Building an audience on social media is stressful. So don’t even try.
You publish a LinkedIn post and keep visiting it after every 93 seconds to see if you got a new ‘Like’. After 2 hours, you check the watch to see that only 7 minutes have passed… and you have barely managed to secure ‘3 likes’. That is when that wretched feeling of insufficiency starts creeping in.
My advice?
Don’t even try.
Forget about building an audience. Social media is not a traffic channel.
Treat it as a credibility channel.
How is ‘social media as a credibility channel’ different from ‘social media as a traffic channel’?
The core purpose of an awareness channel is to get more and more people into your Sphere of Influence. ‘More Reach’ is the only goal, and we measure it through likes, comments, followers, and so on.
On the other hand, when we use social media as a credibility channel, it is no longer a TOFU platform but a BOFU platform. Prospects who are evaluating you will go through your socials to see if they resonate with your thought process.
As they look at your social media posts and say, “Ah, I love his writing”, the deal moves forward.
Perhaps this translates to some kind of a partnership. Or a job opportunity. Or maybe a freelance gig.
Social media as a credibility platform helps you close deals faster.
If you take my example – I have got a ton of opportunities through my writing. And yet the engagement on my content continues to suck. But despite that, the prospects tell me, “Pranav, I love your writing on Linkedin.”
Now, if I had optimized my LinkedIn for more traffic, I would have found myself writing catchy hooks and pithy posts without getting into the nuances. Not only would I hate doing that, but my posts would not have appealed to my prospects as much.
To summarize – For your success and mental peace, don’t try to build an audience on social media. Build credibility instead.
