Why Likes on Social Media Don’t Matter as Much as You Think

Stop Worrying About Likes.

Likes on social media don’t matter nearly as much as the enquiries they are meant to lead to. This is a message we are constantly trying to get through to clients.

We are Sokada, a family-run web design and marketing agency in Heathfield, and we help small businesses get more enquiries. That means that we count the phone ringing and the contact form being filled in, not the hearts piling up under a post.

If your marketing is not turning into work, the likes are not the wins they feel like.

Why Your Post Gets Likes But The Phone Still Doesn’t Ring.

This catches a lot of business owners off guard. You put up a post, it does well, friends and old customers tap the heart, and it feels like something is working. Then the month ends, and you have had no more enquiries than usual. We have been guilty of it ourselves, watching the numbers tick up and reading it as progress. The trouble is that engagement and enquiries are two different things. A like costs the person nothing. An enquiry means someone has decided they might actually pay you. One does not reliably lead to the other.

Likes Don’t Pay The Bills.

The maths is the easiest way to see it. Say you are a builder, and your average job is around £10,000 at a 25% margin. That is £2,500 of profit from one job. A like is worth nothing in the bank, not a penny. You could have a thousand likes and an empty diary, or three solid enquiries and a month of work booked in. We know which one pays the wages.

That is why we are wary of the like count; it is a vanity metric. It feels good and measures the wrong thing.

Why Likes on Social Media Don’t Matter as Much as You Think.

When you strip it back, a like is a number that flatters you, and a lead is a number that feeds you. The businesses we see struggling are often the ones putting all their energy into social media and treating the likes as the scoreboard, while the website sits there doing very little.

The reality is, your website and social media need to work in harmony with each other. Your social media should be directing people to your website, and your website should be your salesperson. Likes on social media don’t matter if nobody is being guided towards getting in touch. Attention is only useful when it has somewhere to go. That somewhere is almost always a website built to turn interest into an enquiry.

This is what Sokada do best. Our website & marketing package means you get everything dealt with, and working in unison.

What Brings Actually Enquiries In.

This is what we care about most. The businesses that get a steady flow of enquiries are not the ones with the biggest following; they are the ones whose website and marketing are joined up and pulling in the same way.

A website built to turn visitors into enquiries, sat behind SEO, that puts you in front of people already looking for what you do. A Google Business Profile that shows up in the local map when someone nearby needs you. And more and more, being found in AI search when people ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or other AI searches for a recommendation, which leans on clean schema and consistent business details. These are the really important things.

Likes sit a long way down that list. If you want to see it in practice, our case studies show the results we have got for other small businesses. The common thread is never the social following; it is the system underneath.

Where Social Media Still Has a Job to Do.

None of this means you need to delete your accounts. Social media keeps you visible, builds a bit of trust, and reminds past customers you are still around. It can feed people towards your website, which is where the actual enquiry happens. So post away, but treat it as one part of your marketing, not the scoreboard. The mistake is putting all your effort into chasing engagement and leaving the website and the lead generation to look after themselves.

That underneath part is what brings the work in.