Stop Posting for Followers: What Actually Builds a Brand Online

This week on Marketing Sucks, Amanda and Phil are calling out one of the biggest mistakes brands are still making online: posting for followers instead of posting for interest. They break down why chasing trends, vanity metrics, and random viral moments might grow your audience, but will not necessarily grow your business. Instead, they unpack what it really means to create content that earns attention from the right people, gets shared, gets saved, and actually builds trust. From how people use Instagram like a search engine to why behaviour matters more than likes, this episode is a sharp, practical conversation on what modern content strategy actually looks like right now. If your content is getting seen but not doing anything, this is the reset you need.

What You’ll Learn

 ✔ Why posting for followers is different from posting for real interest
 ✔ Why smaller, more loyal audiences often outperform larger ones
 ✔ How social platforms are acting more like search engines than ever before
 ✔ Why saves, shares, and watch behaviour matter more than vanity metrics
 ✔ How to create content people actually care about if they do not know your brand yet
 ✔ Five practical ways to shift from trend chasing to interest-based content strategy

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome back to Marketing Sucks. I'm your host, Amanda Casino.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

And I'm your co-host, Phil Ginther.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

And what sucks today, Mr. Ginther?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Posting for followers, and not because it's interesting or relevant.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

What? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

It sucks that people just post for followers.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Oh, yeah. No, we're not doing that anymore. This isn't like the COVID era. Like we're not posting just to gain followers. That's not what it's for.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I got a new follower. Zero sales. But one follower.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah, I mean, it's not even about the sales anymore. It's just, I think, like before we used to have this notion that like the more followers equaled more credibility or equaled more revenue or equaled, equaled, equaled, equaled, right? Where actually I'm finding now accounts with smaller, more loyal followers have larger success than some of the larger uh accounts out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, because they're relevant, because they're interesting, because you want to watch or consume what they're creating.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah. So when we're talking about kind of posting for followers, what that means is essentially you're just posting to do like trends, right? Like that's what I usually see. So it's a lot of like you're looking at accounts that are kind of copying other big accounts that are getting success for their content. There's really no strategy behind it. They're kind of all over the place. The messaging is a little bit skewed. So you're not really sure what you're getting out of that account. So like that's what I mean by posting for followers. They're looking for like virality, they're looking for that moment that's gonna like bring a thousand people to their being online for the sake of being online.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Versus when we're posting for interest, right? Meaning I'm gonna target those people that are interested in speak in in sorry, listening to what I have to say or or wanting to take advantage of what our offers are or what it is that we do here and helping, that's different, right? So if I'm posting for followers, I probably am going to get on the trends. I'm gonna find those viral moments. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just don't be surprised when that like 10,000 people or like pool doesn't actually buy anything. So when we post for interest, the difference is that we're posting for the people that we serve, the people that we actually can help, because it's a very targeted, very specific type of content.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, I I think about like, you know, when when you open any app, what your your intention is, right? So I open the weather app, it's because I want to know the weather. I open Instagram, it's probably because I want to be entertained or I want to find the latest spot to eat. I don't really care to see any more dance videos or recaps. Yeah, this isn't TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So when we think about, let's say specifically Instagram, but truly I think this is across all social platforms now. Definitely YouTube, definitely TikTok. I'm not gonna include LinkedIn in it because that's more of like a professional yet somehow not professional area's quotation. Yeah, like not professional area. So let's talk about like the actual, like truly social apps. Everything there right now is shaped by recommendations, the search behavior, watch history, relevance. So we know that specifically on TikTok and Instagram, that keyword-based search ads are because of the user's content, like the discover content. And that is intentionally and by accident. So whether you are searching or it's based on your history. So for instance, this is where it gets interesting for posting for interest and not posting for followers. There's actually a likelihood that a complete stranger will find your content before one of your followers does.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Which is like the exact opposite of what you think will happen.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

However, the followers that engage constantly with your content will be delivered your content first because they've trained their algorithm that they like what it is that you're doing. So they will be served, but that's not a hundred percent of your followers all the time, unless you have a highly, highly engaged community, which is obviously the goal here, so that we can have sales. So we're posting for interest content. So when we open our apps, now the the question that most people are asking is like, is this what I needed? Right. And if it is, they'll most likely share it. So for instance, if I open my app and I want like I'm looking for date night stuff. Like we personally have a lot of shared folders.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

