Viera Social Media

08/30/2026

Welcome to Squeal or No Squeal, Episode 1, a roofing trivia game sh...

08/29/2026

Local word of mouth has gone digital.

That may be one of the most important things small business owners need to understand about social media.

People are still asking their friends, family and neighbors where to eat, who to hire, what business to trust and where to spend their money.

The difference is that a lot of those conversations are now happening online.

According to Pew Research Center, 73% of Americans often or sometimes get local news and information from friends, family and neighbors.

And social media is becoming a bigger part of how that information travels.

Among people who get local information from friends, family and neighbors, 25% now say social media is their primary way of receiving it, compared with 17% in 2018.

Community groups are growing in importance too.

In 2018, 38% of Americans said they sometimes got local information from online forums such as community Facebook groups or Nextdoor.

By 2024, that number had grown to 52%.

That should matter to every local business.

Because the customer journey often looks something like this:

Someone sees your name recommended in a Facebook group.

Then they Google your business.

They read a few reviews.

They look at your Facebook or Instagram page.

They watch a video.

They visit your website.

Maybe they follow you.

And then, days or weeks later, they finally call, visit or make a purchase.

BrightLocal's 2026 consumer research supports this.

84% of consumers searched for a local business online within the previous three months, and 75% used more than one channel during that search.

That last number is especially important.

Your customer is not necessarily making a decision based on one Facebook post, one Google review or one Instagram Reel.

They are collecting information.

Each interaction helps answer another question.

Is this business legitimate?

Do people recommend them?

Do I like what I see?

Do they seem knowledgeable?

Are they active?

Do they respond to customers?

Do I trust them enough to spend my money with them?

This is why measuring social media only by likes can give small business owners a very incomplete picture.

A post may only receive 30 likes and still introduce hundreds or thousands of people to your business.

A customer may never like a single post and still see your content several times before calling.

Someone may discover you through a community recommendation, check your social media for credibility and then convert through Google.

None of those individual platforms deserve all the credit.

They worked together.

For a local business, your social media should not exist in a vacuum.

It should support your reviews.

Your reviews should support your reputation.

Your website should support what people saw on social media.

Your business should show up consistently when someone goes looking for more information.

And your content should give people something worth remembering, sharing or recommending.

That is the bigger opportunity.

We are not just creating posts.

We are creating the digital version of:

“Oh, I know someone you should call.”

And for a small business, that kind of local recognition and trust can be far more valuable than a like count.

Sources: Pew Research Center and BrightLocal 2026 Consumer Search Behavior research.

08/28/2026

Your follower count is not the same thing as your reach.

And understanding the difference can completely change how you judge whether your social media is actually working.

Meta essentially distributes your content to two different types of audiences:

Connected reach is people who already follow your business.

Unconnected reach is people who do not follow your business yet, but Meta decides may be interested in your content.

That second group is incredibly important.

Instagram and Facebook are no longer simply showing your posts to your followers in chronological order. Their recommendation systems are constantly trying to match content with people who are most likely to care about it.

So Meta is not only asking:

“Does this person follow this business?”

It is also looking at things like:

“Does this person regularly engage with this type of content?”

“Have they shown interest in this topic before?”

“Are people with similar interests watching or sharing this content?”

“Does this post seem relevant enough to recommend?”

If the answer is yes, your post may be shown to that person even though they have never heard of your business before.

That is unconnected reach.

And that is one of the reasons follower count alone is such an incomplete way to measure social media success.

Let’s say Business A has 10,000 followers.

They publish a post that reaches 1,500 people.

Business B has only 3,000 followers.

They publish a Reel that reaches 12,000 people, with most of those views coming from people who do not follow the business.

Which business had the stronger awareness opportunity?

Probably Business B.

This is also why I encourage business owners not to judge every piece of content by likes.

A post with 200 likes is not automatically more successful than one with 70 likes.

The post with 70 likes may have:

Reached thousands more people

Reached significantly more non followers

Generated more watch time

Been shared more often

Sent more people to the business profile

Generated website visits

Created new followers

Introduced the company to an entirely new audience

Those numbers tell us much more about what the content actually accomplished.

Meta has also explained that watch time, likes and sends or shares can all help its systems determine whether content is worth continuing to distribute.

Generally, likes can be especially useful for understanding how your existing community responds to content.

Shares and sends can be particularly powerful for discovery because they signal that someone thought the content was interesting enough to pass along to another person.

Watch time matters because if people stop scrolling and actually consume the content, that gives Meta another signal that the post may be worth showing to more people.

This is why I prefer to look at social media performance as a funnel instead of a popularity contest.

