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Episode 85Jul 3, 2026· 58:56

The Ad Strategist's Guide to Growing on Facebook Right Now

▸ Show notes from the creator
Facebook quietly rewrote its own rules, and most creators haven't caught on yet. Amanda Bond, the strategist behind The Ad Strategist, explains how a sudden shift toward TikTok-style discoverability let her drive 23,000 visits to a single blog post and helped a brand-new page hit 100,000 followers in weeks. In this episode, Amanda breaks down what changed in Facebook's algorithm starting in August 2025, why posting frequency now matters more than ever, and how she uses Creator Studio insights to find the exact content people are already searching for. She and Ashley get into the real mechanics of growing an audience from scratch: testing every post format, tracking reach and link clicks, doubling down on what already works, and using Facebook traffic to boost search rankings on your own blog. It's a practical, no-fluff conversation for anyone building a page, a business, or a personal brand on Facebook right now. Find Amanda Bond online https://www.facebook.com/theadstrategist --------------------------------------- This podcast is supported by affiliate partnerships. Please check out a few of our partners below: – Check out my Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/theashleygrant?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_aipsfshop_4EEZX1HN7ZCWEBZ33TK3 – Start a podcast today here: https://rss.com/?via=famous – Create content from your own voice with Castmagic's Suite of AI Tools: https://get.castmagic.io/dcjy15cirnts – Want to help support our show? Buy a girl a drink perhaps? https://ko-fi.com/famousashleygrant – Need content for your podcast or blog? Check out Tools for Motivation: https://toolsformotivation.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=962&url=1914 The links above are affiliate links. This means my podcast will receive a small commission if you order through any of them at no additional cost to you. Affiliate commissions are one of the ways my podcast makes money so that I can create episodes free of charge. If you do purchase anything from my links, I sincerely would like to thank you for your support!
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About this episode
Facebook quietly rewrote its own rules, and most creators haven't caught on yet. Amanda Bond, the strategist behind The Ad Strategist, explains how a sudden shift toward TikTok-style discoverability let her drive 23,000 visits to a single blog post and helped a brand-new page hit 100,000 followers in weeks. In this episode, Amanda breaks down what changed in Facebook's algorithm starting in August 2025, why posting…
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Full transcript
00:03
The Bloggy Friends Show. What's up, my bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here, and I just want to welcome you to the Bloggy Friends Show. We're so excited to have you join us on this journey of sharing our knowledge and experiences with you. Whether you're a blogger, a content creator, or just someone who's interested in learning more about the digital world, we've got something for you. So grab your notebook and a pen to take some notes, or just sit back and take in all the amazing information and ideas we're about to share with you. Let's get into it. What would Amanda Bond do? I have not been on a podcast in over two years, I think. Aw, well then I'm honored I brought you back in.
00:59
Yeah! And you're not even pitching a course for sale. I just literally have nothing. I'm just hanging out. See, that's the best part. Yeah. Honestly, I'm having so much fun just because of that. It's taken all the pressure off. I don't have to have an ulterior motive. It's just like, go fuck around and find out on Facebook. Those are the best ways. I think they're fantastic. Am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Do you bleep it? You can swear as much as you want.
01:27
I'm just going to put explicit. That's all. Because I can't help but say shit or ass. And I occasionally drop an F -bomb too, even though my mother hates it. Totally got it. So yeah, I'll just mark it explicit. So I'm excited to jam with you. Holy crap. It has been forever since I've spoken to you. But yeah, you started popping up in my feed a lot and I was like, what is she doing? And so then I started reading everything you were doing and I was like, I want more. So tell me everything. Like, I mean, what have you been doing the past couple of years? What's going on now? Tell me all the things. OK, so, I mean, first, let me just talk to the power of this new algorithm update that I started noticing maybe in August of 2025. So we're recording.
02:13
What is it now? November. I almost said October, but we're in November. But I started noticing. people who I wasn't following or just niche pages that I have never seen before starting to show up in my feed more and more. And I'm like, where's the Facebook that I know and love, right? Because my brain had been conditioned to expect certain things to show up. So at first I was a little taken aback, but you know, the marketer in me, like many of us were like, oh wait, there's an opportunity here. How are these pages? Or profiles starting to show up in my feed, but I don't follow them. So in August, it was the first cue of like, oh my gosh, I think Facebook is fundamentally changing right now with how the algorithm is working. More in a TikTok style discoverability.