That is a giant list of restaurants to check off.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Well, we have restaurants. I have a restaurant folder. I treat my Instagram folder like a Google Drive. So it's like so my safe folders are like restaurants, and it's and it's categorized, right? So like Toronto restaurants, Europe restaurants, like usually by country that we're like visiting, travel like deals, anything that I see coming up. And then I think I I also have a couple that you're not on. My folders also include like water, yeah, there's a lot. Oh my gosh. We also have a recipes one that we share, but then I also have like a crafting one. I have a plant one. I save you from the plant ones because I save all the plant chips.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, I don't need the plant one.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

However, what's great about that is that it's that savable content, and I'm sharing it with the people that are appropriate that want that type of content. But I'm I'm I'm using the app as like my search engine. And we know this is now the case because when we look at the search, like open up your Instagram right now. They did some changes over the last week, and it no longer, when you when you type, like let's say you type, I don't know, Toronto restaurant, it actually doesn't just say Toronto restaurants anymore. They're full formed questions. So it's acting like a Google search bar, which is funny because I've been talking about treating your fucking social media like Google for so long because I knew this was where it was headed. So it's it's not just, you know, the the trust and retention of the followers anymore that you need, but they're also like a distribution for you. And so if we're if we're focused on our interest-based content, then we're gonna be sending that content to other people who are interested. Hence you will get better followers that way versus posting for just followers who you hope will eventually become interested in your content.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, and so it makes sense. I mean, it makes sense to me. But I think it it comes down to one simple question whenever you're creating something, which is if someone doesn't know me, why would they be interested in this right now? It's an open-ended question.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, because we're not just gonna be on brand anymore. Nobody cares about your brand until they know what your brand stands for. So you need to be on interest. So, what does your brand connect to that's interesting right now, that's relevant in the world? There's a lot of brands that are falling behind right now because they're still doing tactics from like 2024 that are just not gonna cut it. So, like, we need to stay ahead. And so I'm only gonna be interested in your brand if it's relevant to the things that I'm interested in.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I uh does that make sense? Yeah, am I making sense?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

I don't know. I feel like I'm just going on a tear right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Well, I'm I'm picking up what you're putting down. But I think like when I look at my own like online behavior, I do you ever get those surveys that pop up and they're like, Do you re do you recall seeing an ad for these five brands? YouTube does this a lot.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I've never seen that. No?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

I get it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

You're always on YouTube, but you're on YouTube because of our clients.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

But every single time I'm like, hmm. Like I don't recall any of that because it wasn't something served for me in this way, right? It was more of like an awareness play, like, oh, I'm just gonna throw paint at the wall and hope you know somebody clicks this link. So I always find it interesting that like there's a lot of money still being spent on this old playbook instead of just hey, like, drive some curiosity, like you know, figure out what is important to your audience, what you can talk about, how you can like just engage with them in a in a really simple way. I think we overcomplicate this a lot of the time. Anyways, I digress. So YouTube does these surveys. I never have retention on the content I get served up because again, has no interest to me. I'm interested in the channel I'm on, but not the ads that are associated with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, but that's ads. I feel like that's a different world. YouTube's a different beast. We'll talk about YouTube a different day because I feel like YouTube does that, but like Instagram doesn't do that. It'll just be like, do you want to see more of this? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, they don't do the specifics.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

No, they won't do specifics because you have to think about YouTube with long form content. Like you're sitting there for a while. So ads that are coming through, you have more of an attention spot, attention span for it, right? Because you're sitting. I'm like like I'm watching TV. So I'm sitting, I'm watching an episode. Let's say even if it's 10 minutes long, and let's say there's three 30-second ads. Well, I've probably more than likely sat through those 30-second ads, or I've gotten up to like go to the bathroom and get something, like when you were little and like you're like, I got one minute before my show's on, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

The the panel. Running around the still breaking.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah. So that's different. Where an Instagram or a TikTok or even like a YouTube shorts, it's this constant tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, like just sliding through as many pieces of content as possible. So for them to ask that kind of question is kind of dumb because you you literally on insta on Instagram in one full minute, I can consume up to like a hundred pieces of content if I'm really not a jury.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

