How much anxiety does the fear of an unliked post bring?
Plenty.
Study after study confirms the anxiety and depression it wields, especially among young people — perhaps the same young people who are or soon will be running your social media.
And for what? The measurable love of the heart button and that thumbs-up prompt?
Yet we’re told not to get caught up in the “likes” metric.
That it’s really about engagement — you know, that other metric.
Here’s the thing: I agree with part of that logic. And I agree it can be lonely out there.
But I don’t view any post as a success of failure based on the illuminated heart or thumb.
Nor should you.
Because there are too many factors outside your control once content goes public.
Knowing this, some people will go to extreme measures to avert a low number of likes.
Perhaps you’ve been asked to like posts (even though we’re not getting caught up in that metric, right?)
Maybe you’ve be confronted with this question from friends, colleagues, or even clients:
“Why don’t you ‘like’ my content?”
My answer is: “I see your content and quite often I enjoy it. It’s just not meant for my audience.”
That’s not a slight, it is a reality of navigating a messy, algorithmic socialsphere.
Because when you “like” something, some platforms are compelled to put that liked content in front of your audience, too. And no matter how good it is, it might not be right/ideal/appropriate for your audience.
This is often an overlooked, secondary level of your content strategy — being keenly aware of everything you are putting in front of your audience.
So, back to my response about seeing content, but not reacting to it publicly.
The practice is known as lurking — and it is the bane of analytics teams because it lacks helpful, actionable data. That can push some decision-makers down the slippery slope of “if we can’t measure it, we shouldn’t do it.”
This should be the “a-ha moment” for anyone creating and sharing content.
You can safely assume there could be hundreds of lurkers seeing what you share, who perhaps don’t want to click, get hunted down, or sign up for your finely crafted marketing material — as good as it is.
This isn’t permission to inflate data, but it is permission to accept that a wider viewership exists.
That some of them are thinking about it.
That maybe a few will react to it.
And that perhaps someone will reach out because of it.
If not now, then over time as you continue to provide value.
It is the opposite of instantaneous gratification; opposite of the dopamine hit these platforms reward and we’ve come to crave.
Ask yourself this: during your last scroll through social media are you likely to remember what you liked or who provided value or insight? (it also might’ve been a like).
Proof of the unseen audience
In my other life as a painter, I share my work frequently online.
The vast majority — 80 to 90 percent — of people who have reached out and eventually purchased my work were unknown to me.
They weren’t publicly liking the work.
They didn’t comment on what the read or saw.
And they didn’t sign up to take a voluntary slide down my sales funnel.
Instead, they were simply paying attention, patiently waiting, lurking…
Until it was time to act (and yes, marketers hate this random waiting and not knowing).
And here’s your takeaway:
We’ve all been conditioned to measure, to be metric hungry.
But conversion – the metric that really matters – comes in ways we can’t always graph or add up on a spreadsheet.
Sometimes – perhaps most of the time – our work is about showing up when it appears nobody is paying any attention.
Show up anyway.
Do the work. Provide value. Repeat.
Enjoy the likes if/when they come. Engage those people if it makes sense.
But also feed the lurkers by playing the long and often quiet game.
Because when your sales funnel fails to tell you where out-of-the-blue customers come from…
When you’re left to assume they arrived on your doorstep without seeing your carefully curated email drip campaign or gated downloadable content, ask:
Would I prefer this interest and potential to become a right-fit customer come from…
A Google search? (assuming you’ve got a good SEO game going)
A Referral?
The individual quietly lurking but paying attention?
Referral is obvious, but quietly lurking is a close second in my book.
It is unseen, below-the-surface interest before there’s actual engagement.
It is the quiet act of someone building knowledge and respect for what you offer long before there’s an offer on the table.
Don’t get too caught up in the likes, engagement, and things you can neatly plot as told + sold in a social media playbook. It’s complicated. And frankly, you have better things to do than play beat the algorithm.
Which is why we can all like and learn to embrace the idea that lurkers exist.
Lurkers, when moved to action, bring a lot more end value than likes.
And that’s a metric everyone can get behind — if you have the patience.