Likes feel good. So do new followers, comments, and shares. We all love attention.
But if the goal of your social media marketing is ultimately to grow the business, there’s a bigger question worth asking: What happens after someone engages with your content?
Social media can be an important awareness and relationship-building channel. But it can also contribute to actual business results—and that means looking beyond vanity metrics and building a path from attention to action.
Consider each post as part of a journey
Your highest-performing posts can tell you what your audience cares about. So don’t stop at the post. Once you see what people are interested in, build on it.
Turn the idea into a downloadable checklist. A webinar. A blog post. A case study. An email series. A consultation offer.
That’s where social media starts working less like a collection of isolated posts and more like part of your overall marketing strategy.
One strong social topic can become an entire content journey. Now that you know what they “like….” it’s your turn to “lead” the way. Which brings us to…
Make the next step obvious
Sometimes the problem isn’t that social media isn’t generating leads. It’s that the path from social media to lead isn’t clear.
Someone sees your post. They like it. They keep scrolling…
Remember that it’s not up to the audience to figure out what to do next. It’s up to your marketing team to point them in the right direction. Whether that’s a clear call to action, a bold link, or a compelling offer—because with all of the fast-moving posts and distracting videos in their feed, it’s essential to capture that brief glimmer of attention and turn it into something more.
Create content for different stages
Now that we’ve highlighted the importance of designating next steps, we should also make sure you know it’s okay to avoid looking pushy. People don’t love it when every social media post is a sales pitch.
If you want to make it more specific than “add a call to action every time,” you can set goals for different posts according to whether the expected audience is in your marketing funnel.
At the top of the funnel, it’s okay to simply inform or entertain people—keep them thinking about you.
Middle-of-funnel content can demonstrate expertise, answer objections, showcase customer experiences, or explain how your product or service works.
Now, bottom-of-the-funnel folks are definitely going to need that extra boost to act: Invite them in and make it easy to accomplish whatever your perceived next step might be, such as calling for an appointment or sharing their contact information with you through a form.
The goal isn’t to turn every post into an advertisement. But folks at every stage of their journey with you should get exactly what they came for—and you should have an idea in mind of where you’d like them to head next.
With that said…
There’s one important caveat: Not every social post needs to convert.
Everyone won’t make it all the way through the funnel. Some content exists just to build conversations and generate awareness. Maybe a friend who is actually part of your target audience will say to someone, “Hey, I just purchased this great item from [Your Brand]” and your visitor will say, “Yeah, I think that’s a great company.” You’re still building presence in a meaningful way.
Now you’ve got two more likes on your next post.
Likes aren’t the enemy. Stopping at likes is the problem—especially when you have the opportunity to build a social presence that does it all. And as always, we’re here to help—if you’d “like”!