Okay so yeah… I’ve not really been updating in here, not because anything’s gone wrong or dramatic, but just because life’s been lifeling a bit, you know when it just does that and you’re like ok cool, here we are then. BUT. I found something today and it made me stop mid-scroll, mid-coffee, mid- “I’ll just check one thing”, and I was like… ohhhh hang on a minute. So quick-ish update on my little Skool-as-social experiment. If you didn’t know already (or forgot, which is totally fair), this space is public. Like properly public. Anyone can see what’s going on without joining. You only need to join if you want notifications or if you actually want to get involved and not just lurk from the bushes. And part of my longer-term thinking with this has always been… if it’s public, surely it’ll get indexed on Google, right? That was the theory anyway. No huge expectations, just a “let’s see what happens” kinda vibe. Well. Today I checked. And YUP/YES/WOOP my posts are showing on Google This Skool community social thing (aka owned socials, aka this weird little experiment of mine) is showing on Google. Which basically means this space isn’t just living inside Skool anymore. It’s living out there. Being found. Being indexed. Existing beyond the app. So obviously my brain immediately went into curious mode (which, let’s be honest, is both my superpower and my downfall). I’m now thinking about testing SEO-style headlines a bit more intentionally. Seeing what actually gets picked up. What gets searched. What lands. What doesn’t. I don’t fully know how yet, so please don’t ask me for a master plan, because there isn’t one. It’s literally just part of the experiment. And honestly… for $9 a month, this gives me a space to share things I’m not sharing in my paid communities, because the vibes are different. The intention is different. The energy is different. This feels more like a thinking-out-loud, testing, playing, observing kind of space. So yeah. Can I get a little woop woop for that?

Confession:Still rocking the bedhead, dog walk done, coffee in hand. And yep — things have slowed down a little. But this? This is the juicy part of the experiment — the no-promo, let’s-see-what-happens-when-we-do-nothing phase. 🎥 There’s a Loom attached below if you want the full walk-through — this post sums up the key data + insights. 📊 Dashboard Snapshot 👀 About-page visitors: 59 (down from 85+) ✍️ Signups: 25 total (no new joins since the first couple of days) ⚡ Conversion rate: 20.34% (down slightly as organic reach tapers) 🏆 Discovery rank: #292 (was around 200–250 range earlier — some dip) 💰 Sales: $0 (still not the focus right now) 🧩 Category: 🎨 Hobbies (still in testing phase) 👥 Active members: 92% (strong retention even with slowed traffic) 💬 Daily activity: Down from 190+ → now hovering lower organically 🧠 What’s Happening I haven’t promoted this since Day2 No emails. No posts. No plugs. Just one Skool post per day to mirror how we’d use a social feed So now we’re in the real organic growth phase — the “will Skool discovery alone grow this?” test. And it’s interesting… - Total reach slowed down (expected). - Rank fluctuated (as low as #292, as high as #203). - Engagement stayed strong — the quality of activity is still high, even if quantity dipped. - Discovery shows ~1,000 groups in the Hobbies category → I’m sitting roughly top 25%. ⚙️ Key Discoveries 1. Activity matters more than size. 2. Inactive groups with hundreds of members are buried in discovery 3. This 25-person group is ranked in the top 25% because it’s alive. 4. You can’t disappear. If the group owner (you) goes quiet, your discovery rank dips fast. Momentum = visibility. Period. 5. The algorithm rewards consistent energy, not numbers. 92% of members being active is a huge signal to Skool. But we have to keep feeding that engagement loop. 6. Dog content should’ve won — but didn’t. I found a “dog” group with 60+ members ranked super low. Why? Inactivity. The lesson: category ≠ discovery. Engagement = discovery.

