AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so here's something that's going to sound completely backwards: the best social media strategy for getting recommendations isn't about posting more content or growing your follower count. I learned this the hard way after watching multiple clients spend months creating "viral" content that got thousands of likes but generated zero word-of-mouth referrals.
You know what I'm talking about, right? Those perfectly curated posts that everyone loves but nobody actually talks about outside the platform. The kind of content that makes you feel busy and productive but doesn't move the needle on actual business growth.
Look, I'm not saying social media engagement is useless. But if you're treating it like a vanity metric instead of a recommendation engine, you're missing the real opportunity. Social media recommendations happen when you make it stupidly easy for people to share you, not when you beg them to follow you.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience helping clients transform their social media from follower-chasing to recommendation-generating machines:
Why the "create shareable content" advice is backwards and what actually works
The simple framework I use to turn every social media interaction into a potential referral
How one client doubled their word-of-mouth referrals without increasing their posting frequency
The psychological triggers that make people want to recommend you (that have nothing to do with your content quality)
Why SaaS companies and ecommerce stores need completely different recommendation strategies
Industry Reality
What every business thinks they know about social recommendations
OK, so the conventional wisdom around social media recommendations goes something like this: create amazing content, get more engagement, hope people share it, and pray that leads to word-of-mouth marketing. Every marketing guru is preaching the same playbook.
The standard advice sounds logical enough:
Post consistently to stay top-of-mind
Create "shareable" content with hooks and viral elements
Engage with your audience to build relationships
Use hashtags and trends to increase discoverability
Ask people to share your content directly
And you know what? Research shows that 92% of people trust recommendations from people they know, so this approach should work, right? The problem is, this strategy treats social media like a broadcasting channel when it should be treated like a conversation catalyst.
Here's where most businesses get it wrong: they're optimizing for vanity metrics instead of recommendation behavior. They chase likes, shares, and comments as if those numbers directly translate to people actually recommending their business to friends and family.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: studies show that only 53% of social media users actually share positive comments about companies, despite much higher engagement rates. That gap between engagement and actual recommendations? That's where most social media strategies fail.
The real issue is that most content is designed to be consumed, not shared. And there's a massive difference between the two. When you create content for consumption, people engage with it in the moment and forget about it. But when you create triggers for recommendations, people carry your brand into their real-world conversations.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
A few months ago, I was working with two completely different clients simultaneously - a B2B SaaS startup struggling to get referrals from their happy customers, and an e-commerce store that had great products but zero word-of-mouth traction. Both had decent social media followings and solid engagement rates, but neither was seeing recommendations translate into actual business growth.
The SaaS client was particularly frustrated. They had customers who loved their product - renewal rates were through the roof, NPS scores were solid, customer support barely heard complaints. But when they asked those same happy customers to refer them, crickets. Their social media was full of product updates and "thought leadership" content that got likes from other SaaS founders, but their actual customers weren't sharing anything.
The e-commerce client had a different problem. Their products were genuinely great - handmade goods that customers absolutely loved. But their social media was this perfectly curated Instagram feed that looked beautiful but felt... corporate. Professional. Untouchable. People would like the posts, sure, but nobody was tagging their friends or sharing stories about their purchases.
I tried the standard approach first. You know, the typical "create shareable content" strategy. For the SaaS client, we made infographics about industry trends, behind-the-scenes content, customer success stories formatted as quote cards. For the e-commerce client, we focused on lifestyle photography, user-generated content campaigns, and "Instagrammable" product shots.
The results? Meh. Engagement went up slightly, but referrals didn't budge. I was basically creating content that looked good in reports but didn't actually move the business forward. That's when I realized I was treating the symptom instead of the cause.
The real issue wasn't the content - it was that I was thinking about social media as a publishing platform instead of a recommendation engine. I was optimizing for the wrong behavior entirely.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's what I discovered: the best recommendations happen when people forget they're recommending you. Instead of asking "how do I get people to share this post?" I started asking "how do I make people naturally mention us in conversations that have nothing to do with marketing?"
That shift changed everything. Instead of creating content designed to be shared, I started creating systems designed to trigger word-of-mouth in real-world situations. Here's the exact framework that transformed both clients:
Step 1: Map the Conversation Triggers
First, I stopped thinking about content and started thinking about contexts. When do people naturally recommend businesses? It's not when they see a great Instagram post - it's when they have a problem that reminds them of a solution they've used.
For the SaaS client, I mapped out the specific pain points their customers faced before finding them. Then I created content that reminded people of those exact pain points. Not "here's what our software does" content, but "here's that annoying thing you probably deal with" content.
For the e-commerce client, I identified the moments when people naturally talk about products like theirs - gift-giving seasons, specific use cases, problem-solving situations. Then I created content that lived in those moments.