You're an absolute beast when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

It's not. That's that's the user ability. That that's how it is.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I would probably get like, let's say they did that question. I probably wouldn't even like register.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Would it register it because you'd be like ad and like flip through it? So if it doesn't work on a platform like Instagram, but what what Instagram and TikTok, it'll literally be like, like, for instance, in my notifications, it's like, do you like these types of notifications? And I can click yes or no. And if I click no, I'm not gonna get those fucking notifications anymore, which is great, because some of them are really annoying. Or it'll say, like, did you like this piece of content? Like that may come up. I've seen that once or twice, but I don't think it works in in the way that you're saying it. I understand what you're coming from, but like that's I think very specific to YouTube and the YouTube platform.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

But I think I think the same the same rule applies though for consuming content, say on Instagram. If it doesn't hold relevance or grab my curiosity, I am not A, I'm not gonna save it, B, I'm not gonna share it, and C, I probably won't register that it even went into my feed because I'm looking for something entirely different.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, yeah, no, you're not even gonna, you're not even gonna follow the person. So I get that. So what what we have to look at, because we're gonna go into some action items, is is answering one question for your content. And that is, why would someone who doesn't know me care about this right now? So somebody who doesn't know your brand, why should they care about what it is that you are posting about? And so we have to post. If we're posting to be on interest and not for followers, then we have to post to intercept the curiosity of the person that we want to attract.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Sounds kind of badass. Maybe we put that on a intercept curiosity.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Intercept curiosity. It sounds really funny. Imagine a really bad like course name. Okay. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you five practical ways to make this switch towards interest media and not just like random happenstance get followers and follow the trend stuff. And listen, following trends is fine as long as it makes sense for your brand. I will say that. That's my last thing. Okay, so number one, we're gonna audit your content by behavior, not format. So the type of content you've posted doesn't matter. So let's say it's like static, carousel, video, long form, short form, whatever. What I want you to do is I actually want you to look at the behavior in which somebody took or your audience took on that piece of content. So most watched, saved, shared, who cares about likes? Doesn't matter about that. But like what were the behaviors that they took and what behavior in the content did it trigger, right? So like what was it about it? Like what behavior like made that KPI possible? So the behavior is the KPI, not like how many likes you got.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Which is a bit of a switch, because back to one of my old corporate stories, we would always, we'd always look at, okay, well, how many, how many reels do we need this week? How many, you know, posts, etc. It was never by what is our what is our audience doing with our content. Yeah. And so it's a great place to start with that.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, and and I want to know what you're doing with the content because it it helps to shape future content, right? Because if something completely flops, and probably I'll probably try it one more time in a in a different spin, just to make sure like my idea does land somewhere. And sometimes it doesn't, and that's fine. But I'm gonna also take what the audience gives me. And why would I just continue to make the exact same type of content that's not going anywhere? That's not like number one, bringing me new people or being shared or like not showing like a behavior that matters. Like, why would I keep doing that? That's that I think that's literally the definition of insanity, like doing the same thing over and over again, not getting any different results. So we're gonna stop doing that. So, step two is I want you to build the content around recurring interests, not random brand updates. So we need to understand what you bring to the table and who cares. And so the brand updates happen, right? So, like we can have the founder updates, we can have the team updates, we can have like new product launches, core stuff. Like, of course, we need all of that. But I want you to literally talk about what it is you do, who it is you serve, what makes you different, what makes you unique, what's your positioning on something. And you're gonna do this over and over and over and over again. The brands that do this the best literally have the same messaging in every single piece of content, no matter the content type.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

You'll just find that same thing in there over and over.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Because listen, here's the thing is like my piece of content is only gonna go like you're gonna see it once, and then you're gonna go by. So then, but maybe you actually gave it an iota of like an iota, an iota, specific measurement, right? Of like care. So like I kind of paused on it just for like a millisecond more than I did something else. Well, you know, the algorithm's gonna be like, oh, she paused.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

