monica-michelle_full_length nov 27,
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[00:00:00]
Michelle: Hello and welcome back to Inside the Click, your creator economy podcast. I'm Michelle. I'm Monica. And today , we have quite a show. We actually decided to put some structure around this so that we can cover everything and make sure that we get all of you the most useful information.
So we're going to talk a bit about what happened on Black Friday, talk about some consumer highlights. It's some platform highlights, a few surprises, and then also how you can take all of this information and use it for the rest of the year. Because now that this big time is coming to a close, it's like, now what?
So you need to be set up so that your last month continues your success. So let's do it.
Monica: How was your Black Friday shopping? It [00:01:00] was
Michelle: interesting. So I think that this was actually a consumer trend, is that people were looking for just household items that they wanted just a discount on.
We got Some dishware sets. So we had just like white plates, white bowls. And so we got some patterned ones from Amazon. I Got this morning I got. Pearl, my English Bulldog some fish oil, it was on sale for 40
Monica: percent off. I knew that after Remy. She has really dry skin.
Michelle: It's, it works so well. I think the one that we got, it's like Zesty Pets or something. It has a pump and she's running
Monica: out. Yeah, my friend says the pump is always key when it comes to the fish oil.
Michelle: Yes. And it doesn't smell like too awful. We've been using it. And since she was [00:02:00] running out, I was like, I'm just going to look.
And then it happened to work out. And then I also, oh, I got a curling iron because no, actually, the one thing that I did get from Sephora was not even on sale.
I, I didn't find any of the curling iron sales, like really compelling enough. So I ended up getting chi curling iron on Amazon. It was like. It was regularly, I think like, 40 some dollars and I got it for 30. I was like, I don't really remember how to use a curling iron. So I'm just going to
Monica: use this. And then if you end up wanting to get the T3 1, it's like, you start. That 40 on the 30 and it can be like a travel thing and you don't feel bad about it. Yeah.
Michelle: And I have [00:03:00] these really old chi straighteners that I've had for like, those were the best. I still have two and they still work.
So I'm like in high school. Yes.
So I was like, okay, I trust this brand. Yeah. Let's just see what happens. What did you get? Oh, wait, one other thing. I got the quip from you.
Monica: Yes, you did. That is the funniest sponsored Brand that I've done this year where I was not expecting how many people to jump on it because in my head, it's like, everyone has their toothbrush. It was like, it's not really uh, you see it and then are like, okay. And it was like, even my mom was like, I want this for Christmas. They are great. I've been using them for years, but it's just so funny to [00:04:00] me too, because I'm also like, because I've used it for years, it doesn't feel groundbreaking to me.
But it was just so funny how excited people got about it. Yeah,
Michelle: also, so I use 1 of right now the oral B, like, battery powered thing. And it's 15 bucks. I'm a, I just ran out of the toothbrush heads. And so when you posted that, I was like, okay They have a toothbrush that uses an app and I'm like, what is that?
Because since I started using that Oral B1, it has like a two minute timer and my dentist even said they notice a difference. And so I'm like, okay, this app probably has something where like it adds up. Like how much you brush your teeth or whatever. And then also I hate flossing. So that water pick thing Oh my gosh,
Monica: I have that dumb [00:05:00] permanent bar and flossing will always be a nightmare.
So the water pick is crucial. And then one thing my dentist said, which is why the app I think is helpful. They could tell that I spend more time in certain areas than others, and so I think that's helpful, too, which a timer will help you with that as well, but
Michelle: yeah. The two Kind of, because I definitely do that.
Okay. I feel like you have a default side or something there is definitely Is it my right side if I use one of the sides, I know that I don't spend as much time on. So that's actually really cool. I'm excited to
Monica: get it. Yay. Okay. So my black Friday shopping, oh, it was such an ordeal. I made a list of things that I've been needing over the last few months that I just knew black Friday was approaching.
So I would. Wait, so like base, like winter [00:06:00] basics, like a long sleeve gray shirts, black boots, like things like that. But then it was like, I would go to the shop style. com to try to type in the thing to them find whatever the best price was or whatever. And everything on shop style was sold out. Every time I would click into it, which was driving me up a wall because I was like, what is the point of this?
so then I did Google Shopping and Google Shopping Kind of got me there only because of the links that would link me to either mod sense or to list Which is basically shop style. So I don't know why those were working fine and shop style was not but I ended up getting a sweater from Banana Republic, a sweater from J.
