Which is better? 50 qualified social media followers, or 1,000 followers, many of whom will never buy from you? The answer may surprise you.
In social media, reach is of critical importance. It directly impacts how much your content and messages get shared, it increases your business' ability to get found and generate leads, it can help extend your online footprint as a thought leader, and the list goes on. In other words, in an online world, social reach shouldn't be a trivial factor for businesses leveraging inbound marketing. So, have you figured out what the right answer to our first question is yet? If the title of this article wasn't enough of a hint, yes, more followers is always better.
It may seem obvious (more is always better....right?), but a lot of businesses fall into the trap of thinking fewer and more qualified is better. In this case, here's why it's not...
1. More followers means access to more followers' followers.
This concept, albeit simple, is pivotal to understanding the overall importance of reach, so here goes. Think about it: Every one of your fans/followers also has his/her own followers, be it 5, 500, or 5,000. Let's say that a follower who has 5,000 Twitter followers of his own shares one of your blog posts or retweets one of your tweets. Now, that content is getting exposed to 5,000 additional people who weren't directly following you. If you can understand that every one of your fans/followers might share your content with their friends and followers, now you can start understanding the awesome impact of reach. So even if that original follower of yours never becomes a customer himself, that doesn't mean one of his followers who saw your content because of him won't. Now that's some powerful stuff.
2. Influencers have, well, influence.
If you can build up a large following for your business in social media, you probably have a few influencers among the bunch. While these influencers may follow but never buy from you, remember that these people are called influencers for a reason. They can introduce you to co-marketing partnerships, put in a good word with investors, and provide introductions to other influencers, bloggers, and experts in your industry. For example, if you can solicit an introduction from an influencer to another industry blogger that you can contribute a guest blog post to, you'll probably benefit from a couple of inbound links. That follower may not have contributed any direct revenue to your business, but those inbound links are very valuable.
3. Followers who won't ever buy can still refer your business.
Indirect exposure to your followers' personal networks can be an invaluable source of business. Okay, so Frank the Facebook fan may never actually purchase your industrial vacuum cleaner for his teeny tiny small business office. But when his buddy, landlord Lenny, is searching for a new one for the apartment building he owns, Facebook fan Frank might just refer you some highly qualified business. Even if landlord Lenny isn't the type to participate in social media himself, his good buddy Frank is. Need I say more?
4. Social shares impact SEO.
The impact social media is having on SEO is only increasing. Search engines are taking social cues like social media shares into account when they're ranking your content, which means the more people you can get to share your content in social media, the better.
Let's say you own a dog grooming business, and you and one of your competitors each wrote a blog article about how to take care of your dog's coat in between visits to the groomer. But let's also say your competitor has 10 times as many social media followers than you and his article got tweeted 50 times, generated 20 likes on Facebook, and got quite a few shares on LinkedIn and Google+, too. All of a sudden, your competitor has quite a leg up when it comes to getting his article ranked in search ahead of yours. In other words, because social shares are now one of the factors search engines take into consideration when ranking your content, it behooves you to build up your following and encourage those social shares. If you tweeted your article and you have 1,000 followers compared to your competitors' 50 followers, you have a much better chance of generating social shares and a much better chance of ranking in search. Those people who shared your content may never become customers of your dog grooming business themselves, but someone who finds your article in search because of them might.
5. Your followers might surprise you.
If you've been doing your research and spending time developing buyer personas, you likely have a pretty solid grasp on who your ideal customers are. That's all well and good, but if you have a very narrow-minded idea of who exactly will buy your products and services, you could actually miss out on a completely different set of people who might also buy from you.
To use a classic example, the makers of baking soda had a very specific use case in mind for their product: baking. But we all know that the uses for baking soda extend way beyond baking -- it can also be used to extinguish small electrical fires, for personal hygiene, and as a cleaning agent, to name a few. And you can bet that some people who buy baking soda never even use it for baking.
The lesson here is that building up a large following in social media could expose your brand and products to a group -- or groups -- of people you might never have thought would be interested in what you sell. Your product or service may not have completely different, original uses like baking soda does, but your followers could still surprise you. Just because a social media follower doesn't fall neatly into one of your cookie cutter buyer personas, doesn't necessarily mean he won't buy from you.