03:05
And for me, I've been on Facebook since, oh gosh, I remember. When somebody walked into my dorm room in university and was like, hey, there's this thing called Facebook. I'm like, tell me about it, Lev. He went on to explain it. And I actually dismissed it like years and years ago because he was like, oh, yeah, if you go to a party and then like you meet somebody, but you don't remember their name, you can get tagged in the same photo. And I was like, that sounds absolutely stupid. Why would I ever go on this platform? But we know how that turned out. And I ended up making a career off of the platform, really focusing on the organic side to kind of build my business up first. But then I doubled down and focused a lot on the ad side of the equation, how to take all of our... organic interactions and traffic from Facebook and put them through sales funnels until they convert into dollars for your business. And then over the last few
04:04
years, I've just kind of taken a hiatus, stepped back from teaching ads, retired from that business and have a few like fun personal projects going on. So I really hadn't been showing up on social media. But then all of a sudden watching this. algorithm shift in real time. As somebody who calls herself a Facebook page purist, like it is literally my favorite platform to create for. But for years and years and years, it was not a discoverability platform. So you had to like claw every single new follower from somewhere and put in man hours and community groups, you know, having back and forth conversations. And not everyone loves to do that. That sounds like a blast to me. But this was the first time that I had taken a step back and said, Facebook is now a place for many more people to be discovered with their content, similar to how you can grow quickly on Facebook. Sorry, on TikTok. That's
05:08
just how we got reconnected. The power of how this algorithm is working. And my content started showing up in front of you and your feed. And I've just been having a blast posting multiple times a day. And then I also manage a brand page in the baking niche, which is just having some really fun semi -viral moments. And that's getting me giddy and nerding out in all of the data and analytics, sending traffic over to a blog. all of the fun stuff that is coming with this new update. Yes. And that's actually what made me reach out to you is that you said you drove, what was it like 23 ,000 visits to a freaking blog page. How'd you do it? I wish it was like some strategy that nobody's ever heard of before, but really it's literally the strategy is post on Facebook. Post on Facebook right now. If you're posting from a personal. profile which has to be in professional mode to take advantage of some of these like content monetization options
06:08
where facebook's paying creators or from a business page and just treat it like it's a personal profile interact with people in the comments post the content you've literally been posting for the last decade but do it more often And just double down the platform. I actually got a lot of trouble this past week because I made a statement saying, if you want to be growing on Facebook right now, you have to be posting at least five times a day. And there was two camps. There was the absolutely.
06:38
I agree with that. That's how we're growing. And there was that sounds like a terrible idea. Why would you suggest such a thing that's going to lead to burnout? But if your business. is a business that's monetized through content if you have a blog that's monetized through an ad network and more traffic from any platform blogs really have relied heavily on google and pinterest in the past facebook is this like big opportunity right now and so i'm literally just posting almost the same content that we've been posting for the last five years from this page, but I'm increasing the frequency. So at first I was posting maybe three to seven times a day and it's every single format. I'm posting stories. I'm posting reels.
07:26
Actually reels are the ones that I hate posting the most because I just personally don't like creating or even uploading videos. It just takes longer than putting up an image or my preference is a simple text -based post where you literally just say a sentence. And albums. I think I covered all of the formats like videos now are all called reels on Facebook. But yeah, stories, reels, text based posts, images and albums. And so I started posting three to maybe six times a day and then realized, oh, the more I post, the more opportunity I have for each individual post to perform well. And so I just increased my frequency a little bit more and a little bit more and started to take the things that were performing well.
08:12
And by well, meaning they're maybe earning a few dollars from the Facebook creator monetization program, but they're getting traffic over to the blog, which is also earning money from the ad network. And so I'm just going to simply click the share button so that they get reshared to the top of my feed. And then it kickstarts the distribution of people who already follow you. So it's like if you have good content that's working well. reshare it every once in a while, but just start showing up more, doing the same things we've been doing for the last decade.
08:47
I mean, it does. It sounds silly and it sounds fun, but I guess the big question is, can you do this with a page that hasn't existed very long? Absolutely. I actually just saw somebody on my feed today say he started his page in September and he's already grown to a hundred thousand followers. And so, right. What did he do? Do you know? I don't specifically know. I didn't stop to pause long enough. But in my head, if I had to assume or guess, it was he was posting in a highly relevant niche. I view that as something that has a wide potential audience, baking, crafts, hobbies, food, lifestyle, just something that's maybe not marketers marketing to marketers about marketing. Like that's kind of a tiny, tiny little niche in our world. Something broader and probably focusing on videos because. there's a lot more consumption of videos in the last little while but I don't know that for sure he could have
09:53
just been posting until he found one format that really worked for his page and really worked for his specific niche and then doubled down on that so for me I'll give you an example I took over full management of this Facebook page that I'm a partner in. We used to have a team member run it. And then I was like, no, no, no. There's opportunity here. Middle of September. I'm like, I'm just going to push everyone else out of the way. Let me experiment with every kind of post type that I can think of. And then I'm going to go into Creator Studio. So the back end of our Facebook pages, I'm going to look at my insights. So I'm going to see which posts are getting the most views, which posts are getting the most link clicks, right? Because we monetize also through the link clicks. So that's an important metric for us. How many are getting shares and saves and the most watch time? Like I want to
10:49
pay attention to what. what format, what type of content is performing the best, right? So the first month I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall. I've got no idea because I just took over like intense management of this page. After about a month in, I realized one specific type of post, and this is in the baking niche, that talked about the why behind baking, not just sharing, let's say, simple recipes or like a specific type of recipe it wasn't the recipes that were going crazy with views and then therefore revenue from the facebook creator program it was the things that talked about the why behind baking that improved your baking skills and capabilities so i was like okay there's something here And then I would go back in time. So years before the Facebook creator program existed. And I would look at which posts used to get the most reach because like views weren't even a metric back in the day. Right. Like I think views rolled
12:02
out either earlier this year or last year as a metric. So when we go back and look historically at what's performed, we have to go look at what had the most reach. And so all of those posts that have higher than normal reach are little clues, evidence of what the algorithm is going to want you to continue to post more of because that's what people are going to engage with. And so I found that specific type of content that talked about why. And then I started finding.
12:35
specific recipes within the sub -niche of recipes. So not every recipe would perform, but like specific ones. I don't know. People love peanut butter and chocolate together. You know, like they just love certain food combinations and therefore they would perform better than others. And then my theory was, okay, if I'm making money from the like literally the posts themselves, but then those posts are driving a ton of clicks over to the ad network. Theoretically, if I continued to post about those topics in different ways, maybe posting a photo and then an album the next time and then a reel and then making it a story, right? Playing with the different formats. Couldn't I theoretically send people to these blog posts almost every single day of the year? And then if I'm sending them to the blog posts from Facebook every single day of the year, wouldn't Google then theoretically? think that this post was
13:35
more relevant than my competitors' posts that I'm trying to uprank against because it's getting more traffic. And then theoretically, wouldn't my rankings increase? Therefore, I would also be getting more Google traffic at the end of the day, right? So it was like, it kind of hit me this big epiphany and I was like, oh my gosh, that's the game now. So as soon as you find something that works, experiment the heck out of it. And that's what I'm doing for the month of November.