Crew, [00:07:00] Luña pajamas, which I love Luña pajamas. They are completely worth the hype. And then I didn't knock out anything else on my list. I need to check today to see if there's... Any surprise sales, but that was the other issue. It was like, I could find something, but it was 20 percent off. I can get 20 percent off any time of year just for signing up for their email list.
Why am I just going to like, buy everything at once? It should literally be illegal to get as many emails and text messages for 10 to 20 percent off as we were getting. I'm like, if it's Black Friday and you're not sending me 30%, I don't want a text. I don't want an email. I don't, I just don't. And Spank sent four texts in one day for 20 [00:08:00] percent off.
I was like, absolutely not. Oh, my
Michelle: that's really interesting because I was encountering well, there were more like 30 percent or higher discounts than I was anticipating. And so I think that maybe that made me notice it more. Because I feel like in the past , I've only seen like 10%, 20%, but it's partially because a lot of retailers have had discounts since October.
But I was surprised, like on Saturday, I actually went to the mall. Oh, oH, yeah, it was not that many people, although yeah, but I heard a horror stories about other places in Massachusetts where there was, like, 3 and a half hour traffic to get to, the outlet malls, so I think that some of that [00:09:00] was back a little bit, but when I was at the mall, there was 40 percent off everything at gap 50 percent off everything at J crew.
And I was very surprised by that. Yeah, so and then oh, yeah.
Monica: This is where I get stumped because yes, J crew had 50 percent off everything it's 50 percent off everything except the things that I want like the shoes that I liked exclusion the sweater that I wanted exclusion and it's just Back to square 1.
Michelle: That is true. They're even I know that we talk about them so much, but like Sephora and Ulta, right? They even had. It would be 40 percent off a certain peach and Lily but then it was like, it said some [00:10:00] items and then you go to it and it's not all of them.
Yeah, they did a very good job, just brands in general, this Black Friday providing some of those like steeper discounts at a glance to create that urgency, but then when it got, yeah. Like last year, I was just eh, whatever. But then once you did get to the experience, it was hit or miss if it was the actual thing that you wanted.
Monica: Exactly. Or like Saks was doing, spend a hundred dollars, get a 75 gift card. And that's always so tricky because like I did that for a Neiman seal earlier this year and it was Spend whatever get 50 and I still haven't used that 50 because the 50 has like it's Stipulations and whatever and so it's basically like I never got the 50.
It's probably expired by now, [00:11:00] honestly, right? And I don't even show you that often anymore. So
Michelle: When some brands do that, I'll be like, okay but then sometimes I see that and I'm like Like, then that basically requires that you're spending that money that you didn't even necessarily need to spend. And then you have to spend more
Monica: money.
And 75 at Saks doesn't get you anything, it just gets you a discount, right? Unless you bought beauty, but still, it's not.
Michelle: But are you going to buy beauty from sacks? I feel like that's kind of a whole other camp.
Monica: Exactly. It's like the only time I'll do that is if they have a really good gift with purchase situation going on.
Sometimes they do. But speaking of department stores. I think it's really interesting that I barely saw anyone talk about Nordstrom. And it [00:12:00] also takes me back to Nordstrom's anniversary sale. Like each year Nordstrom's anniversary sale in the summer gets less and less traction. And now I've seen no one post about it for black Friday.
And I did go to the site. They did have sales and some, like some shoes were like pretty discounted, but I saw a tick tock that said Nordstrom is the new Macy's. And I was like, yeah, I think that is probably true and not necessarily like Macy's in the sense of discounts because I feel like Macy's has much more incentive discounts any time of year.
Michelle: But in the product selection is just very different. Yeah.
Monica: Yeah. But then the product section Nordstrom is starting to go Macy's there's so much private label. It's almost all private label now. [00:13:00] Yeah. And even like the mid tier Nordstrom in college. And a little bit after college, I feel like what Nordstrom was so good at was that kind of like, not full blown designer.
