Hiya Margo

Hiya! I’m Margo, and if you have been following my social media channels, you likely just read that first part of this sentence in my voice. This would be because of my “100 Years Later” series, where I’ve been retracing my Great-Grandfather’s travels through Europe a century after his trip.

At the time of this posting, I have just completed the first part of the series which goes through my travels in Italy. Since the videos already break down what the trip looked like in detail, I am going to do a quick synopsis here including links to the videos when applicable. Then, I’ll be going over the social media marketing strategy and video editing tricks I used to (1) establish a brand that (2) developed into a series of videos and (3) kept people coming back to my pages consistently.

But first, in order to understand the strategy, we have to first know what the strategy is about. In 1925, my Great-Grandfather Levi traveled through Europe and Northern Africa on a self-guided study of religious architecture. During this time, he was sending letters back to his sweetheart Chloe in an attempt to make their relationship work despite him being Catholic and her being Protestant. During this time, he is basically the Forest Gump of 1925 Europe and constantly gets himself into shenanigans that make the story feel like a historical fiction novel rather than a series of true events. If you’re interested in a full breakdown of his trip, I highly recommend checking out “Letters of a Traveling Architect” which covers every letter, photograph, and journal entry of his trip in fantastic detail.

Cut to 99 years later – 2024 – and I have just graduated from the University of West Florida with my Bachelors in Marketing, Associates in Graphic Design, and a certificate in Digital Marketing. To celebrate this accomplishment, my family and I decided to travel abroad to recreate parts of Levi’s eight month trip, stopping to visit some family along the way. Inspired by Levi’s letters, I decided to write poetry in the style of letters over the course of this trip.

I have collected my poems and sorted them into an anthology, which at the time of writing this I just finished editing. Over the past few months, I have been sharing these poems online and getting some fantastic feedback from attending Pensacola Poetry’s weekly open mics and talking with fellow artists within the community. Every time I told them Levi’s stories, the response was always some variation of “this needs to be a movie.”

This is what inspired the “100 Years Later” series. There was clearly demand within my community for this sort of content, and it would be fantastic for advertising my poetry anthology publication for months leading up to the actual release date. Additionally, I can promote my Mom’s book “Letters of a Traveling Architect” and help with her marketing as well. There was simply no downside to doing this sort of project – other than the time requirements to get the editing done.

That’s where the marketing theory starts to come in. In order to develop a good series, you first need to create a way for people to realize it’s a series in the first place. When you are on a more traditional media format – for example, Netflix – series are clearly communicated to the viewer including how many episodes are included, the length of those episodes, and how many seasons those episodes are grouped into. Because social media is a much more fluid platform, it also means that series can be easily lost in an endless doomscroll.

That’s where the first part of this blog comes in: “Hiya, I’m Margo, and…” has become the starting phrase for this series. For the first 34 episodes, the starting sentence was exactly the same: “Hiya, I’m Margo, and I’m recreating my Great-Grandfather’s travels through Europe 100 years later.” By having the same starting sentence accompanied by the same logo, people recognized not just my brand, but the fact that all of these videos share a commonality.

For this series to get started, however, a short explanation needs to introduce the premise. This is essentially the “pilot episode” of your series. Depending on what your series is about, your Pilot may simply be the first one to start the pattern. In my case, I needed to explain the story behind why I was doing what I was doing. That is where we go to Episode 1 where I explain the premise just like I did a few paragraphs ago.

I decided to not start this episode with my tagline. No one knows who “Hiya Margo” is, let alone why they should keep watching. I knew if I started the first episode with my tagline, it was going to be scrolled past without a second thought. That’s why I started with the premise rather than my brand. However, to keep up engagement, I switch up the music about 15 seconds into the video, changing the tone from an adventurous whimsical feel to a more down-to-earth Gen Z-coded style. This helps differentiate myself from other travel influencers while still tapping into that audience.

From here, every episode starts with the same tagline. It quickly establishes who I am (“Hiya, I’m Margo…”) and why you should care (“… and I’m recreating my Great-Grandfather’s travels through Europe 100 years later.”) Because my personality is part of my brand, I speak in the upbeat, bubbly way I normally do including the signature “Hiya” that I have been recognized for in the past.

To emphasize this sound, I make the word “Hiya” swipe into frame as if I’m handwriting it, followed by the pop of the word “Margo”. These two words together form my logo. This helps grab people’s attention and also provides a visual cue to those who have come across my episodes a few times that they have once again stumbled across my content.

From here, each episode falls into one of three categories: a video diary entry, a Levi connection, or a poem highlight.

The second episode is a video diary entry because it focuses on what is happening in the modern day with a heavy focus on personal anecdotes. However, we don’t want to get too personal, as this series still needs to focus on Levi’s travels and following his story. That is why he is referenced near the end of the video; to establish why we are in Santa Maria Maggiore in the first place.

The third episode is also a video diary entry, but it takes Levi out of the story and focuses on our own travels. These videos follow our trip step-by-step and was not perfectly optimized with a video series in mind. However, this still fits well into the strategy as it covers a lot of history about the Pantheon, providing what I like to call “edu-tainment” – content that is both educational and entertaining.

