Let’s cut through the noise.
You’ve probably read a thousand articles about social media marketing. They all say the same things. Post consistently. Engage with your audience. Use hashtags. Create valuable content. Blah, blah, blah. But here’s what nobody tells you: most businesses are doing social media completely wrong, and it’s not because they don’t know these basic principles.
It’s because they’re treating social media like a megaphone when it should be a conversation.
Why Your Current Strategy Probably Isn’t Working
I’m going to be blunt here. If you’re measuring success solely by follower count, you’ve already lost. Sure, having 50,000 followers looks impressive on paper. But what good are those numbers if nobody’s buying, clicking, or even caring about what you post? Vanity metrics are called vanity metrics for a reason. They make you feel good without actually moving the needle on your business goals.
The problem starts with how most companies approach social media in the first place. They create accounts because everyone else has them. They post because they feel like they should. They hire someone to “handle social media” without really understanding what that means. And then they wonder why nothing’s happening.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: social media marketing isn’t about you. It’s not about your product. It’s not even about your brand, really. It’s about the people you’re trying to reach and what they actually want from their time online. When was the last time you stopped scrolling because you saw a perfectly crafted corporate post about a product launch? Exactly. Neither has anyone else.
Understanding the Psychology Behind the Scroll
People don’t open Instagram to see ads. They don’t check TikTok to read about your company’s mission statement. They’re there to be entertained, inspired, educated, or connected. Sometimes all four at once. Your job isn’t to interrupt that experience – it’s to become part of it.
Think about your own social media habits for a second. What makes you stop scrolling? What makes you engage? What makes you share something with a friend? It’s usually content that surprises you, makes you laugh, teaches you something you didn’t know, or resonates so deeply with your experience that you feel seen.
That’s the bar you’re competing against. Not just other businesses in your industry, but every piece of content on that platform. You’re competing with funny cat videos, heartwarming stories, drama between influencers, breaking news, and your user’s friends and family. Good luck with that generic promotional post about your latest product feature.
Building a Strategy That Actually Connects
So what does work? Let me break it down in a way that might actually help you.
First, pick your battles. You don’t need to be on every platform. In fact, you probably shouldn’t be. Each platform has its own culture, audience, and content style. What works on LinkedIn will die a quiet death on TikTok. What thrives on Instagram might be completely wrong for Twitter. Rather than spreading yourself thin trying to maintain a presence everywhere, dominate one or two platforms where your actual audience hangs out.
And before you say “but my audience is on Facebook,” really think about that. Is your audience actively engaging on Facebook, or do they just have accounts they check occasionally? There’s a massive difference. You want to be where your people are actively spending time and engaging with content, not just where they technically have a profile.
Second, develop a voice that sounds like a human wrote it. Please. I’m begging you. Stop with the corporate speak. Stop with the buzzwords. Stop trying to sound “professional” if professional means boring and distant. The brands that win on social media are the ones that sound like they’re run by actual people with personalities.
Look at Duolingo’s TikTok. Look at Wendy’s Twitter. Look at how Patagonia tells stories on Instagram. These brands have distinct personalities. They take stands. They make jokes. They’re not afraid to be a little weird or controversial or human. That’s what cuts through the noise.
Now, I’m not saying you need to be edgy or confrontational. That only works if it’s authentic to your brand. But you do need to be something. Bland doesn’t cut it anymore. Safe doesn’t cut it. “Professional” in the old sense definitely doesn’t cut it.
Content That Actually Gets Engagement
Here’s where most strategies fall apart: the content itself. You can have the perfect posting schedule and the most optimized hashtags, but if your content is boring, nothing else matters.
Stop thinking in terms of posts and start thinking in terms of value. Every single piece of content you create should give your audience something. Entertainment value, educational value, inspirational value, utility value. Something. If you can’t articulate what value a post provides, don’t post it.
The best content does multiple things at once. It might educate while also entertaining. It might inspire while also building community. Think about how you can layer value into everything you create.
Behind-the-scenes content works because it’s both entertaining and builds connection. Educational content works when it’s presented in an engaging way. User-generated content works because it provides social proof while also making your customers feel valued. See how that works?
