Occasionally someone will ask me if I’ve ever had a post go viral. Sometimes it’s asked as a gotcha question and sometimes it’s just curiosity. Sometimes, they’re genuinely shocked when I say that I truly don’t care about going viral and honestly would choose to avoid it in most situations.
People think that all publicity is good publicity, and maybe that’s true in other areas but for social media I’d argue it’s not. Going viral means a lot of people see your post but it has no bearing on whether they spend money with you. Going viral also means a huge influx of comments, DMs, emails, and calls that are often wholly unrelated to making your business any money, but cost you in time. This is especially true for my clients who are hyper local small businesses. Going viral to millions of people that don’t live near enough to step foot in your business doesn’t make you a dime if you don’t have online sales. Often even if you do sell online, it’s not guaranteed to move the needle on bringing in consistent revenue.
Since my clients are all local small businesses, even those with e-commerce set up, their data overwhelmingly shows that their best customer is the local person who has made their business part of their routine. Stopping by regularly & browsing, booking regular appointments, attending events or classes, etc. Those are not the people you reach when you go viral.
If you hire me and I get you 10,000 new followers but no one spends money with your business, was that a good use of your marketing budget? I’d argue it’s not. If you hire me and instead you get slow but steady growth of your social media profiles that coincide with the right people finding your business and spending money, that feels like a more helpful metric of success.
All that is not to say that I don’t track metrics like engagement, followers, comments, and likes. It’s important to have a finger on the pulse of what content is resonating with your audience and what isn’t. That data takes time to track, mark trends, and can sometimes be a little hard to pin down. My favorite thing to hear from businesses is “everyone has been talking about that post yesterday!” Or “so many people came in to check this out and mentioned it was because they saw our post about it on instagram!”
That is also why I don’t focus on social media trends for my small business clients. Sometimes they can be a fun, lighthearted way to connect with your audience but often it’s a lot of work to film something that is ultimately not going to bring in the right kind of audience for what you’re trying to do. If you’re only posting once a week or so, a trendy reel that takes you 3 hours to film and edit that doesn’t ultimately bring you in the right people feels like a colossal waste of time. They might bring in a bunch of likes or comments, but are the people behind those accounts actually going to spend their money with you?
Balancing content that is engaging & fun but also focused on bringing in your ideal customer is the goal. We live in an attention economy that makes it increasingly difficult to stay top of mind. The most tried and true methods are what continue to show results: showing up consistently and authentically.
