Reach Is Not The Same As Being Known

Social media numbers do weird things to the human mind.

‘50k views on this post’

That’s great - what happens afterwards?

We confuse engagement on a post with being known.

It’s not that reach doesn’t matter, obviously it does - you can’t build anything in front of nobody.

But the assumption that you’re a bigger audience away from your thing working is one pushed by social media platforms, plus creators who show people how to create.

Who would both be out of pocket if en masse we realised that engagement doesn’t pay bills, nor reliably transforms itself into coaching clients.

Reaching does not compound - even likes, comments etc.

Being known does compound, however.

Someone who knows you could tell someone else what you stand for.

The funny, uncomfortable reality underneath this whole tug of war?

The kind of content that travels well is the least likely to make you known.

Content can do both. It can travel well and make you well known.

But it’s brutally hard - it’s people’s full time job to come up with the angles, edits and creatives that do this.

Trends travel because they’re recognisable. People know what they’re looking at before they’ve read the thing.

‘Oh great, if I post about this I’ll be recognised’ - no, the trend will.

The Sydney Sweeney ad is a perfect example.

It ran for 4 days and there were maybe 10k posts about how bad it was.

Every single person who saw that ad knew whose ad it was.

Can you name one person who made a post about it?

A post that travels on a trend looks great because of the numbers.

But if a stranger who saw it couldn’t describe what you stand for, or even your take on it?

You’ve just had a good social media day, not a good business day.