14:03
There was like a post years ago, years ago, that got 33 million, got in front of 33 million people. A single post. And so for this month, I said. I am going to post about that topic every single day this month, because if that topic is a lottery ticket, I'm going to buy 30 of them in the month of November instead of just buying one ticket, crossing my finger in a hope that it works. So it's like, what is the evidence that's already working on your page? Where are the spikes in views on any given day? What is? popping off in your google analytics start to pay attention to those things because that's leaving clues what your highest potential earnings are going to be and when you start to post less about the stuff that isn't getting views like halloween just passed i post a halloween cupcake recipe spent maybe two hours like reformatting this thing this like all the content from the blog post different formats carousels individuals
15:10
there was like five different cupcakes you could make so I made a post about each one of the cupcakes probably put a dozen maybe 10 or 10 or 12 posts together about this topic like it did not go off it was not worth my time And that's when I had the epiphany of, oh, I shouldn't be focused on my like lowest earning blog posts. I should just go to my insights from Facebook, my Google Analytics history and be focused on the stuff that already drives a ton of traffic. Because that's what it's showing us that that's what people want. Right. Like that's what they're Googling. So if they're Googling it, wouldn't they be interested in if they saw a post on Facebook as well? All of the data. can be found by starting.
16:00
And if you're starting from zero, then you just got to throw things at the wall faster and see what sticks, right? Like, sure, I've got years to go back and look at this data, but on my personal Facebook page, I'm only looking at the past month's worth of data to see where the spikes are. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And the reason I asked the question specifically is I personally have a fitness page that I'm starting and a podcasting page that I'm starting. And the reason I'm starting in these two niches is number one, I work in podcasting now. I'm constantly discussing, you know, how to start a podcast with people. And so it only makes sense for me to play more in that space. And the other thing is the fitness.
16:42
I mean, it's... Anybody who knows me knows I've sort of become kind of addicted. I started really going hard a hundred and something days ago. We're recording in November, but July 14th, I kind of went nuts. I went from zero to 60 and started doing, you know, an average of 13 to 14 hours a week of exercise. Whenever we're talking about a girl who did like maybe three hours a week, if that. for two years. And before that was nothing. So, um, I kind of went ape shit and now I want to tell everybody that they need to move their ass. So that's, that's all right.
17:17
Okay. So what would your advice be for, I mean, I'm just going to use this as my coaching session. So I'm starting this fitness page. It's called more, it's called more movement, please. Yeah. And the idea is the movement is moving your body more. How would I even begin? I've started, you know, started posting random things and, and I'm, I'm, I mean, I guess you'd say like a few shares a day of things, but I haven't posted a lot of original content just yet because I'm trying to get my footing. Where do I go from here? What would Amanda Bond do? What's your favorite type of content to create? This is what I would ask everyone first. I love a graphic with a text, like a graphic with some text. That's my favorite. Okay, perfect. So then I would start there. I personally am not a stare at. a blank screen and think of an idea. So for me, I have to be scrolling my feed and finding a little piece of inspiration to say, oh, I could put
18:16
my own spin on this. So do you like to create from scratch or do you need a little inspo? Like what's your content creation style? Depends on the day. There are times where I'll be driving down the road and I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. And I'll just like vomit into my phone. But other times I'm on these different fitness pages and I'm like, that would be so good as a post. But I want to make it better because it's kind of like there's a there's a page I follow that I will not mention because I don't want to hate on them because they're really awesome.
18:43
Yeah, yeah. But they it's kind of like when you eat a pizza where they forgot to put the sauce on it. It's missing something and you're just eating it going this. It's pizza, but it's not great. That's kind of how I feel. And I'm not talking about pizza because fitness, but still. Listen, you can talk about pizza and fitness. It's called balance. Yes. And I'm about I'm about fitness, fitness, pizza in my mouth. So, yeah, exactly where I'm at. I would encourage you in those moments when you're just like driving and then voice noting yourself. As soon as you stop the car, ship something. Right. Like take whatever the one sentence is and put it on the Internet.
19:27
I actually just got accused last week of being a word vomiter. And I I just laughed at the concept of it because. That is the game of content creation. Like you need to show up. You need to share your perspectives, your insights. And there's a lot of humans in this world who are going to have differing opinions from you. And of course, Facebook sometimes finds those people and shows them your posts because controversy can create additional reach. But it's like we need to get into the habit of shipping content. Right. And it doesn't always have to be like, sure, graphics are amazing.
20:03
So it's like maybe you should be screenshotting different ideas as you go, like as you're scrolling the feed or going about your day. Get that bank ready so that the next time you sit down at Adobe, Canva, whatever you create on, you're like, OK, I know exactly do these three things that I need to create and then schedule them out instantly. Because content creation really just is a habit. And we need to identify what are specific, the habits that we personally can uphold over a long enough time period. Because if you're like showing up 10 times a day and then you ghost for months on end, you're probably not going to get traction.
