Reaching and Engaging Your Target Audience on Social Media

If you had more leads, a lot of your life’s problems would be solved. Think about that for a second.

Wouldn’t more leads help your business grow? Couldn’t you charge more and work less? Wouldn’t you feel different as well?

When people get that realization, they usually start content marketing. You can reach millions of people extremely fast – and you can easily move them to the next step of the funnel.

If you’ve ever tried to grow an audience, you probably made an account, saw your 0 follower status, and thought:

“What the actual f*ck do I do now?”

Well, that’s what I’ll try to explain in this article. You’ll learn what makes great content marketing so effective and how you can get a bunch of leads knocking at your door.

And no, you don’t have to resort to embarrassing TikTok dances (unless that’s your thing, in which case, do your thing).

Being Savvy and Creative: Achieve Total Social Media Domination

Let me start with the obvious, but not-so-obvious.

Step 1: Take the leap and just post something.

Step 2: Repeat Step 1 and do it often. Or at least regularly.

Your content doesn’t have to be perfect, but be consistent, and do it for yourself. After all, social media platforms are designed to prioritize content from creators who post frequently.

The more often you do something, the better you’ll get at it. Whether you’re blogging, doing Instagram, YouTube, or whatever – post multiple times a week.

I know it can be scary, especially because your hometown friends are going to see your content and they might call you “cringe” or whatever. In all honesty though, that happens WAY more rarely than you think, and even when it does, you won’t really care.

No one really cares about what you do. You’ll see. If you’re an ‘expert’ about your topic, that’s all that matters.

But please, please, please… don’t be one of those experts who only regurgitate other people’s ideas. Getting inspiration from other people is fine, but being a hamster won’t get you anywhere.

If you take a closer look and apply some critical thinking, you’ll find that in the vast majority of cases, the “experts” just repeat standard phrases and generic ideas that are actually quite superficial.

Being creative and innovative gives you lots of benefits. People will get attached to your content, they’ll be more loyal, and you’ll get tons of bragging rights.

That’s what matters, right?

Okay, let’s recap… you’re not going to be a hamster who just copies people and you’re going to post frequently, no matter what people think.

But if you just provide expertise without being engaging, you probably won’t get too far. Sadly, in today’s world, our attention spans absolutely suck.

So, while building up your authority, also focus on building an engaging and entertaining social media page.

What The Hell Are We Even Doing Here: Brand Recognition vs. Sales Goals

If right now you think views and followers are the only thing that matter, you have to change that mindset.

(That is, if you’re passionate about food and shelter, and you’d possibly like to make some money.)

Yes, “brand recognition” is a metric. But, it’s foolish for it to be your only goal with content marketing. You’re not just trying to get brand deals, you’re trying to run a real business, with real products or services.

Anything you post should be aimed at selling your product or service. Even when you give out free value, the reason for doing so should be in the back of your mind.

So, as you build your brand, keep monitoring your conversions and sales. How can you change your content to push more people to the next step of the funnel?

Remember, we’re running a business here. We’re not doing this because we want people to know our names.

And since you’re running a business, I want to give you a free e-book to help turn your ideas into a scalable business.

There, I’ll show you how to bridge the gap between dreaming about a business and running one.

After reading (and actually implementing it, don’t make me mad), your startup will no longer be just a concept, but a structured, operational machine.

The Psychology of Persuasion: Tapping Into The Emotional Drivers of Decision-Making

I know you heard “emotions over logic” a thousand times already. I won’t bore you with that. I’m here to give you the knowledge you can’t find anywhere else.

See how being an expert and thinking for yourself helps with your content marketing?

You probably also heard that “thinking in terms of your audience’s benefits” is very important. That’s good advice, but we can take it a step further.

Humans are very irrational beings and you need to take that into account.

We don’t spend our lives constantly thinking “IS WHAT I’M DOING THE MOST ADVANTAGEOUS THING I COULD BE DOING RIGHT THIS SECOND?!?”

That would, in fact, be quite weird.

People often do what they enjoy and what feels good, not just what is rationally the best move. For example, you spend tons of time scrolling Instagram Reels or Reddit, even though you know you shouldn’t. Very naughty.

Anyway, it’s very useful to think about your product and see if it has any interesting features or functions that people simply like — not because they are useful or beneficial, but because they enjoy them.

Does the product look cool? Does it have a satisfying click sound? Is it totally unnecessary but weirdly delightful?

If you have such features, try to showcase and advertise them more often. If not, create them. If you believe that people’s behavior and the success of your product are driven purely by logic and rationalism, you are mistaken.

