Social media for business is supposed to be all about reaching your ideal clients. That’s why you’re there and going through the trouble of posting content in the first place.

But have you noticed?

You’re a CFO, financial advisor, bookkeeper, or other professional making content for small business owners, but you’re getting likes, comment, and engagement from other CFOs, financial advisors, bookkeepers…

If you wanted peer support, you would have joined a Facebook group or a social sharing pod, not started a LinkedIn page.

So what’s wrong?

If you’ve ever asked yourself

• Why are my peers engaging with my content when my posts are targeted at and phrased for my ideal audience, not my peers?
• Can I still market to potential clients on this platform?
• How do I change my algorithm, because it’s broken?
• Is LinkedIn just an echo chamber?

This post is for you.

Setting the Stage—The Problem with Algorithms

Have you noticed that YouTube ads are not as tied to geographic location as they used to be, but to video content? You could be in the U.S., but if you’re watching an Italian video, you’ll get an Italian ad.

This is just one example of a growing trend among social media algorithms. Nowadays, everyone is adopting the addictive TikTok interest-based model, showing content to users based on interest, rather than location or other factors.

While I started with a YouTube example, LinkedIn is no different.

Instead of displaying content based on profile and region alone, it shares content based partly on a person’s LinkedIn profile (mainly their current occupation, skills, industry) and partly on their interest signals (what they like and don’t like).

What does this mean for you, me, and every other business person seeking marketing success on social?

It means that we need to understand that this ‘echo chamber’ feel is real, and it’s not going away. But it’s not unbeatable.

Because what you need to keep in mind is the driving force behind how content is shared and distributed: interest.

People (including your ideal audience) will get served content that they’re interested in. And that brings us to the short answer.

The Short Answer—Interest

To reach your target audience, you need to create content that they perceive as valuable, are interested in, and can engage with over time.

The Longer Answer

You may have read the short answer and thought, “duh.” But it’s actually easier said than done. And we need to be very clear about what “valuable” and “interesting” means for your content.

For many founders (especially technical experts), what you think is valuable and interesting is not what your ideal buyer thinks is valuable and interesting.

In fact, it’s usually what you and your peers think is valuable and interesting, which is why the algorithm serves it to them, not to your clients, regardless of whether the wording is client-centric or not.

Here’s a great example to illustrate the point.

Suppose you’re a fractional CFO serving small business owners who don’t want to hire a full-time CFO, but need financial support.

You create a carousel on LinkedIn on the 3 major financial statements that every business owner needs to understand.

Is LinkedIn likely to show this to your client?

The real-real?

Maybe.

Yes, the best you get is a “maybe.”

But why? Isn’t this something that’s valuable to your ideal audience and that they would find interesting?

Let me contrast this piece of content with another, so that you can see the difference.

If you were a small business owner, would you rather:

a) Swipe through a carousel on the 3 major financial statements

or

b) Swipe through a carousel teaching you how to grow revenue without growing cost

Most business owners would choose (b). Why? Because small business owners are either in survival mode or growth mode, or sometimes both.

They’ll be hooked in by “revenue” way faster than they’ll be hooked in by “balance sheet.” Unless we’re talking about a technical operator who naturally has an interest in finance or perhaps even came from a finance background, but that’s probably not who. you’re targeting.

So, your carousel on the 3 major financial statements may be well-meaning, but it’s likely not going to stop a busy business owner scrolling through his or her feed. It will, however, probably stop another fractional CFO who’s looking for a simple explainer to forward to his client.

And the algorithm knows this. Because the business owner usually interacts with content that’s about revenue or business growth, while the CFO usually interacts with content that’s about finance.

That’s why you have a hard time reaching your prospect (if you ever reach them at all).

Two Important Notes

Side Note

If you observe GBB Media content, we publish our technical content on the website and don’t try to shove it down the throats of our social media audience for this very reason. When we do publish a technical piece on LinkedIn, there is a plan behind it that goes beyond mere impressions and other vanity metrics.

Second, this doesn’t mean that you have to talk about things outside your scope of expertise.

Just because your ideal audience is interested doesn’t mean you should talk about it if it’s not relevant to you.

The secret lies in finding that balance between what they want to consume and what you can speak to. If you want to see our framework for generating interest-based content that’s authentic to what you can talk to, but that still captures your prospect’s interest, then here’s your guide:

Learn How to Create Interest-Based Content

The Takeaway

It’s not that your ideal audience isn’t on LinkedIn or that the algorithm is broken. It’s that we live in an interest-based world, and only those select few who interest us are part of it.

If you want to reach your ideal audience on LinkedIn, reframe your content topics to match what they’re already interested in. This will make it more likely that LinkedIn will show them your content when you post it.

And as a bonus, since it’s interesting, your audience will engage with the content, generating interest signals that tell LinkedIn to continue showing them your content in future. So once you get the ball rolling, it will be pretty easy to keep it going.

Looking for a place to start? Check out our how-to-guide (with examples and a downloadable infographic) on how you can generate interest-based content.

Now get to work.

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