Step 2: Build Personal Stakes
Here's the thing about recommendations: people don't share generic good things. They share things that make them look good for knowing about them. I started creating content that gave people social currency - insights, tips, or discoveries that made them the helpful person in their network.
Instead of "Look at our product," the content became "Look what I discovered" or "Here's something useful I learned." The subtle shift from promotion to education completely changed how people interacted with it.
Step 3: Create Recommendation Moments
This is where it gets interesting. Instead of hoping people would share content, I started engineering specific moments where recommendations felt natural. For both clients, I implemented what I call "recommendation hooks" - strategic touchpoints designed to trigger word-of-mouth.
For the SaaS client, we created a weekly "small wins" email that highlighted micro-improvements customers were making with the tool. But here's the key: we made it easy to forward to teammates or mention in team meetings. The content was designed to be useful in workplace conversations.
For the e-commerce client, we implemented surprise-and-delight moments in the unboxing experience, but with a twist - we included conversation starters. Little cards with interesting facts or tips related to the product that people would naturally want to share.
Step 4: Optimize for Context, Not Content
Traditional social media advice focuses on optimizing content - better captions, better visuals, better timing. I flipped this completely. Instead, I optimized for the contexts where recommendations happen.
This meant thinking about social media as just one piece of a larger word-of-mouth ecosystem. The SaaS client's LinkedIn posts weren't designed to get engagement - they were designed to be useful in the specific professional situations where referrals naturally occur.
The e-commerce client's Instagram wasn't about showcasing products - it was about creating moments that reminded people of gift-giving opportunities or specific use cases where they'd naturally recommend the brand.
Step 5: Measure Behavior, Not Metrics
I completely changed how we measured success. Instead of tracking likes, shares, and comments, I started tracking actual referral behavior. How many new customers mentioned they heard about the business from a friend? How many existing customers brought up the brand in unrelated conversations?
The results were immediate and dramatic. Both clients saw their word-of-mouth referrals increase significantly, but their social media "engagement" actually decreased in traditional metrics. Fewer likes, fewer generic comments, but way more meaningful interactions and business impact.
Conversation Mapping
Identify the exact moments when people naturally discuss problems your business solves - then create content that lives in those moments, not on your posting schedule.
Social Currency
Give people insights or discoveries that make them look smart for sharing, rather than asking them to promote your brand directly.
Context Engineering
Design content that's useful in the specific situations where referrals happen - workplace meetings, friend conversations, problem-solving moments.
Anti-Viral Strategy
Focus on creating recommendation triggers rather than shareable content - optimize for word-of-mouth, not viral metrics.
The transformation was pretty dramatic for both clients. The SaaS client saw their referral-driven signups increase by 180% within four months, even though their social media "engagement" dropped by about 30% in traditional metrics. What mattered was that the right people were having the right conversations.
More importantly, the quality of referrals improved significantly. Instead of random leads who heard the name somewhere, they were getting warm introductions from existing customers who understood exactly how to position the software's value.
The e-commerce client doubled their word-of-mouth referrals and saw a 40% increase in repeat purchases. Customers weren't just buying once - they were becoming advocates who brought friends and family into the ecosystem. Their customer lifetime value increased substantially because referrals tend to stick around longer.
But here's what really surprised me: both clients reported that their customer relationships deepened. When you optimize for recommendations instead of engagement, you end up creating more meaningful connections with people who actually matter to your business growth.
The ripple effects were significant too. The SaaS client started getting invited to more industry conversations, and the e-commerce client began receiving collaboration opportunities from complementary brands. When people recommend you naturally, doors open that traditional marketing can't access.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from transforming these clients' approach to social media recommendations:
Engagement metrics lie about recommendation behavior - High likes and shares don't translate to word-of-mouth unless the content is designed for real-world conversation contexts
People don't recommend content, they recommend solutions - Focus on being useful in specific situations rather than creating "shareable" posts
Social currency beats social proof - Give people something that makes them look smart for knowing about you, not something that makes you look good
Timing beats frequency - One piece of content in the right context is worth more than ten pieces of content at the "optimal" posting time
Word-of-mouth is a system, not a campaign - Sustainable recommendations require multiple touchpoints working together, not individual viral moments
Context engineering works better than content optimization - Design for the situations where recommendations happen rather than optimizing for platform algorithms
Anti-viral strategies often outperform viral ones - Consistent, contextual usefulness beats sporadic viral moments for long-term business growth
The biggest mindset shift? Treating social media as a recommendation engine rather than a broadcasting platform. When you optimize for word-of-mouth behavior instead of engagement metrics, everything changes - your content strategy, your measurement approach, and most importantly, your results.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS and startups, focus on creating content that's useful in workplace conversations - weekly insights emails, problem-solving tips, and industry observations that teammates naturally share with each other during meetings or Slack discussions.
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, engineer surprise moments and conversation starters - include interesting facts with orders, create gift-giving reminders, and design unboxing experiences that people naturally want to tell friends about.