Only a few decades ago, marketing meant paying top dollar for ads, billboards, and commercials. Businesses spent a fortune on advertising to promote brands and fuel their growth. Today, entrepreneurs like JEM Social founder and CEO, Joe McCarthy, found ways to achieve the same level of success– and sometimes even more– for free or a small fee, through the power of social media.
Joe McCarthy
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat present an accessible way for businesses to spread the word, promote products, increase sales, and build an image. But with so many platforms available, where should you start? As far as Joe McCarthy is concerned, the answer is Instagram.
McCarthy started with social media during his teen years, when his efforts to help market his family’s sustainable farm in Virginia garnered so much momentum that it led him to build his own brand, centered around coaching and entrepreneurship. Though other social media sites were beneficial to his rise, McCarthy attributes the majority of his success to Instagram.
“I’d say ultimately, Instagram is probably the most solid, and it’s the easiest, as well, as far as putting out short form content. So that’s the one that I would stick with until you get to twenty, fifty, one-hundred thousand followers, then you can delegate to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,” McCarthy says. “I’m kind of biased because I crushed it on Instagram versus other platforms. So personally, I’d say Instagram, just out of personal experience.”
In recent years, Instagram, which was once known solely as a photo-sharing app, has made countless updates to greatly diversify the types of content that can be shared on the platform. In addition to photos, users can share videos, stories, reels, and host live sessions. It’s this blend of formats that has made Instagram perhaps the most powerful out of all the social media platforms for businesses and brands alike.
One of the most popular types of content on Instagram are reels, which are short videos that can be edited to include music, text, and various clips– essentially a reel is a mini movie or something more akin to a short YouTube video. When done well, reels are easily digestible and fun to watch.
“I’m big into catching trends. You want to make sure that you are watching what’s working, what’s not, what’s reaching more people, what’s not.”
McCarthy believes that reels and video content in general have a much greater reach when it comes to resonating with an audience than other types of posts. “I would say it’s probably just because you can capture the attention of the audience and then also give a more efficient message, knowledge or value in a shorter amount of time, through a video.” he explains.
Instagram is undeniably a powerful platform, but younger entrepreneurs or those trying to reach a younger audience might have better luck on another popular social media site: TikTok.
“I would say that if you don’t do Instagram, you should do TikTok. And those are really the only two I would suggest starting with, just because with Instagram, you can still get fantastic reach, especially if you work with an agency like one of ours, you can quickly blow up with TikTok. It’s easier to go viral organically because there are less people on there right now, which will change in the next year or two.”
If choosing a platform is easy, what comes next is the difficult part. Building a brand successfully means finding your audience and tailoring your content to those best suited to receive it.
“If your audience is everybody, then it’s nobody,” he says. “Figure out who you’re trying to help and what you’re trying to portray, because if you can pinpoint, ‘Hey, I’m trying to help eighteen to twenty year old males on entrepreneurship,’ then you’re going to have a very clear message, all your content can be based off of this one, clear ‘who’.”
For content creators, McCarthy points out that consistency is the key to amassing a following. At the same time, McCarthy urges creators to stay organized and work smarter, not harder.
“Instead of just randomly making videos, and randomly posting and creating content, you should take maybe one or two hours of your week, let’s say on a Saturday. Then every Saturday, set aside two hours to script out some content, write it and film it. Then if you get six, seven videos done, you’ve accomplished that in two hours or less,” he says.
Balancing the amount of content to post can be tricky, especially for those just starting out, but unsurprisingly, McCarthy has a recipe for that, too.
“What I like to say is do about two thirds video and reels, and then 1/3 photos or behind the scenes and stuff like that, but video is definitely the way to go, because it’s going to reach a lot more people in the end.”
Given McCarthy’s track record, it’s safe to say that his advice is, without a doubt, worth heeding.
