Friday, February 28

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• TikTok is revamping its desktop feature to rival YouTube

• A new study shows Community Notes are rarely shown on X

• This is the fastest-growing marketing podcast

• 📊 Stat of the Day: 70% of TikTok shoppers make purchases after seeing ads or shoppable content. (Source: Search Engine Journal)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: A crash course in Instagram Trial Reels

⬆️ Level Up With...

...the fastest-growing marketing podcast in the game! Bookmark the recent episode you are most interested in listening to this week, here:

How To Grow Your Personal Brand in 2025 - Spotify, Apple, or YouTube

My 7 Facebook Ad Creative Frameworks - on Spotify, Apple, & Youtube

Lessons from Optimizing 1,000 Websites - on YouTube, Spotify, Apple

My Disgustingly Simple 2025 Marketing Hack - on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

A crash course in Instagram Trial Reels

🗞 TL;DR - Video content is essential to any social media strategy; but on platforms like Instagram, knowing what makes a successful campaign can be a bit of a guessing game.

To combat this, Instagram launched Trial Reels, a feature that allows creators to share a reel with a select group of non-followers to gauge their reaction. It’s a great way to experiment with different content styles, formats, or posting times and adjust your strategy based on real engagement data.

💡 Insight - Here’s a quick breakdown of how it works:

1. Establish a clear goal with your Trial Reels by finding an angle you want to test (think of it like A/B testing). Examples might include trying out different intros, playing with trending audios, or changing up the caption style.

2. Create and upload a video as you would for a regular reel, but instead of posting to your followers, choose the ‘Trial Reels’ option on your profile. 

3. Your reel is now shared exclusively to people who don’t follow you. This helps test engagement without affecting your existing audience.

4. After 24 hours, Instagram will provide performance insights on the reel, including key metrics like views, likes, comments, shares, and watch time. You can access these insights under the ‘Drafts and trial reels’ section in the Reels tab of your profile.

5. From there, you can decide to either post it to your followers, tweak or refine the content and test it again, or discard it completely.

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

💻 TikTok is revamping its desktop platform to rival YouTube. The social media platform rolled out several new features to accompany the expansion, including a new Explore page and a way to organize videos into custom categories.

🧮 Want more confidence in your bookkeeping and tax strategy? Get financial management built specifically for founders and entrepreneurs starting at just $600/mo via Better Bookkeeping. Learn more & finally take control of your finances today, here!

😬 Most Community Notes are never displayed on X. The feature was rolled out to solve the problem of widespread misinformation on the platform, but according to a new study by Spanish fact-checking site Maldita, Community Notes are heavily reliant on the same sources that Meta has been using.

🙏🏼 100 Leads in a Month? That's what I'm currently generating via my ads + newsletter funnel. Join 20+ smart Founders & CEOs who have hired my lead gen team to write your weekly newsletter, grow your list, & use my secret sauces to turn your new subscribers into leads/customers. See if you’re a fit here →

👀 TikTok is sharing new insight into ROI of ad campaigns. A recent study commissioned by the video-first platform revealed that 75% of advertisers achieve higher ROI on TikTok compared to other media channels.

Want more from me?

🙏🏼 Save big with exclusive discounts on my favorite marketing tools & services here 

🎙 Hear me interview marketing experts on Spotify, Youtube, or Apple Podcasts

📣 Partner with me to get your product/service in front of my audience here

🤝 Hire me to audit your marketing strategy or as a Fractional CMO here