I get sent all sorts of marketing challenges through my free personalised marketing review. This question came up and it felt worth turning into a blog full of proper social media tips for small business owners who are feeling exactly the same way.
“Why does my social media feel salesy?”
Picture this: someone’s doing everything right, they’re posting, they’re networking, they’ve even set up a lead magnet and a lovely new monthly offer, and they still message me because they feel like every post is a bit much. Like they’re constantly asking for something.
That’s exactly what one female founder asked me recently. She’d already done all the things you’re “supposed” to do, a new offer, a lead magnet, consistent posting, and was still getting nowhere with it.
So I watched her content back, the way I do for every review, and it really didn’t feel salesy to me. Not even a little bit. It felt like someone who knows their stuff talking about the thing they help people with. When you’re the one writing it, sending it, and then watching it not immediately convert into clients, of course it starts to feel like you’re pushing. But that feeling and the reality rarely match up, and going through her review section by section shows why.
It probably isn’t as salesy as it feels
If you’ve got case studies, a genuine offer, and something useful to say, telling people about it isn’t salesy, it’s just marketing. What felt to her like “here I am again, asking for something” would read to most people scrolling past as “here’s someone who understands my problem.” You’re too close to your own content to judge it fairly, and that’s true for basically everyone I review, not just her. If this is you, try reading your last five posts as a stranger would, not as the person who wrote them.
Her LinkedIn bio was written for people, not search
Her bio and About section were lovely, but written more for a human reading top to bottom than for LinkedIn’s search function. LinkedIn is a search engine, and people are typing phrases into it. If those phrases aren’t in your profile, you’re invisible to exactly the people who need you. Go back through your own About section and think about what your ideal client would actually type into that search bar, then make sure it’s in there.
Her networking talk and her social media weren’t saying the same thing
She’s out networking regularly, which is brilliant, but I couldn’t see much crossover between what she was likely saying in the room and what was going out on social. If you’re consistently talking about your hero offer face to face, your social media should be saying the same thing, so you’re not reinventing what to post every single week. Consistency isn’t boring, it’s what lets people build a proper picture of what you do.
She hadn’t pinned down exactly who she was talking to
“Female founders” or “small business owners” is a start, but where are they, and what’s the specific thing keeping them up at night? That’s the bit worth getting specific about. Once you know the actual question your audience is asking, you can answer it in a webinar, a post, a guide, whatever suits how they prefer to learn, rather than guessing at content and hoping it works.
She wasn’t set up to be found yet
No website yet, and no Google Business Profile for the service she wanted to grow. Both fixable, and both mean people searching for exactly what she offers currently can’t find her. You don’t need anything fancy to start, there are AI tools now that will build you a simple website in an afternoon, and a Google Business Profile takes twenty minutes and costs nothing.
And she needed to give herself some grace
She’s four months into this business. Four months. And she’s already networking consistently, building an offer, setting up a lead magnet, and getting some recommendations. That’s not nothing, that’s a lot of foundations laid in a short space of time. If you’re newer than you’d like to be and it feels slow, that doesn’t mean it’s not working, it just means you’re early.
Does any of this sounds familiar? You’re probably doing better than it feels like from where you’re sitting.
If you’d like your own marketing looked at like this, completely free, you can submit your question for a personalised video review, just like the one this blog came from.
