Ground Control, What's Our Mission?
The Penny Hoarder, Clarity Money, and A Plus have each seen enormous social audience and engagement growth. Get a behind the scenes look at a core set of proven tactics they share — spanning brand mission, original content investment, and data-driven decisions
Guest
Jeff Stevens
Head of Social
Jeff Stevens is the Director of Social and Audience Development for A Plus. Jeff is a seasoned social storyteller with 11+ years in leadership, social media and brand marketing for news and digital media organizations. Previously, he's managed the daily voice for major brands like Comedy Central, HuffPost, The Penny Hoarder and more. He loves watching the Seattle Seahawks with his French Bulldog.
Key Takeaways
- 1Double down on visual storytelling
- 2Science the hell out of everything. A/B Test your social posts
- 3For better user acquisition, invest 50/50 in ads and original content
- 4Your original content represents your brand and value — don't skimp on it
- 5Drive growth by cross-promoting content with like-minded partner companies
- 6Facebook Stories will soon take off, and Instagram Stories is already great
- 7Create a social mission that includes your target persona and 5 ways you'll deliver value
- 8Stay true to your brand voice
Listen on Spotify
Full Interview
Patrick: Hi everyone. Today I'm here with Jeff Stevens from the A Plus Team. Jeff, I was wondering if you could introduce yourself and share a little bit about your work at A Plus?
Jeff: Yeah, happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to participate in this conversation. I joined A Plus last year, leading their Head of Social and Audience Development. At A Plus, we believe in the power of positive thinking and storytelling. To us, positive journalism means looking at the day's events critically from all different angles with hope and positivity, and our mission is inherent in the stories that we share and we were actually founded back in 2014 by Ashton Kutcher. For me, A Plus has an amazing digital footprint and I want to continue to expand that footprint, but also diversify our partnerships and grow our social reach on all different social platforms.
I'm right now really focused on coming up with fresh strategies that are outside of Facebook, even though we've seen the most growth on Facebook. We're just a nine-person news team, but we are highly ranked against other publishers like Bustle, Vox, and The Atlantic. We've seen a really nice uptick in growth just in this last year because it seems like our stories are really resonating. In this day and age with the news environment that we're in, I'm really happy to be working in the positive journalism outlets.
Published on February 8, 2019