Social Media Mythbusting: Quality over Quantity

It’s Not the Size of Your Audience, but the Quality of Your Followers That Matters Most

There’s a myth out there in the business world, especially the small business world, that on social media, the size of your audience is king. We respectfully disagree. We believe that the quality of your social media community trumps sheer size.

Many business owners compare the sizes of their Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn followers to that of their competitors, and then get they discouraged. “I just don’t have enough reach,” they think. Or maybe you’re one of the business owners or marketing directors who feel like your Twitter feed isn’t as abuzz as it should be, and you’re afraid you’re not as retweet worthy as you could be.

Don’t let your lack of retweets keep you up at night. A truly effective social media strategy isn’t about engaging the largest crowd possible, but making the most of the people who truly want to hear your story, building relationships with these key followers, and letting them spread your message for you.

When it comes to audience size, world-renown marketing expert Seth Godin said it this way:

“When you have your eyes firmly focused on the minimum viable audience, you will double down on all the changes you seek to make. Your quality, your story and your impact will all get better. And then, ironically enough, the word will spread.”

Think of it this way; would you rather have thousands of Facebook followers who decided to follow you as a part of that big social media contest you ran last quarter, but haven’t engaged with you since? Or would you like to  have a small, core group of followers who not only interact with you online, but represent your brand offline, too?

We’ll take the latter, please.

Creating a Community for the Competition

We’ve seen a software company’s social media accounts inadvertently become an extension of their tech support and customer education team. The internal marketing department thought their social media channels could be used to share real world stories of how their products were being used and to create a narrative of their products and company that improved its brand’s perception. In reality, the customer support approach transformed the company’s channels into a place for software users from competitive companies to discuss best practices and post tech support issues for quick resolution. These same social media followers have since helped the software company form users groups throughout the country, all attended by competitors who simply want to share software knowledge. By the way, this firm found that LinkedIn, not consumer-driven Facebook or Instagram, was the social platform that gave them the most influence.

Building a Better Building Product

We saw a small business that marketed to construction professionals use their small Facebook following as a way to build relationships with the followers that engaged with them on a daily basis. “Getting to know” the company via social media encouraged an up-and-coming construction engineer at one of the world’s largest builders decide to pick up the phone and call the sales team to discuss some ideas he had for the product. The result has been a construction industry-wide coalition built around the product, with top influencers from the company’s main target market providing advice on how to make this product best for builders.

Buzz for BBQ

A recent article from Inc.com reports that 60% of restaurants fail in their first year, we saw a new restaurant startup use social media during their launch phase to drum up demand and anticipation for their grand opening. Before this Southern BBQ restaurant even broke ground, the chef and investors started a social media page to keep their personal network of friends and family updated on their new venture. The following was only a few hundred people. But by keeping their friends and acquaintances up-to-date on their progress, they were able to create a buzz that caught the local media’s and food blogger community’s attention. As a result, the grand opening was a huge success. A year into the restaurant, it’s nearly impossible to get a table for dinner unless you have an advanced reservation, and the group is breaking ground on a second location.

Keep a Sharp Focus

Companies that use their social media efforts to achieve offline success had, at most, a modest amount of followers. It didn’t matter that some of their carefully planned out content only drew a dozen or so likes. The people behind those likes were a strategically targeted audience, who all felt closer to the brand they were following as a result of the company’s social media strategy. And that close connection had a significant impact to the companies’ bottom lines.

If you think you’re spinning your wheels when it comes to social media, or don’t feel like you measure up to your competition, you might be wondering why you even log in every day to post content. Don’t let the number of followers you have discourage you.

We’d be happy to perform a social media audit for you, and if necessary, help you re-aim your focus so you can use your online presence to drive these types of offline results.