Social Media Reach Is Crashing! Here's Where All The Buyers Are Going!

Is it just me, or does it feel like you're working harder than ever on social media and getting fewer people to actually see your content? Chris and I break down the shocking statistics behind declining reach on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and reveal why getting on other people's podcasts could be one of the most profitable moves you make for your business. We talk about why podcast listeners are more likely to trust recommendations and buy, how podcasting helped us fill a $50K mastermind, and the power of storytelling to turn an audience into paying customers. If you're tired of fighting the algorithm and want to get your offers in front of people who are actually ready to invest, this episode will show you where to focus your energy to get more visibility, build trust, and make more sales! Check out our Sponsors: Shopify - Launch your business before Black Friday, go to http://shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. Monarch Money - Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off at http://Monarch.com with code EYH. Northwest Registered Agent - Visit http://northwestregisteredagent.com/EarnFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Fabric - Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at http://meetfabric.com/EARN. Meetfabric.com/EARN. Quince - Find the fall pieces you’ll reach for most at Quince. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns and when Quince asked how you heard about them, let them know it was here on Earn Your Happy. Gloss Genius - Run a business that takes appointments? Use code HAPPY at https://glossgenius.com/earnyourhappy for 50% off your first two months of a premium plan. Faire - Sign up today and get 50% off your first wholesale order, up to $100 at http://faire.com/happy50. Terms may apply. Life at the Speed of Play - Go to http://getmarksbook.com/earn to get two copies for the price of one—one for you and one for a friend. HIGHLIGHTS The shocking statistics behind declining social media reach and why your content isn't getting seen. Why posting more content isn't necessarily the answer to growing your audience and making more sales. How podcast guesting can help you reach new audiences who are already primed to trust and buy. The surprising difference between podcast hosts and social media influencers when it comes to influencing buying decisions. Why storytelling and long-form conversations are so powerful for building trust and converting listeners into customers. How we used podcasting to attract clients willing to invest $50K in our mastermind. What the most successful sales strategies from QVC, radio, and infomercials can teach you about selling through storytelling. How to get your offers in front of qualified buyers without spending a fortune on advertising. The simple changes that can help you stand out to podcast hosts, get booked on more shows, and turn interviews into paying customers. RESOURCES FREE TRAINING: Get Booked, Get Paid! Learn how to get booked on podcasts, stand out to hosts, and turn guest appearances into paying customers - ⁠⁠save your spot for the free live training HERE⁠⁠! Make your own ⁠Million Dollar Media Kit HERE! Try glōci for 40% off your first order with code HAPPY at checkout - head to getgloci.com FOLLOW Follow me: @loriharder Follow Chris: @chriswharder Follow glōci: @getgloci

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:27Speaker 00

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• 2:10Speaker 00

  They're giving Earn Your Happy a $75 sponsored job credit. Go to Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Life at the Speed of Play, Mark is offering our listeners two books for the price of one. Go to GetMark'sBook.com/earn. Sequencing, sequencing.com is offering our listeners up to 10% off your full genome test plus free shipping. Go to sequencing.com and use promo code EARN for 10% off. This is absolutely mind blowing that people are using this as a sales channel and you're sleeping on it.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Like if you are so sick and tired of the Instagram game and the TikTok game, you're much closer than you think.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And we're back.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  With another episode of He Said, She Said.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Okay, listen, if you feel like you have been working your tail off on social media, trying to be seen, trying to get your products out there, trying to reach your customers, and you feel like it's all working against you, it literally is. I've got the stats. This is nuts. And I bring this up because you know, I see you talking all the time about being on other people's podcasts and all this other stuff. And then I'm watching the effort that you're putting into your social media. We're talking great editing, lots of pre-planning. And while there's always going to be a place for social media, I can't believe, and because if you go look at my page too, I can't believe how little reach has turned into.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  It's insane.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  It's frustrating. I'm like frustrated by it.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  It's insane.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  So I looked it up and I thought, oh, I'm not going crazy. You're not going crazy. These stats in terms of social media reach are mind blowingly low. Check this out. Facebook organic reach. Okay, so unpaid reach. In 2012, the good old days, remember we're like, we post something and it feels like everybody saw it?

