Joanna Newton: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to episode two of Just Joanna. This is my second time coming on the Her First podcast to share some of my thoughts and experiences. If you are new here, the Her First podcast is a podcast for female entrepreneurs who want to start to put themselves first in their business and in their life.
Joanna Newton: And it's hosted by myself and Michelle, and from time to time we like to get on and just share some of our own thoughts, um, throughout the week of what we are dealing with. And today I'm going to talk about my experience going viral ish twice on, once on YouTube, uh, once on TikTok, and once on Instagram.
Joanna Newton: Instagram. I'm going to talk about what happened, what the experience was like, and what my thoughts were after the fact. Um, so, recently, if you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, you're probably aware, I had two semi viral moments on the internet, um, [00:01:00] and both were very different experiences. So, the first one in recent history was I actually shared a clip from our podcast.
Joanna Newton: Um, Michelle and I did an episode talking about what we would have taught our younger selves and I shared a clip on my, both Instagram and TikTok, uh, about my experience growing up in purity culture and how that, how that affected me, um, like psychologically. That can be. a pretty impactful moment for people when you're learning about sex and it is, um, doused into, like, religious purity culture.
Joanna Newton: So I shared that on my Instagram, um, and got a lot of backlash. So the trolls found my account, um, and started calling me a lot of names. Um, and a lot of names were, you know, calling me a whore basically for talking about the fact that it's harmful to teach young girls that they are [00:02:00] dirty if they have sex outside of marriage.
Joanna Newton: Um, I actually never even talked about my own sexual activity in any sort of way, but the assumption was because I was speaking like that that I was a whore. And so someone on my, uh, on my comments commented 304, and I had no idea what that meant, so I had to look it up. And I guess it's like code for whore, because if you put it into a calculator and put it upside down, it spells the word hoe, um, in your calculator.
Joanna Newton: Very clever. Apparently I missed that one in, in high school. Um, and anyway, I thought it would be really funny to respond, um, to that video. With, um, Taylor Swift lyric, um, so if you are listening to Torchwood Poets Department, this is a lyric where she says, you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.
Joanna Newton: And so I responded with that comment. And that video. went viral. [00:03:00] Um, uh, well, for me, viral. It had over 300, 000 views. Um, I got a bunch of new followers on my account from it, but most of the comments were hate. Um, so a lot of people agreeing with the original commenter and telling me that I was in fact a whore.
Joanna Newton: Um, yeah. You know, and, and I kind of used that as a moment to get more, more attention. Um, you know, did some more Taylor Swift clapback songs, as well as some educational content, um, around what was going on and what was in that situation. Um, the kind of fervor continued. It started to die down, but it continued as I posted some content about, you know, Uh, Women in STEM.
Joanna Newton: It was another clip from our podcast, um, talking about how women need to be encouraged in STEM. Um, of course, the haters came at me and said, no, they don't, or I wouldn't want women in STEM, or that it's not true that there's any sort of difference between how people are treated. There's a lot of negative, negative viral energy [00:04:00] on those videos.
Joanna Newton: Now, a couple weeks later, um, everything went down with Harrison Butker. Um, and if you're not aware, um, Harrison Butker is an NFL kicker, and he, Gave a speech at a commencement, basically telling women that their number one job and their number one role was to be a homemaker. Um, this struck a chord with a lot of women for obvious reasons.
Joanna Newton: Um, and I started posting some content about that, both on TikTok and Instagram. Now, on, uh, the, the post got attention in both places, but went quite viral on TikTok, getting over 700, 000 views. And what was really interesting about this is that video got a lot of love, a lot of praise, and a lot of attention.
Joanna Newton: There were people who disliked, um, disliked the content and, and criticized me for what I did, but it was more like maybe 10 percent of commenters and the rest were, you know, just, you know, clapping and excited and, and really liked that content, um, where [00:05:00] I was pointing out that his speech was, you know, negative towards women, um, and that got a lot, a lot of positive attention and a good amount of followers.
Joanna Newton: My follower count grew by about a thousand, um, in that experience. And so. Um, you know, going viral and the energy towards that was super, super interesting and super different in both places. So that's kind of the background. That's kind of the experience I've had on social, um, over the past month. And I kind of want to talk about my thoughts about that experience, like what went through my head, um, as well as strategically some of the things that I did to kind of keep it going.
Joanna Newton: Going in a way. So going viral, getting that much social media attention is exhausting. You know, as a, as a marketer you're getting that attention, you want to capitalize on it. And what that means from a practical standpoint, um, to kind of keep, keep that virality going, you're responding to comments, you're talking to people in a thoughtful [00:06:00] way, not just liking and not just, Um, saying thanks or things like that, but actually talking back to people and continuing the conversation in your comments, um, that keeps the video going and keeps attention and helps you actually get followers from that experience, right?
