Performance: boosted posts vs. Ads Manager

If I hear this one more time I might start throwing things 😬

"We’re just going to boost a few posts!"

or

"We've spent thousands on advertising, but I just do it quickly on my phone"

Please stop it.

That's like saying "just microwave everything" to a Michelin-star chef. Sure, it works. Kind of. Sometimes.

But here's what you're missing:

Post A → Boosted for 10 euros a day for 5 days:

• 4,000 views

• 109 IG profile visits

• 48 cents per visit

• 48 euros spend

Post B → Run through Ads Manager with different creative options for testing and running on a lower budget over more time:

• 5,100 views

• 265 IG profile views

• 9 cents per visit

• 25 euros spend (stats based on 5 days of data)

The difference? Significant.

Boosting is like fishing with a net full of holes.

Ads Manager is your full tackle box:

• Custom audience building

• Detailed targeting combinations

• Specific conversion tracking

• Split testing capabilities

• Advanced placement control

If you want to target a really specific group (and if not, let's chat about narrowing down who your ideal customer is!), like potential donors who've visited your 'how to get involved' page but haven't donated...

...good luck doing that with a boost button 🫣

Think of it this way: boosting is like having a megaphone in a crowd. Proper targeting is like having a private conversation with exactly the right person.

Your marketing budget deserves better than "hope for the best".

Stop gambling with boosts. Start engineering results. And if you need help, drop me a DM. I promise I won't scold you for boosting 🙌

Your social following isn't really yours

"But I have 10,000 followers on social media!"

Yeah, and Meta just changed their content policies again.

(If you haven't heard, Zuck is reducing the restrictions on what you can say on his platforms in the name of free speech, meaning there will be even fewer consequences for people spouting hateful opinions.)

Times like these remind us of a scary truth: your social media following isn't really yours, it belongs to the platform you focus on.

One platform change. One algorithm update. One policy shift. That's all it takes to lose access to your audience. Remember the Twitter exodus?

So how can you make sure you're safe from a platform collapse?

Smart businesses aren't building houses on rented land. Here's what they're doing instead:

• Building email lists religiously

• Creating simple, valuable digital assets they can use to drive subscriptions

• Automating their list-building systems

• Converting social followers into subscribers

• Owning their audience data

The best part? Developing that digital asset doesn't need to be complicated (you can use Canva for most of the below).

Quick wins that work:

• Checklists

• Templates

• Short guides

• Simple tools

• Mini-courses

For instance, a nutritionist might offer a meal planning tool for busy parents. A social media manager might offer content prompts for those days when you can't think what to post.

Key things to remember

Your expertise makes simple things feel too obvious to you. But those simple things are gold to others.

Only a tiny fraction of your followers will see any piece of content where you talk about your asset (which you must, loudly and often!). You're not boring people with repetition, you're giving different people the opportunity to grab your valuable thing each time you talk about it.

Start small. Start now. Start owning your audience. So when platforms change (and they will), your email list stays yours.

What could you share with your audience to bring them on to your list?

My second best piece of advice

Every social media strategist will tell you this:

Don't try to be everywhere at once on social media or you'll burn out.

But today, I want to go a little off piste and give you my second best piece of advice:

Your customer doesn't care about the same things as you.

What I mean by that is - you're very unlikely to be your own ideal customer. The things about your business that you love aren't necessarily the things about your business that will make your ideal customer pay attention. So if you want to convert that customer, your marketing needs to speak to their needs and frustrations, not the things that drive you.

Why is this important?

Because we're all time-poor and have the attention spans of small children doing homework. If something doesn't feel like it speaks directly to us, and can improve our situation, we'll scroll on by to find something that does.

Let me give you an example. A while back, I ran ads for a new grocery delivery business in my area. The founder was amazing - very eco-conscious, very driven, all about giving customers a sustainable option.

We tested different messages to see what his audience would respond to. And you know what? No-one cared about sustainability. Customers cared that they could get a freshly baked croissant delivered to their door on a Sunday morning. A little luxury trumped zero-waste by a mile. If we'd pushed the sustainability message rather than embracing what the customer cared about, sales wouldn't have been nearly as good.

So I'd highly recommend reviewing your messaging to make sure its focused on that ideal customer and what they really care about.

That, my friend, will make all the difference in engaging the 'right' people for you.

