Sometimes Things Don’t Work
That’s When You Pivot
Your first idea might not always be your best, but you won’t know until you try it.
Format Change: Foot Switch Friday
Weekly series · Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn · September 2025 to Present
On October 17, 2025 I posted the Hercules Gated OX Shield as a carousel. It reached 21 people.
Nine months later, on July 31, 2026, I posted almost the same Hercules, as a reel. That one reached 12,725.
Same product family, with the same weekly slot, but with a simple format change.
OLD FORMAT
The Numbers
| Static carousel | Reel | |
|---|---|---|
| Posts | 15 | 26 |
| Avg reach | 27 | 358 |
| Median reach | 21 | 206 |
| New followers | 0 | 69 |
NEW FORMAT
Foot Switch Friday started in September 2025 as a carousel: a product photo with the specs listed underneath. Fifteen of those went out. They averaged 27 people reached and produced zero new followers across the entire run.
In February I moved it to reel and started taking the switch apart on camera so you could watch the mechanism work. The twenty-six reels since then average 426 views and 358 people reached, with the July 31 outlier pulled out so the number means something. The run has brought in 69 followers, 47 of them from that one post.
The obvious pushback is that the account simply grew over nine months. It didn't grow nearly enough to explain this. My non-reel posts across the same period moved from a 56-view median to 78, roughly 1.4x, while the Friday slot moved 13x on reach.
Foot Switch Froday is now on Forty-plus consecutive Fridays, I write, shoot, and edit all of it.