20:46
But if you can. think of something off your top of your head two, three times a day and just get into the practice of typing it into your phone or on your desktop and hitting post or even scheduling it for the next day so that there's something there. It's like a muscle of going to the gym. It's going to get stronger and the ideas are going to start coming to you way easier. So it's like just start whatever the easiest format is. Start with that. If you need caption templates or content ideas, Google it. Use ChatGPT to start getting the wheels running, right? Like a little side tangent, I wrote AI -assisted with ChatGPT for like a solid 10 -month period, and I felt dumber at the end of it and couldn't retain a single thing because I was letting it do a lot of the work. probably August, same time that I was discovering this Facebook thing. I stopped writing entirely AI -assisted and now I just
21:47
go to it for like, help me spitball this idea. Why does this feel too wordy? Help me make it more succinct. Give me 20 different ideas based on this one idea that I have and then letting it just get the flow and the motion going so that I can just work that content creation muscle. But right now, I shipped, I did a little recap for October, 300 and I think it was, I can't remember if it was 330, yeah, 335 individual Facebook posts between two pages. That was me.
22:24
It's not automated by anything. It's not AI assisted. I sat down probably for three, maybe four. content creation days which for me are no longer than like two to four hours and then I like scroll my feed and occasionally schedule things out like as I'm on the go interacting responding to comments so like in the fringe hours of my month I was able to find 335 pieces of content that I could post online now I didn't make 335 videos or reels right I repurposed a lot lot of existing content especially if you have a blog especially if that blog's monetized and you know which pieces of content do well which already have photography what you've already created reels about like go back in time it's november this month if if you have a big q4 Literally just post what you posted in November in 2024, 23, 22, 21, 20. Like there's going to be things that aren't relevant today, but there's going to be a lot that are evergreen that you can just
23:33
literally reschedule and upload. And it's been so long. And the fact that so many of our views are coming from non -followers with this Facebook algorithm update. they're not going to have seen the content anyways. So repurpose, repurpose. And then whatever your content creation style is, just get in the habit and build the muscle. It might be one post a day to start, but then all of a sudden two posts become easy. And then you're like, oh, maybe I could push myself and do a reel this week, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm interviewing next week. I'm supposed to be interviewing Jeff Rose of Good Financial Sense. And I love him. Oh, good. And he said he's posting 20 times a day. But I saw his YouTube video. There was one day there was like 42 posts in a single day.
24:20
And I was like, I aspire to be like you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if he has an assistant or what, but I mean, he's posting a lot of stuff and he made like a hundred grand in six months. So, I mean, obviously that sounds good to anybody. And I'll wait to listen to that episode then. Yeah, it is good. It was really good. And he, he was on making sense of sense. He did a, they did a profile on him as well. And that's what actually led to. this and it's it's very interesting timing that both you and him are both talking about the same thing and you both were in my feed at the same time thank you facebook algorithm yes i'm like clearly there's something to this because they know i'm trying to start this page and i want it to actually pop off so all right so one of the things you said is that that you're posting a lot now in that you should post more what do you say to the people who are like oh
25:09
but if people keep seeing me post all the time they're gonna get annoyed Oh, well, first off, some will. And by like, you know what I mean? People come and go. Right. Like you hear a lot about Taylor Swift in the world because a gajillion people are all posting about her. And when you want to know about it, you like tune in. And when you don't, you tune out and then your algorithm shifts and adjusts. Right. So you personally have your own preferences. So why wouldn't other people have their preferences? And sometimes you're going to be their cup of tea. Sometimes they're not. The way this new algorithm update works, though, is a lot of your content is getting in front of non followers. So even if they follow your page, it's not indicative that they're going to see every single piece of your content. I've got one post going off right now that's like 89 % non -followers and just sometimes even higher,
26:04
93 % non -followers. So it's like, sure, the 7 % of people that were followers that saw it from my page, they might have seen two or three other posts on there, but also they may have not, right? Yeah. And if they're stalking you, then that just means you're getting more impressions. Yeah. Have you ever followed somebody new on Instagram and then all of a sudden you start seeing their real first thing in your feed? Like they prioritize you getting familiarized with this new creator and then you binge it, you fall in love and you're like, I love this person.
26:39
I'm going to follow everything that they say and do. That is what we're showing up for. The future people that want to come on the journey with us. And sometimes people who have been in our past or who have liked our pages before, they're not in it. They're not in that stage of life or they're not in that journey that they want to go on with you. And that's OK, too. So because so many strangers are starting to see content, Facebook previously. If your content was relevant, if it got signals from the algorithm, likes, comments, shares, sends, saves, link clicks, clicks over to your profile. If those things were happening, it was like, oh, this is relevant.
27:19
Let me show it to the rest of your page followers. Now they're like, oh, this is relevant. Let me show it to every single person on the Internet who has this specific interest. Right. And so that's what we want. So post, post, post, post, post. And I actually saw my friend Paige posted TikTok yesterday and she was like, my first, the cost of making my first million dollars online was feeling cringiness and embarrassment. You know what I mean? Like we have to feel those feelings until creating content becomes a habit and then we become unfazed by those feelings.
27:56
Like somebody could say, they did last week. They told me that I have verbal diarrhea and like I just word vomit. I was like. Yeah, that is part of being a content creator. Like that doesn't hurt my feelings that one particular person thinks that like that's not going to stop me from continuing to show up to this process. I have to ask about that, though, because one of the I've only had one thing go semi viral and it kind of freaked me out because of the response I got because it was kind of polarizing.