Okay. That’s my second biggest tip for lead generation via social media. Hope it helps you fill your pipeline with interesting leads.

See you on the socials,

Alex

P.S. Really want to take this advice and run with it? In my nurture package we deep dive together into exactly who your customers are and what they need to hear from you to want to engage. And then craft messaging that speaks their language.

Add to that bespoke training on how to find and engage with your ideal customers on LinkedIn and a profile overhaul and you'll be ready to stop wondering what to post and start bringing in those new opportunities with ease. My package costs £1,197, takes just 5 hours of your time, and I have two spots available for February. DM me to grab yours now!

What does success mean to you?

Sorry, you can’t be on my podcast anymore! 😱

Recently I was invited on a podcast for agency leaders and freelancers. I was meant to inspire the audience. But it turns out...

❌ my business isn't big enough

❌ I don’t make enough money

❌ I'm not frantically scaling

❌ I'm not hungry enough

So I’m not inspirational to that host's audience. To be honest, it was all a bit embarrassing.

But then I had a word with myself and breathed a sigh of relief. That audience aren't my people.

In my little corner of the internet, we celebrate:

✅ not chasing riches at all costs

✅ growing our businesses to a size we’re comfortable at

✅ using all the lead generation tools at our disposal to work with exciting clients, to challenge ourselves and to bring home the bacon without burning out

✅ growing businesses that work for us not the other way around

✅ defining success on our terms, not someone else's.

I’m here for those businesses. Those parents who are making an impact and still turning up to school pick up. Those founders who are showing younger generations that you can build something amazing without working 90 hour weeks. Those leaders who see their lead generation as a tool to make brilliant things happen, not as a grindstone. You’re inspirational to me 👏

I wanted to share this story with you because I know how exhausting the constant bombardment of hustle culture messaging is. You know the posts - you must chase 10k/20k/50k months because money is the only success metric that counts, you must be showing up constantly everywhere, you must, you must, you must etc etc. You deserve a break from that.

So this is your invitation -

Take some time today to remind yourself what success means to you as we say goodbye to 2024. Getting clear on that is fundamental to your business, and will help determine what you focus on next year. Drop me a DM and let me know!

For me, it's being able to inspire my consultancy clients into taking action on social media to transform their lead generation, and being able to bring in tangible results for my 'done for you' clients that help take their businesses to new heights. Their success is my success.

But it's also being at every school pick up and every school play. It's being able to look after my elderly mum when she needs me. It's being able to indulge my travel bug and still deliver great results. It's showing my kids that they can follow their dad into a traditional 9-5 or they can do things differently, like mum.

Whatever success means to you, I hope it includes taking some time off over Christmas. Remember, the world won't end if you don't log into LinkedIn for a fortnight, and neither will your business.

I wish you a fabulous festive season and a very happy new year. And if your new years resolution is whipping your lead generation into shape and getting clear on what to do to fill your pipeline, I'm here to support you.

Stop avoiding DMs: your guide to non-salesy outreach

'DMs are just for pushy salespeople.' Wrong! Here's why genuine conversations in your inbox could be the missing piece in your lead generation puzzle...

I get it, pitching your services and asking for calls feels uncomfortable when you're approaching a stranger. And no-one likes receiving salesy DMs. So instead you slip into DM paralysis and end up sending none at all.

But in reality, a strong DM game can be game-changing for your business. I avoided the DMs for years. Who was I to interrupt someone's day and honestly what would I say to them? Then I leaned in, and just last night I was at an event that I was invited to off the back of a DM I sent to the business owner leading it last week. You never know where reaching out to people will take you!

Here's the thing - posting great content and engaging with other people's posts will only get you so far. It's very hard to build relationships from content and comments alone. It's much easier and more meaningful 1:1, and when the majority of interaction is online, that means getting busy in the DMs.

To me, DMs serve four purposes:

1. they help build relationships with prospective clients

2. they help build relationships with people who can refer you on to their network, or collaborate with you

3. they provide opportunities to have great chats with people who don't fit into either camp but who make the DMs fun, and

4. they're an easy way to keep in touch with people from your past (working) life.

All of which helps keep your pipeline flowing and you feeling good about keeping showing up.

So, how do you show up when salesy DMs give you the ick? By keeping this in mind 👇

Don't approach the DMs looking to make a sale. Approach them looking to start a conversation.

