We’ve all heard the story before. You know, the one where the influencer with 2 million followers couldn’t manage to sell even 36 t-shirts? There is no better example of The Great Lesson:
Likes do not equal sales.
But there’s also the flip side to this tale. And that’s the person who gets 30 likes per post, has a couple thousand followers, and has a thriving business fueled by social media.
In other words, you can have what looks like a minimally engaged IG audience from what happens on the feed, and make bank from it.
Notice I said *looks* like a minimally engaged audience. Because the reality is, the audience IS engaged, they are just taking different actions than simply liking a post. Liking a post is the bare minimum action, and sometimes you have to sacrifice that small action for the bigger steps you want people to take.
Because here’s the thing people don’t often tell you. YOU CAN ONLY EXPECT PEOPLE TO TAKE ONE ACTION AT A TIME.
That’s right. One single action for any given post.
Let’s say I make a post sharing a blog post of mine. The average person will either:
Like the social media post.
Comment on the social media post.
Head over to the blog.
Share the post to their Stories.
The odds that they will choose more than one of those options is pretty small. Think about how you yourself interact on social… if you came over to this blog post, what are the odds that you’re going back to the original social post and engaging with it? Probably fairly low odds unless you love the post enough to want your audience to read it, in which case you’ll share to your Stories about it. (And hey, please, by all means, do so!)
So what does this all mean about how you handle your social?
1. You have to craft your strategy with different calls to action in mind.
Create posts where all you want is for them to like it. Create a post where your main goal is for shares. Create a post that is focused on getting link clicks. You have to change up what action steps you want people to take, and you have to be intentional about it! Otherwise, you’ll find yourself having essentially taught your audience that you only want one thing from them. And I’m pretty sure likes ain’t it.
2. You have to be clear about what you want your reader to do.
That means you should stay away from multiple CTAs in one post. Don’t tell them to click the link in bio if what you really want is to have a great engaging convo in the comments. And don’t urge them to comment bellow if you want them to follow a link. And in Stories, don’t use a link AND a poll, because they’ll answer the poll and keep swiping through. Tell them what you want (what you really, really want) and they just might do the thing.
3. Lemme say that again. You have to ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT.
You have to be comfortable asking for what you want for this to really work. You can’t just hint at it, you can’t hope that they will like you so much they’ll want to click your links without you having to say it. You want them to click? Ask them to click. You want them to buy? ASK THEM TO BUY. The main reason people fail to sell on social is because they don’t make the ask. Don’t let sales slip by you because you were more comfortable asking for a like than a sale.
Want a quick way to assess your ask levels? If you average:
1 like or share post per week
1 comment post per week
1 click or buy post per week
Then you’re on the right path!
If you need more guidance on your social media journey, I’m not afraid to tell you to head HERE to see how I can help. Have fun and happy asking!