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  The good old days, 16% of your followers would see your post minimum.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  All right. Today, 1.25%. So if you have 10,000 followers, only 125 of them are seeing your post ever.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is so crazy. Something I want to say about this one is that there are people online right now who are saying things like, hey, if you're not getting reach, it's because you're boring and your content sucks. I totally agree with part of that. But also if we actually look at these numbers, even if you are putting out really good content, it's that right now we have to fight to figure out how to educate, entertain, grab attention, storytell, where before we had more than three seconds to figure that out. We could actually say some things and get people interested in the actual conversation. So you could be a little bit more long form, which is natural.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  You don't just fit everything in, in your real life in a seven to 20 second reel.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  And so this is why we all feel so challenged right now.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  I mean, mega challenge. I'm so frustrated, like making something really good and be like, yay, everyone's going to love this thing. And then it not having any reach.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  But make it good in 20 seconds.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Okay. So I got some more for you. That was just Facebook, right? So it went from 16% of people saw your post to 125 out of every 10,000. That's pathetic. Instagram, by the way, guys, if you want to fact check me, I got these from Social Insider. So ready for this? Instagram natural reach dropped 14% year over year. So like, if you're like, last year is hard to be seen and your posts aren't going anywhere, and you feel like it got worse this year, it got 14% worse. That's a big number.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  That's, let me put that in terms of like money for you.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  How about add that to your sales?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. If you sold $100,000 from social media, that means essentially you're only going to sell 86,000 this year.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  So it is a meaningful drop.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Year over year.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yep, year over year. So 14% drop in Instagram. But this one blew my mind because everyone's like TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, go to TikTok, right? And it's the place to be. TikTok's year over year reach fell 28.7% and views dropped 31.3% from last year to this year. So a third, let's just call it a third. TikTok's reach, when you make a TikTok, fell a third from last year.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  So if you're frustrated and you're going crazy, this is not a you problem. This is an algorithm problem.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And by the way, it's not like the algorithms against you. So many new people are on social media because of like the Yap Challenge and all these other things, that it's not an algorithm problem. It's a saturation problem.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Because when you look at anybody's post, that's called an impression. All right? And so these are impressions that are down. And if you're going to scroll for two minutes, you can only see, just I'm going to make up a number, 50 impressions, right? Well, if there were 10 million people making content and you saw 50 impressions versus 100 million people making content and you see only 50 impressions, you see the problem here?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Is there's 10 times the people making content and you're still looking at the same 50 impressions? You put your phone down and you go somewhere else.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  So it's not algorithm, but it's a number of users problem.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  So that's what you're experiencing. But then I looked up like, okay, does this podcasting thing really work? Like where the hell can we find people? Does it really work to go on other people's shows?

