps
• 17:57 Jen’s favorite office supply

Stay Consistent on Social Media with CinchShare Founder Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer Johnson, CEO and founder of CinchShare, recently joined us once again on the Modern Direct Seller Podcast not only to talk about the incredible scheduling tool she created, but also to give us a broad look at social media in 2023. She shared plenty of tips to help you stay consistent, save time, and see continued success in your content creation, so you won’t want to miss her insight!

For those that don’t know the story of CinchShare, or don’t know anything about you, Jen, or your background, share with us a little bit about what you do. @hat gave you the inspiration to create CinchShare?

So, CinchShare is nine years old now; I started it nine years ago after using some other scheduling apps. I had actually signed up for a network marketing company, and I was posting on Facebook—I was posting a lot. And, I needed to reuse my content easily so I could repost it easily. I was using HootSuite and Buffer and the just Facebook scheduler, and they all worked, but they were very time consuming and cumbersome to schedule the amount of posts that I was scheduling. And so, that’s kind of how CinchShare was born. I was like, “I just need a faster way to do this.” And, what used to take me about two hours to schedule using those apps or using Facebook scheduler, I reduced to about 20 minutes or less using CinchShare. So, it was a super time saver.

So, we found our niche, and found what our users were doing over and over, and what they needed. And, we reduced the amount of clicks it took to schedule content to social media platforms. And, that’s kind of what CinchShare is: We make it really easy and simple to schedule your social media.

So, if somebody is not familiar with CinchShare, give us a quick rundown of how it works, how it can benefit especially those in the direct sales industry, and also why it’s important to use a scheduler like CinchShare. I’d love to hear in your own words why you really see it as such a benefit for the industry.

What’s so great about using a scheduler is that it helps people be consistent—which is obviously a big keyword in our industry, but it really is so true. Because, if you post on social media, and you post really consistently for a week, that’s great. But, if you stop and then you don’t have consistency beyond that, then all of that hard work is going nowhere, and you’ve got to start all over again. And so, when you are marketing your business on social media, the most important piece is consistency. But, it’s really hard to be consistent when you don’t have a plan, and you don’t have a schedule, and you’re just willy-nilly throwing things out there. And so, if you are marketing your business on social media, you really should be scheduling your content.

 And, there’s lots of ways you can do that. It’s great that Facebook has that option on their platform where you can schedule for free. But, there’s a lot of limitations with that. And, it’s very time-consuming and cumbersome when you’re on that platform, and you’re also getting inundated with notifications, and then you get lost and you start scrolling, and then hours go by. So, it can be a big time suck. So, when you are planning something, and you’re separate from the platform, you’re able to plan ahead, get all your content, and then you just know that everything’s going to be delivered to that platform. And then, you can spend your time engaging and talking with people and building those relationships, rather than spending your time on the platform posting.

So true. There’s a benefit there, in the sense that you can get ahead and schedule things at the same time when you’re in that content-creation mode. But, I think that last piece of what you said is so important, right? If you get this hard work done ahead of time, then you can really focus on what matters the most, which is engaging and connecting with people, and creating conversations, and not worrying so much about what you’re going to post and dropping everything that day to go create content.

So, I’m sure we have lots of CinchShare users that are listening. What features are they missing out on that maybe they don’t know about? Because, I feel like I’m always uncovering something new that CinchShare has to offer.

I think that one of the features that we hear a lot about people are surprised to learn about is text clips. Basically, when I created the feature, I was using a whole bunch of sticky notes on my computer that I was copying and pasting the same information from. Whether it was a website, or a call to action, or even just a full post message, I was using all these sticky tabs, and copying and pasting, and it was a lot of back and forth. And so, we created text clips in CinchShare, where basically, you can go in and pre-save that information that you use all the time in your posts and your content, and it remains available in a drop down for you. So, wherever your cursor is in your post message, you can just click your text clip, and that information pops right in.

I use text clips for hashtags that I’m using frequently. I know I have one that’s a one sentence, “Listen to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform,” and has a cute little emoji attached to it. So, yeah, I love text clips. And, they can be really helpful for those that are running parties, that are sharing a shopping link, or that want to repost information about “how to connect.”

It also helps reduce typos. If it’s something that you’re typing all the time, you know that you already have it set and saved exactly how you want it.

Speaking of posts, let’s talk social media 2023. Because, we know that some things have changed, and that there are people feeling a little frustrated with the visibility of their posts, or the algorithm, or whatever that might be. I know you’re always watching what’s happening on the platforms, and you’re seeing results across your huge user base. In your eyes, what has changed and what has remained the same?

That’s a good question. It’s interesting, because I see a lot of people online right now saying, “Marketing has changed. What you were doing before isn’t working.” And, there’s some truth to that. But, there’s also some falsity to that. Because, you know, the platforms are still just the platforms. You can still post a photo. You can post a video. You can post a status. But, the platform obviously has gone through some changes, too.