Read that again. It's not about sales, it's about conversations.

People ultimately buy people. And who do you want to work with, the person who bombards you with long, sales-filled DMs and then a series of questions marks (Alex? ??? ????), or the person you can have a casual chat about sourdough with, leading to a chat about what you love about your business, leading to a chat about how you could work together? Exactly.

Of course not every DM will lead to a sales conversation. This is a numbers game. The more messages you send, the better you get, the higher the chance of interesting, ultimately lucrative conversations.

Here's how I inspire my clients to see DMs as part of their lead generation strategy:

1. Make it a habit > every time someone accepts a connection request from you, start a conversation (but give it a day or so).

2. Make it personal > people love a question based on their experience, so it's worth the time investment to look at their profile first and find something interesting to ask about

3. If you can't make it personal, make it casual > a simple 'how's your day going' beats 'I can get you 30 new leads by lunchtime, let's jump on a call' every day of the week.

4. Consistency is key > as with all things social media, the more consistently you show up, the easier it becomes and the easier it is to spot patterns in the DMs you send and the results you see. Test different types of messages and review what works best for your audience.

I've sent a lot of DMs in my time, and in my experience, there are two types of people when it comes to receiving a non-salesy message. Those who have zero interest in chatting to anyone they don't already know, and those who are more than willing to have a chat as long as they don't feel sold to.

For the first group, your content and your comments are your route to getting their attention.

For the second, the DMs are golden.

So, homework for this week - start building that DM habit. If this introverted, awkward Brit can do it, you definitely can too!

Talk about your services without the ick

🤔 Selling is cringy. Probably shouldn't mention the packages you offer. Stick to thought leadership and they'll come to you.

💰 If you talk about your packages, that's a bit close to talking about money. Which is crass. Avoid at all costs.

👉 All things my 90s upbringing have made me (and arguably a whole generation of women) believe. And all things that make no sense at all if you're running a business.

Let's change that.

Here's the truth:

There are people out there right now who need your services. Yes, there's a cost of living crisis. But look around—restaurants and coffee shops are still buzzing. People are still spending.

But if no one knows what you offer, how can they move from loving your content to becoming your client?

Let me share a personal story:

I follow a sustainable stylist on Instagram who is 100% aligned with my beliefs around not buying new. I followed her, I loved her content, I engaged with her posts, we DMed. We even got on a call. But after all that I had no idea what her actual services are or what they cost, so I told myself that I'd come back to it another day, and the days kept passing. The end result? I did nothing.

4 months later she put out a post that talked about one of her services. And you know what? It was exactly what I wanted. I booked her immediately. She had suddenly made it super easy for me to understand what she could do, see myself working with her and make it happen.

If the idea of selling your services makes you want to hide behind the sofa, here's what I recommend to my shyer clients:

Strategic storytelling: when you create content to share stories about your clients and how you helped them achieve XYZ, include a mention of the service they bought so your prospect can understand the types of results your services can help achieve. You don't need to talk about the cost at this stage - the prospect just needs to be able to understand what you actually offer. That means that by the time they get on a call with you, the cost is more of a formality.

Share your processes: your approach will be a significant part of what makes you stand out, so make sure that talking about it and how involved (or not) your clients are is in your content plan regularly. This makes it easy for prospects to understand how you work and to picture themselves going through those same steps. If timings are also a question that comes up a lot with your prospects, this is a great opportunity to make clear what the time investment is.

Make the most of your 'shopfront': your 'featured' section on LinkedIn is there to showcase the 2-3 things you really want your audience to know about. Make sure a link to your signature service is there. If your website offers more information and is set up to capture leads, include that on your profile too.

Your content should always be weighted towards demonstrating expertise, but don't forget to talk about what you actually offer. People are busy and easily distracted; make it really easy for them to engage with you at every single stage.

LinkedIn's fatal flaw (and what to do about it)

LinkedIn doesn't make life easy. In fact, this one tiny flaw can mess up your whole engagement strategy 😡

Picture this. You want to make connections with Marketing Managers in the UK working in finance companies. You go to the search bar and type in Marketing Manager, spend 20 seconds filtering by industry and geography and boom! A load of your ideal customers appear on your screen, ready for you to start engaging.

BUT, here's the thing.

