Have you ever asked yourself, “Why don’t my followers see my social media posts?”
I hate to say it, but you’re suffering from what I’ve coined ‘Unseen Post Syndrome’! Thankfully, it’s curable, but since I’ve seen it in countless small businesses, I‘ll explain one real reason for you in this social media blog post. Feel free to share it around to anyone else who may have wondered about the same question!
So, the question is, “Why don’t my followers see my posts?”
Plain and Simple, Social Media is a Numbers Game
I hear many different people talk about different causes of Unseen Post Syndrome. They talk about things like algorithms, level of engagement, and whether you spend money on ads or not. I understand the logic behind them.
However, as I see it, all those things are compounding factors of what I believe is a basic core answer to the question, “Why don’t my followers see my posts?”, which I believe can be summarized in 2 concepts:
NUMBERS & TIME
Since you likely have hundreds or even thousands of followers, you feel like a good portion SHOULD see your posts. However, you continually see minimal engagement with only a couple likes and maybe 1 or 2 comments or shares at the most.
Trust me… I GET IT! I’ve been there and some days, I still am! (Keep in mind, content has a lot to do with it, too, but we’ll cover that in the ‘cure’ blog post later!)
To understand one simple reason why your posts aren’t seen though, I’m going to ask you to look beyond YOUR page’s number to some numbers that really do have more of an impact than anyone ever talks about.
Using Facebook as an example, as it’s the most used by small businesses, let’s bring those numbers into greater focus:
THREE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
1) 350: From a search of the internet, this seems to be around the average number of friends that someone on Facebook has.
2) 325: This is the number of ‘pages’ liked by 1 person. It’s not an average, it’s my personal number, but from what I found on the internet it seems a good average starting point.
3) 675: This is the total of the 2 above numbers. It basically means that the average user who likes the same number of pages I do has 675 different sources of information competing for space on their news feed.
NOW, THE TIME FACTOR (And 2 more NUMBERS)…
4) 45 minutes: This symbolizes what seems to approximate the average amount of time that someone uses Facebook on a daily basis as my search uncovered estimates ranging from 35 to 55 minutes and I’m using the mid-point for basic discussion. That’s a lot of time, but how many people spend 45 minutes, just 1 time a day, on Facebook? Probably a small percentage, so here’s 1 more number
5) 5 to 9 minutes: Assuming that most people ‘check in’ to their facebook account anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day, they’re really only checking in for an average of about 7 minutes at a time. How much do you think they can read in 7 minutes?
SUMMING IT ALL UP
So now you can understand a significant answer to, “Why don’t my followers see my posts?”
Plain and simple, even if EVERY POST of every friend and page was shown in a simple sequence, the odds of your followers seeing YOUR latest post in a string of 675 pieces of information are pretty low. Feel free to look at your own social media accounts to see how your #s add up personally.
So there you have it… As I see it, the root cause of Unseen Post Syndrome is simply because Social Media is SO WIDELY USED that ‘getting seen’ has become a key challenge for EVERYONE!
FEAR NOT THOUGH… UNSEEN POST SYNDROME IS TREATABLE!
Over the past 10 years, I suffered from countless bouts of Unseen Post Syndrome. I was always driven to conquer this challenge though! Now that I’ve moved past them, I’m moving on to sharing these solutions with small businesses. That’s why I created my Making Social Simple workshops.
Whether you ever decide to click here to learn about the workshops or not, I hope that this blog helps you realize that if you focus on what you CAN control, that is the start of Making Social Simple for YOUR business!