For example, when it comes to Facebook specifically: Back in 2016, it was kind of “quantity over quality” as far as how many posts the platform wanted and what people were responding to. And then, it changed for several years, where it was “quality over quantity” when it came to marketing strategies. But, what we’re seeing come back again is more of the “quantity over quality.” I’m not saying that you want to put out bad content, but because of this, if there’s a typo in your post, or if it’s not perfect, it’s okay, because social media posts have a very short shelf life, especially on Facebook. You can post something in the morning, and if it didn’t get a whole lot of traction, by evening, it’s gone. Like, somebody may comment on it, and it bumps it back up, but it’s not going to bump it back up into the full algorithm of actually spreading it out to other people. So, you really only have a few hours for content to be engaged upon on Facebook before it needs the next post. That’s the quantity that the algorithm is looking for.

So, I guess I don’t know if I answered your question. Things have changed, but they’re also much the same. And so, obviously, put out good content and make sure you’re sharing value. But, it definitely is about quantity again. And so, if you’re posting in your Group only once a day, and you’re not seeing results, that could be why. You might need to be posting two, three, four times a day, simply because you’re competing with all the other people who are posting that amount of content. If that’s you, try increasing your posting frequency and seeing if that increases your engagement. Make sure that you’re posting more engaging content, because people are looking to be entertained and have fun. And then, obviously, throw those promotional posts in there, too.

So often, I think we get caught up thinking, “Oh, my gosh, if I post something too similar, even a week later, people are gonna be like, ‘Oh, that’s the same thing she already posted.'” But, only a fraction of people are even seeing your posts, let alone engaging with them, so if you have something that didn’t land the way you wanted, rework it, try it again, use a different graphic, use a different video, kind of switch it up, and see. And, at the same time, if something is doing really well, do more of that, right? I know social media is a little bit more of an art than a science a lot of times, but I think that’s a great reminder that not everyone is seeing everything you’re doing on the platform.

For sure. And, even to go back to what you just said as far as if something didn’t work, rework it, maybe adjust it—you can certainly do that. But, sometimes just reposting it again, completely identical, at a different time, on a different date, will have completely different results. It’s not a perfect science. The platforms have fluctuations and ebbs and flows to them, just like people do. And so, if you posted something to your Page, and it didn’t get any engagement, post it to your Group. Post it at a different time. And, you don’t even have to go through the process of changing it. Literally just hit “repost,” and it’s done for you, and all you have to do is select that day and time.

And then, if you did have good engagement, you might say, “Hey, this was great! I want to reuse it. I’m going to go ahead and schedule it again to repost in two weeks at the same time.” Because, even though you may have gotten really great engagement on the first one, only a fraction of your followers saw it. I don’t think that people seeing multiple things from you is something that should be much of a concern.

Yeah, because they just keep on scrolling. I think that’s the reality, right? Nobody’s really watching you that closely, because they’re moving on to the next thing, and the next thing, and like you said, what you post has such a short shelf life.

So, out of all the different types of content that you could post, across all the different platforms, is there one that you’re seeing that’s getting more engagement than others?

No.

I love that answer.

It doesn’t come down to your type of posts. I mean, each platform has an option for a variety of types of posts, and so, as long as you’re posting a variety on that platform, then you’re good to go. So, if you’re posting on Instagram, you definitely want to post a carousel. You want to post something to your feed. You want to post to your Story. You want to post a Reel. You want to include a variety of content, because that’s what the platform allows, and that’s where really what the platform is looking for.

But, consumers of content? Some people love to read. Some people love to watch a video. And so, it really is down to that person. We certainly don’t have data as far as what consumers are loving about the content of the platform. But, as far as what people are posting, there’s no one type of content that’s outperforming another. It’s literally just your content, and what you’re trying to share, and who you’re reaching, because some people are wanting to read, and some people are wanting to look at graphics, and some people are wanting to watch videos. So, if you’re posting that variety, then you’re good to go.

Okay, so I have to ask this, too, because this question used to come up all the time. Like, “If I’m using a third-party posting tool, like CinchShare, does that decrease my visibility and engagement?” I feel like there’s rumors flying out there that using a third-party tool decreases visibility. Can we set the record straight?

Sure, of course. I mean, it’s been proven time and time again, through lots of different avenues, that there is no difference between posting manually or using a third-party app as far as your overall reach. However, there is a small caveat with that: When you are going from posting manually on the platform, and then you’re using a scheduler or a third-party app for the first time, you may see an initial dip in views if you are only scheduling promotional content. That’s kind of the caveat. Sometimes people, when they start to schedule content, they schedule out all their promotional posts, and then they plan to post their personal posts or their team happiness posts or those more personal things manually. Promotional posts tend to get less engagement than engaging posts.

So, if you are starting to use a scheduler for the first time, our advice is to make sure that you’re scheduling engaging content as well as your promotional content. And, if you’re doing that, then you won’t see any difference whatsoever with your reach. It’s really just about that consistency.

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