As marketers, we want to make sure that the content we make reach our audiences in a meaningful way. However, with the dawn of Reels, it feels like creating content purely for the objective of reach is becoming an increasingly common tactic.⁠ 🤔⁠

⁠There’s no denying that seeing those numbers tick over on your Reels feels good…but at the end of the day, this number is a vanity metric, not a conversion metric. We’re not suggesting you throw in the towel on your content creation but we’re going to explain three reasons why going viral doesn’t translate to meaningful results! 

💬 Remember quality over quantity 

With current trends, greater reach may not mean greater connection. 

Instagram is prioritising reels over all other content right now, so even though your reels may be reaching more people, consider the quality of this connection. 

Are you stimulating a two way conversation with this reel? Are you inciting proactive engagement? Are people commenting, DMing you or asking about your offer?

Of course it’s nice to be flexing 5K views but does this content actually foster quality conversations with your audience? 

👀 The who is far more critical than the volume 

The thing about reach, is that we all have a very specific target market (or we should have 😉) that we want to speak to. 

If the reach is huge, but they’re not your ideal audience, “going viral” will lead to great brand awareness but it usually won’t attract more leads or more sales. 

Unless your product or service solves a universal problem or fulfills a universal desire (which is incredibly rare since we’re not all coca cola) – going viral shouldn’t be your primary business goal. 

💰️There is no clear offer or call to action for people to convert 

⁠When constructing content to maximise reach, don’t forget to have a clear conversion call out. Tag your product, share how people can connect, plug your offer… it’s great to get more eyeballs on your content, but even better to take people on a journey to conversion.⁠

~Explain every step of the journey~

With consumer experiences, it’s incredibly important to not make any assumptions of knowledge or digital literacy. 

What we mean by this is don’t assume that a user will know that the link to your promo is in your bio. Tell them that at the end of your caption and even put an emoji pointing upwards. 

Guide them so there’s no point in the user journey where they can get lost or confused. The easier and clearer the journey is, the more likely you’re going to acquire conversions. 

⁠

–

What do you think – does reach equal success? Have we swayed your perceptions on going viral? What will you do differently after reading this?⁠