Category Archives: Social Marketing

Whether you’re trying to get more people to interact with your written content, such as your blog, or you want more people to leave comments on your videos, such as YouTube, here’s a trick that will make it happen.

Why do you want people to interact with your content? Because it will often give you a better standing in search. For example, part of YouTube’s algorithm is to look at how many comments your video gets. The more comments you have, the higher your video might rank in search.

And when you get your readers and viewers to interact with your content by leaving their own comment, you also increase their perceived ‘ownership’ of that content. They are more likely to share it on social media as well as view more of your content in the future.

Now then, how do you get comments?

The usual way is to simply ask, and that does work. “If you’ve enjoyed this video, please like and leave a comment.” Or… “Which do you prefer, chunky or smooth peanut butter? Please leave your comment below and let us know.”

Now here’s how you can take this simple technique of asking and double or even triple the number of responses you get as well as increasing the quality of those responses dramatically:

Make it into a contest.

At the end of your video or article, let them know that the BEST comment will get a free valuable gift.

Yes, this freebie might be one of your products, but it doesn’t have to be.

I was watching a YouTube video of a gal talking about a certain kind of jewelry. She was wearing one of these necklaces throughout the video, and at the end she said she would send this necklace to the person who posted the best comment.

What a great idea! This necklace is something every viewer has been looking at and admiring for the entire video, and now they’re told they can OWN it?

And it gets even better, because at the very beginning of the video she said, “Stay tuned to find out how YOU can receive THIS necklace in the mail.”

This no doubt increased the average viewing time her video received because people were sticking around to find out how to get the necklace.

And the reward was very specifically targeted to the exact audience who would want the reward, since the video was about this specific type of jewelry.

The cost to her? I doubt it was more than $10. And yet there was a true element of scarcity because in this case the necklace was vintage (approximately 50 years old) and not something people could buy at their local store.

What I love about this is that the prize would be physically mailed to the recipient. Because it was lightweight the postage wouldn’t cost much regardless of what country it would be sent to.

And scrolling through her comments it was obvious that people really were going for the gold in trying to have the most interesting, wittiest or most helpful comment of everyone there.

She uses this technique with many of her videos, which gives her an immediate bump in views from her regular audience as well as a ton of comments. Views in the first 24 hours are especially important on YouTube to help with getting your video seen by more people.

She states in the description below the video that she will choose the winner in 30 days. But since she does not show the date the video went live, she continues to get more and more comments even when her videos have been up for months. She also uses this reward system to encourage viewers to become subscribers so they know when she posts a new video, too.

Depending on your niche, you might have to get creative to make this work for you. If you have electronic products, then the key is to offer something of high value, like a course you sell for at least a couple hundred dollars.

If you teach dog training, maybe you could give away adorable handmade dog sweaters. Let your own dog be the model. If you have a book, then that could be your prize.

Try this on your next couple of videos and watch the magic happen in the comments section.

Or… how to go from bankrupt to mid-six figures posting stuff other people said and wrote.

If you had told me that it was possible to earn six figures by doing nothing more than posting other people’s quotes online, I probably would have told you it was a pipe dream.

But what do I know?

Believe it or not, the Instagram account @StoicReflections has grown to 850,000 followers and six figures of income in under three years.

The creator chooses famous motivational quotes and posts them every day, including strategic hashtags to get more traffic to them.

And once he started to build a significant audience, he created two simple products that have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

When Alexander, the man behind the popular Instagram account @StoicReflections, went bankrupt only a few years ago, he took up philosophical meditations to see him through the tough time.

Then he began posting those mantras online and grew enough of a following that he now makes a full-time living from Instagram.

There’s an important lesson here: When things seem especially bad, ask yourself, “What’s good about this?”

And maybe also ask yourself, “How can I use this experience to help others and even build a business?”

Alexander doesn’t use his last name on @StoicReflections because he wants to keep his identity separate from his account.

Since he’s not the face of his page, he’s not a typical Instagram influencer. And yet he has seen growth in line with other successful personalities on the platform.

@StoicReflections has gained over 850,000 followers in less than three years simply by sharing tenets of Stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy that preaches an indifference to pleasure and pain.

Alexander shares quotes he feels resonate with the stoic philosophy with his fans, most of which are business-minded people.

But Alexander does not post ads or sponsored deals since he feels it would dilute the virtue of his Instagram account.

“There’s a lot of brand equity you’ll just lose by just taking ads,” he said.

Then last year, Alexander created two simple products that have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, allowing him to earn a full-time living from his motivational Instagram account.

Before @StoicReflections, 28-year-old Alexander ran a business selling inexpensive products from China that he said turned a nice profit.

Alexander was successful enough that he was able to travel a great deal and live in expensive luxury apartments. But then the bottom fell out of his business, and he ended up going from the 34th floor of a luxury apartment to a five-bedroom roommate situation.

It seems that as fast as he was pocketing money from his e-commerce business, he was also spending it. His debts were in the five-figure range when his business dried up and he found himself with no income and in debt.

To cope with his situation, Alexander began studying Stoicism in 2019 to help him get through this tough time in his life.

“It teaches you resilience and the dichotomy of control: What you can control and what you can’t control,” he said.

Alexander initially created @StoicReflections to keep himself accountable. He posted quotes every day, like “Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings,” so he could try to live up to them.

@StoicReflections started as a hobby and not a business, but he quickly discovered ways to cultivate an audience in the self-help and motivational corners of Instagram.

To build his first 100,000 followers, he used hashtag discovery.

Alexander favored shorter quotes that were easily legible even on a square grid. And he inverted the traditional black text on white background to make his posts stand out with white text on a black background.

There were accounts on Instagram that were similar to his, so Alexander looked for more ways to differentiate himself. He noticed that popular hashtags, like #wisdom and #philosophy, would have over a million posts. The competition for those was simply too high, so he would strategically used hashtags with fewer aggregates of 10,000 or less to boost his posts to the top.

This hashtag discovery method allowed his account to grow 100,000 followers in the first year alone. His method was to post a quote every day, hashtag every post and gain about 100 new followers a day.

When a famous person shared his posts, he would sometimes get thousands of new followers instantly. And by his second year, his page had well over 400,000 followers.

That’s when he began to get requests from brands to post sponsored content but refused them on the grounds it would take away from what he was doing.

Then last year Alexander created two new products of his own.

One was digital cellphone wallpaper of famous philosophical and motivational quotes. A pack of 55 quotes downloadable wallpaper sells for $9. Next, he created a calendar rooted in ancient Stoic beliefs that “help you harness the concept by visualizing your life week by week,” according to its description. You can buy a digital copy for $19, a printed copy for $39, and a framed version for $79.

These 2 simple products have allowed him to make a full time income with his part time Instagram hobby.

While he doesn’t want to publicly disclose the exact revenue number, Alexander has made in the mid-six-figure range from sales of his wallpaper and calendars. He’s able to run his Instagram account with very little overhead costs because his products are mostly digital.

He said he also now only spends about 30 minutes a day preparing posts and interacting with commenters.

Alexander added he’s not sure if @StoicReflections is a long-term career for him, but he is considering introducing new products for the account, such as an app.

From simple hobby to mid-six figures – it really does make you think of the possibilities, doesn’t it?