• 7:40Speaker 00

  Borrowing other people's audiences.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yes, borrow other people's audiences and compare it for me. So check this out. Cumulus Media, everyone knows Cumulus and Signal Hill, everyone should know Signal Hill. Those are like the two big boys out there. 52% of their listeners said that the podcast host's influence matters most to them when making a decision. You ready for this one? More than double social media. Only 24% of social media will rely on the host's influence when making a decision. 52%, more than double, when it's a podcast host. And I think that's because podcasters have more trust.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  So you're saying influencer versus podcast host. Yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yes. Yep. Yeah, there we go. So a podcast host has 52% of their listeners say their opinion matters, most of them. Of social media influencer, only 24%.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  So that's big. That's huge. That means if you're going to put the effort somewhere, you're going to get more than two times the payoff being on somebody else's podcast instead of doing social media.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Well, I think everybody realizes that on social media, you can be highly edited. You can read a teleprompter for seven seconds. You can steal other people's stuff. Podcast, let me tell you, if you're in it for the long game on a podcast and being a host and bringing people on, you can't fake the funk for much longer than a few episodes.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Like you have to actually share how you really think, how you really feel. People want to see the inside of your life. You have to storytell.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  And I think that is the biggest difference is when you storytell from your own experience, which by the way, is what is going to separate anyone from getting eaten alive by AI online. When you storytell, people get to know you and they trust you and they want to learn from you. And that's really challenging to do on seven to 30 second reels at a time.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Let me throw a couple more at you because like this shit blew my mind. Okay, Acast, you guys probably know Acast is if you're a podcaster. Acast's Podcast Pulse, 84% of weekly listeners say a podcaster has changed their mind about something. And listeners rank the podcast feed 55% above social media's feed at 15% for forging the deepest relationship. So these are two stats. Let me break these up. 84% of podcast listeners. Say a podcaster has changed their freaking mind about something. That is real influence.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  That means, eh, I didn't think I needed this glossy and now I do, or, oh, I didn't think I needed that relationship course and now I do. That is eighty-four percent.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  That's insane.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Say a podcaster changed their mind, but then, okay, go ahead.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  But something I want to share is, you know, how long have you had your mastermind that I've been a part of, EEM, that I was a part of?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Uh, we wrapped it up after nine years.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Okay, so nine years. And of all the nine years, I know that we had started asking a couple of years in, we wanted to find where everybody was finding us. Like, how are we getting these people to pay how much every year?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Fifty thousand bucks.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Okay, how are we getting people to pay fifty thousand dollars every single year in filling a room? And we would ask them, and whether they found us on social and then went to the podcast, or found us on the podcast, and then found us in other places, everyone in the room would say, we listen to your podcast.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Fact.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  And so that is such a large sign of, number one, high ticket thrives in podcasting. If you have anything mid to high ticket, if you are not on podcasts, you are missing the boat.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  People need to hear you long form, and you cannot establish that type of trust for someone to invest fifty thousand dollars in you on social media short form that quick.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  And that backs up the numbers. The fifty-five percent of listeners in a podcast compared to just fifteen, one-five percent, said podcasting, you know, forges the deeper relationship.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  So of course, if you forge a deeper relationship, then you're able to change someone's mind. But then this next one, like, this, this takes a cake right here, because it's all about, can you sell something, right? Sixty-seven percent of all podcast listeners have bought something directly because of a podcast host's recommendation. Two out of three listeners bought something directly. So if you've got, you know, three thousand listeners, that means two thousand of them have bought something directly because of the podcast host recommending it.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  That is the highest conversion I have ever heard on any kind of platform, I don't care, social media, podcasting, YouTube, in my life. That shows the power of a podcast host's influence.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Well, when you think back in the day, in the eighties and nineties, one of the biggest forms of marketing was QVC, was infomercials.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Radio.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  And radio. And these are long for, radio commercials, you guys, can be a minute, two minutes, three minutes, over and over again. And when people buy radio spots, they were buying hundreds of spots.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Like, you could be like, I just heard this commercial, and I'm hearing it ten more times.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  When I launched Glossy, my drinkable skincare brand, I was obsessed with the formula. The product was my baby, but the store part felt way more intimidating. And that's a big reason we built on Shopify in the beginning, because you really don't have to be an e-commerce expert to get up and running. And that's a big deal in the beginning of a business. And here's the biggest lesson I learned about the holidays. You do not want to be building your store in the middle of the rush. You want to be set up, you want to be tested and ready before the traffic hits. So, two things I love. First, Shopify mobile app. I'm on planes, I'm on stages, I'm here recording with you, and I can still check my inventory, help a customer, see payments right from my phone, which is so much fun. And that's

• 13:39Speaker 00

  the second they check out. So Shopify checkout with Shop Pay converts up to thirty-six percent higher than the competition. When you've worked that hard to get someone to your site, that last click matters. So if you've had a business idea sitting in your notes app for way too long, this is your sign. Launch before Black Friday, a time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/happy. Go to Shopify.com/happy today to hear your first.