For an awareness campaign, I want to know things like:

How many people did we reach?

How many were followers versus non followers?

How much of our reach came from people who did not already know us?

Did people actually watch the video?

Did they share it?

Did they visit the profile?

Did they follow after seeing it?

Did they visit the website or take another action?

Likes and comments still matter.

Followers still matter.

They are just pieces of a much larger picture.

Your followers represent the community you have already built.

Your reach tells us whether your content is actually being distributed.

And your unconnected reach tells us how effectively your content is introducing your business to people outside of that existing community.

For most small businesses trying to grow awareness, that last number can be incredibly valuable.

So the next time you post something and think,

“It only got 40 likes.”

Before deciding it failed, look deeper.

You may discover that the post quietly introduced your business to thousands of people who had never seen you before.

And that is exactly what awareness marketing is supposed to do.

08/27/2026

Behind the scenes with 3LP Roofing 🎥🏠

Some of the best content starts with a camera, a good idea, and a client who isn’t afraid to have a little fun with their marketing.

We love getting out from behind the computer and creating original photo and video content that actually shows the people and personality behind a business.

Another content day with the 3LP Roofing crew in the books… and we’ve got some fun stuff coming. 👀

Need help creating content for your business? Book a consultation using the link below or in our bio.

08/26/2026

POV: Just another content day at Viera Social Media 😂

Sometimes creating content means planning, filming, editing, directing… and sometimes it means doing whatever it takes to get the shot.

This is the part of social media management people don’t always see. We’re not just scheduling posts. We’re out there creating the photos, videos and moments that give our clients something worth posting about.

And clearly, we take content creation very seriously.

Need help creating content and building a social media strategy for your business?

👉Book a consultation with Viera Social Media by calling ☎️ (321) 301-7143 or scheduling directly at calendly.com/vierasocialmedia/consultation

08/25/2026

Follower count matters, but it should not be the only number we use to judge whether a social media campaign is working.

For awareness campaigns especially, I look much more closely at reach, views/impressions, engagement, shares, and how much of that reach is coming from people who do not already follow the account.

Why? Because platforms like Instagram are no longer built to show content only to your followers. Instagram actively recommends content to people who do not follow an account, which means follower count represents your existing audience size, but it does not tell you how many people actually saw a post.

So when I am evaluating an awareness campaign, I am not just asking:

How many followers did we gain?

I am asking:

How many people did we reach?
How many times was the content viewed?
How much engagement did it generate?
How many new people were introduced to the brand?
How much of our reach came from non-followers?

That distinction matters.

A post can introduce thousands of new people to a business without every one of those people immediately clicking “follow.” That does not mean the content failed. If the goal was awareness, the content still accomplished something very valuable: it put the brand in front of a larger audience and moved more people into the top of the marketing funnel.

There is also a difference between brand awareness and audience growth.

Follower growth is a useful long-term metric, but it is only one piece of the picture. Reach, views, engagement and non-follower distribution tell us much more about how an individual post or campaign is actually performing.

Here are some great resources that explain this further:

💡Instagram distinguishes between follower and non-follower distribution.
Instagram leadership has discussed “connected reach,” meaning people who already follow an account, and “unconnected reach,” meaning people who do not. Shares and sends are also important signals for extending content to new audiences.

Instagram Shares Algorithm Insights:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-shares-algorithm-insights-2025/738034/

💡Meta specifically builds tools around reaching non-followers.
Instagram’s Trial Reels feature allows creators to show content to non-followers first to see how it performs with a new audience.

Meta: Test Content With Non-Followers Using Trial Reels
https://about.fb.com/news/2024/12/trial-reels-try-content-non-followers-first-see-what-perfoms-best/

Meta also reported that among creators who began posting Reels more frequently after trying Trial Reels, 80% saw an increase in reach from non-followers.

Meta: Inspiring Creativity That Brings People Together
https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/inspiring-creativity-that-brings-people-together/

💡Awareness and audience growth are different marketing objectives.
Sprout Social identifies reach and impressions as key brand awareness metrics, while follower growth falls under audience growth.

Sprout Social: Social Media Marketing Strategy
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/

Sprout Social: Reach vs. Impressions vs. Engagement
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/reach-vs-impressions/

💡Follower count represents potential audience, not actual content performance.
Buffer recommends evaluating follower growth alongside reach, engagement and conversions instead of treating follower count as a stand-alone measurement of success.

Buffer: Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking
https://buffer.com/resources/social-media-metrics/

💡Follower vs. non-follower reach is itself an important performance indicator.
Hootsuite recommends looking at how much reach comes from followers compared with non-followers. Strong non-follower reach can indicate that content is being shared or receiving additional algorithmic distribution.

