Audience Capture

One of the problems that we see with coaches on social media is what engagement does to the content and the negative flywheel that it creates. Coaches do really well initially because they start with nuanced, thoughtful content that builds an audience of people who love their worldview and want to hear more about what they think about a particular topic, niche or industry.

Over time the coach learns more about engagement and what does really well versus what doesn’t, and they start to optimise for content that gets the most engagement, the most views, the most shares and the most likes. They then have to become extreme versions of themselves as they play the algorithm game. They adopt clickbait titles, get increasingly extreme on their podcasts and optimise for outrage rather than for insight.

The algorithm rewards this extremity and coaches follow that incentive. And these coaches will get messages from people who will say, ‘I used to love you because you were really nuanced and now you’re getting more and more extreme and playing a clickbait game.’

Yes, the platform plays into this, but the coach does it to themselves and the content no longer represents what the person was about in that moment.

The platform rewards the extremity - raw emotion spreads because it is contagious, and platforms optimise for contagion. Creators supply extreme content to feed it, and the audience’s clicks confirm the signal that drives the next cycle.

The problem, of course - is that social media metrics are a proxy.

Unless you want to sell purely based on your audience size (if you’re a coach, you don’t) - then short-term engagement measures MIGHT be a useful metric for you. But over time, they become less useful than ‘number of clients’ or ‘revenue’

Because social media is now a status game, we want the status of ‘I have a big following’ and ‘I post content that does really well!’

Sadly - your mortgage provider is probably less interested in status than you are.

And paying for a lovely, tidy semi (ooh err) in the town of your choice with ‘engagement’ is actually really tricky.

Content is marketing - very useful, often very free marketing.

But it’s not the end goal of a business, and the sooner coaches remember that - the better their business will do.