This only works if your ideal customer has a traditional job title. The LinkedIn job title field is freeform, which means they can type literally anything. Head of Happiness, Tea Maker in Chief, Worn out Mum of Two Furbabies etc.

If they've been even remotely creative with their title - like 70% of LinkedIn's users have - the platform won't recognise it. Add to that the people who spend time on the platform but haven't updated their LinkedIn profile in 5 years, and you're missing out on reaching a load of potentially amazing connections.

So, if only 30% of the platform's members are searchable using their job title, what can you do if your people fall within the remaining 70%?

Here's what I tell my clients...

• Who inspires your ideal client? Think about who within their industry your ideal client will be looking to for inspiration. Who's 2/5/10 years ahead of them and currently sitting where they want to be? Follow those people and check out the reactions and comments on their posts - that's where the people not as far along the journey will be, absorbing wisdom and the proof it's all possible. Start conversations with them there to get on their radar.
  ​

• Up-level your search - organic search can be brilliant, but if you want super targeted search Sales Navigator is where it's at. It allows you to search by headcount and seniority (amongst a lot of other options) which avoids needing to use job titles at all. It's an investment but can you really put a price on a list of your ideal customers and the ability to connect with and DM them? (You can, it's £79.99 a month.)
  ​

• Groups are a potential goldmine (on and off LinkedIn). Look beyond groups that align with what you do (great for learning, but unlikely to bring you business) and focus on groups that relate to what your ideal customer is working on. Let's say you're a leadership coach and your ideal customer is a start up leader. You'll find them not just in groups supporting start ups, but by thinking more broadly about other things they will be thinking about at this stage in their journey. Is it tax planning? Is it securing investment? Is it marketing? Those groups exist too. These are also great opportunities to offer up your services as a guest speaker to demonstrate expertise!
  ​

• Capitalise on the audiences of others - similar to groups, think about other service providers who your ideal customer will be following and who are active on the platform. Pay attention to who's in their networks and leaving reactions and comments on their content - if these people are at the stage where they're looking at these people, they's most likely also looking for someone just like you.

The more you find and engage with these types of people, the quicker your feed will change and the easier it will be to keep finding and engaging. Happy hunting team 🕵️‍♀️

The 'kindness trap' holding back your success

"It's brilliant!", a lovely service business owner said to me the other day, "There's this group and whenever you post you just drop your link into the chat and everyone likes it to give you a boost".

This, my friends, is an engagement pod and if you're invited into one, you should run away faster than my kids when I ask them to get dressed for school.

Here's why -

Engagement pods are predominantly full of nice, normal people (probably) who want to help each other out. They think that lots of likes and comments will boost your reach and grow your business. But they're actually stopping you from growing. Why?

Well, the algorithms react to engagement. So yes, likes, comments and shares do tell the powers that be that your post is interesting. Logically this should drive increased reach.

But what the pods forget is that the algorithm doesn't just look at the AMOUNT of engagement you receive. It looks at WHO is giving you that engagement. And it will push that content out to similar people because, logically, similar people will also find it interesting.

Which is phenomenal news if you're in an engagement pod with a big pool (or even a small pool) of your absolute ideal customers. But most likely the pod is actually made up of your friends, people from your coaching group, your brother's hairdresser etc. And you don't want to reach more of those people because they will never buy your services. But that's exactly what will happen if those people are the only ones who interact with your content. Your impressions metrics might go up, but remember we're not here for impressions, we're here for clients signing on the dotted line, and one doesn't equate to the other.

That's all very well Alex, but how on earth do I make sure my content is seen by the right people? Here are my 3 top tips:

• Proactively follow and connect with your ideal customers - this will gradually fill your feeds with content from people you know you can help, which gives you an opportunity to add value to conversations they start via their posts and demonstrate your expertise.

• Cut down on your engagement with your business friends - of course be supportive, but by religiously liking and commenting you're telling the algorithm to keep showing you their content (which isn't helping them) and you're filling up your feed with similar people who likely aren't who you want to be engaging with (which isn't helping you).

• Create content that speaks to your ideal customers and demonstrates that you understand the challenges they face. Tell them, via storytelling and demonstrable results, that you are the absolute ideal person to help climb over those stumbling blocks.

Of course, none will bring you the same endorphin rush as a load of engagement, but long-term will bring you much better results. Stay strong team 💪