I’ve always recommended to brands and bloggers that they keep track and measure their social stats on a monthly basis, to understand what posts worked, what didn’t and to help keep them consistent. However I used to be guilty of not practising what I preach, all up until a year.
On the 14th December 2017 I wrote down my figures for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, while I also set out some monthly targets. One year on and I’m ready to look back and hopefully smile!
I started the year with 26,627 followers, while I put it as a target to reach the 30,000 mark, but as ever with social growth, you never know how well the year will go.
Well I reached my target by the start of May and I ended up the year with 33,520 followers, a growth of 6,893, or 26%. The strongest growth was around the Traverse travel blogger event, where I gained over 1,000 visits in the month.
We started the year with a modest 7,823, but understood the potential with Instagram, having seen so many grow so quickly on the platform. From meeting Feri (Ferdi coming fast) to Frankie Cocozza, it has been a bizarre year and the Instagram account has taken a positive hit. We saw the account grow by more than 100,000 followers, to a level we never thought possible.
I’ve got Raquel to thank for the growth on Instagram, as she has kept posting every single day, largely using Later (formerly latergram) to ensure posts were scheduled or arranged in advance.
There were certainly quieter periods, for example we saw zero growth between September and October, which is frustrating as we were in Sri Lanka and the Maldives so we did hope we would see a fair jump with all the fun imagery, but hey-ho.
We’re now aiming to pass the 150,000 mark before the end of 2019, which is definitely realistic given this years progress, but I do feel some regret over not pushing on the platform early days when people saw huge growth, something I contemplated but instead focused on Twitter, oops.
Ah the bane of my existence, the only one that feels close to impossible to grow, considering the lack of organic reach without paying to boost a post. The Facebook page had 686 followers on December 14th 2017, by the 14th of February, I had minus 1 follower, not exactly great.
However one big turning point was when we were featured in the Guardian in March, which led to a jump of 100 followers, as well as 16,000 visits to the site over a 2 day period.
We did see continued modest growth, finishing the year with 1,067 likes, a jump of 56%, but we’re a long way off having a powerful Facebook account. I’m not setting any big targets on Facebook for 2019, instead opting to focus my efforts elsewhere. I don’t believe Facebook will go any time soon, but the time and effort required is simply not worth it.
Tik Tok
I’m still amazed how many bloggers and brands are slow to jump on this flourishing platform, the most downloaded app of 2018 worldwide. It might have started in China, but it has truly spread globally, especially since it bought out Musically and merged the two apps.
I absolutely love Tik Tok! I’ve written about how to market on Tik Tok recently, but really I’m learning every day. I started in October but I’ve already reached 957 followers, almost passing my number of Facebook likes already.
Having said that, these numbers are pitiful compared to some of the big players on the App, with many I have been chatting to having over 500,000 followers.
This is my number one target for 2019, to see the account grow to become our number one social platform, reaching more than 40,000 followers. Ambitious? Yes. Insane? Yes. But I’ve got to do it!
YouTube
I really heavily believe YouTube is the future, while I have certainly increased the number of videos created, while the viewing rate more than doubled.
The views went from 1,556 to 3,463, a 123% growth, hardly a huge level of growth but something I’m proud of none the less. The subscribers also went from 8 to 14 (that felt tame even writing it).
We have also ventured into a bit of a new path, creating the YouTube channel TomAndRaquel, as an opportunity to start one where we review items, offer tips and create generally random comedy clips.
Well that’s it, my main social stats for the year. I’m more than happy to share how I achieved these levels of growth if anyone is looking to up their numbers, get in contact if you have any questions.