What to Do When a Good Social Media Post Fails

Even though I’m supposed to know what I’m doing on LinkedIn and other social platforms, even some of my posts don’t perform well.

It’s always a bummer because I think the content is good (and follows the advice I give you), like a LinkedIn post I recently made about email marketing that got less than 20 likes.

I almost deleted the post, but I believe in what I said and that it can help others so I left it up.

Also there are 100 reasons why that post may not have gotten traction such as:

• The time of day I posted – Mondays are tough as people are busy
• Maybe the right people weren’t scrolling LinkedIn at that time
• Maybe it was the image I used
• The hashtags I chose
• The lack of engagement on the post in the crucial first hour after I posted it.
• The words I used in the first two lines of the post which can either make or break it and compel someone to read it – or not
• LinkedIn’s algorithm, which is also tricky to master
• I could go on and on…

Here’s something to keep in mind when one of your posts flop or you feel discouraged that you’re spending a lot of time creating content and not seeing results from it.

Always remember that you (and me) are so much more than the number of likes on our social media posts.

Likes don’t tell the full story of how your posts really are doing.

Remember that a lot of people consume content without engaging on social media.

There are people who tell me that they love my posts yet they’ve never actually liked any of my posts. Has that happened to you?

I’ve had many business leads come as people who follow me but aren’t active commenters. Some people just prefer to not interact publicly on social media, so likes are not the sole indicator of success. Not even in the least bit.

If you’re lucky enough to go viral every now and then great, but that happens once a year maybe and also you have to put it in perspective to the size of your network.

So let’s say you have 1000 connections and 15 likes that’s pretty good. It’s not about going viral or getting 1000 likes, it’s about who is liking your posts. I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

If you believe that your content provides value and if it generally leads to business and other opportunities- such as speaking engagements, invitations to write articles and/or media mentions – stick with it because you have to build a following and that takes time, effort and consistency.

Tweak your posts based on their performance, but focus on building your network, giving back to others without expecting anything in return, promoting the content of important connections and creating the best content you can.

The success will come.

You can also repost something that failed to meet your expectations the first time around a few weeks later with a different image or a revised opening sentence to see if that improves its performance.

Remind yourself that not every post will be successful or resonate with your followers and that’s okay.

But whatever you do, don’t join one of the fake engagement pods to get more likes because they don’t actually work long term.

Believe in yourself and your posts. And never base your success or self-worth on the success of your social media posts. These posts are just a part of our overall brand.

And if you like my posts, tap the bell on my LinkedIn profile to make sure you don’t miss when I post there and subscribe to this blog.

Here’s a video with more on this topic.