Social media following: Quantity Vs. Quality

My Facebook likes are more than my competitor, but he gets more engagement and sales than I do, why is that? A question I have labored to answer over and over again for the past decade now. The obsession with big numbers, big followership numbers, has been the bane of our industry (Digital Marketing) so far.

Too many people are too focused on brand popularity, not customer loyalty and satisfaction. Focused on metrics and KPI's and not business impact. And for that very reason, too many business owners find themselves disenfranchised with their digital marketers, leaving the marketers bamboozled when all they see are positive numbers.

I often refer to that herdsman analogy that has served me so well over the years, to help me explain the difference between having huge followership and having a good return on investment.

The quality of your followers (Cows) matters above quantity. Imagine having 1000 Boran cows and trying to get as much milk as your competitor with 200 Friesian cows? It just wouldn't work. Neither would having a 90% male audience and trying to sell bras, or cooking gas.

The composition of your followers is paramount above everything. Hit the sweet spot between high quality followers and quantity, and you in for a treat.

Now, of course that doesn't mean that Page growth ads should be thrown out the window. To the contrary, they are essential to hitting that sweet spot, when done right.

Just like heading to the market to purchase your herd of high quality Friesians for a diary farm, or Borans for a beef farm, you have to identify your ideal customer before creating your ads. Map out their daily life. Where they live, work, play, Pray. What are their interests, age group, gender and even what they dislike so you can exclude it from your ads target group. Once all this is mapped out, then advertise.

Next step is feeding your herd with the right content, and organically growing it with influencers. These can be the usual hired guns, or even your own satisfied customers.

Like every diary farm, once your cows are fed and well taken care of, you need to herd them to a milking shed which is of course either your website, app, lead generation form, or a sales point like Jumia or a Facebook shop.

Ignoring all these steps could lead you to having a farm full of emaciated poor quality cows, or worse still, a herd of bulls from which you will never draw a drop of milk.