You spend hours writing posts and designing carousels only to see zero engagement, and this reality for a lot of us is super frustrating.
Organic reach has dropped significantly across social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn, because the platforms operate as advertising businesses (for them! not necessarily for us!). They prioritize content that keeps users in the app, so linking out to podcasts or newsletters doesn’t work that well even if you do get the views. Your post will be suppressed if it starts to get any traction.
In this episode:
- The shift from follower-based to interest-based algorithms
- Why platforms are motivated to suppress organic reach for professional services
- How to evaluate if your marketing time is actually productive
Evaluate if reach metrics actually matter for your business goals. You might find better ROI by investing in search-ranking assets like articles or podcast episodes that build relationships with the right people over time (more slowly). More on that during this week’s episodes.
Resources mentioned: https://stereoforest.com/beyond-social-media-business-growth-strategies-that-work-for-professionals/
Find more episodes and subscribe at stereoforst.com/minute.
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Transcript
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::So let's think about a scenario that probably a lot of us have run into. You've spent hours maybe a whole bunch of time writing posts for social media, maybe making
carousels, maybe making graphics, or finding images that fit what we want to say well. And then you maybe schedule them up or you just post them across the week. And then
you notice that almost nobody has seen those posts.
::And this can really frustrate us. But the numbers confirm that we are not alone if you're experiencing this. Because the organic reach on all the platforms,
Instagram, Facebook, even LinkedIn, have really dropped over the years. Some of these platforms significantly, especially Facebook. And I believe now we're
seeing it with Instagram as well. Our posts are not being seen by much of the audiences that we might have built up.
::or even if we're relying on sort of the interest-based social media these days which isn't really follower-based it's more interest-based it can be very challenging
to get what you make in front of people now these social platforms have really shifted into advertising businesses this isn't anything new it happened a long time ago
and so the social platforms are generating revenue when this organic reach is fairly low so they're kind of motivated to
::to not give you those organic views. So your free content, all the stuff you're making is keeping people on the platform. If the platforms are showing them the content
that keeps them there, like they don't want people clicking away from your post to go follow your podcast, for example. If they see a lot of signals like that, they're
not going to show your content out there. That's how they're making money is keeping people in the app or you paying to have people see your stuff.
::We need to think about as professional services, what matters the most? Is it the reach and those views or is it building trust with the people that are seeing it?
Because we need the right people to see it to build that trust because otherwise they just don't really care. So you need to sort of evaluate how much time you're
spending on that content. I mean, it might be a lot better to invest it in a professional network or writing some articles.
::for your website or episodes for your podcast that end up ranking in search and gets you a whole bunch of people repeated over the years slower and a longer time period
and you might end up building a relationship with say a small handful of people that found you that way instead so this organic visibility on social media isn't
something that you can just rely on if you do the work it doesn't really always work that way so you really owe yourself
::an honest assessment. Like take a really honest look at how much time you're spending and what the results are to figure out if that time spent, that marketing time, is
actually going to something productive. I'm Jen DeHaan. This is the Credibility Minute. Find more episodes and get in touch with me and subscribe at
stereoforst.com/minute.