If You’re Only Tracking Likes, You’re Missing the Point
Social media marketing is no longer about vanity metrics. It’s not about how many people liked your post or how many followers you picked up this week. It’s about what your content actually does — who saves it, who shares it, who engages with it in a way that shows they’re thinking beyond the scroll.
That’s exactly what we talked about in our latest Inside Lead Wolf episode with Sara from Coast Creative — a sharp strategist with a refreshingly grounded take on social metrics, attention spans, and what meaningful engagement really looks like in 2025.
The Crowning Metrics: Shares and Saves
“The crowning metrics for us these days at the agency? Shares and saves.” — Sara, Coast Creative
That single quote sets the tone for the entire interview.
Why? Because likes can be impulsive. Comments can be performative. But shares and saves? Those show intent. They tell us:
- This post was valuable enough to revisit later
- It was relevant enough to pass on to someone else
- It did something beneath the surface
As Sara put it:
“It shows that there’s an underbelly of activity happening.”
There’s a deeper engagement pattern that goes unnoticed if you’re just watching public-facing numbers. And that’s where the good strategy lives — in the shadows of the algorithm, where content either earns its place or gets skipped.
Strategic Creatives, Not Just Pretty Posts
So what kind of content drives shares and saves? Not just beautiful imagery. Not trend-hopping or meme mimicry. But thoughtful, usable, relevant content that speaks directly to a real audience need.
Sara and her team at Coast know this intimately. They’ve built campaigns around:
- Localized relevance
- Emotional resonance
- Educational depth
And they track performance not just through reach or impressions, but through how often people come back to the post, reference it, or use it to make a decision.
That’s the key: they’re watching for behavior — not just response.
The Shift from Public to Private Behavior
The platforms have changed. What we once measured in likes and comments has shifted into:
- DMs
- Saves
- Story shares
- Screen recordings
Sara called this the “underbelly of activity.” And it’s true — real engagement is often private. Invisible to competitors. Sometimes invisible to the client. But it’s there — and it’s measurable if you know where to look.
This shift mirrors a bigger trend: the move from audience-first posting to audience-aligned strategy.
At Lead Wolf, this is what we focus on in our workshops and campaigns:
- What would make someone save this content?
- Would they be willing to forward it?
- Does this piece answer something, solve something, or create tension?
Partnership Over Performance
What stood out most about Sara’s mindset is that she treats clients as partners — not accounts. That’s rare.
She sees content creation as a feedback loop. Something to be refined and iterated on, not just blasted out for clicks.
We share that philosophy. Marketing is a conversation, not a broadcast. And if you’re not listening, you’re probably falling behind.
Sara’s work at Coast shows that when you center strategy around what people actually do, you get more than engagement — you get traction.
Design for the Scroll, Strategize for the Save
In a world of fast content, slowing someone down is everything.
So yes, your content should be scroll-stopping. But it should also be worth saving. Worth sharing. Worth something.
That’s where great marketing lives.
And that’s what we’re building — with clients like Sara, with content like this, and with strategies that think beyond the metrics you can see.
— Oz