You could still go and get a shirt over the weekend, and it was, like, a nicer shirt. But now it's either private label or super high end that you can only really get in stores. There's not really that kind of, I want to go get a nice top kind of thing there anymore.
Michelle: I'm super into handbags.
And when I go, I'm just like, Oh my God, this is going to sound awful. And I'm like, eh,
Monica: I have not seen a bag. I liked at Nordstrom in maybe nine years.
Michelle: Yeah. They do a decent job at like, they will have like coach MZ Wallace, stuff like that. But like, if [00:14:00] you want even it doesn't have to be something crazy like YSL, but it could be like, if you want like boy, I have one of their bags, I love it, but it's like in the high hundreds range.
They stop at three or four.
Michelle: I don't go there a ton for clothes. The few times that I have, I've actually been like disappointed where I bought it and then it ends up like the strings start unpulling soon. And I'm like, why didn't I just get this?
But with. Influencers, they've done quite a few things that have put a really bad taste in their mouth. That's true. And if influencers are going to choose, even like Birkenstocks, promoting them at Nordstrom or even somewhere else that hasn't lessened the cookie window, so they get less credit for the people that they're driving after seven days.
[00:15:00] Yeah. They're not going to even be promoting them and throwing them a bone in some sense because they have gotten Screwed over by them a few times, right?
Monica: Yeah so and Nordstrom does rely heavily on the influencer space like 1 4th of their e commerce comes from creators. That's Huge.
Michelle: Yeah. It's been interesting to see who different people are promoting. And that's where I do think that some of these is it challenger brands? They did shine through a bit. foR example, with you with quip, right? There, there were definitely interesting. Products and brands that I was seeing too.
Monica: Yeah, 1 interesting thing I saw when it came to. Commission rates. Was how quickly Walmart increased [00:16:00] their rates across every single platform. And I think one thing that people don't realize is that when it comes to these big retailers, 99 percent of the time, They are going to have the same rate across all platforms, and it's just a race for the platforms to notice that the rate was increased 1st to then announce it to everyone else.
Basically, you might think that. XYZ platform is the only 1 with the high rates because they just sent an email about it. Most likely at the same time that they did that, they just pushed through the rates to everyone else and it's. Usually 3 people who get an email from the brand like Walmart saying, hey, we just increased the rates and so often someone they might be on [00:17:00] PTO or they might be whatever.
So then it doesn't really get flagged, but I think that's always something interesting to note is that it doesn't always mean that like one platform is better or has better rates than the other. It's a lot of the communication game and communicating rate changes to creators on each
Michelle: platform.
Yes, they did increase the rate pretty quickly. It would be interesting one time if Influencers all band together and if there was a retailer where they wanted a higher rate Everyone would just be like we are not posting anything from them until they give us a higher rate like that would work
Monica: I'm trying to think of you know who I think could make that happen more so is I think deals creators Are [00:18:00] much better at creating that allegiance. There's so many kind of just traditional creators that aren't necessarily looped into other people in the industry.
Like maybe they're the only one of their friends who does it. So I feel like that's less likely. Which is why we have this podcast to start creating. That community, but I think deals people, like they have their Facebook groups where they all are commenting all the time.
Is this tracking for you? No, it's not tracking for me or this brand is unreliable. This platform is unreliable. I feel like they're a much more active. Group and could band. I could see that happening of like them banding together and doing that
Michelle: agreed because also they're like They need to be that way because it's like sale hits.
They need to react. Yeah first is that more traditional? which [00:19:00] Is what I think all retailers, right? Think that they're getting themselves into when they think of influencer marketing going back to some of the things that we've talked about, it's like, you've been building your storylines, you know, what retailers and what brands you like, and because you're being authentically yourself, you wouldn't necessarily.
Boycott something just because you want a higher rate, but those deal creators are like much more There's no loyalty they're just trying to Increase their bottom
Monica: line Exactly. Yeah, they're their business is just so different than a traditional creator's business at the end of the day The overlap is basically that they use affiliate links.
I think that's the overlap. I do not think that there's any overlap other than that, which I always think is so mind blowing when [00:20:00] it comes to platforms and how they communicate to creators because they just send lump comms to everyone. And it's like, these two groups are so different and. There's so much responsibility that the platforms need to have and being able to identify the differences and their creators.
