Is the 30 Day Social Media Content Challenge worth it?

Mar 30, 2015

While browsing my Facebook newsfeed at the end of last year, I came across this fantastic concept of the 30 Day Social Media Content Challenge. (See below)

Figuring that it couldn’t hurt to give it a go (and I needed some post inspiration on a daily basis), I started the challenge on 27 January 2015. Yes, it took me a little while to actually start the challenge, but that’s because I had seen that point number 1 involved taking a photo of my workspace – which meantthat I needed to clean it first!

But after kicking my goal of cleaning my workspace and uploading a couple of photos to my Facebook page, I was successful in attracting a reach of 391 people, which wasn’t too shabby. However, I must admit that I had posted the link in the ‘interaction post’ section on a local business Facebook networking page, (where members must comment on the pages of others and then have the favour reciprocated) so the results would have been very different otherwise.

Ironically, one of the other businesswomen within the networking group, Simone from Play With Food, saw my first post and we discovered that we had started the challenge on the exact same day! So it was great to have someone to push me along and provide inspiration on the days that I was stuck and vice versa.

Was the challenge effective?

I think it comes down to what you’re hoping to get out of it. Personally, I just needed some encouragement to post regularly and I wasn’t looking for sale conversions or a massive increase in ‘Likes’. However, I did want to build up my content and engagement levels on my page. If I REALLY wanted to get effective results, then it would have required boosting posts and creating paid advertisements. So if you’re thinking of taking up the challenge, I wouldn’t rely on it to increase your fan base without making a financial investment.

Our findings

Finishing the challenge at the end of February 2015, Simone and I came to a few conclusions:

The video post was, by far, the most effective. The engagement levels were extremely high for both of us. For Write Time Marketing, I experienced a reach of 837 people! Even though I had shared it on my local Facebook networking page like I had for many other posts, the video blog post results were phenomenal. No real surprises here though – Facebook LOVES videos and will push you up the newsfeed of ‘Likers’. So I’d highly recommend going out of your comfort zone and giving it a go!
We both saw an increase in ‘Likes’. Simone had 13 additional ‘Likers’ join her page, whereas I had an additional 23. While this is pretty cool, I think that sharing posts on the networking page would have largely contributed to this. Without boosting your post, it’s a bit hard for complete strangers to see your post. Unless, of course, you run some sort of competition which involves fans sharing your page with external friends.

Overall, we agreed that the challenge was good for providing inspiration to post on different topics but the results weren’t overly ‘pretty’. But if you’re going into the challenge for the right reasons and don’t expect a million new ‘Likers’ afterwards or a dramatic difference to your business, then it really doesn’t hurt to give it a go.

The only problem is – which I’m discovering now – is that it’s very easy to become lazy after the challenge is over and not continue to post daily. Perhaps I need to start the challenge all over again!

If you need any further assistance with your social media marketing, feel free to contact me.