Joanna Newton: The next thing, you know, that you have to do, you know, and really helps with videos is if a video is going viral to comment reply. So what that means is, and I did a lot of this on my accounts, is when you, when someone leaves a comment that's super interesting, um, to actually reply to that with a video.
Joanna Newton: Um, you can do that both on Instagram and on TikTok, and that is a way to kind of keep that video going and get other videos to get more views because as people are looking into the comments for the for the super viral video they're going to see your comment replies watch those as well it will also likely in the algorithm if someone watched the more viral video that second video is going to be the one that They're going to watch again, and if they see you again and there's interest [00:07:00] there, that's when they're going to go hit the follow button.
Joanna Newton: It's not always in that first viral video that gets you those follows. It's your subsequent content and how you're interacting and engaging with your audience after the fact. But doing that, It feels like a full time job, like responding to comments, responding to comments with videos, being responsive.
Joanna Newton: And in the process I came up with, I found some really great ways to make it easier. The truth is as, as you're getting the same kind of hate, you can find that people respond with similar comments. So I could almost like, Pre film response videos after the original video, like think about, okay, someone might say this or this or this and actually film it outside of the app and that way I could use it in both places on Instagram and Tiktok.
Joanna Newton: So I started kind of doing that. It made it less exhausting, but still just really tiring to keep up with that energy. Be on your phone, be responding to comments and it was really, um, [00:08:00] Easy to be distracted. I have a whole full time job. I have a podcast. I have a lot going on in my life. And, you know, being an influencer, being a content creator, isn't my number one.
Joanna Newton: And so trying to balance that was really, really, honestly, challenging, kind of exhausting. Um, you know, and you kind of have that like, anxious energy at all times, which is hard. It's hard to go to sleep. It's hard to wake up. You just have this anxious energy at all times. And, and that was really tough. Um, you know, it made me think about, well, yes, I would want to keep that up and, and keep that excitement and that growth up.
Joanna Newton: It was also just hard, like hard to manage with the rest of my life. And, and what's interesting too is I don't see how that could be something a VA could do for you, right? Like a, a VA or a social media manager, how are they going to come in and be that responsive, um, on your behalf? It could be really tough.
Joanna Newton: And, [00:09:00] and I think that, um, I would love to grow by a thousand TikTok followers every single week, but I don't think I have the energy to actually sustain that, that type of growth. The next thing that I, that I want to talk about is just the struggle with hate. Um, you know, personally, hate from, the kind of hate I was getting didn't really affect me personally.
Joanna Newton: Um, the gripes against me were just so ridiculous and so asinine, like, I just, didn't even really relate to it as a personal level. If, if someone's calling me a whore or saying that I, you know, there were people who were saying like, I shouldn't be alive and the world would be a better place without me.
Joanna Newton: Like, the things I was saying did not merit that kind of extreme response. So it, it felt okay. Like, it didn't actually bother me to get that hate. Um, but, you know, if people were actually, you know, [00:10:00] logically criticizing me and there was like truth to what they were saying, I think that would be really challenging and something that I would have to think through and process.
Joanna Newton: But because it was so ridiculous, I just was fine with it. Um, the other thing that I really noted, there was such a huge difference between, um, Instagram and TikTok in the way the videos performed. TikTok was one way more positively responsive to my content. Um, and that was fantastic. And some of the people who did disagree, there was much more like discourse, like they were providing like an opposite argument that had some sort of merit.
Joanna Newton: And then there was some handful of just like pure hate trolls, which is fine. Now, on Instagram, the comments were primarily hate, and ridiculous troll hate. Um, and that's sad to me. Like, that was the majority of what was going on. And And it was [00:11:00] hard because, one, having all of that, again, hateful energy around you is just tough.
Joanna Newton: And on TikTok, I felt like I was able to take some of that hate and actually turn it into a positive and turn it into a positive discussion. Um, but on Instagram, that was harder. Whenever I would try to, like, turn the conversation positive, that post would either get deleted, hate or get no attention. So it was really difficult to kind of take that hate energy and turn it into like a positive.
Joanna Newton: Let's move forward. Let's talk about this. Let's gain something, gain some insight, gain some, um, like benefit from, from this discussion. And so that was just challenging to try to try to take that negativity and Uh, and turn that into something positive. Um, the next thing that I learned is, is I learned about a lot about how to bait trolls, which is like a [00:12:00] horrible thing to say.