Michelle: Yeah, we've talked about this a few times and I do think it's worth bringing up here again is that a lot of it does come back to intention. If you follow a deal person. You're expecting, okay, I know that if I see a post from them, I could be buying, right? Because you're following them with the intent to get something on sale and to like, see what the sales are.
And by you, I mean, different audiences, different consumers [00:21:00] for the more traditional editorial creators, your audiences are, they're more so looking at the peel back behind the curtain of your life. When it does come to. Oh, this product's on sale, whatever , your audience is not going to be as receptive to that as opposed to if you , take them on a journey, like I really need to find this for my husband.
And this is what he likes. Or. I have, this kind of hair and I've never been able to find a curling iron that works for me, but now I've found one, right? Because then people are connecting with you on basically the similarities that they have with you. And they're able to see that from you really bringing them into your life, but then the way that you.
Sell products. And honestly, this is something that [00:22:00] you should be thinking about through the rest of the year. It's figuring out how to really drive that Kind of like urgency by Showing people like this works for me or oh my gosh. I love this and guess what? It's still on sale So yeah, we know from the past few days people still have money to spend Black Friday grew year over year, even with a lot of the brands, just like throwing discounts, right?
Increasing their CPA rates, people are consuming. I would imagine that after Cyber 5, people are still going to have some leftover money to spend.
Monica: Oh, I agree. I agree. I would like to buy some things right now. I'm just like... Nothing's compelling enough, but I will say to go to your point about what to do in the next, [00:23:00] well, next few months, there's a month and a half, but really honing in on what your quote unquote selling style is and.
You could either say like selling style or like conversion style. Like how do you get people to convert? So last night I was watching Courtney Kerr. She was doing some stories on some boots and She has a very strong conversion and her background. She used to I believe she used to work at a boutique So she's very good at making you feel like you're shopping with her And sometimes it's like QVC adjacent, like she would kill it on QVC.
Like she's that type of salesperson. And then I was looking at another creator. I follow Pig Mommy and her style is so different where she's just taking you with her on the process of how she's getting [00:24:00] dressed intentionally. She's not directly selling you. The boot, like Courtney was like showing two boots side by side, right?
And being like, this is good. If you want this is good. If you want this type of heel, whereas pig mommy was more like telling a story and they both convert, but if. Those two try to flip it, so like, if Pig Mommy tried the QVC approach, and Courtney was just going through the intentionality of every charm on her necklace, for example, it might not convert the same way.
We all have that zone of genius where we're very magnetic in a certain way, we might not be as magnetic in another way. And I think maybe these next few weeks are an interesting time to reflect, like how do I get into that instead of trying to force something that [00:25:00] maybe just doesn't connect the same way, if that makes sense.
Michelle: I love that because Sometimes it can be really hard to navigate this industry, I think, because it isn't a one size fits all thing. And so like Monica, yeah, exactly like those two creators cannot, or likely would not be able to do what the other one does to drive conversion with their audience. But I guarantee what they have done is honed their craft by looking at their data.
Looking at what kind of things do well and actually crystallizing Oh, wow. So this really mindful exploration within all of the things that I'm showing, that works really well for me. And then they honed [00:26:00] their craft. It's not going to be something where there can be instances where you might be able to figure it out really fast and then capitalize on that, but it's going to be an evolving experience because you don't want to be like the deal people where it's like 50 percent off, go buy it 20 percent off.
This never happens. In a lot of those more traditional creator cases, that whole sales tactic is not going to land.
Monica: Especially on Instagram stories. And I think another interesting thing, I'm thinking about Molly Goldman, and she will do a lot of stories where it is just the cell shot in a link.
And she'll be like, I really like this thinking about buying it and she'll post a few but if you if you've been following her for a while Everything that she posts on those even [00:27:00] though she's not really seeing anything other than I like this You have the historical background of knowing her style why she chooses certain things because she's told those stories so if she shares a pair of loafers you're like This makes sense.
She's been obsessed with loafers lately. It's not like she just saw a pair of loafers randomly on sale. So I think sometimes you can think, Oh, these big creators, they are just throwing up product links, but they've done the work behind the scenes to already build up a relationship with the audience where they're in on it.
