Social media networks are evolving at a rapid rate and utilizing them to best cater to your audience is a must. But, retaining your audience is often a struggle that influencers experience at one point or another. We reached out to one of our Talent Managers, Jenna Tarabek, to dish out all the details on improving audience retention.

If you are interested in being managed by Jenna or seeing her roster of influencers, contact Jenna at jenna@thesociablesociety.com. 

Is audience retention different across various platforms? 

Yes! TikTok creators have seconds to capture viewers attention or else they’ll continue scrolling. TikTok reaches a different type of viewer than YouTube — they’re looking for instant entertainment and gratification whereas YouTube viewers are typically “in it” for a bit longer since YouTube content is typically more long-form, probably at least 10 minutes per video. 

Are there ways to utilize multiple platforms to improve retention?

I think everyone should broaden their reach and not rely on putting all of their eggs in one basket (or social media platform.) Our creators do a REALLY good job of this — they direct their audience from one platform to another so they can ultimately bring them both to each one and have a bigger presence on each. I think this is not only smart to just widen reach, but if god forbid a creator gets banned or hacked or loses one of their socials, they aren’t doomed. So if YouTube is a creators main focus, they should share their video link on Instagram or if their main platform is TIkTok, they should direct followers to Instagram if they want to go live so they have to jump platforms and follow them on another.

What do you tell your creators when it comes to getting their audience to stick around?

I think in order to get your audience to stick around, you really have to KNOW them. The chances of a cooking creator posting beauty content and it doing well is very unlikely. So it’s really important for creators to get to know their audience rather than just seeing them as another follower. Do polls, ask questions — get their feedback and have them engage. I also advise that they post consistently. So if it’s YouTube, get on a schedule so the audience knows when they can expect a video rather than hoping they see an upload on a random day you post. With Instagram, I wouldn’t say you have to post in-feed posts on a certain day, but I’d prioritize showing up on stories pretty much everyday so they show up at the front of their followers queue and they’re still regularly interacting with and seeing the creator.

What are some ways creators could be decreasing their audience retention without realizing? 

Not giving people what they want, or I should say, not giving the audience the creator attracted what they want. Similar to the example above about a cooking creator posting beauty content – If creators want to step out of their niche, I definitely think they can, but they have to find a way for it to meet the needs of their current audience. YouTube, for example, has an algorithm that recognizes what kind of content you create and will push it to viewers watching content similar to yours. So while there may be some of your own loyal subscribers who might be interested in your makeup tutorial, your video is being pushed to non-subscribers who are looking for cooking videos and it likely won’t perform well. 

Working with a talent manager like Jenna can help tremendously when it comes to audience retention and creating a strategic plan to improve it. If you are interested in chatting with Jenna about representation, email her at jenna@thesociablesociety.com.