• 14:20Speaker 00

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• 15:02Speaker 00

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• 15:45Speaker 00

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• 16:29Speaker 00

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• 17:11Speaker 00

  sell to you for about twenty to thirty minutes. I think they'll run the clock. And they get on there because that's a little bit longer form of how fast can we tell the story by trust. I mean, my favorite story is Jamie Kern Lima's story, it cosmetics. And the way that she told that story on there, and, you know, went to the place where all of her buyers were, which, by the way, most all of your buyers for my audience specifically is listening to a podcast. So you go get in front of the people who are already ready to buy and listening, and that's where you go tell your story. And then when you think of an infomercial, you guys, those were thirty to sixty minutes of full-out storytelling the entire time.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  So everything that I just shared with you is storytelling.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  In a longer form, or a longer consistent form.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  And you know what those things had in common? That is, yeah, podcasting is those, but is different.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  What?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  You had to pay through the nose to get those.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Like, paying for radio advertising spots, or to host a show on there?

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Tons. Our friend Phil Calandra.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Uh, Phil and Tricia, the founders of True Wealth, which is like the greatest money management firm on the planet for your business and your personal stuff. Well, he used to have a radio show, and he had to buy that whole half hour, or hour, or two hour spot, hoping that like a podcast, people would get their know, like, and trust factor, and then become a client, right? And he said it crushed for him. They got all their clients from that.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  When they sold their first firm.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  And so the point is, a podcast is that, but you don't have to pay for it.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I mean, you can, you can pay to be on some people's podcasts. That's sometimes the shortcut. But the truth is, you can get on plenty of other people's audiences for free and have the same benefit.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Same thing with radio spots. Someone else had the show, you bought the ad, that's you getting on their show. In the past, you had to pay for it, now it's free. So I'm telling you, this whole, like, social media feeling like an uphill battle, and being on other people's podcasts, feeling like a windfall of customers, it's a real thing.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is why I'm so excited. I have a training that is coming up for you guys. If you did not get on the first round, you're gonna want to get on this. And honestly, I have updated the training as well. So you're gonna learn totally new things, even if you got on the last training. So it is how to get booked on podcasts and get paid by being a podcast guest. So get booked, get paid, because I'm about to share with you all of the testimonials of people who have made twenty-five thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand dollars from one episode. I have testimonials as well of people who have gone on podcasts and made up to a million dollars, you guys. This is absolutely mind-blowing

• 19:59Speaker 00

  that people are using this as a sales channel, and you're sleeping on it. Like, if you are so sick and tired of the Instagram game and the TikTok game, you're much closer than you think. The objection that I get a lot when I'm talking about this is just that they say, well, do I have to be really good? Like, it's so hard to stand out. It's hard for me to get booked. I will tell you that majority of the people who are coming on my show are not prepared enough. Their media kits are not standing out. There's these little tweaks. I am giving you the absolute insider information on who I would book, what works, how these people are making this money, the for, the exact formula that they're following,

• 20:41Speaker 00

  and all of the testimonials that are coming out of Million Dollar Guest. But my training is coming up, so you can click on the link below, and I hope to see you on their live.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Get booked, get paid.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Uh, do you know the link offhand, or do they have to click on the link?

• 20:55Speaker 00

  It is MillionDollarGuest.com/training.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  MillionDollarGuest.com/training.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  All right, MillionDollarGuest.com/training. Get booked, get paid, totally free, no strings attached.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Guys, don't fight in the unfair battlefield. Go where the other people aren't yet, and make your money there.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Judges are actually in your favor.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Yep. MillionDollarGuest.com/.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Training.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Training. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. We love and appreciate you.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Well, see you next week.