Always Be Working to Build Social Reach
The ultimate takeaway here is this: just because followers may not directly turn into customers doesn't mean they're not valuable. Social media reach can be a powerful thing for any business, and the ones who understand this know that continuing to build reach is a smart social media tactic.
If building reach isn't something you're consciously doing, you may want to start working to attract more fans and followers for your social media accounts. In this article, we've got some great tips for building reach that can help get you going. Doing so can greatly increase the impact and ROI of your social media efforts. And if you're having a tough time convincing your boss that building reach is important, share this article with them :)
In what ways are you working to regularly increase your business' social reach?
Image Credit: Caitlin Doe
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Kevin Moreland 9:07 AM on February 06, 2012
Interesting way to position the case for a business to have a presence on the social networks. Thanks for posting it.
Rachel Haber 9:17 AM on February 06, 2012
I completely agree Kevin. Your organization's social strategy may simply be to increase your reach to build your rep a thought-leader in the space and get on the radar of relevant influencers. I wonder if anyone has had success applying metrics to a strategy like this?
Chris Garafola 10:37 AM on February 06, 2012
Thanks for the article, I completely agree on all of your points Pamela! It's nice to finally have someone point out the positives of "unqualified" followers.
That being said — just like life itself, a lot of aspects of business are about balance. For instance, even if you have 5,000 followers on twitter, yet you also follow 5,000 people, you probably won't be seen as an "influencer". This can lower potential credibility etc. — even despite having a large reach. Here in lies opportunity costs. Fun stuff.
-Chris
Shawn Graham 10:40 AM on February 06, 2012
You raise some great points. Every time I think about followership, I can't help but refer to the video of "the first follower" and how that person helps to create a movement http://shawngraham.me/index.php/blog/dysfunctional-followership-strategies
The impact on SEO is only going to become greater over time so that means businesses are going to have to be very strategic about the social sandboxes they play in and how they grow their reach.
David Mercer 10:43 AM on February 06, 2012
Good points. Definitely agree with you. I'm a big fan of social influence - I think it's going to overtake SEO and Web traffic as the Internet's de facto "currency".
Check out http://www.siteprebuilder.com/content/5-reasons-why-social-better-seo
Shain 10:47 AM on February 06, 2012
You make some excellent points. Our CEO is very hesistant about using social media for business. I plan on sharing this article with him.
Kate, RM Social Media 10:57 AM on February 06, 2012
Interesting perspective, because I've often argued the opposite and it made me think more about why!
You're absolutely correct in your reasons of course, but I think my underlying concern is that so many of the strategies that get employed when "lots of followers" is the only objective, can lead to false positives in business terms. For example, buying followers or following back everyone and their spambot friends, then wondering why nothing good happens.
So, I'm happy to go with "lots of followers = great" provided we stick the caveat "real" in there!
Stirling Morris 11:38 AM on February 06, 2012
I couldn't agree more with the thoughts behind this post.
Having been a successful product representative in the commercial construction industry, the two best customer types for commercial projects are ones that rarely, if ever, directly pay for your products - the Owners and the Architects. Contractors purchase your product directly. But, if you can't convince the Architect or Owner that your product(s) should be specified and drawn into the plans and construction documents before the project is bid, then you will fail in commercial construction sales. Sales cannot exist without marketing.
Robin Taney 11:48 AM on February 06, 2012
I agree with this article, however, I think that the 1,000 followers should still be quality ones. Social media is an important way for creative, independent, and what I call "kitchen table" entrepreneurs to leverage PR for their business. I'm of the mindset that before you do anything, you should identify your ideal customer and then go after that ONE person. That person has friends (hopefully thousands :-) who will also be more likely to be interested in what you're selling, or, at the very least, will share it with everyone they know.
Alexa 1:39 PM on February 06, 2012
Pamela I wonder if you have been spying on us over at the Third Tribe forums. I posted a question regarding the importance of quality FB fans v. purchased FB fans because of a tactic a competitor was using.
