Social dilemma: Are you posting for customers or just the algorithm?

If you manage social media marketing for an Irish or European business, you probably feel this tension every week. One part of your brain is trying to serve real customers. The other is quietly worrying that the platform will punish you if you do not post another hooky, trend-friendly update.

Impressions look healthy. Engagement rates are fine. Yet sales leads are flat, and nobody in the sales team can point to a single deal that started from your most liked post.

This is the social dilemma at the heart of modern social media marketing. The good news is that you do not have to pick a side. With a clearer approach, you can create social content that works for both people and platforms, and build a healthier pipeline in the process.

Why this dilemma matters for social media marketing now

For many SMEs and mid-sized organisations, social media marketing used to be a side channel. Today it is how customers research you, how staff and partners talk about you, and how people decide whether they want to work with you at all.

At the same time, social feeds are overloaded with recycled content, algorithms keep changing what gets rewarded, and short-form trends can make serious brands feel silly very quickly. In this environment, chasing reach without a strategy is risky. It dilutes your positioning, confuses customers about what you actually do, and burns budget on activity that never connects back to sales or service.

From a Dublin digital agency vantage point, the businesses that win at social media marketing are not the loudest. They are the ones that connect their social activity directly to customer needs and measurable outcomes.

The algorithm trap in social media marketing

Nobody sits down and says, “Let us create posts for robots today.” The drift is gradual.

You jump on every new format, meme or viral sound, even when it does not match your tone, audience or sector. Reports obsess over impressions, followers and engagement rates, but say little about website visits, high-intent actions, or any movement in your sales or recruitment pipeline. To keep volume high, you push out similar posts across all channels, leaning on generic tips, stock imagery and the same vague calls to action.

When someone asks how your social media marketing supports this quarter’s goals, the answer feels woolly. That is usually the moment you realise the algorithm has become the main stakeholder.

What customers actually want from your social channels

On the other side of the dilemma are real people with limited time and clear jobs to do.

Customers, partners and potential hires arrive on your profiles looking for reassurance that you are credible and active, useful information that helps them make a decision, proof that you can do what you claim, and small signals of culture that show what it might be like to work with you.

If your feed is full of clever hooks but light on substance, these visitors leave with no clearer sense of who you are. When your social media marketing answers their questions and reflects your real strengths, those same channels become part of how you sell, hire and retain.

Social media marketing that works for people and platforms

This is not about ignoring algorithms. It is about finding an approach to social media marketing that respects the way people actually scroll, while still giving platforms enough structure to understand and distribute your content.

A good starting point is to base your posts on real customer questions. Pull material from sales calls, support tickets and account reviews. Turn the problems people describe in their own words into straightforward posts that offer a practical answer or perspective. Carousels, short videos and simple graphics all work here, as long as they stay focused on clarity rather than cleverness for its own sake.

Strong hooks still matter, but they should promise real value rather than try to game the system. Naming a concrete problem and hinting at a specific outcome – for example, “Three simple ways to stop losing leads in your contact form” – gives people a reason to stop scrolling and gives the algorithm something to latch on to.

Proof is another area where human and platform needs overlap. Short case study snippets, before-and-after stories and quotes from real customers are more likely to be shared and discussed than yet another sweeping claim about innovation. The more your social media marketing shows, rather than tells, the easier it is for people to trust you.

Crucially, each post should make it easy for someone interested to take a next step. That might be a deeper guide on your site, a webinar sign-up, or a simple invitation to reply with a question. It does not have to be a hard sell in every update, but the path from curiosity to action should always be visible.

A simple reset for your social media marketing

If you suspect you have drifted towards content that mainly exists to please the algorithm, you can reset without tearing everything up.

Start by reviewing the last few months of activity. Look at your posts channel by channel and ask three blunt questions: who is this really for, what is it trying to achieve, and did anything meaningful happen as a result? Patterns appear quickly. You will notice clusters of posts that drove lots of superficial engagement but never led to a conversation, enquiry, sign-up or application.

Next, tidy up your metrics. Keep reach and engagement, but demote them from headline numbers to context. Bring forward the measures that link to actual outcomes, such as qualified leads from social, event registrations, applications for priority roles, or on-site behaviour from social visitors. When you present social media marketing reports in these terms, it becomes easier for leadership to see why the work matters – and easier for you to defend or adjust the budget.

From there, sketch a simple content framework rather than a rigid calendar. Define a handful of content pillars that are rooted in customer needs: helping people make decisions, showing how you work behind the scenes, telling impact stories, or sharing perspectives on your sector. Within each pillar, list formats that have worked for your audience so far. This gives you structure without strangling spontaneity.

Finally, reconnect social media marketing with the rest of your digital picture. Follow the path from a social post through to your landing pages, contact points and follow-up. If someone clicks through and still has to dig to find what they need, there is work to do on UX, content or forms. Social should feel like the first step in a joined-up experience, not a standalone stream that hands people off to a disconnected website.

Working with a digital partner who keeps social human

Part of the pressure around social media marketing comes from expecting internal teams to do everything – strategy, content, design, analytics and community management – alongside their main roles. That is where a good external partner can add real value, not by flooding your feeds with more posts, but by helping you make smarter choices.

A useful partner will help you decide which platforms and formats genuinely suit your audience, connect your social work to clear commercial or organisational goals, design campaigns that work across channels, and build reporting that your leadership team can read in a single glance.

From a Dublin digital agency standpoint, the social media marketing strategies that succeed over time share one trait: they start with people and let the algorithms catch up, not the other way around.

Choose people first, numbers second

The social dilemma is real, but it is not unsolvable.

If you begin with customer questions, talk in plain language, measure the things that actually move your organisation forward, and treat social media marketing as part of a broader digital experience, platform performance tends to improve as a side effect rather than the only goal.

Algorithms will keep changing. Customer needs will not. Building your social media marketing around those needs is the safest long-term bet – and a far more satisfying way to work.