FINAL DAY of The June Challenge: Social Media Challenge & Performance (30/06/22)
Reflections, lessons & announcing my July Challenge.
My report for Thursday 30th June 2022 - the final day of my June social media challenge.
This report structure will be a little bit different. I’ll start with my reflections & learnings from this challenge in the form of:
My lessons & reflections from carrying out this challenge,
My improvement points if I were to replicate the challenge,
My practical actions I’m taking into the future even after this challenge has finished.
I’ll then talk about my May challenge, and finish with my ‘experience’ of the day (as I do in all posts).
June Challenge Reflections:
My intention was to post daily on TikTok and LinkedIn as part of my social media challenge. In total, the number of posts on each platform:
TikTok: 25 posts
LinkedIn: 19 posts
Clearly, the daily component of this challenge wasn’t achieved. Let’s break down the wins and losses from this challenge.
So, let me summarise 7 lessons from this challenge:
Let’s look at some metrics first.
TikTok: 125,653 views, 14,687 likes, 2495 post saves, 187 post shares,
From 10 to 585 followers
LinkedIn: 48,060 impressions, 586 engagements
From 2,092 to 2,128 followers.
Low expectations = so much room to be surprised. TikTok was an insane adventure.
I had such low expectations when I set out to post on TikTok…
But a combination of timing (exam season) and hopefully helpful content (exam and study tips) meant that it was the perfect storm to make a positive impact.
Still somewhat sad I didn’t reach 1,000 followers (which would allow me to create a link to Exam Success Academy), and that no sales were made, but the hope is that I can continue using TikTok and find a decent audience to push those products/services towards.
What I’m most grateful for: it helped so many students, and the messages & comments have been so wholesome.
High expectations = inevitable disappointment. LinkedIn has been a battle.
Seeing so many ‘influencers’ coming in and making an impact with their ‘personal brand’ posts made me think consistent posting & adding valuable insights would help me find my audience.
But it didn’t…
Not just this, but my posts that performed so well over the past few years diminished massively in reach when posted again (e.g. yesterday’s post which had an over 96% drop in impressions and engagement compared to when I first posted it 2 years ago).
In fact, the LinkedIn posts not performing well led me to quite a lucid realisation about my business.
I wasn’t being clear about the message or brand I was trying to convey…
…and why would I be? I do so many things for so many different groups of people.
And that’s got me here, but will it take me where I want to go (i.e. to a steady 6-figure business that doesn’t consume my life, but allows me to make a positive impact?)
So, one of my objectives over the coming months is to create clarity about a direction I want to grow my business in.
My updated ‘About’ section on LinkedIn will hopefully convey some of this!
Leaning into discomfort leads to progress; running away from it leads to anxiety.
I’d been so busy the past few months that I hadn’t taken the time to reflect to the extent I would have benefit from. In slowing down towards the end of June, all of the questions I’d inevitably need to answer finally caught up with me.
The more I realised how unclear I was about my direction moving forwards, the more tempting it felt to run away and immerse myself in distraction.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to that voice (too much) - while it’s been an emotionally challenging month, I’ve come out of it with more clarity than I had before.
I do not like attention.
My priorities aren’t aligned with becoming an influencer in the public eye, churning out content.
One person ‘recognised’ me in the gym from my TikTok videos and I was more taken aback than I was excited…
I don’t enjoy putting up selfies of myself or my life.
I always forget to take them because I’m just enjoying the moment. It’s not natural to me.
But some recognition is necessary if I wish to be recognised as an expert in this field, and to achieve my goals of having a steady steam of high-quality inbound leads - this is a balance I’m sure I’ll continue to create.
My loved ones will always come first.
This month has been a tough one. I was going to launch my mentoring programme yesterday, but I was in hospital to support one of my most loved humans.
As I told my cousin during a chat, I’m not willing to do anything to grow my business - my relationships and my health come first.