28:27
Basically, I was in Meijer one day. This is a true story. I was in Meijer. I was grocery shopping. And this lady was in my way. Like she was in the way. I was trying to get to the eggs and old girl would not move. And so I waited a second and I just kind of let her be. And finally, she looked at me and she's like, honey, if you won't just tell me, get out of the way. And I said, no, as women, we're told to move enough. I can wait a second. And so I posted about that. And all these men flocked to the comments and they're like, I'll take things that didn't happen for a thousand Alex and like all this shit. And I was just like, no, it actually happened. I was there. But then it was like, do I really engage with these haters? Do I really play with these, these assholes on the internet who don't believe that two women could have an authentic interaction like that? Yeah. I mean, the filter I would put
29:14
it through is, is it worth the effort of it? Right. If, if it's. unrelated to our current business or life vision or goals if it's an unmonetized piece of content like if you're earning money from that and then people want to go off in the comments like maybe we just let them and egg them on I might be you know guilty of doing that every once in a while because controversy creates more views right but if it affects our mental health if it's you know, too much. Like I had an article go viral back in 2018 on the topic of bro marketing in the internet marketing industry.
29:56
And that was a lot for my nervous system. I got personally attacked. There was a lot of positives. I got a lot of invitations and, you know, tables opened up to me. And I had to know when enough was enough, like some days. I'm a woman I'm a cycling woman so it's like when I'm in certain stages of my cycle I can't be on the internet because I take everything way too personally but then when I'm in other stages I'm like oh bring it oh fuck on like I will go with you today I will spar and so we just have to ask ourselves it's like what's the ROI of this is it worth it and if it's not sometimes like deleting a piece of content is also a perfectly acceptable thing to do if it's not helping us reach the the goals and vision that we have for our lives right because we do risk a lot to show up online this is true it's your career but like we're putting ourselves out there at the end of the day and so we we need to have the boundaries
30:53
to say like what we approve of and what we don't And we also have to remember that, like, no matter what we do, we're going to piss off half the Internet, no matter what I do. And, you know, one of my favorite series is the series Leverage with Timothy Hutton. And there's an episode. where, I can't remember her last name, but the woman that plays Sophie, she says, you say controversy and I hear attention. And I'm just like, that so speaks to, you know, trying to get people's attention and things like that. But one of the things that you were saying is like the engagement is good. It gets, you know, it gets it, it clues to Facebook, like, hey, people give a damn about this. So what I'm curious about is, do you ever comment on your own posts to get more comments happening? If nobody's commenting on your post, you commenting is going to do nothing. But if people are responding to your posts, if they're
31:47
showing up, if they're having opinions, asking questions, I personally just love to be in conversation and community with my page. My personal page, right? Because that is a representation of me, I quickly know what I think about everything. However, in our brand... speaking page I don't show up in the comments in the same way so I let the comments kind of simmer themselves people talk between themselves but it does have a much bigger reach so and fans of the brand because the brand's been around for 15 years so it's kind of self -contained could I show up and add more community and connection over there probably but For me, I look at the ROI of my time spent over there where we already have momentum and literally tens of thousands of combinations of content that I could put together to get in front of more people. My time is better spent creating more posts in a day, scheduling out more posts
32:54
than it is responding to one particular comment. But on my personal page. If anyone goes over there, it's facebook .com forward slash the ad strategist. I used to teach all about Facebook ads, no longer sell anything on the internet anymore. But if you go over there, it's me because I know everyone who like shows up to my comments. I create relationships with them because that's where my leverage is on that page. Creating more content right now. is not the highest ROI activity that I could be doing. Having a conversation with you, you know, to get on a podcast, to get in front of more people is a higher and better use of my time with that smaller brand, right?
33:39
Like that other page in the baking niche has 358 ,000 followers. I have 13 ,000. Not that 13 ,000 isn't a heck of a lot of people. It could fill an entire soccer stadium, you know, but. I find that the back and forth, the back and forth is how I build affinity for my content on my personal page. That makes complete sense. Yeah. I mean, I want all of this, duh. So one of the things that you said is that you've been shipping out a lot of content and that you'll, oh, you get an idea, then schedule it to go live.
34:14
So are you scheduling it on Facebook? Are you scheduling it in the... business uh what do you call it meta meta for business like how are we scheduling what what platform are you using the schedule girl everywhere you should see you should see my setup here it depends what what piece of content is or depends where i am if i'm in the car obviously it's all on my mobile i'm i have the facebook app on my phone i also have right beside it the facebook business suite app so i'm literally scheduling it from every single place. I try different mixes in my head. I'm like, does it matter where we schedule from?
34:48
Does Facebook prioritize something? I don't know. I'm just going to throw it all out there. So again, whatever is easiest in that moment to get the content out of my brain and onto the screen, that's what I'm choosing. And sometimes when I'm posting on mobile, I just hit go hit live. If I know I've already scheduled something out like around the same time within about. two hours uh I will like schedule it for a little bit later sometimes the same day sometimes the next day it depends on how far ahead I am on the baking brand I'm usually I usually have the current week pretty well scheduled out especially the next few days and I'm talking 10 different pieces of content coming out but on my personal page like the next day is always blank so Not always, but maybe there'll be one post here, one post there. It's a little bit more sporadic.
35:46
And then when I'm doing big batching content sessions where I'm going into Creator Studio to look at my past analytics, to pull up past year's content, that I'm on a giant ass iMac screen trying to get the biggest screen real estate to just... make drag, drop, save this, upload this, do it in the planner on the back end of Creator Studio. Then I'm also scheduling. I schedule reels on desktop, but from the page itself. So it's like wherever you can upload stuff, that's where I'm doing it. So you're doing it in the actual Facebook software? All of it.
