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Posted: Thu 3rd Sep 2026
Last updated: Thu 3rd Sep 2026
8 min read
If I were to ask a room full of business owners what they'd love their next social media post to do, there's a good chance someone will say: "Go viral."
I get it. We've all seen those posts and maybe even wondered how they did it.
A business publishes a video, it suddenly takes off and before long there are hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of comments and a follower count that's climbing by the minute.
It looks easy, professional and like they're living the social media dream.
But here's the question I always want businesses to ask: What happened next?
Did those views turn into website visits? Did people enquire? Did anyone buy anything? And, perhaps most importantly, were the people watching actually potential customers?
Because going viral can be brilliant, but it isn't a marketing strategy.
One of the biggest changes I've seen in social media over the years is the pressure we put on our numbers.
People are always talking about followers, views, likes and reach because they're easy to see and easy to compare – and very easy to get distracted by.
But I'd rather see a business reach 1,000 of the right people than 100,000 people who will never buy from them.
Imagine you're an accountancy firm in Yorkshire and one of your TikToks unexpectedly reaches 500,000 teenagers in America.
Great for the screenshot, but probably less useful for the sales pipeline.
That's an extreme example, but it illustrates the point. Before worrying about how many people your content is reaching, ask whether it's reaching the people who matter.
When I deliver social media workshops, one of the things I encourage business owners to do is stop thinking about social media as a separate task.
It isn't, "I need to post something on Instagram today." It's, "What are we trying to achieve as a business, and how can social media help us get there?"
The goal might be to generate enquiries, increase awareness in a particular area, launch a new product etc. But once you set the goal, deciding what to post becomes much easier.
That's the difference between posting on social media and having a social media strategy.
Absolutely not. Trends can be great fun and we've seen businesses achieve fantastic results by reacting quickly to what's happening online.
But there's a difference between using a trend because it gives you an opportunity to reach your audience and using a trend simply because everybody else is doing it.
Before jumping on one, ask:
Can I make this relevant to my business?
Will my audience understand it?
Does it sound like us?
If the answer is no, leave it alone and move on.
You don't have to take part in every internet moment and sometimes the smartest marketing decision is knowing which ones to ignore.
I'd just replace "viral" with valuable. Create content that makes the right person stop and think:
"Oh, that's useful."
"They understand my problem."
"I've never thought about it like that."
Or, ideally, "They're the people I need to speak to."
That might be a 30-second TikTok answering a question you're asked every week, or it could be a LinkedIn post sharing something you've learned from a client project.
It might be an Instagram Reel showing how your product is made, or a behind-the-scenes moment.
None of those ideas sounds particularly viral, but all of them can build trust. And trust is much more useful to a business than a fleeting spike in views.
This is another misconception I'd happily see disappear.
Being consistent doesn't mean posting seven days a week because someone on the internet told you that's what the algorithm wants.
Consistency means showing up often enough that your audience understands who you are, what you do and what you can help them with. That's what your customers want to see.
I'd much rather see a business publish two genuinely useful posts every week for six months than post twice a day for three weeks, run out of ideas and disappear.
Build something you can sustain and that brings you joy. No-one wants you to feel burnt out and disappointed by social media.
This is where social media becomes much more interesting, and one of my favourite parts about digital marketing.
Instead of only asking how many views you got, start asking the following questions:
Did more people visit our profile?
Did anyone click through to the website?
Are people saving the content?
Are we getting relevant comments?
Did enquiries increase?
Are prospects mentioning our content in conversations?
Is the right audience starting to recognise our name?
And the best news is – your stats will answer these questions. Do enough of the right thing consistently, and you will have the data to back up what's working.
Understanding your social media analytics means you can stop relying on gut feeling and start making better decisions about what to do next.
Not every piece of social media activity can be tied neatly to a sale, particularly for businesses with longer buying cycles. And that's OK, because it's "social" media, not sales media.
Your sales funnel should never rely entirely on your Instagram followers. Social media should support your wider marketing, not become your entire marketing strategy.
Instead, understand what role your content is playing and bring your goals into line with your results, resources and opportunities.
You don't need to reinvent your entire social media strategy – you're probably already part of the way there.
Start by thinking about the conversations you're having with customers, or what challenges they may face before deciding to work with you.
Ask yourself:
What question did a customer ask me this week?
What's something people regularly misunderstand about what we do?
What do I know about my industry that my customers would find useful?
Can I show people something they don't normally get to see?
What would make someone trust us before they've even spoken to us?
There's probably a post in every one of those answers… if you dig a little deeper, you might find a couple of posts in each one.
Get creative, and you might be able to answer the same point more than once by using a different media or hook.
Keep a note of the questions, conversations and ideas that come up during your working week and suddenly creating useful content becomes much easier.
Amazing! Enjoy it, take a moment to sit in it, and then learn from it.
Look at why people responded and think about whether there are elements you can repeat.
Just don't assume the answer is to recreate the same video another 10 times. Virality is unpredictable. A good marketing strategy shouldn't be.
The businesses I see getting the most from social media aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest audiences.
They're the ones that understand who they're talking to, know what they want their content to achieve and keep learning from what their audience tells them.
So the next time you're about to post something, don't ask, "Could this go viral?" Ask, "Would the right person care?"
So, here's something to try. Look at the next post you've got planned and think about one person you'd genuinely like to reach. What could you say that would make them stop, read, watch or respond?
