The overlooked value of your unseen audience

How much anxiety does the fear of an unliked post bring?

Plenty.

Study after study confirms the anxiety and depression it wields, especially among young people — perhaps the same young people who are or soon will be running your social media.

And for what? The measurable love of the heart button and that thumbs-up prompt?

Yet we’re told not to get caught up in the “likes” metric.  

That it’s really about engagement — you know, that other metric.

Here’s the thing: I agree with part of that logic. And I agree it can be lonely out there.

But I don’t view any post as a success of failure based on the illuminated heart or thumb.

Nor should you.

Because there are too many factors outside your control once content goes public.

Knowing this, some people will go to extreme measures to avert a low number of likes.

Perhaps you’ve been asked to like posts (even though we’re not getting caught up in that metric, right?)

Maybe you’ve be confronted with this question from friends, colleagues, or even clients:

“Why don’t you ‘like’ my content?”

My answer is: “I see your content and quite often I enjoy it. It’s just not meant for my audience.”

That’s not a slight, it is a reality of navigating a messy, algorithmic socialsphere.

Because when you “like” something, some platforms are compelled to put that liked content in front of your audience, too. And no matter how good it is, it might not be right/ideal/appropriate for your audience.

This is often an overlooked, secondary level of your content strategy — being keenly aware of everything you are putting in front of your audience.

So, back to my response about seeing content, but not reacting to it publicly.

The practice is known as lurking — and it is the bane of analytics teams because it lacks helpful, actionable data. That can push some decision-makers down the slippery slope of “if we can’t measure it, we shouldn’t do it.”

This should be the “a-ha moment” for anyone creating and sharing content.

You can safely assume there could be hundreds of lurkers seeing what you share, who perhaps don’t want to click, get hunted down, or sign up for your finely crafted marketing material — as good as it is.

This isn’t permission to inflate data, but it is permission to accept that a wider viewership exists.

That some of them are thinking about it.

That maybe a few will react to it.

And that perhaps someone will reach out because of it.

If not now, then over time as you continue to provide value.

It is the opposite of instantaneous gratification; opposite of the dopamine hit these platforms reward and we’ve come to crave.

Ask yourself this: during your last scroll through social media are you likely to remember what you liked or who provided value or insight? (it also might’ve been a like).

Proof of the unseen audience

In my other life as a painter, I share my work frequently online.

The vast majority — 80 to 90 percent — of people who have reached out and eventually purchased my work were unknown to me.

They weren’t publicly liking the work.

They didn’t comment on what the read or saw.

And they didn’t sign up to take a voluntary slide down my sales funnel.  

Instead, they were simply paying attention, patiently waiting, lurking…

Until it was time to act (and yes, marketers hate this random waiting and not knowing).

And here’s your takeaway:

We’ve all been conditioned to measure, to be metric hungry.

But conversion – the metric that really matters – comes in ways we can’t always graph or add up on a spreadsheet.

Sometimes – perhaps most of the time – our work is about showing up when it appears nobody is paying any attention.

Show up anyway.

Do the work. Provide value. Repeat.  

Enjoy the likes if/when they come. Engage those people if it makes sense.

But also feed the lurkers by playing the long and often quiet game.

Because when your sales funnel fails to tell you where out-of-the-blue customers come from…

When you’re left to assume they arrived on your doorstep without seeing your carefully curated email drip campaign or gated downloadable content, ask:

Would I prefer this interest and potential to become a right-fit customer come from…

A Google search? (assuming you’ve got a good SEO game going)

A Referral?

The individual quietly lurking but paying attention?

Referral is obvious, but quietly lurking is a close second in my book.

It is unseen, below-the-surface interest before there’s actual engagement.

It is the quiet act of someone building knowledge and respect for what you offer long before there’s an offer on the table.  

Don’t get too caught up in the likes, engagement, and things you can neatly plot as told + sold in a social media playbook.  It’s complicated. And frankly, you have better things to do than play beat the algorithm.

Which is why we can all like and learn to embrace the idea that lurkers exist.

Lurkers, when moved to action, bring a lot more end value than likes.

And that’s a metric everyone can get behind — if you have the patience.

POSTING & PUBLISHING: confronting the challenges we all face

As a content creator, I am aware that I am in constant violation of many of the rules that lead to success: what to post, when to post, how often to post, the right channels to post on, visual vs. text, and if the latter, knowing how long is too long and what is too short. 

