Would Your Last 10 Posts Help a Buyer Trust You?
Executive Summary
A lot of business folks post on a schedule and still can’t tell if any of it is working. Here’s a ten-minute check: pull up your last 10 posts and ask one question of each, “Would this help a buyer trust us, understand us, or remember us?” That one lens, not likes or what a post did today, shows you plainly whether your content is doing a real job for the people you want to reach, so you know what to fix next without posting any more often than you already do.
You keep posting, and you still can’t quite tell if it’s doing anything.
Maybe that’s the quiet thing sitting under your content right now. You show up. You put something out on a schedule because you know you’re supposed to. A photo, a tip, a “we’re hiring,” a link to the blog. And then you wait, and the feedback you get back is a handful of likes from people you already know. So you’re left guessing. Is this working? Is anyone who matters even seeing it?
Here’s the part worth saying out loud. The problem usually isn’t that you’re not posting enough. It’s that there’s no simple way to tell a post that’s pulling its weight from one that’s just filling the feed.
So let me hand you one. It’s a check you can run today, on the content you’ve already made, in about the time it takes to finish your coffee.
Stop judging your posts by how they did. Start judging them by what they do for the buyer. One question gets you there: would this help a buyer trust us, understand us, or remember us? Let me show you how to use it, and what to do with what you find.
The check, in plain terms
Open up wherever you post most. Could be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, your blog, doesn’t matter. Scroll back through your last 10 posts.
For each one, ask the single question:
Would this help a buyer trust us, understand us, or remember us?
That’s it. Not “did this get likes.” Not “was this hard to make.” Just whether the post does one of those three jobs for the person you’d actually like to do business with.
Three lenses, because those are the three things a buyer needs from you before they’ll ever reach out. They need to trust you’re the real deal. They need to understand what you do and whether it’s for them. And they need to remember you later, when they’re finally ready, which is rarely the day they see your post.
One thing before we dig in. This is a lens for your whole feed, not a gate every single post has to pass. Plenty of good posts aren’t aimed straight at a buyer. The anniversary, the company picnic, celebrating someone on your team. Those earn their place too. They show you’re a real, human company, they signal stability and pride, and they do real work in recruiting and employer brand. In their own way they build trust and stay memorable, so they often pass through the side door. The point isn’t to scrub those. It’s to look at the balance across your feed, so that taken together your posts are doing the three jobs.
Let me break down each one, so you know what you’re looking for.
Trust: does this make you believable?
A buyer is quietly asking, “Can I count on these people?” before they ever ask “what do they charge.”
A post earns trust when it shows the work, not just claims it. A before and after. A real customer story. A straight answer to a question people actually ask. You walking through how you’d handle a common problem. Even a photo of you and your team being human builds it, because people trust people more than logos.
A post that doesn’t build trust is the one that just announces. “Big things coming.” “Happy Friday.” Pleasant enough, but a stranger scrolling past learns little about whether you’re any good at the thing they’d hire you for. A team photo or a shout-out can still earn its keep in your culture and your hiring. It’s just answering a different question than the buyer’s, so it isn’t one to count here.
As you go through your 10, mark the ones where a buyer who’d never heard of you would come away thinking, “Okay, these folks seem to know what they’re doing.”
Understand: does this make it clear what you do and who it’s for?
This one trips up a lot of good businesses. You’re so close to your own work that you forget the buyer is starting from zero.
A post helps them understand when it names a real problem they have and shows how you fix it, in their words. Not “full-service solutions.” More like, “Your AC is freezing up in July and you don’t know why? Here’s what’s usually going on.” The buyer reads that and thinks, “That’s me. These are the people for that.”
A post that doesn’t help them understand is the one written from inside your business, full of the words you use with each other but not the words your customer would use. If a first-time visitor couldn’t tell what you do or whether you’re for them, that post isn’t carrying its weight.
Mark the ones that would make the right buyer say, “Oh, that’s exactly what I need.”
Remember: does this give them something that sticks?
Here’s the one almost everyone misses. Most people who see your post aren’t ready to buy today. So the job of a lot of your content isn’t to close anyone. It’s to still be in their head three weeks from now, when they are ready.
A post earns a place in memory when it hands the reader something they keep. A simple way to think about their problem. A phrase that reframes it. A tip they actually use. When your idea is useful enough to stick, you stick with it.
A post that fades from a buyer’s mind is the one that’s all about you and hands them nothing to take with them. The award, the milestone, the “look at us.” Those can mean a lot to your team and to people who might want to work for you. For a prospect who isn’t ready yet, though, there’s nothing to hold onto, so it isn’t the kind of post that sticks with them.