Confession: F*ck, I didn’t drop Day 3. Life lifed. But here we are — back on it, because experiments only fail when you stop tracking, not when you miss a day. 📊 Dashboard Stats 👀 About-page visitors: 83 (up from 71) ✍️ Signups: 25 (no new joins — holding steady) ⚡ Conversion rate: 30.12% (down slightly from 35.21%, but still strong AF) 🏆 Discovery rank: #261 (tiny dip from #246 — normal during slower growth days) 💰 Paid members: 0 (nothing to sell) 👥 Active members: 22 of 25 (88% — amazing retention rate!) 💬 Daily activity: 107 tracked actions 💬 Engagement Insight Even with slower traffic, engagement inside the feed stayed strong — deep convos, active threads, and people actually showing up. No new push across socials today (intentionally). This is your organic “pause test” — to see if Skool discovery alone can sustain traffic. 🧩 What happened: - Discovery visibility stayed consistent. - Engagement ratio (active vs total members) stayed extremely high at 88%. - Facebook posts are still surface-level likes. Skool convos are substance. 🧠 Reflection Sometimes no movement is movement. Because this experiment isn’t about chasing spikes — it’s about tracking patterns. The pattern emerging now: → When you plug Skool, you get traffic. → When you don’t, it stabilises — but engagement holds. That’s a sign of community stickiness, not just curiosity. ⚙️ Next Step → Add Engagement Metric from today to the tracker. → Test another no-promo day to confirm baseline organic discovery. → Prep to introduce new traffic flow next week (YouTube + Stories). 💬 Takeaway “Reach might slow — but resonance stays.” 📅 Day 4 — logged.#OwnedSocials #SkoolExperiment #DataDrop

So… I hit a bit of a stumbling block this morning. Yesterday I announced that I’m testing using Skool as a social feed, basically bringing all my socials together into one platform to see what happens when it all lives in one place. Now, most people know Skool as a community platform — but I’m doing this one a little differently. I’ve kept it open to the public. So technically, there’s not that much reason for people to join right now, but if they do, they get notifications, can comment, and it helps me actually see who’s seeing what. Plus, they get to be part of the social experiment itself. They can share their thoughts in the comments, join the conversations, throw in their opinions, just like you would on any other social feed. I’ll be posting everything there, old stuff from Facebook, new things going forward, random thoughts, full posts, the lot. It’s not something that’s going to burn me out or take a shed load of time, it’s literally just putting everything under one roof. Because let’s be honest — Frank can be a grump[y knob at times and doesn’t like links. Frank doesn’t like a lot of things. But Susan (aka Skool)? She doesn’t care. Anything goes. And the bonus? I actually own this platform. I pay for it. It’s searchable because I have set to public. (This is where the magic will start happening, this is Strategy) And over time, it’ll start showing up on Google, which means whatever I’m creating now will have a longer life span. So yeah… I’ll be using SEO, keywords, and all the strategic bits behind it, and I’ll share what I learn along the way. And as of this week, I’m also bringing YouTube into the mix — part of a new YouTube PACT experiment I’m running inside The BackRoom. Apparently, I’ve realised I bloody love testing things with people, sharing the full shebang, and actually showing what works (and what doesn’t). But here’s what hit me this morning, I started thinking about how strategic my profile actually is or maybe isn’t Like, I post a mix of random sh*t, business stuff, messaging and marketing content, promos, vegan lifestyle bits, day-in-the-life moments, stories, all of it, heaps of variety.

Alright, I’ve officially done it. I’m turning Skool into my own social feed. Not a community.Not a course. A straight-up, public, no-filter, social feed. Why the F? Because I’m curious as hell… and honestly, a bit over playing by the algorithm’s rules. ⚡ WHAT THIS ACTUALLY IS This is my OWNED SOCIAL™ Feed Experiment. I’m testing what happens when I bring everything, my Facebook posts, my YouTube videos, my thoughts, my rants, my Bali chaos — all into one space I actually own. No reach throttling No “engagement’s down this week” bullshit. Just me, posting like I would anywhere else… except here, I get to see the real data. 🤍 WHAT IT’S NOT It’s not a community. There’s no classroom. No calendar No course No “join my mastermind” moment hiding behind the curtain. This isn’t where we hang out together. This is where you hang out with me. Like your favourite Facebook friend who overshares just enough that you keep coming back, except it’s all happening here. You’ll get: 🔥 My usual marketing and messaging drops 💬 Random musings, ideas, or mini brain dumps 🐾 Nami chaos and Bali life 🎥 YouTube videos 🤘 Yes of course I will share my offers sometimes too (thats business) 📊 Data updates from the experiment… and probably a few rants when tech breaks or humans confuse me. It’s the full feed. The stuff you’d normally scroll past or double-tap on somewhere else , all in one place, tracked, transparent, and a little bit unhinged. 💡 WHY I’M DOING IT Because I can see where this platform’s heading Skool’s expanding fast — like, really mega fast. And while everyone’s still complaining on Facebook about engagement, I’m over here thinking… “What if we just stopped complaining and tested something?” Plus, This Skool space is is set to public. That means Google picks it up. And if my posts can get indexed, that’s free visibility for months — maybe years. No ad spend No algorithm biatches No begging for reach. And let’s be honest, there are thousands of epic humans here.