We pretty much came down on the side of 50 quality fans over the 5000 bogus ones, but your article has made me reconsider. As suggested, I forwarded your post to my boss.
Here's the question though....as I've recently learned, it is entirely possible to buy more "fans" than you'll ever acquire using white hat tactics; and they will come at a much faster pace. Is it worth it to be a bit on the shady side and pay a company to bring you thousands of fans of dubious origin?
They will probably never buy, but as your post states they may hold value in other ways. Also, can you monetize the value of having a page with 5000 fans? To me it seems the more fans you have makes you appear more credible to the qualified customers who stumble upon your page.
Robin 2:50 PM on February 06, 2012
I sincerely hope this article is not suggesting that any legitimate business "buy" fans for any reason (including as a way to bring more customers to one's site.)
Social media is about engaging with customers, providing high value content, and building a relationship with them so that when the time is right, they will want to buy.
The drawback to having 1,000, 5,000, (or any number more than you can manage)followers is that it's virtually impossible to engage with them in a meaningful way.
Think about it: If a business has to stoop so low as to "buy" fans, then what customer is going to be beating a path to their door?
Alexa 3:43 PM on February 06, 2012
The article never once mentioned buying fans. However it was a tactic that was discussed elsewhere based on a competitor doing exactly that.
I would however like to know where one would go about aquiring fans by the truckload quality or otherwise.
Join the Fun! 6:51 PM on February 06, 2012
Dear hubspot -- you forgot one reason -- because it is really fun to interact with real people! Love, Join the Fun :-)
Tatiana 11:44 PM on February 06, 2012
Pam, You nailed it. That is one of the main reason we launched awesomize.me to distinguish the quality vs quantity fans, followers, and friends: http://awesomize.me/faq
Gaurang 1:34 AM on February 07, 2012
Rightly said. 20 real likes are more important and valuable than 2000 fake likes
Emmanuelle 8:46 AM on February 07, 2012
With lists and #search on Twitter, a lot of your followers might never see your posts and will only follow you so YOU can reach them by DM.
On Facebook, Edgerank rules. Your non engaged fans will never refer you... they don't see you in their Newsfeed.
Yes, lots of fans and followers is always best... If they're engaged with you.
Dan McDade 9:31 AM on February 07, 2012
The law of unintended consequences generally has a negative connotation. In the case of social media, the law of unintended consequences is: reach and influence are good things. I particularly liked the point about non-buyers actually becoming recommenders. Great post! Robin: grab another cup of coffee:)
Anonymous 11:36 AM on February 07, 2012
Great article! Thanks for writing this, it put some of my company's social outreach in perspective!
Voilet Francis 1:42 PM on February 07, 2012
Thanks Pamela for that great article. Social network really helps to build relationships and I would like a have qualified social media followers who are able to purchase from me at some point in time. They should also be able to so able to influence their followers to purchase from me as well.
Stephen 3:30 PM on February 07, 2012
This article shows the power of social reach. At Chatmeter.com we do a lot of inbound marketing and content creating. Our social reach is important when it comes to getting our content out there and generating leads back to our site.
Rob M 5:20 PM on February 07, 2012
Perhaps, but when you use words like 'might share your content...' or '...someone who finds your article in search because of them might.' to me, it's fluff. Show me the data. This is an old argument. 1000 non-qualified followers who never buy but 10 qualified who do?
Sell THAT logic to the executive...
Niall Mulrine 2:59 AM on February 08, 2012
excellent article did not realise power of more.i heard concentrating on great communication with few fans was was better than no communication from lots
Sean McPheat 12:44 PM on February 08, 2012
Interesting piece.
I've got thousands of followers all over the different platforms but my best "returns" come from a small niche of qualified prospects.
Engagement is key. What can you do to engage with your list?
Numbers are great for distribution but I also want dollars in the back too!
Driving for show putting for doe!
Portal do Sucesso 5:51 AM on February 13, 2012
It´s realy a good article. I was thinking the oposite, that would be better to have a few but good followers instead of many without interesting.