From the beginning of the Internet Revolution and the tidal wave of Social Media, one thing everyone wants to talk about is NUMBERS. How many followers, connections, hits on your website, page views, e-mail marketing list subscribers, and a host of other metrics…all designed to tell you what a great job you are doing reaching your audience. I want to suggest a reason why you might want to ignore the numbers…they just may be misleading you!
I know this statement will raise the hair on the back of the neck of the people who are charged with creating these numbers and analyzing them on a daily basis…but there’s another aspect to consider. In reality, numbers are very valuable…the right numbers…at the right time. With so much emphasis on getting big numbers that can prove your point (we all know you can use numbers anyway you want to make a point) I see leaders missing some key numbers and information.
IF YOUR AUDIENCE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU, DO YOU CARE ABOUT GETTING MORE OF THEM?
This is an issue of QUALITY over QUANTITY. In the early days of social media, everyone wanted big numbers…the more followers you had the more important you were perceived to be. In the early days of social media, some of my peers did everything they could to get their follower numbers up higher than anyone else so they could demonstrate how important they were…they weren’t. The audience didn’t really care about them or their content, they just followed them. But they had thousands upon thousands of followers and connections.
And so it continued…they spoke about how critical it was to have big numbers and so everyone got on the bandwagon and started generating big numbers. There were companies born solely in the business of helping people grab lots of followers and “likes” in facebook. You could easily buy 500, 1000, 10,000 of these if you wanted. If you didn’t have big numbers in social media you weren’t important.
THEY MISSED THE POINT…IT DOESN’T MATTER.
What they missed is the fact that NO ONE CARED ABOUT YOU…they cared about the numbers. So essentially what was being created was the exact same model that had just been killed…broadcasting messages to huge audiences in the hopes someone would notice and pay attention. This was nothing more than automating through social channels the “spray and pray” strategy that had been used during the Industrial Revolution…only they could spray you more often and with more data…UGH. This wasn’t working any better than it did before…sending your message to thousands in the hopes one or two might respond. It didn’t work…the numbers were misleading you…THEY DIDN’T CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR CONTENT.
Today, I would suggest that follower counts and numbers are generally IRRELEVANT. They don’t tell the story about who really matters to you and your business. What matters is the number of people who actually care about you, what you do, and the content you produce. Knowing who wants to engage in a conversation with you, willing to be loyal to you, and will tell others about you…those people matter. The rest, they are just people that “hang on” for the ride but will never do anything to help you in what you are doing. They don’t really matter. Unfortunately for most, this is the majority of their large follower base of people. Knowing who matters is what makes social media valuable and useful to you and your business.
In my speeches, I tell leaders I would rather have 10 customers that rave about me and think I walk on water with how I can help their business…they give constant feedback and they tell others…lots of others. I would trade that for 1000 followers or connections that don’t really care about what I am about or what I provide. These are meaningless numbers to me. I don’t play that numbers game…I want to connect to those who care and those I can truly help. If I can’t help them or they aren’t interested in the information I provide about ways they can become a remarkable company, they don’t matter.
These numbers shouldn’t matter to you either…especially if they aren’t interested in you as a company, an individual, or how you can help them with your product or service or experience. They just don’t matter to you.
Others might say, “Well they might know someone who does need your services or wants your information.” I disagree this is a valid source…people know people like themselves who are interested in the same things and have similar needs…not outsiders. They don’t really have the influence in the audience you want…this is wishful thinking. This is like the newspapers and radio stations telling you that since they play country music and you are focused on people who like classical that they will tell all the people they know about your classical music station. They won’t because they know other people who like country music, not those that are passionate about classical music. Simple example but easy to understand when you are talking about your content relating to your business.
Don’t let meaningless numbers mislead you to think you are doing great and making lots of progress when you aren’t…connect to the right audience and they will tell more of the right audience and this is how you grow the right audience. These don’t have to be big numbers to make this process happen. Focus on what’s important to the right persona audience and those numbers are valuable…and they don’t have to be big…just the right numbers.
When you focus on the right audience, you don’t need big numbers…unless they are in the right audience…then this is awesome. Fire the ones (unfollow or disconnect) from those that aren’t the right personas…they will only clog up your networks with others that are the wrong personas. Keep your channels clean and with the right people and watch it grow with more and more of the right audience for your message and your products/services and customer experience.