Mark the ones that gave the reader something worth carrying around.
What to do with what you find
Now count. Out of 10, how many clearly did at least one of the three jobs?
Be honest, but don’t be hard on yourself. If the number is low, that’s not a verdict on you or your business. It’s just the most useful thing you could have learned today, because it points straight at the fix. And the fix isn’t “post more.” You’re busy enough.
The fix is to aim. Before anything goes out, ask what that post is there to do. Often it’s one of the three jobs: trust, understand, or remember. Sometimes it’s a culture or hiring post doing its own kind of work, and that counts too. The ones to rethink are the posts that aren’t doing any job at all. Give those a purpose, or let them go.
A few simple swaps:
- Instead of “We’ve been in business 20 years,” try a short story of a problem you solved that only 20 years of experience would catch. That’s the same pride, turned into trust.
- Instead of “Check out our services,” try answering one real question a customer asked you this week. That helps them understand, and it’s easier to write.
- Pair a company milestone with one idea or tip your buyer can use whether or not they ever hire you. That way the same post celebrates the moment and earns a place in their memory too.
You don’t have to overhaul everything. Just point each new post at one of the three.
The trap to watch for
There’s an easy way to fool yourself here, so let me name it.
It’s tempting to judge a post by what it does right away. The likes, the quick replies, a sale today. When none of that shows up, it’s easy to decide the post flopped. That’s the instant-gratification trap, and it measures the wrong thing.
Most of your posts aren’t there to win a sale the day they go up. They’re breadcrumbs. A right-fit prospect who isn’t ready yet sees one, picks up a little value, sees another a few weeks later, and slowly gets to know you. Trust builds at its own pace, one useful post at a time, until one day they’re comfortable enough to reach out. By then it doesn’t look like any single post did the work, but together they did.
Effort and applause can fool you the same way. A post can take you an hour and still do nothing for a buyer, and a post can get plenty of likes from your peers and never reach the person who’d actually hire you.
The three questions keep you honest because they’re all about the buyer, not about you, and not just about today. That’s the whole point of the lens. It moves the scoreboard from “how did this do for me right now” to “what did this do for the right person over time.”
Start with the last 10
You don’t need a content strategy, a calendar tool, or a marketing degree to do this. You need ten minutes and a willingness to look.
Here’s the bigger idea to hold onto. Your content isn’t there to keep the feed fed. It’s there to do a job for a real person who might one day need you, to help them trust you, understand you, or remember you. When you start measuring it that way, you stop guessing and start steering. You’re not after a win today, you’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that earns trust over time, so the right person already believes in you by the time they’re ready to reach out.
So go pull up your last 10 posts and run them through the question. You don’t need to fix all of them, and you don’t need to post anything new today. Just notice which ones are working, and let that quietly shape the next thing you put out. That’s a content plan you can actually act on, starting right now.
Common Questions
Why only 10 posts? Should I go back further?
Ten is enough to see a pattern without turning this into a project you’ll never finish. Your last 10 are also the freshest picture of how you post right now. If you want to go back further later, the same question still works. Start with 10 so you actually do it.
If a bunch of my posts don’t pass, should I delete the old ones?
No need. This is about whether your feed as a whole is doing the three jobs, not about grading each post pass or fail. Some posts serve a different purpose, like the culture, people, and event posts that build your team and your reputation, and those are worth keeping. The value here isn’t cleaning up the past, it’s steering the balance of what you post next. The audit is a compass, not a cleanup.
Does every post have to do all three jobs?
One is plenty. A single post that clearly builds trust, or helps someone understand, or gives them something to remember, is doing its job. Some posts will hit two at once, and that’s a bonus. Trying to force all three into every post is a fast way to make them feel cluttered.
I barely have time to post at all. Is this really worth it?
That’s exactly who this is for. The point isn’t to add more to your plate, it’s to make the posting you already do count for something. When your limited time goes toward posts that do a real job, you get more out of less. This saves effort, it doesn’t add it.
Related Resources
Struggling with Social Media? The Answers Are Already in Your Inbox
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Business Leaders, You Know More About Marketing Than You Think
If looking at your last 10 posts left you feeling behind, this takes the pressure off and reminds you that good marketing is mostly sharing how you already take care of customers.
Data vs. Information: Forgetting What It’s Like To Be The Buyer
If the buyer’s-eye view is the part that stuck with you, this widens it into a habit you can bring to everything you put in front of a customer, not just your posts.