Q & A With Ashley Kiely, Founder And Owner Of AKL
11 million views and counting! AKL’s gone viral and Ashley gives us the scoop
First of all, holy cow! You went from 5,000 followers to 84,000 followers (and counting) truly overnight. How does that feel?
One word: Overwhelming. LOL. Honestly, I’m still processing it. I feel incredibly lucky to have this experience as I know so many small business owners work their butt off trying to grow their online presence. So, I just want to give a shout out to all of my fellow female entrepreneurs and small business owners for the amount of time, energy, and stress that goes into growing your social presence. We got lucky with a really brilliant concept and not only did one go viral (8.6M), but the second (6.1M), AND the third (10.3M), which is apparently crazy odds!
Share a little about what your social media strategy has been. Are you doing it all yourself? Did you hire an agency?
I am lucky to have an incredibly experienced content creator helping me with my reels. Robby is a long-time childhood friend of my husband’s and has grown his own social channels to over 15+ million followers (@robbyandpenny on TikTok and YouTube). It’s truly a blessing to have someone who is so incredibly talented and creative. And, it’s such a bonus that he truly cares about my business and how I’m portrayed online. His strategy from the beginning has been to create exciting and engaging content with a multifaceted focus – contracting, design, organizing, mom life, dad and daughter dynamic, and entrepreneur. We knew that we had a major growth opportunity if we could bottle all that up and share it across multiple platforms. He also created a presence for AKL on YouTube and TikTok, which we didn’t have before. Six months later and we’re monetized on both platforms!
What was the post that sparked the follower frenzy?
This is the post. Robby pitched this concept starting with the “Hey Ash” intro. He’s had success with a similar concept personally and wanted to try it out with our type of content. So, we started with “Hey Ash, do you think you could fill this hole with something around the house?” Hacks perform really well on social channels and this one outperformed anything else we’d been posting. This confirmed that the “Hey Ash” concept really pulled viewers in. But we wanted something that would relate back to our business and what we do at AKL. Our first mega viral reel was “Hey Ash…do you think you can organize this closet for under $100?” It was a slow and steady performer at first and then it took off like a rocket. It’s STILL generating followers for us, weeks later!
Why do you think that post resonated so much?
I think there are a lot of reasons it did well for us. Robby is incredibly talented at filming, cutting, and editing content that’s engaging. Because he knows me, he’s so great at selecting moments in time or pulling clips that let my personality really shine through. I appreciate that so much about him. He also tries to keep most videos under one minute for engagement. You want viewers to be curious and watch for the entire time. It’s also easily save-able and shareable. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned that the more shares and saves your post can get, the better odds it has to get more views.
Organizing isn’t a new fad on social. Organizational and ASMR-style reels have always done REALLY well, if done right. But usually there’s a bigger budget involved to replicate it at home. We knew that the under $100 concept would be challenging for us, but so attainable for a wide range of viewers.
What advice can you share with others trying to grow their following?
If you are doing it yourself and have time to dedicate to your social media, learn how to film, cut and edit your own content. There are tons of YouTube tutorials, other content creators, and online courses where you can learn some of these skills. If you’re in a position like myself where you run and own a business or multiple businesses and your time is already spread thin, find and interview multiple content creators. If you are going to invest, then I recommend investing in someone who will strictly help you film, edit, and direct content in video form. This has been the easiest way for us to grow. We didn’t need a hashtag strategy, keywords, beautiful post graphics or Canva-created story templates to grow like we did. Robby manages posting on TikTok and YouTube exclusively. The only thing I do on those two platforms is to engage in comments. For Instagram, Robby posts reels when they’re ready to go live, but I also post static posts on my own. I even create reels for other sides of the business and some personal-related content when I feel like it. I’m also on stories, and responding to direct messages and comments.
What’s been the biggest surprise? The biggest learning?
Biggest surprise = analytics! This is Robby’s specialty and he’s so brilliant at watching what our content is doing and pivoting ASAP. He is a wizard. He nerds out over it and it pays off. The data doesn’t lie. Now that we’ve broken through the algorithm on some of these platforms, it’s apparently a lot easier to get viewership.
Learning = follower count doesn’t mean overnight success. A lot of people reached out to me during this crazy boom in follower increase. Some assumed we were getting contacted for brand deals and already making huge money off of commission links. It was the complete opposite. Even to this day with 278,000 across all platforms, it’s been very, very quiet. My inbox hasn’t been flooded with partnership opportunities. Our commission conversions are no different than usual. And, our Story views have only slightly increased. It’s going to take time to engage with these new followers and prove to them that we will continue to put out interesting and engaging content. I want them to resonate with the brand beyond the Under $100 reels. I want them to connect with me and my business.
So what’s next?
Keep going! Right now, we’re creating three different types of video content.
Dad and Ash = funny, silly, and father-daughter laughter.
Flip Progress Story: Showcasing our flip property and behind-the-scenes content of what’s happening on that project! Teaser: We’re nearly finished!
Hey Ash Makeover: Org, and design content. Up until this point we’ve stuck to the under $100 budget. Our next step will be to increase the budget and get more into designing and styling spaces similar to what we are used to doing with our client’s homes. It could be a pantry, home office, etc. We’ll give it a shot and see how it resonates.
Anything else you want to share?
Yes! Please take all of this with a giant grain of salt. I am not the mastermind behind our viral videos. Robby gets 100% of the credit for this overnight explosion of growth. I’m sure he would have answered each of these questions very differently! I did my best to speak to what he’s taught me and what I’ve taken away from the situation. Hmm….maybe we should do a follow-up interview with Robby!