And I would almost compare it to the other day, I saw a pair of jeans and I sent them to one of my friends because I just immediately thought of her when I saw the jeans. And she didn't need any context behind it, right? Because we already know each other's styles. I didn't have to [00:28:00] I've been shopping for a pair of jeans and...
I didn't have to give a full story. And so I think if you're doing the influencer thing you don't have to necessarily always do that, but you have to do that for a very solid amount of time. And you can't ignore it. There's still, it still has to be there.
Michelle: Even in that example, right? Like she's saying.
I really like this, but the messaging is not like
Monica: these are on sale, right?
Michelle: It's exactly like she is talking to her audience, like a one to one conversation where she's like, love these, but there's not really any pressure to buy. It's just like, she's giving you a little bit of an inside scoop.
Monica: Yes, I don't care if my friend bought the jeans. I sent her or not, and I think even her bio says something [00:29:00] like your favorite friend to shop with for something like that. And I know it. Taglines and bios can be cheesy sometimes, but I think that they're a really good way of Even if you don't end up like posting it in your bio giving yourself that Clarity and your identity and your place for your audience and being clear on that can also be a guiding light I think if you decide okay, I want to be My audience's best friend when it comes to shopping fashion, then that's your guiding light throughout the rest of your strategy.
Am I posting this as their favorite sales associate or am I posting this as their best friend? Am I posting this as their mom? One of my favorite creators is fashion mom. And her whole thing is she talks about luxury [00:30:00] fashion, but in a mom kind of way, in the sense that she's you don't really need this.
Or this is why you might need this, which is different than like a best friend who would be like, Oh my gosh, just go get it. Treat yourself, like it's very different. And I think if you sit down and Think about who you want to be when it comes to that. It can give you not just clarity on your strategy but then that's a building block to Okay, how do I sell best and how do I connect the strongest?
It all builds on each other,
Michelle: right? And you can't be everything to everyone and actually We have that episode that we'll probably end up sharing next week where we talk about niches and stuff like that, but oh my gosh, I love that the what's it fashion mom. Yeah,
Monica: she's a YouTuber that [00:31:00] now is a TikToker, like the normal YouTube to TikTok progression.
She's been around forever. She's great.
Michelle: But she can't like one post be like, you don't really need that, but then the next post be like. Everyone, you have to buy all of these things, right? Like she has her very clear brand voice or creator voice, and she's perfected that, and that's what people expect from her, so that's going to perform for her.
Yeah,
Monica: If you go to her, you're getting a no BS approach, right? And like things I bought in like she has stayed so firm in that she doesn't do brand partnerships.
She doesn't accept free product. She could get so many sponsorships, free product, all that, but she stayed so true to her stance and her voice, [00:32:00] that is, I share things that I personally Bought and liked and I think that's what's made her so successful She shares great products.
So I think If she hadn't stayed as true to That she would still be Successful in some ways, I don't think she would be where she is now unless she had stayed true to being like, I'm not going to show my face. I'm going to be anonymous and it just shows there's so many different ways that you can do this.
You just have to figure out which path is yours, and again, which way you're most magnetic in, which sounds kind of woo woo in some ways, but one person might need to show their face in order to be compelling. Someone else might not need to be. It just, it really depends on It's like with friendships.
You're not going to connect with [00:33:00] everyone, right? And you're gonna connect with certain people and not and there's not one that's more right than the other because we all have our friends And everyone is gonna have their people and I think this is the same thing It's just when you're your best self, who are you connecting with
Michelle: right?
I love that things I bought and liked That she has really stayed authentic to herself because she does have a lot of followers. She, I think, has a ton of pull, but so if you think about it, sometimes in this industry, I think that intentions can get a little. Muddy. Yes. If she just wanted attention when you get a certain number of followers, it's okay, I'm going to show my face now.
I'm really going to capitalize on things, but that's not why she's doing it. [00:34:00] Yeah, and she has a very clear sense of. Who she is and what her business is, but then she's been able to hone in and elevate that and guarantee she's been using data to be like, okay, this is what works for me.
This is what doesn't. And she's learned from that. For
Monica: sure. Yeah. How could you, how could she not? I mean everything she does if you even see how when she does her teacher lists or when she does anything. For donations where all of her affiliate profits will be donated, you just know that she's someone who must like data to be able to be that organized and that efficient.