36:28
None of it is a third party. That's what I was going to ask, because I know there's been some people that have said if you use like a Metro Cool or a Buffer or a social media that you get dinged for it. No, I totally believe that as well. Oh, you do. OK, well, all right. That's good to know. And well, speaking of software, though, are you using anything to kind of drive people to your email list like a many chat or, you know, anything like that? So the me personally, I don't sell anything online anymore. I retired my my Facebook ads program last year. I kind of went off down like a little little rabbit hole in the balloon. like DIY balloon decorating niche, built some funnels, webinar over there.
37:08
And I just didn't quite hit a messaging and have that take off when this opportunity showed up. And I was like, oh, let me just go all in on this thing for a second. Pause that over there. So I'm not generating emails on the balloon, like fun hobby side. I don't have an email list on like my personal Facebook ad side anymore because I just didn't want to teach about it. It changes at the speed of light. And so now I personally just. show up to have fun. I have no other software other than, what do I pay for?
37:39
Canva. Facebook's free. I don't even have a verified badge personally. And ChatGPT, you could say, are my tools. I pay the $20 a month tool. And then on the other side, the brand has, again, Canva. I use my ChatGPT for that. And then we have started testing ManyChat. To see if there's a difference between like putting the link in the post or not putting the link in the post. I make more money when I put the link in the post because I'm sending more people over to the blog and the ad network like out earns what Facebook is paying me per thousand impressions by like two to one. So, of course, I want people over to the blog because it makes a higher ROI.
38:23
So I've been putting it in and then I tested taking it out. I tested many chat. I tested manually replying to 200 comments. Probably don't recommend that one. Especially not at scale. And so, I mean, try everything. That's always my suggestion to people. Try everything to see what's going to resonate for your people. Because every page, every avatar, every person you're trying to call in is going to behave differently. I don't know, the ladies who are in their 60s who like a baking page, are they going to understand what's happening with many chat in the DMs? Maybe like, I don't know, I collected 12 email addresses. You know, is it is that worth it? Yeah, like we get we send out emails and then those people can click over to the blog and earn more money. And then if we get more traffic to any posts, you know, they can rank higher. Sure, you can justify it all. But when you're trying to create content
39:19
at scale. My brains are always like, OK, I have a thousand posts that I can pull from that each probably have half a dozen pro photography photos. It has an entire blog's post worth of copy. It likely has a video like a YouTube video or a reel. And it's all seasonal because it's baking. Right. Like based on holidays and what people are making. So I'm already trying to wrap my head around, oh my gosh, how do I manage a content database of that size to figure out what is most likely to go off at any given moment while split testing 50 ,000 variations of any one thing?
39:56
I'm like, okay, do I want to do ManyChat on top of that? Sure, at some point. But if you're like, ManyChat crushes it for me, heck yeah, go all in on ManyChat. Like do what's easiest to show up to the process. Understood. I guess the concern being that, you know, one of the things that's constantly said is the problem with posting so much on Facebook is you don't own it. And at any moment you can lose it. So that's always the question of are we supposed to make sure we get everybody on an email list just in case?
40:26
Yeah. No, I mean, it's very valid. It's very valid. Now that you say that, I'm just having fun. yeah for now i'm like oh my god imagine i lost that facebook page right now i would be pissed i should download all my content you can you can go into the back of creator studio and export every single post for like the last three years or something so like maybe we just want to all do that just go have a backup of your content because i actually lost my instagram page um the ad strategist like instagram account I don't know why I just said that you're not a real person. And then it was at the end of me wanting to even talk about ads. So I never fought for it to get it back. And every once in a while, I'm like, oh yeah, there was contents on there. I lost all that content. So I've been through that process. So it would have been nice to have the output that I had created, but I just, you get over it. Yeah. I didn't even know.
41:19
I didn't know that. See, today I learned you can download your back. Yeah. Yeah. So, Wes, you did mention Instagram. Now on on your baking page, do they also have an Instagram? They have an Instagram and I don't know the monetization situation. My personal preference, like I said, Facebook purist. So I've never really focused hard on growing an Instagram. So when the opportunity to partner in the Facebook creator monetization program happened. I just said, I'm going to take over this Facebook page. So they do have one.
41:57
We don't cross posts or do anything over there. It's a separate strategy. So I really can't chime in on that. I personally think like Instagram is probably the hardest place to grow right now. Because there hasn't been genuinely many algorithm updates in the last little while. But if Facebook is doing this and has a creator program, could we theoretically in the future see an Instagram creator program and not just those like random bonus payouts that they would do every once in a while? Possibly. And then would it make sense for that brand to go all in on Instagram? Maybe, you know, if that's the skill set or thing that they want to focus on. Would me who only has a Facebook page right now, would it benefit me to go make an Instagram? Probably not because I hate creating personally for that platform.
42:46
Like on my personal page, tech space is my is my like bread and butter. I'll ship like five tech space things back to back because they're so easy to ideate and create. And so I don't want to be creating videos and images. It just slows me down over there. I hear you. And I mean, I recently heard that someone I follow, she has like three million followers and she posted her her Instagram payout for the month of I think it was September. And when she posted it, she's like, now you guys sit down and I can't believe how much I'm getting paid. And it was thirty nine cents for millions of views. Oh, my God.
43:24
That's wild. Yeah, I see that. And I'm like, we have to ask ourselves if that's. worth it right like should we then be focused If you're such a prolific content creator and Instagram is that for you, are you generating enough revenue from other sources that you've tracked through your Instagram efforts to make it worthwhile for spending all that time and resource on producing there? Or should you be finding a different platform like a YouTube that has a great creator payout program, like a TikTok, like a Facebook? Facebook right now, the program is invite only. So if anyone's trying to get into it, my suggestion is. Start showing up. Start posting multiple times a day. It's going to take a few months to show Facebook that you're like a valid creator.