So what's that about?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Let's send her another piece. Now, if that other piece of content was anything as similar to that piece that I kind of paused on, I'm probably gonna pause again. And then I might have interest, and then I might go to your account, and then I might be like, oh, this content all is great because this is exactly what I was looking for in whatever genre you want to talk that you want to think about. So we need to keep literally posting the same thing over and over and over again, just in different unique ways, different ways of saying it, different positioning, but the message is the same. Make sense?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I just I was curious how like I think I've said makes sense, like 5,000 fucking.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

You're looking at me like I'm not in the room.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

You're I I feel we're both very tired today, so I'm looking at you like are you picking up what I'm putting down?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yes. Okay, your your recurring question is helping me.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Great.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Very good. Number three make your content searchable and curiosity friendly. So no long-winded intros, nonsense, other things like that. Like we s we search like little kids, right? We use the most basic question that can come to our minds for what we're looking to solve. We're not asking long-winded things. So, like when you're when you're creating, just get into it. You don't need to give me a big upfront. I don't need any of that. And I just I don't know, don't make it hard for people to understand. Keep it simple. That's always the rule, you know, when we're talking about marketing. Don't overcomplicate things.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, I just there's a lot of preamble that goes into a lot of content that like, and that's fine, record that part, like because it helps you warm up to get to the good stuff. But when you're editing, just edit out the preamble.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Slice it.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Like, I'm happy when like we're recording with clients and they want to add a little zhuzh here and there, and they they they want to add, you know, just like extra information. And nine times out of ten, we use it, but we're slicing it up into like multiple pieces because the reality is if we're talking about like social media marketing specifically, there is a component for long form, and we'll do a whole episode on that later. But when it comes to like certain apps, you need to stay in line with what the app and your customers and your followers are telling you they like. So there may be certain instances where your customers love a good sit-down, tell you a story for 90 seconds. Great, then keep doing that. But the the majority of accounts, the the the customer base is not doing that, especially for like newer brands or not so seasoned brands. I'm not gonna say makes. I was waiting.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Number four.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Number four is we want you to write, these are like practical ways to make the switch towards interest media. So, number four is we're not gonna just post one type of content. So saveable, shareable, not one and done. Like we need to test, we need to learn. And a lot of times I find people are only testing like one type at a time, and then they give up when it doesn't go like quote unquote viral. And that's just not the attitude to take. There are large accounts right now struggling to even get like a thousand views on stuff. So like it's not just you, but we don't care about those numbers. What we care about is what are people doing with the content. So we're going back to that behavior metric. We're not going back, we're not gonna like go and like regress into vanity metrics.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, yeah. So like I always think about why I rarely save things. It's like just not a habit for me. So when I do, it's because I need something that's in that that I have to reference at a later time. So, you know, those like it could be like a restaurant or a travel destination, and they give you super quick cuts and then they'll hide like the name of the place in the middle. And I'm like, I don't have time to go back for that right now, and click save, and I'll go. And so that's of use to me because it's structured in a way that my uh my behavior like almost demands that I save that.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah. And also I would say, like, from a shareable standpoint, it's what would it take to make this person share this with a like-minded friend, family, business, colleague, team, whatever that is, that will go really far for you. So when we're looking at how we're structuring the content, think about like what would it take for me to have to share this, right? Or what would it take for that person to share this? Like it's it, it's a little bit of extra work. And this is why like content shouldn't just be done like quickly and at a whim. Like it should be really thought out from like all aspects of like a behavioral psychology standpoint. That's when we get really good content.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

I like when you nerd out like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, I know. I'm a nerd. All right, give me number five. Number five, and then let's wrap up because we have so much more to record today. So step five is test, test, test. We've kind of gone over this. I think I say this in every single freaking episode, but basically we want to look at like pain points, just to give you some examples, some myth busting, search intent topics, proof topics, and then see what happens and do more, right? Yep. Test, learn, test, learn, test, fail, learn from the failures, test, win, learn from the wins. It's all good. We fail all the time. Nobody is perfect here. But when we do have those wins, you better believe that we are going to sit and like tear it apart and say, why did this work? Not just why did this fail.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah, you'll never, you'll never figure it out unless you try new topics.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

So, with that being said, we want you to go go audit your content right now, go look for the behavioral patterns, go do more of that. Let us know how it goes. And if you love the podcast, share it, save it, leave us a review, follow us on the socials at grind social media. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next week. Bye.