Stop looking at the follower count
Marketing has always been about numbers. How many leads? How many followers? How many sales? In today’s world marketing is completely dominated by social media.
It is seen as a necessity to be on all the major media sites. Whether you are promoting your own personal brand, a business, a podcast, a new book… anything really, social media is the place to go.
There’s nothing wrong with this, in principle… You are simply going where the people are, right? That’s right there is good marketing, you need people to get the ball rolling on whatever you are trying to promote.
The way social media is built is where all the problems start. Followers, likes, downloads, reactions, shares… and so many other metrics that the different platforms measure…
How often do you go on instagram and look at people’s follower counts and think “man, imagine what I’d do with 135k followers!” You see the competition’s videos on YouTube and they have half a million views each!… “Man i would be set with just half that!!”
These vanity metrics are often the selling points that “gurus” use to gain credibility. “How I gained 50k followers on instagram in 2 months!” , “How to get 10 subscribers a day for your brand new YouTube challenge!” , “Get your facebook videos shared more!” And on and on and on…
The truth is that none of these metrics matter by themselves. Follower count, subscribers, podcast downloads… They are irrelevant. You have 300k followers on instagram? Great, how many of them actually interact with your content they way you would like them to?
Because of saturation interactions in older platforms are at an all-time low. But still, someone with 2 millions followers on instagram should be getting more than 175 likes on one post after 24 hours.
Someone with that many subscribers on YouTube should also be getting more than 5k views on their videos… A facebook page with 125k likes is no good if only 100 people interact with the content.
Stop focusing on your numbers alone. The quantity of followers is irrelevant. It’s their quality that matters.
Have you ever received a request from a friend to like their new page for their fashion business? How quickly did you turn off notifications on it after that? I receive at least once a week (as does every person on that friend’s list). And not once have I had any interest in the content these people were creating.
The likes might’ve been free for them, but they are completely useless. Since nothing will come out of that number.
People often wonder how they can increase their likes/followers/subscribers… Don’t focus on that.
If you want a real shot at a real, sustainable business focus on the metric that matters. Who is this for? If you are starting a t-shirt brand for hockey players, you need to place it in front of people who care.
It is far better for you to have 100 likes from passionate people who love hockey and the shirts you create than it is to have 10,000 likes from people who just saw your shirts and thought they where funny enough to double tap on the screen.
Focus on your audience, on that small segment of the market you intend to serve and create the best content for them. If the content is good it will be shared to more people who care. Stop worrying about the number of likes and followers and start focusing on the number of people who benefit from what you offer.
Your numbers will be smaller, that’s inevitable, but your interactions will be richer, more fruitful and they will come more often.
Next time you create a new site, don’t invite everyone you know to like it. Invite those you know who are interested in it. Provide them with something they love. Like a shirt that expresses their love for hockey like nothing else available in the market. Give them the opportunity to share it with their community, other people who are just as interested.
Your job is to provide as much value as you can. Whether people follow, like or subscribe to you is up to them. Give them a reason to.