44:12
But in the process of creating content, of seeing what's working, of doubling down on the things that are, you're likely to see growth in that time that will qualify you for the program. You can Google it. I don't know like the specifics. I was actually in this program when it was the old program two years ago. And I'd make like, three cents here, 10 cents there. So I didn't take it serious until this year when I was like, oh my gosh, discoverability is changing. This is like 2015 all over again. We all need to take advantage of this. Like I got real, real excited.
44:49
I can't tell. I can't tell at all. No, I went from radio silent on my Facebook page to 99 posts last month. Like we're a little, we're a little excited over here. It's kind of like my fitness going from zero to 60. So it's interesting to think about. You can post links in there that you haven't really noticed much of a change. One of the things I am curious about is when someone does come to your page, whether they engage with it or not. Well, let me take that back. If they engage with the post, are you then asking for them to follow the page? No, you don't even need to right now. Like I know as soon as you show interest like it. click the image, click the link, leave a comment, save it, share it.
45:35
Like as soon as you go over to their page, do any of those things, even watch their reel over a few times, the new algorithm is like, oh, okay, you like that. That's why I say it's more similar to TikTok because whenever I'm on TikTok and I just like linger on a video just one second too long, the whole algorithm is like, you like that? Let me give it to you. Right? Oh, it is aggressive over there, but that's what we're starting to see with Facebook. And that's actually Jeff that you had mentioned earlier. What is it? Good, good financial sense is his Facebook page. I interacted with one post and now. He's in my feed everywhere. I don't follow him, but his content is constantly being resurfaced to me. And same with people who are liking my comments.
46:23
I'm starting to see their comments, right? Like they're liking my posts and now all of a sudden I'm seeing their content. So that could be a growth strategy. in and of itself is going to other people's content who are your ideal type of avatar or who are congregating the community that you want to get in front of and being an active participant in their comments because they're hype about growing right now too like Everyone that I'm talking to on Facebook is having fun again. It's a party over there. So they're like, yeah, welcome. Show up. Talk about this.
46:56
Oh, you got this interest. I got that interest. Perfect. Let me DM you this. Let me show like, let me show you that. Like, it just feels a very community driven, which was what? One of Facebook's like core tenants or something. Like, what is it like driving the world's communities or I don't know. Whatever. I'm a shareholder of Facebook as well. So like, should I know these things? Probably. I don't think so. But yeah. You are giving me some insights as to how I ended up in a very interesting loop of 11 billion Bollywood dances. Because I clicked. Yeah. You got to say you're not interested if you don't want it anymore.
47:34
I've been doing that a lot, actually, with this new algorithm update. There's like tarantula pictures on my feed all of a sudden. Absolutely not. No. See less. See less. Like tell it what you want and what you're trying to get out of it. Yeah, that was that's what I had to do with the for some reason. I don't know why I never clicked on any of this shit. Did not want it. But the the popping of the of the pimples and the boils and the shit. And I'm like, why? Why would you ever in a million years think I would be even remotely interested in that? Because I'm not gross. I'm like, yeah, I get those in my feet. Do you? No, thank you. No, the blackhead ones are great. I'm going to go vomit now. Anyway, sorry if you just heard that and I just vomited in your ear because that was absolutely gross.
48:23
But anyways, so coming back to kind of try to wrap this up in a bow, if that's even possible. Totally. So you said that you need to post more. You said don't worry about whether you've got links in or not. You said engage in the comments. What else would you say to the person who is like me and trying to finally feel like they matter on Facebook? Girl, you're probably not going to at first. And that's OK. Right. Like there is going to be a period of content creation where you need to learn the skill set of content creation. Right. For that specific platform.
48:58
And not everyone comes to the table with that. Right. I feel like I'm very well skilled in that. So when I saw the opportunity, I jumped on it and I'm building quite a bit of momentum quite quickly. But this has been the last 15 years of my life, especially focused on the paid traffic side of the equation where you have to make every single dollar multiply. So it's like I came to the table with the skill set of growing on social media because I've. I've got millions of dollars behind me. You know what I mean? In testing trial failure. Most people who are going to start are going to suck at content creation and they're going to blame the algorithm. They're going to say, oh, it's because people aren't following me back on this follow for follow thread. No, just make a thousand pieces of content because your thousandth one is probably going to be better than your 30, right? Somebody said to me. They
49:57
were like, well, what if what if I don't make a single dollar with my content? And I was like, you're probably not going to make a single dollar on your first hundred pieces of content, but it's probably going to become inevitable by the time you've posted a thousand of them. Right. So it's like embrace the suck. Show up to the process. Observe what other people are doing. Be curious. As soon as you see a spike in your analytics, ask, what did I post that day? Look at each individual post and how it performed.
50:33
And note, which ones were just a little bit more than the other, right? Focus, if you're making videos, focus on just improving it slightly each and every time. If you're making images, how do you get better at... color matching fonts graphics like there's so many micro skill sets in content creation and that's why people who don't have any experience not to say that's you I know you've been in this industry for the last decade right but like anyone who's listening who has it or is just new to the table like if you were And an administrative desk worker, you might have great conversational skills, which is a skill that you need, but you might have really shitty copy skills or video creation skills.