Hootsuite: Social Media Measurement
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-measurement/

The biggest takeaway:

💡Follower count tells us how many people have chosen to follow an account. Reach, views and engagement tell us what the content is actually accomplishing.

For awareness campaigns, that is the difference between simply looking at an audience number and actually measuring performance.

08/13/2026

X just opened up more of its “For You” algorithm, and this one is worth paying attention to if you use social media for business.

X announced that it is open sourcing the code that helps determine which posts are ranked, filtered and ultimately shown in the For You timeline, while also introducing a new transparency tool designed to show users whether visibility limiting labels have been applied to their posts or account.

Why does this matter?

For years, one of the biggest questions in social media has been: Why did this post get reach while another one didn’t?

The newly released code gives us a much clearer look under the hood.

X’s current system pulls content from both accounts you follow and accounts you don’t follow, then uses a Grok based AI model to predict how likely you are to take different actions on each post.

Those predicted actions include:

• Liking
• Replying
• Reposting
• Sharing
• Visiting a profile
• Watching a video
• Spending time with the content
• Following the creator

It is also watching for negative signals such as:

• “Not interested”
• Muting
• Blocking
• Reporting

Those signals are combined into a score that helps determine where, or whether, a post appears in someone’s feed.

And here is one of the most important takeaways for businesses:

The algorithm is learning from behavior, not simply counting likes.

X says the system relies heavily on a user’s engagement history to understand what content is relevant to that person. That means creating content that makes the right audience stop, watch, click, respond, share or follow matters far more than chasing one vanity metric.

X is also testing a new “Under the Hood” feature that will allow eligible users to see whether visibility limiting labels have been applied to their account or posts. According to X, the initial pilot is expected to include a randomized group of accounts that are at least one year old and have posted 10+ times during the previous month.

This is exactly why I always say social media strategy is about understanding the actions that drive distribution, not simply posting and hoping something performs.

The more platforms show us about how recommendation systems actually work, the better we can get at creating content intentionally.

Read X’s full announcement here:
https://x.com/XOpenSource/status/2087951962004230428

You can also explore the open source algorithm here:

https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm

06/28/2026

Your social media captions aren’t just captions anymore.

They’re becoming searchable content. 🔎

For years, businesses treated social media posts like a billboard:

✨ “Another beautiful transformation!”
✨ “Happy Friday!”
✨ “Check this out!”

While there is still a place for personality, the way people discover businesses online has changed.

Your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn profiles are becoming mini landing pages. Customers are searching directly inside social platforms for things like:

“best brunch in Melbourne FL”
“pool company near me”
“things to do in Brevard County”
“how do I know if I need a new roof?”

The question is: would your content show up?

The future of social media strategy is not choosing between fun captions and long blogs. It’s creating searchable micro-content.

A strong post should:
✔️ Capture attention with a human first line
✔️ Explain what you do and who you help
✔️ Naturally include your services and location
✔️ Answer questions your customers are already asking
✔️ Give people a reason to save, share, comment, or reach out

Instead of:
“Another amazing backyard transformation 😍”

Try:
“This Indialantic backyard went from unused space to a low-maintenance outdoor living area with artificial turf, custom pavers, and a putting green designed for Florida homeowners.”

Same project. Completely different strategy.

Your content should not only reach the people who already follow you. It should help the right people find you.

The businesses that win online will be the ones that stop creating posts just to fill a calendar and start creating content with purpose.

06/23/2026

06/09/2026

🚨 Google Reviews just got smarter. Here’s what small businesses need to know.

Google has strengthened the way it detects fake or manipulated review activity.

The update is not about stopping businesses from asking for reviews.

It’s about identifying patterns that suggest reviews may not be completely organic.

For example:

A restaurant runs a contest:
“Whoever gets the most 5-star reviews mentioning their name wins a prize.”

Seems harmless, right?

But Google may see:
🔎 A sudden spike in reviews
🔎 Multiple reviews using similar wording
🔎 Customers being guided on what to write
🔎 Reviews connected to an incentive or internal reward

Those signals can make reviews appear manipulated, even when the customers are real.

What should you do instead?

✅ Ask every customer equally
✅ Let customers write in their own words
✅ Focus on consistent reviews over time
✅ Respond and engage with the feedback you receive

Google reviews are no longer just stars on your profile. They are part of your online reputation and how customers decide who to trust.

The goal isn’t to collect reviews faster.
The goal is to build trust that lasts.