Here's a confession: I struggle with this notion of posting and publishing.

It's not just about keeping up with the frequency demand and aligning with these purported best practices, but also the content merit of any post. Do I really have something that interesting, that urgent, or that profound to share with the world? I doubt I'm alone in my uncertainty. But one thing is certain: I don't bemoan anyone who is nailing the aforementioned rules and enjoying wild success. I'm just not on that page yet, and I question when or if I will.  

I'm also confronted with this reality: as a writer and a communicator, and as a strategist with marketing sensibilities, is it blasphemous to avoid (or recommend avoiding) publishing and posting on social? Wouldn't that be socially unacceptable in any 2016 marketing strategy? And, by the way, shouldn't I do a better job of leading by example? 

Before answering those questions, consider these thoughts from an interesting interview with contemporary American writer George Saunders where he responds to a variety of societal hot-button issues, including his decision to refrain from on social media. Here's a relevant excerpt from that interview:  

"I’ve found that my first drafts are not so special. But the more I work on them, the better they get. They are more unique and defensible. So that makes me averse to jotting things down and sending them out, when I know that my only chance at any kind of depth or profundity is to linger within the story, trying to make it distinguish itself. I’ve also found that trying to be active with social media changes my moment-to-moment perceptions. Instead of feeling, “What’s the deepest version of what’s happening here?” I start to feel, “How can I use (or “claim”) this?”

"The bottom line for me is that life is short and art is long — and I don’t love the way that being engaged in social media makes me feel, or the way it seems to shape my thinking."

Let's be honest: few of us are novelists or essayists. We're often writing copy about services and business solutions, not books. Some of us wouldn't dare claim our work as an art form. The approach Saunders takes is unique to him and by no means are hard and fast rules for, let's say, the OEM supplier or the not-for-profit organization. But Saunders hits on things that resonate with me as a strategist who leverages the power of words and ideas. In particular, this: 

"The more I work on them, the better they get. They are more unique and defensible."  

Isn't this what developers of content, consultants and agencies should strive to deliver on behalf of clients? Shouldn't we be in constant pursuit of those clutter-cutting ideas, those anti-listicles that impart more than a checklist?

So back to the earlier questions:

• Is it blasphemous to avoid publishing and posting on social? There's a place for all of us to utilize our voices for good on social. I embrace the power of compelling storytelling, so there's always opportunities to utilize these platforms we've been given. I would like to believe that when I publish and post, it's because I have something to say that might provide a different perspective or point of view. 

• Shouldn't I do a better job of leading by example? Indeed I could, but can't guarantee I will.  

Because, like Saunders, I find that the longer I linger with the story (e.g., the client's story, my own story), the more clarity and focus I get. The stronger the word choices become. This only happens when you and I invest the time and become deeply familiar with our subject matter, seek out points and counterpoints, and stew over the myriad of ways to say it -- whatever "it" may be.

Not everything benefits from hours of wrestling with what to say. The point isn't to navel-gaze, but to take the time to hone your thinking, know your voice and be true to it.  

Audiences rarely care that we miss a regularly scheduled Tuesday post or bi-weekly update. They care when they realize they miss the meaningful content we're providing, not the date or time it arrives. By easing our self-imposed time constraints, we afford more time to focus on creating better content.  

When we choose to publish and share our thoughts, we should slow down and take inventory. In doing so, we are banking on thoughtfulness and contemplative work over immediacy, of writing and refining versus the mere act of posting and sending, of eschewing the easy post for the one that requires more of us.

The end result isn't perfection or guaranteed success via likes and shares. It is the knowledge that the contribution is purposeful and hopefully unique. The belief that it matters and we will not regret the post at some point in the future. And the hope that perhaps we've found a way to say the interesting thing, the urgent thing and, if we're fortunate, the compelling thing. 

"Likes" and "shares" are nice. They're measurable and a quick barometer of interest. But analytics cannot measure the heart.

Perhaps the more heart we put into our work, the more likely our content will resonate with others -- which may or may not translate into a metric-measuring action. The question we must ask is: can we live within that reality and outside of the vanity metrics?

If so, cut yourself some slack. Take a bit more time if necessary. Be intentional. And if you feel so bold, embrace a positive definition of what it means to be socially unacceptable with your content strategy.