And please, for the love of everything, stop making every post about selling. Yes, you’re a business. Yes, you need to drive revenue. But if your social media feed reads like a catalog, people will tune out. The general rule? Follow the 80/20 principle. Eighty percent valuable, engaging, community-building content that educates your audience—just like insights you’d share from a digital marketing course. Twenty percent promotional. And even that promotional content should be compelling, not just “buy our stuff.”
The Community Building Nobody Talks About
Here’s what separates good social media marketing from great social media marketing: community. Not followers. Not fans. Community. There’s a huge difference.
Community means people talk to each other in your comments, not just to you. It means they share their own experiences related to your content. It means they come back not just for what you post, but for the conversations that happen around what you post. That’s powerful. That’s sticky. That’s what keeps people engaged long-term.
Building community requires actual engagement from you. Real engagement, not automated responses or copy-paste comments. When someone leaves a thoughtful comment, respond thoughtfully. When someone asks a question, answer it helpfully. When someone shares their own story, acknowledge it genuinely.
I know this doesn’t scale easily. I know it takes time. But this is the difference between an audience and a community. And communities are where brand loyalty actually lives.
Create opportunities for your audience to connect with each other, too. Ask questions that spark conversations. Create hashtags that people actually want to use. Feature community members in your content. Celebrate their wins. Make them the stars, not yourself.
Measuring What Actually Matters
Remember when I said follower count is a vanity metric? Let’s talk about what you should actually measure.
Engagement rate matters. But look deeper than just likes. Comments are worth more than likes. Shares are worth more than comments. Saves are incredibly valuable. These actions indicate that your content resonated enough for someone to do something beyond the easiest possible interaction.
Track your click-through rates if you’re trying to drive traffic. Track conversion rates if you’re trying to make sales. Track video completion rates if you’re creating video content. Track how many people are actually seeing your content, not just how many follow you.
And here’s the metric nobody talks about enough: qualitative feedback. What are people saying in the comments? What messages are you getting in DMs? What conversations are happening? Sometimes the most valuable insights can’t be captured in analytics dashboards.
The Algorithms Aren’t Your Enemy
Everyone loves to complain about algorithms. Instagram’s algorithm changed and now nobody sees my posts. TikTok’s algorithm is impossible to crack. The Facebook algorithm killed organic reach. I hear this constantly.
But here’s the thing: algorithms are designed to show people content they want to see. That’s it. They’re not conspiring against you. They’re trying to keep users on the platform by showing them stuff they engage with.
If your content isn’t being shown to people, it’s not because the algorithm hates you. It’s because people aren’t engaging with it. That’s harsh, but it’s true. The algorithm is just responding to human behavior.
So instead of fighting the algorithm, work with it. Create content people actually want to engage with. Encourage meaningful interactions. Post when your audience is active. Use features the platform is currently promoting. Each platform gives you clues about what it wants to show people – pay attention to those clues.
Consistency Versus Burnout
Yes, consistency matters. But not the way most people think it does.
You don’t need to post every single day if that pace is going to burn you out or compromise quality. Better to post three times a week with genuinely good content than seven times a week with mediocre filler. Your audience will notice the difference.
Consistency is more about showing up reliably than it is about frequency. If you post every Tuesday and Thursday, people will start expecting and looking for your content on those days. That’s powerful. But if you post randomly whenever you feel like it, you never build that anticipation.
Find a pace you can actually maintain. Not just for this month or this quarter, but for the long haul. Social media marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. The brands that win are the ones that are still there consistently after everyone else has given up.
The Bottom Line
Social media strategy isn’t rocket science, but it does require rethinking some assumptions. It requires treating your audience like humans, not targets. Creating content that provides real value, not just promotional noise. Building community, not just collecting followers. Measuring what matters, not what looks good in a report.
Most importantly? It requires patience. Real results take time. Building genuine community takes time. Creating content that resonates takes practice and iteration. There are no shortcuts, despite what the growth hackers and automation tools promise.
But when you get it right? When you build a genuine community of engaged people who actually care about what you’re creating? That’s when social media becomes one of your most powerful marketing channels. Not because you’re reaching millions of people, but because you’re meaningfully connecting with the right people.
And that connection? That’s worth more than any follower count ever could be.