Yep. So on other black Friday things, especially when it came to platforms. We talked about [00:35:00] the bonus programs and 1 of the interesting things that I saw that happened. I think it was Thursday. I don't even think we had gotten to Friday yet and how. had to put a stop to their bonus program because it was so successful that they had to change the cutoff date.
And didn't they say they like four times what they were expecting?
Michelle: Yes, which one, a few episodes ago, we did cover The Howl bonus program for the
Monica: holidays. We thought it was the better one. Yes. Out there. For sure.
Michelle: Yes. And yeah, they changed their November time period to be November one through Black Friday because they didn't want all their creators to feel like they got the rug pulled out from under them.
But yeah, they had a four times increase in the creators on their platform. [00:36:00] Over a two month period, which is wild, wild. But you can tell like they've been promoting their different recruiting events for creators and like doing a lot of things to build relationships. And so yes, that number four times is mind blowing.
But I would say. Based on what we've been seeing that they've been showing, I guess I'm not entirely surprised. I'm surprised by the magnitude, but I'm not surprised that they have had a big increase. Yeah.
Monica: I would say if you haven't really been paying attention to Howl that much would really throw you off, but they've been doing everything right when it comes to building, like you said, those creator relationships.
And that's where I think a lot of platforms are lacking and are going to fall [00:37:00] behind if they're not paying attention on nurturing their creators, because without creators, would you have so if you're a business. That is dependent on creators. Why would you not be nurturing your audience and how has decided we are going to nurture our audience and It's paying off.
Michelle: It is paying off like heavily I don't
Monica: think they're a platform to sleep on and like yes, maybe four months ago They only had 20 brands and then maybe a few months ago They had 60 brands and they still don't have every brand under the Sun But they have enough that they just pulled this off.
Yeah. I think some platforms feel like they have to have every brand under the sun. And I think this shows that you really don't.
Michelle: No. And on top of that, something that. [00:38:00] A lot of companies, I think, and creators have experienced over the past year or so is just a huge effort to diversify.
You don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket, right? And I do think Nordstrom and how they've been treating creators was a little bit of a catalyst to that, right? Because. Creators used to be like all about Nordstrom. And then in some ways, they got screwed. They got hurt a lot, right?
Because Nordstrom is trying to like, take some of that credit away from them. So if you think about just where. Everyone is going, they're not necessarily going to be loyal to only four big retailers or even one platform. That's just the nature of the industry. So how do you combat that? That is actually where I think that yes, Monica Howl [00:39:00] doesn't have that many brands, but even some of the ways that they're like showing the brand.
Data or the ways that they can leverage the brand. For example, like in a lot in their what is it called? How will select where they have brands where even if your audience returns, it does not take away from your commission. Like they're doing those things in different ways. So, Yes, if they like, I know that they do a lot with electronics, right?
So Best Buy, if you have the chance. To link on Howl let's say that Best Buy is in their select retailers where they're not going to take away returns or LTK that you will get returns taken out. Who are you going to link with? It's kind of
Monica: like a no brainer, no brainer, no brainer. Yeah. And I [00:40:00] think that the platforms that are going to succeed in the next few years are the ones going into it fully aware.
That diversification is a thing and creating strategy around how they can set themselves up for success in the diverse worlds. Diverse in terms of sharing links and I think any platform that still tries to do business as two years ago, whereas a creator had their one platform that they used, I think they're going to be the ones that fall behind.
Yeah. And again, if we talk about LTK, I think that the one thing with LTK is going to be that they do have. The consumer app. So for them, that game is a little bit different. I'm starting to think even for [00:41:00] myself that I use LTK for the app and I just look at that as another platform where I have an audience rather than that being.
Where my links necessarily are, and I think that's what's starting to happen across the board is when it comes to your Instagram stories or what you're sharing on sub stack or wherever, or in your link in bio. Those are going to be those other platforms that may have something better incentives, anything like that.
And then you're still posting it in the L2K app because you do have that audience. There's no way of me knowing. How many of my LTK followers follow me on Instagram? I have to just treat that like they're a completely different.
Michelle: But even if you think about it someone that's going into the LTK app they're going to want to shop.