We continue with a few more diary entries, with episode 4 focusing on the outside of Vatican City and episode 5 on the Vatican Museum. Episode 5 does something unique in that it establishes an inside joke about my obsession with “ornate ceilings.” By establishing this jokey concept with the phrase “Something you’ll notice throughout this series, I kinda have a thing for ornate ceilings” cues to the viewer that this is a phrase they should take note of, as it will be a repeating motif without directly telling them to watch for it. This creates an “in crowd” that “gets the joke”, building a community early on in the series that will continue to grow with each episode that mentions the joke.

At this point, we are beginning to stray away from the premise – that this trip is supposed to be following Levi’s travels, not just our own. That is why episode 6 is all about recreating one of Levi’s photos on the steps leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Episode 7 references Levi within the first ten seconds, and Episode 8 ties directly back to Levi by highlighting a quote directly out of “Letters of a Traveling Architect.”

Now that a series has been well established through branding, music, speech patterns, and visual motifs, the third kind of content – poetry highlights – can be introduced. Since this is a new kind of content, it needs to be explained to the audience in order for it to make sense within the series. That is why Episode 9 includes a short preface introducing the idea of poems in the style of letters and why I chose that style. Then, the concept is solidified with the poem “To the Bracelet Man Outside St. Peter’s”, telling a true story of something I experienced while on this trip. By choosing a more direct poem that is written to a person rather than a concept or thing, it is easier for the human brain to process it as both a poem and a letter. This helps establish this content pillar within the series in a way that is easily digestible both for returning watchers and casual viewers that may be seeing this episode first.

This process repeats throughout the rest of the Italy episodes. Instead of following a rigid pattern, Levi is mentioned whenever the series feels like it is getting too far away from its premise. Additionally, poems are spaced out so that those who are not here for poetry are still able to get something beneficial out of the series. Because Episode 9 doesn’t reference Levi at all, Episode 10 ties directly to him via a quote. Since Episode 10 had a direct tie, Episode 11 can stray from his path and fit the style of a typical travel influencer. Because Episode 11 doesn’t reference Levi at all, Episode 12 is all about Levi and focuses on another photo recreation. Now that a few episodes have passed, we can include another poetry highlight in Episode 13.

This entire series is perfectly balanced from episode to episode. Every line spoken is carefully processed through this lens to ensure no one topic within the series overtakes the others. By balancing Levi’s travels with my own and sprinkling poetry throughout, this series acts as organic advertising for both my mother’s book “Letters of a Traveling Architect” as well as my upcoming poetry anthology “Sincerely.”

That’s not to say this is purely a sales tactic. I took these photos and videos during the trip because I wanted to create content like this. I have always looked up to content creators as a career I would like to pursue: this series just gave me an avenue to pursue those dreams while also applying my marketing education.

At the time of posting this blog, the series will have completed roughly 50 episodes and covered all of my travels through Italy starting in Rome and going through Vatican City, Florence, Pisa, and Cinque Terre. Together, these episodes make up a sort of “season 1” of content, which I have grouped together in one long-form video linked below:

The second season will take us through France starting in Martigues and wandering through the Provence region of France before going up to Lyon and Paris. Then, the third and final season will end the series in London, England before returning home. In total, the series should be 80 episodes long as a nod to Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, “Around the World in 80 Days.”

Despite only half the series being complete, it has already seen incredible growth on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube. At the end of this series, I plan on posting a breakdown platform-by-platform of my page growth over the course of this series, but here are some highlights since passing the halfway point:

• FACEBOOK: The series has gotten a total of 7,726 views, a 3,945% increase compared to my previous social media strategy. There have also been a total of 423 interactions, a 6,950% increase from previous. Views tend to stay consistent across posts with most episodes getting 50-300 views each. The best-performing episodes seem to be the general travel-related episodes.
• INSTAGRAM: The series has gotten 16,100 views on Instagram with a total reach of 7,700 users. The best performing day was the second episode with a total 137 interactions that day. Since then, I have seen a 201% increase in profile visits and a 305% increase in follower count. Like Facebook, the general travel-related videos tend to perform best, but in general all of the episodes perform well together.
• LINKEDIN: LinkedIn is my worst-performing platform, which was expected. Frankly speaking, I mostly post my videos here so that my father can enjoy them and share them with his network. In order to not affect my personal profile, I set up “Hiya Margo!” as a business page so that my posts were connected to me, but would not be seen as spam on my actual LinkedIn page. This way, the videos would be able to act as a social media portfolio without impacting the professionality of my actual page.
• TIKTOK: I created a TikTok account at the start of this series, so there is no previous data for comparison. Despite this, the page has seen tremendous growth with a total 21,000 views, 479 profile visits, and over 2,800 likes. While other platforms have had consistent views, TikTok has been much more volatile. The best-performing videos share no consistent traits and tend to fall between 700-1,300 views each. Similarly, the worst-performing also do not share characteristics, yet struggle to get 30 views. Over time, this view count has started to average out at around 300-500 views per video.
• YOUTUBE: Like TikTok, YouTube has been incredibly volatile when it comes to view count. The best performing videos usually get over 1,000 views, while the worst performers are under 100 views each. Unlike TikTok, there has not been any averaging out over time. Despite this, the series has gotten a total of 11,300 views and 36 total watch hours, resulting in a 162.86% increase in subscribership.

Not only is this my most ambitious video project coming out at over 1 hour and 20 minutes of content, but it is also a great illustration in how a video series can be used to reinforce a brand, find your audience, and build a following. These statistics only calculate to the halfway point of the series. Once the series is completed, additional analytics can be included – especially when it comes to how viewership impacts book sales with the release of my poetry anthology, “Sincerely.”