Scroll through anyone’s hiking photos and you’ll likely notice something. There’s rarely a picture of the trailhead parking lot. No shot of the porta-potty, the dusty Subaru, or the moment somebody realized they left the sunscreen at home. he fix is simple: share results, not activities.
Nope. It’s the summit. The view. The lake nobody else bothered to hike to.
That’s what’s worth sharing, because that’s what the whole effort was for.
Yet when most of us sit down to write a social post, a newsletter, or a website update, we often end up posting about the parking lot.
The activity is the parking lot
“We hosted a workshop.” “We launched our new website.” “Our team attended a conference.” “We’re excited to announce…”
All true. All real work. And almost nobody reading it cares.
That’s not because your audience is heartless. It’s because activity describes what happened to you. Your readers are scanning for what’s in it for them – or, if you’re a nonprofit, for proof that their support is doing something.
Nobody wakes up thinking, “I sure hope that company I follow went to a conference this week.”
The results are the summit
A result is what changed because of the work. Compare:
Activity: “We launched a new website for [CLIENT].” Result: “[CLIENT] doubled their contact-form leads in the three months after launch.”
Activity: “We held our annual fundraiser.” Result: “Because of you, [NUMBER] families have a safe place to sleep this winter.”
Activity: “We hired a new account manager.” Result: “Clients now hear back from us within four hours, guaranteed.”
Same work. Completely different reason to keep reading.
In the Audience Engagement Cycle, this is an Inspire-phase move. Results are what your happiest customers and supporters repeat to their friends. Nobody forwards “we attended a conference.” Plenty of people forward “this kid finally learned to read.”
Your tip for this week
Before you hit publish on your next post, ask one question: what changed because of this?
Then lead with that. One result. One number or one story. If you can’t find a result yet, that’s useful information too – maybe the post can wait until you have one.
A few places results are hiding in plain sight:
Before-and-after numbers in your analytics, sales, or program data
A thank-you email or review from a customer
The question a client asks that they never needed to ask before
Something your team celebrated internally but never shared
Show them the view. That’s what they came for.
Want to see how your marketing stacks up on the rest of the Audience Engagement Cycle? Take the free Purpose-Driven Marketing Score. It takes about five minutes, and it’ll show you exactly where to focus your efforts next.