Yes, this may mean slower growth…but I’m playing a long game, and with that lens in mind, I’m so grateful for how far I’ve come.
What I would improve on if I were to do this challenge again in the future:
Do the TikTok posts from May when exam panic starts to set in (do this next year).
PLAN PLAN PLAN my posts! I wanted to see how easy/difficult it would be to create content just off the cuff, and while it wasn’t as hard as I thought, I have no doubt my posts would have been so much more coherent & consistent in tone had I planned (at least the themes of the posts) in advance.
3 Action Points from this challenge that I will take with me into the rest of 2022:
TikTok is not as bad as I thought. I will post sporadically over Summer, and then build up again in October, November and December.
LinkedIn is a double-edged sword. Do not linger there if you’re asking yourself deep questions about your path - you won’t find the answers there. Read a book (active reflection and learning) instead of scrolling and hoping you find something to make you reflect (passive reflection and learning).
Be very wary of comparison habits. The less clarity we have about our path, the more we compare to others. It’s a mechanism to help us identify potential future pathways, but given the sheer number we’re exposed to on social media, it can be overwhelming. Look inwards for answers, not outwards.
Where I am now with past challenges I’ve done in 2022:
January Challenge: Eating Whole-Foods Plant Based
Still eating plant-based and feeling strong. Mostly whole-foods. Some dark chocolate and olive bread. Include protein powders in my morning oats breakfast.
Body in good shape. 12.3% body fat last time I measured, and hitting personal bests on weighted ring pull-ups (40kg for 3 reps) and dips (30kg for 8 reps)
February Challenge: Sleep Optimisation
Good the last week. Been in bed before 11:45pm, waking up before 8am.
March Challenge: Reading
Deprioritised. Not as huge a priority this month as the time I’d allocated to it was replaced by the social media challenge & client sessions.
April Challenge: Meditation
Not being doing the meditation practice from April, but have been meditating on average once every 2 days for 10 minutes. Increased frequency as things got tough. It’s going to be something I do more deliberately as I create more routine in my sleep timings.
So, what’s the challenge for July?
July Challenge: Flexibility & potentially doing the splits!
The LinkedIn and TikTok challenge were quite intense, and I’d be lying if I said writing these daily SubStacks were a wonderful way to spend my time.
But that’s what consistency is all about. And I’m not going back on my challenge.
So, this month, I want to change gear and focus on my physical health. My strength is good, but my flexibility is not something I prioritise enough.
And the older I get, the more I’m aware of how important it’ll be to my long-term health.
So, here is my challenge this month:
I want to improve my flexibility with the intention of being able to make progress in 2 movements:
The side split (need more adductor and hip flexor flexibility)
The pistol squat (need more ankle flexibility)
I’m going to do this through:
5 days a week: Spend 20-30 minutes doing deliberate, focused stretching for one of the two movements.
I will be doing this in the afternoon, as it’s not ideal to do it first-thing when my body is cold.
2 days a week: Spend 10 minutes doing light stretching.
I will do this in the morning.
I currently have a very informal stretching routine (3-5 mins) which is mainly focused on keeping my shoulders loose, so focusing on lower body stretches will be a new challenge.
Here’s to hoping I can do Djokovic-like splits on the tennis courts soon!
So, that’s the July challenge. Let’s see how it goes!
My Experience (Thursday 30th June 2022):
Reflections on My Social Media (LinkedIn & TikTok) Challenge:
TikTok:
No video post today.
Reflection:
It’s been a great month. Glad it’s over!
LinkedIn:
No post today.
Reflection:
Was meant to post today about launching my Mentoring Programme, but decided not to because:
I was in hospital for most of the day
LinkedIn engagement has been so crap lately, and I don’t think it would reach the right people.
Instead will go with the flow over the next week and post when I feel it’s right!
We’ve made it to the end of the June Challenge! Thank you so much for reading - I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Hope that you have an amazing day ahead. Now to enjoy some dinner with my family…
Until tomorrow,
Kam