Why Your Posts Don't Reach Your Followers (and What to Do)

If you're posting every day and still not getting clients, the first thing to know is why your posts don't reach your followers. Most of them never see what you post. In this post I'll break down how reach really works, why your followers may not be your buyers, and what to use instead to get in front of the right people every day.

Why your posts reach so few people

Here's what most coaches don't realize. When you post on social media, it doesn't even go to all of your followers.

Walk through it with me. This is a rough picture, and every platform is a little different, but at a high level it works like this.

• Say you have 500 followers.
• When you post, it goes to about 30 of them first. Usually your most loyal people.
• If those 30 like it, it goes to the next 70.
• If those people engage, then it shows to the rest of your followers.
• Only if people keep liking, commenting, and sharing at every step does it go beyond your followers and start to go viral.

And so for most posts, most of your followers never see it.

Want to go even deeper? Watch the full video.

Your followers may not be your ideal clients

It gets worse. A lot of coaches post on accounts they've had for years. Your followers are your aunt, the neighbor across the street, old friends from school. They're great people. They're just not your ideal client, and they're not going to engage.

Let's say you help women over 40 get stronger and lose weight. Only a small slice of your current followers fit that. So your posts keep getting stuck at a hundred views, talking to the same 150 people over and over, and those people aren't buying.

Usually it's one of two things:

• The wrong message. Your posts don't call out your ideal client clearly.
• The wrong audience. This is the most common one. The right people just aren't there.

Post long enough and your message will get better. But most coaches post just to post, because it feels like the right thing to do. There's no system. And hoping something takes off is not how you get consistent leads or consistent revenue. If this sounds familiar, I wrote more about why your coaching content isn't getting clients.

Organic content vs paid ads: what each one is good at

Can you go viral and get a flood of new people from content? Yes, absolutely. Is it common? No. For the average coach, it's not going to happen often.

So here's how I would recommend you split it:

• Paid ads are for generating leads. Getting in front of new people who don't know you.
• Organic content is for nurturing. Building trust with people who already know you exist.

Content can generate some leads. But its real strength is nurturing. Let's look at each one.

Why paid ads are the most consistent way to get leads

With an ad, you tell Facebook exactly who you want. "Show this to women over 40 who follow these interests and fit these criteria. Only them." Now you're not hoping your ideal client finds your post. You're putting it right in front of them, even if they've never followed you.

The numbers get predictable

This is the part I love. Once ads are running, you can see every step. Here's an example of how the math works.

• You give Facebook $20 a day.
• About 2% of people who see the ad click on it.
• About 40% of those people give you their name, phone number, and email.
• That turns into a certain number of leads every day.

Then you call those leads, have conversations, and follow your process. And so $20 a day, times however many days, turns into a number you can plan around. Instead of posting and hoping, you're putting money in and leads are coming out.

If you're wondering what to start with, here's how much a coach should spend on Facebook ads to start.

One good ad can run for months

You do want to keep testing ads. But you don't need to keep making new ones every day. I've had ads running for 6 months, 12 months, that are still bringing in leads profitably. By profitably I mean we make more on the back end than we spend.

Compare that to the content hamster wheel. Make content, make more content, make more content, and it's still not working. With an ad, you make one piece once and put it in front of your ideal client over and over. To know when an ad has run its course, use this Meta ads cheat sheet for when to kill, keep, or scale.

How to use organic content the right way

Some of you might be thinking, "Chris, why are you hating on content?" I'm not. Content is great. We just use it for a different job.

For someone to buy from you, they need to know you, like you, trust you, and see you as an authority who can solve their problem. Could you build all of that on a bunch of calls? Yeah, you can. But if a system could do it automatically, why wouldn't you?

That's what content does. Once a lead comes in from an ad, your content warms them up on autopilot. They watch a few videos and they start to feel like they know you.

So what should that content be? Simple. Make content that speaks right to your ideal client. Their pain points. The questions they ask themselves. The problems they want solved.

The system: generate, nurture, book

To put it all together, posting endlessly is not likely to get you the results you want. Results come from a system with three parts.

• Generate leads with paid ads.
• Nurture those leads with content.
• Book them on sales calls.

When each piece does its own job, you stop relying on luck.

FAQ

Why do my Instagram posts get so few views?

Posts are shown to a small group of followers first. If they don't engage, it stops there. And if your followers aren't your ideal clients, they usually won't engage.

Can a coach get clients from organic content alone?

It can happen, especially if you go viral. But for most coaches it's not consistent. Content works best for building trust with leads you already have.

How much should I spend on ads as a coach?

Start small enough that you're comfortable, like the $20 a day example, track your numbers, and grow the budget once you see what a lead turns into.

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