Followers Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number
So you own a business, startup or blog, or all of the above. You continue to push out social media post after social media post. And you keep praying that follower number increases. You obsessively check your phone to see who added you on Instagram and Twitter. You await new subscribers. And celebrate every time you gain a new follower on Bloglovin’. STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! That number doesn’t matter. Whether it is 200 or 20,000 it is moot. Your focus needs to shift.
Engagement, Engagement, Engagement
The number, the exact number is totally irrelevant. Sure the more you gain the more confidence you might have, or the more brands might consider partnering with you, but that shouldn’t be what’s driving the boat. Instead your focus needs to be on engaging your audience. Get them to read your content. Comment on it. Share it with their friends and colleagues. Send you emails. Maybe they will even write a blog article about how great you are. That sort of interaction is what you are looking for. Sure you can pay Facebook or Twitter to get additional impressions, which will potentially boost your follower numbers, but if you only pay short term, in the long run you could potentially see a decrease in site impressions.
As you gain a following, specifically with Facebook, they determine how many people “get” to see your post in their newsfeed. If there aren’t “likes”, “shares” or “comments”, i.e. engagement, the post impressions could be dragged down significantly. I am not saying that paying for exposure can’t work in certain instances, but it has to be a well thought out process.
Quality over Quantity
Would you rather have 100 clients who pay you $100 dollars each for your services, or 10 clients who pay you $1,000 dollars? Either way you end up with $10,000, but I almost guarantee there will be more footwork, planning, and communication confusion with those 100 clients than you would ever run into with just 10. Sure those 10 clients expect more because they paid more, but they also are likely to be the people who tell their friends about your awesome service when the time is right because they invested in you and what you are doing.
“If you’ve been using the number of followers you have to measure your social media success, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Do an audit of your audience and determine which users are the right ones, and cull your lists accordingly.” (source)
I wish there were more to say, but it really is that simple. Switch you focus and cut yourself some slack. It is ONLY A NUMBER!
How do you measure engagement with your business or blog?
