Why the focus on follower count is old news

Follower count, especially on Instagram, has always been a “metric” that people have focused on. The higher the follower count the better, right?

W R O N G 

Oh so very wrong. Sure you have 57k followers, but do people share your content? Do they comment on your content? Do they save your content? Do they like your content? Does your content provide value?

If your goal is to help solve a problem your prospective audience has, you don’t need every follower possible.

I worked with a fitness club where focusing on increasing the follower count was a goal, but we needed to be attracting those local to their particular geographical area. What we wanted to do ultimately, was engage the community and offer them solutions to their training online and offline.

So yes, increasing follower count happened, but we increased the follower count within the geographical area.

Vanity Metric = Follower Count

Follower count is something I so wish people and brands alike would stop zeroing in on. Social media marketing isn’t a popularity contest, but rather a tool for you to build an online presence and community. Sure, having 10k plus followers on Instagram got you additional features in the past, but that’s no more.

A higher follower count with sub-par engagement is a recipe for disaster! Why? Because people buy from people/brands they trust. Where does the trust come from? You engage with others, and with them so that they feel connected and like you care.

Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?

Community Management

You can’t just post and hope for all the likes in the world. You need to be engaging with your online community to make people feel welcome and a part of your online community. Community management is very important. If you’re not willing to engage with your community, people will talk and seek out others to help them with their problem(s).

Quality Over Quantity

Posting for the sake of posting is never a good idea. If you don’t have something of quality to provide, it’s better to just not post it at all. Honestly, posting something for the sake of posting can be a huge turnoff and drive people to unfollow your business.

Focusing on posting quality thoughtful content will always provide more value to your audience, which in turn helps you engage your community and be a thought leader. Quality over quantity is something that should be followed in all aspects of our day-to-day lives.

Website Click-Throughs

If your ultimate goal is to convert your audience to buy your product/services, a metric you’ll want to focus on will be your profile views and website click-throughs. You want your content to resonate enough to drive a prospective client through to your website.

Engagement Rates – Impressions, Reach, Shares, Likes, Comments & Saves

If your goal is to increase brand awareness, you’ll want to focus on your reach and impressions. The more eyes you get on your content helps with brand awareness. However, if you notice that those content pieces aren’t getting likes/comments/shares/saves, you may need to reassess your content strategy. Maybe try delivering the content in a different way such as reels instead of stories if you’re on a platform like Instagram.

Knowing where your target audience is hanging out online will help you be present on the correct platforms.

What is most important to you on social media? (hint: not follower count)

We need to think about what’s most important here. You want to build a community with your online presence. You want a place where people want to be, especially with how utterly consumed with digital content we all are, day in and day out.

If you don’t have a decent amount of engagement on your posts, even with a high follower count, your content won’t be prioritized on people’s feed or in the explore feed.

On average, engagement rates hover between 1% and 3%. When you have content that engages your audience, your engagement rate increases. Having an engaged community online will help drive your social followers to your business to help solve their problem(s).

Something I strive for with my own, and clients, social strategies, is focusing on community management and engagement. If I post something that doesn’t engage well, it’s something to reassess and see if it’s something that would be consumed better in a different way. It’s important for me to engage with my online community because, without them, I’m talking to myself.

Talking to myself is not the point in coming up with a strategy and posting if it’s not going to be of value to anyone. 

Social Strategy and Tracking Engagement > Follower Count

Not follower count. Increasing follower count – for the right reasons – is a good thing. But focusing on the metrics that show how people engage with your content and how they convert is what you should be focusing on.

A high follower count with low engagement doesn’t convert well. It’s difficult enough to translate how social media translates into ROI as it is. Make it easier by taking away the focus on follower count and focusing on showing things like website click-throughs, especially if it is going to a lead magnet.

Remember, that we’re surrounded by social media and it can be ridiculously draining on our mental health, so post helpful content for people. Make what you post count!

What do you think about the social follower count focus? What do you focus on when tracking social analytics?