Sizzle or substance?

Welcome to Social Studies.

Today:

• Brought to you by

• Sizzle or substance?

Brought to you by…

Shoutout to Measure Studio for letting me delete the approved ad copy and just give my honest opinion… 😎 

Measure Studio automates performance benchmarks and analyzes every. single. piece. of. content.

They use AI to help you find trends and patterns.

Then, you can focus on what works and cut what doesn’t.

I’m partnering with Measure Studio to give away a free sample social report when you book a demo.

Worst case scenario… you spend a few minutes with some cool people, trial a cool software, get a free report.

Best case scenario… all of the above, plus you have a new long term partner to help your social media growth trajectory.

Seems pretty low risk to me. 🤷‍♂️ 

The Sizzle And The Substance

First of all…

Why are all the best bands from my college years named “BLANK and the BLANK”?

The Head and the Heart

Fitz and the Tantrums

Judah and the Lion

Florence and the Machine

Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats

Hootie and the Blowfish

ok… Hootie was definitely Darius by the time I was in college, but the point stands.

I was recently on Zach Galia’s podcast. (Legit the funnest podcast I’ve ever done.)

During the conversation, he mentioned “The Sizzle and the Substance”

My first thought was, “What an incredible band name.”

My second thought was, “What an incredible analogy.”

I talk a lot about how I’m thinking about the different types of social content, but I’ve never had good words for it.

Tommy Clark says “bottom of funnel content” and “top of funnel content.”

Zach says “sizzle and substance.”

I’ve always just said (in my southern accent), “Well you got a couple buckets….”

I’m officially stealing Zach’s framework….

1) The Sizzle

You can't sell to, market to, or convert an audience you don't have.

The biggest objective should be building a community.

You do this by creating a high volume of RELEVANT content.

Start with what works on the platform and back into how your brand can naturally appear in the feed.

The sizzle is the intersection of your brand and mass appeal.

At Benzinga (where I work) here’s an example of the sizzle:

17 million plays

1.1 million likes

99 thousand new followers

2) The Substance

All those plays/likes/followers are as useless as a screen door on a submarine if we can't convert them.

Maybe it means getting them to our website. Maybe subscribing to a newsletter. Maybe just being their “go-to” source for financial news.

Here are a couple examples:

The Substance doesn’t have to be a hard sell of “Buy this product right now!”

Can it be? Sure, sometimes.

But other times it’s more subtle.

5 Stocks Investors Monitor… we want our followers to know that we give them exclusive content.

Our founder talking about his first big investment… we want our followers to know that we’re a team of experts who don’t just talk the talk.

Just post the sizzle and you’ll have an audience, but no business.

Just post the substance and you won’t have an audience to sell to.

Hope that was helpful!

Hey you’re still here!