They are more likely driven by emotions. Logic is just used to justify emotional decisions after they have already been made.

NOTE: I am not trying to tell you to not apply logic to anything you do. I mean, if your service won’t provide an ROI, then you won’t be able to sell it, no matter what emotion you evoke (unless you threaten someone, which is not recommended).

Before selling ANYTHING, ask yourself these questions:

• Who do you want to help grow?
• Do they truly want to grow?
• Can you realistically help them grow?

If the answers are “yes” to all three, success is only a matter of time. Many startup failures I’ve seen stem from founders failing to answer these questions clearly from the start – or forgetting their answers and focusing on their own growth instead of their users’ growth.

Something else you have to ask yourself is where should I reach these people I’d like to help. Different audiences hang out on different platforms – and it’s actually not hard to find out where YOUR dream clients are.

A Social Media Conversion Catalyst: Learn How To Tell Good Stories

Bad news: People will only read what interests them.

Good news: Your marketing can absolutely be one of those things.

And there’s nothing more interesting than a well-told story. Imagine sitting on some rocks with your prehistoric friends around a fire, just chilling and telling stories.

What a life.

Back to 2025 – stories are more persuasive than raw facts. When you tell stories in your content, people will resonate and see that you were once just like them. Stories show you understand your target audience and know what they need to overcome their pain points.

Maybe you already know stories are really important, but it’s very rare to hear someone speak about how to tell a good story.

Luckily for you, I googled it before writing this article (just kidding, of course). Here are a couple of pro tips:

• I personally allow you to take some creative liberty: If a minor detail will make the story more touching or entertaining, it’s okay to slightly change it or omit it. For example, if a random character was there, it’s fine to delete him from the story.
• Choose the right stories: Pick the story that is going to ‘implant’ an idea into the reader’s mind. This is one of the most important things when it comes to persuasion.
• Slow it down to achieve tension: If you want to build tension to create curiosity, slooooow the final moments down. Have you ever noticed how before something big happens in a story, writers and screenwriters tend to describe unnecessary details? Well, that is to build tension and slow down the story.

Blabbers vs. Experts: Separating the Noise from True Expertise

Let’s divide opinion leaders on social media into two types (gotta love generalizations).

The first type includes influencers and thought leaders who gain popularity through high volume and frequent posting without deep expertise. These are basically the blabbers.

They often attract large audiences without needing to prove their expertise, usually exhibiting Dunning-Kruger syndrome – being overly confident while, in reality, being a newbie.

The second type consists of individuals with deep expertise who dive into details and apply critical thinking. These people are more likely to have imposter syndrome and they hesitate to self-promote.

Funny how the world works.

You obviously want to be a blend of these two, but that’s not why I outlined these types. I want to compare them to User Acquisition and User Activation.

If you just focus on lead generation and acquisition, you likely won’t be remembered as an expert.

User Activation (the value delivery) is just as important, if not even more important than acquisition. The better the quality of your product and service is – the better you look on social media.

Social proof should be a huge part of your content strategy… and what better way to get it than to show how you helped other people just like your target audience?

There’s no better way to get more leads than to get your current customers the results they want.

If you’re a shy expert, I have some good news for you. Creating content is much easier than getting your expertise.

But… what if creating content IS my expertise? What are you gonna say then, huh?

Got me there.

Anyway, if you’re a true expert and you dare to increase your visibility, you’ll automatically surpass the 50% of blabbers who are good at self-promoting, but don’t come even close to being an expert.

Takeaways

Generating leads on social media isn’t complicated, but because it takes time, most people quit. If you’re not one of those, here’s a recap of what I talked about here that could help you in your entrepreneurial journey:

• If you haven’t started yet… Just post SOMETHING.
• Post as often as you can while retaining quality. The algorithms gods favor those who post more often and you’ll see faster growth.
• Your friends won’t judge you for posting content, and even if they do, who cares?
• Try to innovate and come up with your own ideas, instead of simply regurgitating common ideas.
• Remember you’re running a business. The point of your content is to generate traffic and convert it to the next step of the funnel.
• Monitor your content and think: “How can I make it convert better?”
• Think about your product and see if it has any interesting features or functions that people simply like – not because they are useful or beneficial, but because they enjoy them.
• Also, think about the logical side of things. Who do you want to help grow? Do they truly want to grow? Can you realistically help them grow?
• Learn to tell good stories, since people eat those up on social media. You’ll connect with people and they’ll realize that you were the person they were looking for all along.
• Don’t ONLY focus on your lead generation. Also make sure your product/service is impeccable. There’s no better way to get more leads than to get your current customers the results they want.