So You Gained Thousands of Social Media Followers: So What?

 

No offense to Ms. Tran, but I’m simultaneously amused and dismayed when social media specialists emphasize social media quantity rather than quality or results. Although, to her credit, Ms. Tran says:

 

“People say quality over quantity? True, however, I would rather have both to maximize your reach. You must continue to build your community—whether online or offline.”

 

I agree to a point, but what’s it all for? What are your social media marketing objectives and have you reached any of them?

 

 

Although Ms. Tran’s post includes good ideas to expand your Twitter network, here’s what I see are some pitfalls:

 

• When you have thousands+ followers, your Twitter stream changes in seconds. In real time, it’s impossible to catch the tweeps and influencers with whom you want to engage. You would have to go to each of their Twitter profiles in order to reciprocate retweets and interact with them.
• People easily forget that we are on different time zones. Unless you and your followers use scheduled tweet tools, you won’t necessarily see tweets that appear when you’re asleep in La La Land.
• You may have a lot of followers but how many are inactive, having created Twitter accounts they never use? How many are slick salespeople spamming their wares? How many followers tweet in a different language or live in another country where you do not market your products and services? How many have stopped following you back? Get my point?

 

Ms. Tran ends her post with this:

 

“I hope that these ten points will help you grow your brand. Remember the more seeds you plant, the larger the harvest. An hour a day focusing on following will give you a robust community.”

 

I say it’s great to have a growing social media network and community, but you really need to identify the “why.” What are you trying to achieve? Sharing content with more people is a nice goal, but again, what are you trying to accomplish?

 

Are your followers (and their followers) in your target market segment? How many are good prospects for your business or nonprofit organization? Are you measuring your calls to action? Are you getting more newsletter signups? More website/landing page visits? More sales?

 

Social media has certainly given us an amazing way to market our organizations, but it can be a big time waster without a marketing strategy, associated tactics, and metrics.

 

Are you achieving your marketing objectives using social media? How?