51:17
And so those are micro skills that you're going to just have to flex those muscles. We got to get in the gym. We just got to get moving, right? The movement is what creates the outcome at the end of the day. So whether you're going to the gym, whether you're trying to be a social media content creator, we just got to show up to the process and do it for long enough until you finally start seeing results. And if you don't want to play that game, that's cool too. There's other ways for you to use your God -given talents at the end of the day. Well, it's like John Lee Dumas says, you got to put in the reps. You gotta, you gotta. I know that sounds like such a masculine thing, but like. ebb and flow and feel what you feel inspired to do and act on those creative feminine urges at the same time and if you're treating this like a business like the logic of the ones and zero side like we need to look
52:09
at the data of it too so that we know oh when i feel inspiration it's informed by the data like that's that's how you crush it on social media People, they're like, I don't post stuff. And it's like, yeah, because you've been posting stuff for eight years and you got really fucking good at the skill sets of posting by all like observing all these little tiny patterns and having different interactions and other people sharing insights. Right. Like I'll see three posts in a row and I'll be like, I just identified this person said something about this, which matches up about something over here and this.
52:44
OK, I know exactly what's going to happen next week on the platform. But it's because I've been here for 15 years now. Wait, was it 2025? I think I joined in 2004. So I've been here for 21 years on this platform. I was strength now. I know. I had. Well, I'm from Canada, so we can drink at 18. So I was able to drink when I showed up, but I needed a university email address to join. Like that's how long I've been on this platform.
53:14
So of course I understand the nuance of this platform and I didn't divert to all of the other places. So it's like, I just, I know this platform in and out, but it might not take, it's not gonna take you 21 years, but it might take you two to get really good and build momentum. That's how many you actually put in the work. Yeah, if you put in the work, it could take you two months like that one dude. There you go. And I would like to be the two month person. But it's like it's like my instructor says, excuses don't get results. So just put in the fucking rest. totally i'm like at 47 pilates sessions deep now i'm like trying to now i want to go actually see how many sessions i have in my activity tab so i started pilates got oh literally 47 on the dot um i'm 47 classes deep with pilates right now and i got super pissed at like the 20 to now plateau because i was like oh i saw like the posture changes i saw the rib flare
54:09
come in i saw the like muscles starting to like bulge in the legs in those first 20 sessions um i had i had done like five times a week in the month before when i was living in serbia um but the like 20 plateau once i got home with this new brand that tracks it in an app i got pissed because i was like oh right now the beans are small yeah right and it's like what There's things happening. There's pelvic floor realignment.
54:36
There's like this little, little oblique muscle doing something over here. And I'm like, God damn it. I just got to do 250 classes. Then I just got to shut the fuck up and do 250 Pilates classes and not complain until then. If I want the result. It's hard though, man. Cause it's like in the a hundred days I lost three pant sizes into 20 pounds. And then after that I've lost a pound and I'm like, yeah, that's wrong. Yeah. I went for a game. No, those are totally normal. And talk to Chad GPT, your therapist during those times, because that's what I do with Pilates. I'm like, OK, I'm just a little bit butthurt that this week there's been no gains.
55:12
You know, like I've seen this. This was happening. I actually like my cravings for sugar at night have reduced. And it was like, keep going. I was like, I know I just needed to vent, though, that I'm pissed this week. And it's the same with social media. I just rode a really big high. We had our best earnings week ever. And now we're in the slump again. And I'm like, oh my God, I want to be in the high. I want to be riding the high, but I can't get to the high until I keep showing up to the fucking process and learning and looking at the insight and like making these micro tweaks. And then I'm like, but next year at this time. Watch out world. It's over for you bitches. Watch out Facebook. The bond is back. Yeah. Something else will change and I'm back in the slump again. That's how it happens.
55:59
That's funny. It's funny you said butthurt because I got a really weird injury from a spin class. And so I haven't been able to do Pilates in like a month. So I understand. Oh, I am. I am a convert of the cult for sure. It is a good cult to be in. A great cult. I will say us North American Pilates. goers we are just we're weak compared to the Serbian Pilates oh my gosh the they they go hard those those women my fiance yeah my fiance's Serbian so my daughter's half Serbian so we're aiming to like go live there for half a year and like I show up here and I'm like oh I feel I feel like I got this. I'm constantly in flow.
56:48
There I show up and I'm like, I am the weakest person that has ever existed. Everyone here is a Greek goddess. Serbian goddess. It's a very different level. lotties there. Shout out to all you Serbians. I love you so hard. Oh, that is too funny. That is fantastic. Well, I know we've talked a little Facebook. We talked a little bit about fitness. Is there anything else you want to share before I let you go? No, man, just go out there, have fun, like, you know, show up to the process, fuck around and find out.
57:21
That's my current mantra on Facebook. Just taking the pressure off and being like, let's see what happens. I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. Well, if you do want people to still find you online, where can they find you? Well, you come over to my Facebook page. We can have some fun. I share lots more about what's going on. I've done like content recaps for the entire month. I've shared like how much each post has earned, like the breakdown so you can see the differences of it. My Facebook page is facebook .com forward slash the ad strategist. That's fantastic. All right. Well, we will leave all the links in the show notes. And I know we didn't mention the baking page because we're keeping that under lock and key. We are keeping that silent. That makes sense to me. But Amanda, I want to thank you for being here with me and chatting with me. I appreciate the hell out of it. And yeah, I can't wait to play and see if I can get some
58:13
of those gains. I can't wait to see what happens for you. Thank you. Well, my bloggy friends, I hope you enjoyed all the insights our guests had to share with you. To get the show notes for this and all episodes, go over to famousashleygrant.com backslash podcast. And until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate be low.