Are you doing social media wrong?

Boxers & Briefs Podcast #2: From likes to leads: How to maximie social media channels for business success with Lisa East

Social media can feel like a maze. Which platforms should you choose? How do you measure success? And why do some businesses see amazing results whilst others waste time and money with nothing to show for it?

Lisa East, founder of digital marketing agency Matter, has been helping New Zealand businesses build meaningful connections with their audiences since 2011. Her approach cuts through the noise with strategies that work.

Pick your platform wisely

The biggest mistake businesses make is trying to be everywhere at once. Lisa’s advice is simple but often overlooked: “Forget your business, think about your customer. Where are they?”

Your accounting firm might need to be on Instagram if your clients are influencers, not just LinkedIn. But if you’re targeting other business founders, LinkedIn makes perfect sense for networking and growth.

The key is understanding what you want to achieve. Some businesses use LinkedIn purely for employer branding to attract talent. Others focus on Facebook to reach property investors or Instagram for younger demographics.

“You could have different approaches for different channels,” Lisa explains. “But if you’re going to add additional channels, you’ve got to be prepared to put serious work into them.”

Her recommendation is to pick one platform where most of your customers spend time, do it well, then consider expanding only if you have a clear strategy and resources.

You don’t own your social media following

This might shock you, but businesses don’t own their social media followers. Lisa shares a cautionary tale about a business owner who built half a million Instagram followers, only to lose everything when her account was compromised.

“All her customers were gone. She didn’t have a database, couldn’t reach them any other way,” Lisa explains. “That’s why we tell people to build strong communities that will follow you wherever you go, but actively bring them into assets you control.”

This means building email lists, websites, and direct relationships that don’t depend on social platforms.

The influencer game has changed

The influencer space has evolved dramatically. Gone are the days of simply reaching out to whoever’s popular and cutting a deal. It’s now a professional industry with proper contracts and disclosure requirements.

But here’s what many businesses get wrong about influencers. They focus on reach instead of engagement. An influencer with a massive following but low engagement means their audience isn’t responding to content.

“What that tells us is people aren’t valuing their content enough to engage with it,” Lisa notes. “If you’re paying for content in that influencer’s channel, are people responding from their audience?”

The trend has shifted towards niche and micro-influencers. Instead of paying huge amounts for massive reach, businesses are finding success with smaller, more engaged audiences that match their target market.

The AI influencer problem

One trend that concerns Lisa is AI influencers. These computer-generated personalities endorse products they’ve never used, model clothes they’ve never worn, and claim results from products they can’t experience.

“In a day and age of authenticity, this flies in the face of that,” she says. “It’s dangerous because you’ll have people who aren’t aware these influencers are completely artificial, potentially affecting young people who aren’t tuned into the level of marketing nonsense.”

Measuring real results

Social media success isn’t just about likes and followers. Those vanity metrics don’t pay the bills. Real measurement depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

If you sell million-pound apartments through social ads, your return on investment will look different from someone selling lipstick. The key is customising metrics to your business goals.

Lisa recommends looking at engagement, social sentiment, and what people are saying about your brand online. But most importantly, you need to see improvement over time.

“Strategy that doesn’t work gets optimised,” she explains. “Day 100 results should look different from day one because you’re learning about your campaign, audience, and product every day.”

Avoiding digital marketing cowboys

With no guaranteed returns and plenty of agencies making big promises, how do you avoid the cowboys? Lisa suggests talking to your network and finding businesses doing social media well to ask who they use.

“If you’re a digital marketing agency and you can’t compete on metrics, you shouldn’t be in business,” she says bluntly. “We should all be getting the numbers right if we know what we’re doing.”

Look for agencies that show clear progression from day one to day 150. Numbers matter, but so does understanding where they’ve moved the dial for your business.

Lock down your accounts

The biggest operational mistake businesses make is poor security. Lisa shares horror stories of companies losing valuable social assets to hackers because of weak security or poor setup procedures.

One well-known brand lost their account when a junior social media manager logged in using their personal Instagram and got hacked. Another client spent months and significant money recovering their channels after a security breach during an agency transition.

“Set up properly from the start,” Lisa advises. “Use double authentication, security keys if possible, and never give random access to random people.”

The authentic future

Despite concerns about AI and filters blurring the lines between real and fake, Lisa believes authenticity will continue to win. People don’t want highly polished experiences that feel like traditional advertising.

She points to influences like Danae Mercer, who shows the reality behind perfect photos, as examples of what audiences crave. “She shows what she looks like in a photo shoot and what she really looks like. That’s so important.”

The challenge is the sophisticated level of filters and AI making it harder to distinguish real from fake. But audiences are getting better at spotting inauthentic content, including AI-written posts.

Your social media blueprint

Lisa’s advice comes down to three essentials. First, have a strategy tied to your business objectives. Don’t just spray content hoping something sticks.

Second, lock your channels down with proper security from day one. Prevention is easier than recovery.

Third, invest in great content and be clear about who you are. “There’s no point running with the herd,” Lisa says. “Try to do a few things differently, have your own view and voice.”

Social media works when it’s strategic, secure, and authentic. Skip any of these elements and you’re either wasting money or taking unnecessary risks.

The platforms will keep evolving, but these fundamentals remain constant. Build real relationships, measure what matters, and always remember that behind every screen is a real person looking for value, not just another sales pitch.

This article and podcast is proudly brought to you by Gilligan Sheppard, the problem solvers in business who believe in thinking differently.