Why We Must Stop Obsessing Over Size.
There is a grave misconception that needs to be shaken. When the majority of people think of social media success, they think of tens of thousands of followers.
The bigger your reach, the bigger your influence, the bigger your success, right? Wrong.
In fact, follower count is the one metric I urge you to treat with caution.
But it is this misconception that has caused an unhealthy comparing mentality, and like-farms to thrive where people part with cash in exchange for ‘people’.
In the end, buying followers gives you only one thing: a bigger number. Nothing more than a number.
Buying 500 random likes or followers means they are (and always will be) just that: random. They offer no business value – they are not targeted, they are not interested, they are not leads. And if they are never going to click-through to your website or share your content, there is no point. Furthermore, by purchasing likes and followers, you run the risk of skewing your data, making it extremely difficult to understand how well you’re really doing online.
It is the followers themselves that matter, not the follower count.
A big number won’t help you win more business, it will just make you feel good – a vanity metric.
As social media expert, Jay Baers, says:
“The end goal is action, not eyeballs.”
The behaviour of your followers will provide you with far more valuable information you can put to good use.
Instead of vanity, focus on value. Instead of follower count, focus on the type of people who choose to connect with you. Instead of quantity, focus on engagement, and, most of all, conversion.
1. Are your followers the people you want to be attracting? If not why not?
2. Are you tailoring the content you share to the following you have and hope to gain? Know your audience.
3. Have you identified the type of content that generates engagement? Learn and react.
Is reach important? Absolutely. But a following of 50 who want to hear from you and will interact with your business is far more valuable than 1000 who are simply not interested. And in the end, people applauding and sharing your content with their own network will result in you reaching far more (real) people.
If you want to build your following, share updates worth following. Get to know your audience, become a hub of news, opinion, insight they care about.
Focus on them, not you, and your following will grow in the most powerful way possible: organically, meaningfully, with the ability to generate business.
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At Propertyflock we provide free software that tells estate agents which content is most likely to generate interest and engagement on social media. Find out more: www.propertyflock.co.uk
Image Source (edited): Flickr / CC BY 2.0
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