Joanna Newton: Um, but I kind of learned a lot about how to pick words in a way that would get people to disagree with you, right? Because people love to disagree and they love to hate and that can get comments and engagement. And so I learned a few, I kind of learned that I could say things and I'm like, I know someone's going to say this, like, and I could think about how.
Joanna Newton: Someone would hate on me and what I was hoping would happen on Instagram that didn't that if I kind of baited the trolls that like The people who supported me would, would, we would find that community almost, and it didn't really work, but it did a little bit, but not, but not fully. Um, and, and so I learned a lot about how you can intentionally sort of get trolls to find you.
Joanna Newton: Um, I don't know if I'm proud of the fact that I figured that out, but it was a really interesting experience, uh, experiment as a marketer to see how you could do that. [00:13:00] But on the flip side, kind of my, my last main point that I want to talk about today is that like, that's just kind of sad. Like, like it's sad that we live in a world that gives so much attention to hate, right?
Joanna Newton: And, and it's sad that To get growth, because I haven't seen, I've done a lot of posting on social, and I haven't seen a lot of growth in a long time, and I've always tried to be very positive, even when talking about more controversial topics, like, be super positive, be very nuanced, that's how I am, I'm not super black and white of a thinker, I take a very nuanced approach.
Joanna Newton: I think most things, not all things, but most things have pros and cons that can be weighed out and discussed and talked about. And that black and white thinking [00:14:00] that gets hate just gets a lot of attention on social media. And I find that to be sad. Like, I don't want to have to be critical and causing a stir and causing controversy to grow on social media.
Joanna Newton: Right? I want to be creating an environment that is positive and uplifting and in all of those things. And the thing that I'm battling in my head is like, how can I use what I've learned about creating controversy that gets that attention? Um, that, that controversy gets. Without all the hateful negative energy, how can you actually put those two things together?
Joanna Newton: You know, that's something i'm going to be working on in my content I have some ideas about how to do that. But that's something that i'm working on for my content is like right How do I get that energy? From trolls and things that cause so much polarity without having to [00:15:00] be so, create so much polarity, right?
Joanna Newton: Because I don't think that that's how people necessarily learn. Like, I actually want, you know, with my content and what I want, what I want to do, I want people to see that there's a different way to lead, right? I want people to see that, that their actions might be actually harming women in the workplace.
Joanna Newton: I want women to see like, Oh, these are things that I can do to up my game and my career. Like I want that positive effect and that negative energy. really just makes people either say, Oh, I'm going to stick to my side or my side, right? There's no learning. There's no growth. There's just my side or your side instead of growth and communication.
Joanna Newton: And, and while it's fun to get that growth and it's kind of fun to argue with people, like for me, like that's part of my personality. I'm an Enneagram eight. Um, and I like, uh, like, I kind of like that controversy and combativeness. Um, it makes me feel close to people, [00:16:00] which is super weird. Um, but it's true.
Joanna Newton: Um, and so I just, you know, would love though, but, but that doesn't get most people to learn that actually something that helps me learn, like being combative and like, and arguing through something helps me learn things and actually helps me see their side, but it doesn't actually help most people. I think it makes them sort of stick to their guns, um, in a negative way.
Joanna Newton: And so I, I'm really curious about how I can take the things that I've learned about stirring up controversy, creating that polarity, and actually use that to create something positive instead of something negative. Um, and so I'm hoping that I can figure out a way to do that. Um, in the short term I've kind of like, Taking a step back from, from posting as much.
Joanna Newton: I got a little tired of it. Not tired of it, like annoyed by it, but just like exhausted to keep up that energy was just too [00:17:00] hard. Um, and you know, my, my business life kind of took over what I needed. And so now I want to try to find that balance. How do I get that growth without the controversy? behind it.
Joanna Newton: Um, my last little sort of bonus tip going viral is not for the weak. Um, if you are not ready to have hate comments, then think about what you want to do going viral. I was totally secure in it, but I could see how that that negativity could really affect someone psychologically, um, and affect their mental health.
Joanna Newton: And so, You know, if you find yourself in a situation where you go viral, if, if you are, if you can't handle that sort of hate, turn, you can turn off the comments. You can delete people, you can block people, you can do all of that. It might affect the ability for it to keep going viral if it's not getting that comment, but your mental health [00:18:00] and your own psychology is so much more important.
Joanna Newton: Then a viral social media post. So if you aren't ready for it, that's okay to stop it from happening if it starts to happen. Well, thank you so much for listening to this little installment of Just Joanna. If you are not a follower of our podcast, please follow us and check out everything that we have to offer.
Joanna Newton: We talk All about, um, how to succeed in business, in your life, how to balance it all. And we hope that you join us.
