How many followers should I have on Social Media?
Followers on social media, isn’t that what social media is all about? 10,000 followers on Twitter is much better than 500 and 1 million views on that Youtube video far outweighs 10,000 views, no?
Sometimes people can become clouded in their thoughts when it comes to followers on social media by seeing it as the benchmark of their success or if they outsource the management of social media to an external agency, how many new followers they gained will determine if their work is worth the money.
What I say to people to consider when viewing ‘followers on social media‘ is the quality of them over the numbers. How target are they to be interested in what your business offers? How active are they, how responsive to your posts are they, do they share your posts, do they comment, have enquiries been generated from them… Are you getting a ROI from your social media activities?
You could have a million followers and have no engagement, you could have 5 followers and be in constant communications with them. Many companies still purchase dummy/spam followers (easy to spot by looking at the quality of their likes /followers) and this will not get you the results most are looking for. What does work is gaining followers naturally on social media by maintaining a quality profile and delivering engaging, educational and entertaining content frequently enough to be seen. As far as I am concerned, this is the only and best way to build your following, likes, members, views etc on social media.
Do not judge a book by it’s cover and likewise on social media, do not always judge an account by it’s number of followers. Without question, more target and quality followers is better than fewer, but I would say that a majority of accounts, especially on Twitter, are made of poor followers, especially business accounts.
Most certainly, Estate Agents have got a lot better at adopting social media as part of their marketing strategy, the content they share is improving and the time they are dedicating to it is increasing. Those who manage their social media in-house are starting to see very positive results from social media and can now start to share success stories and an improvement in their reach online.
There are many ways to gain new quality followers on social media:
- Deliver quality content.
- Be active on social media and share content frequently enough to be seen.
- Comment on, share, reTweet other people’s content on social media.
- Join groups that are in line with who you are looking to target, ie join your local community group on Facebook or follow your #TownHour on Twitter.
- Follow people who you’d like to notice your account. They will be notified you have followed them and will be tempted to follow you back if what you share is of interest to them.
- Offer local competitions that requires people to follow you in order for them to have a chance of winning. Clearly state local entrants only and have it that the prize needs to be picked up locally.
- Create your own pages/groups that are local themed in order to attract a local audience, ie BuySellSwap group on Facebook for your local town.