Someone that's following you on Instagram is like, [00:42:00] Oh, I want to see what's Monica's outfit of the day? Like, What's she doing with this? And they're more a part of your life as opposed to just outfit, here's all the links. Here's all that, which is great for LTK, right? They've built that audience.
It's really powerful, but then like you said, it's kind of, that's one thing. And then the social strategy and all of that could be something completely different. I
Monica: would be really curious for LTK to have analytics that showed you if the person who made the sale follows you or doesn't follow you.
I'm so curious where that lies with me, because what performs pretty well for me On the LTK app are usually collages or video, and I think that and this is a complete guess, but because of those two styles of content, I would be willing to bet [00:43:00] people who have converted don't necessarily follow me.
Michelle: Yes.
Monica: Yeah. Like how? Because for a collage, you don't need to follow the person, right? You don't need to know what they look like, what their size is, anything like that. And with video, it's like TikTok and you see a random person on your For You page and you're like, Oh great. Who they actually are doesn't really matter so much.
Right.
Michelle: Yeah. Is there anything else that we want to tie a bow around, around this time? I feel like, Oh, yes.
Monica: I was just going to say, this week is now a good time to look at how your sales did probably like Wednesday to Wednesday, because I feel like most black Friday sales did start happening on Wednesday anyway.
So That's true. I would look at that time frame of your [00:44:00] performance and not just looking at your performance and just looking at the numbers, but comparing that to the content that you share. Create a story for yourself, right? I think a lot of times we can just see numbers and be like, up, down, and it's cool, okay, but how can we take that to the next level and look at the content and then use that to create a bigger picture?
I think that's where analysis a lot of times doesn't become as helpful as it could be because you just stop at looking at up or down arrows. Yes.
Michelle: And even taking all of your content and classifying it as well, right? Because what if you did post about the same set of hot chocolate mugs and you did three posts, like one a day.
And it turns [00:45:00] out the one where you're actually like showing how you're using it is converting better than the one where you're like 50 percent off right now. Like learnings that you need. To understand like, we've been talking about what works for you the best, and then you can carry some of that over into the rest of the year.
Yeah.
Monica: Yeah. I wish we could come up with a visual where it would pull in what you shared on Instagram or across all social, and then it pulled in also your platform analytics from LTK, ShopMyCollective, all that, and it just Aggregated all into one thing, but in a visual way, I wish we could create that because
Michelle: you can also, you could tag like different categories.
So like style, promo, whatever. Yeah.
Monica: Yeah. Because right now, yeah. You can go [00:46:00] to your Instagram analytics and see the best performing posts, but it's only saying the best performing posts based off of. Instagram metrics, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was the best post in terms of sales because those two dots aren't connecting all of that
Michelle: to say, if you are an engineer, email
Monica: us at
Michelle: hello@insidetheclick.Com.
Let's collab. I
Monica: mean, even if it was just so rudimentary at first where it's like a macros where like you're just exporting one thing from there, exporting the other from there, and then linking Them together. I feel like there's even a college kid out there that could you just
Michelle: like You really just need it by platform by day.
Monica: Yeah, exactly and then make [00:47:00] it pretty Yeah,
Michelle: I'm picturing it like a timeline Yeah where it has like the platforms in the rows and then the days are in the columns and then it needs to basically Adjust like the rows To like the amount of content that you've done, but it shouldn't be impossible.
Monica: No, I don't think so.
Michelle: Yeah. If you want to help us with that,
Monica: email us
Michelle: or DM us on Instagram. Yes. Also, if you're new here, which. By the way, we got so many listeners the past few days, even though we have not really been like overly promoting anything. So I think that there are a decent amount of new people here.
So please review rates the podcast that is going to be so helpful in helping us grow and share with people [00:48:00] probably that are in the industry because. I'm sure that like, your friends may not even understand what commission rate is for the years. Exactly.
Monica: Yeah. Or if your parents are curious to understand what you do and you've explained it 20, 000 times and they still don't get it, send it to them and maybe.
thEy can start figuring it out every family holiday, explaining what influencer marketing is for the last eight years, the same people still explaining it to the same people.
Michelle: tO be fair, it does change. It changes. I'm
Monica: sure how it changes every year.
All right, thanks
Michelle: y'all. Thank you. Bye.