Mar 30, 2011
Posted by Mike in Marketing,New Media,Social Media,Twitter
0 Comments
The Social Media Numbers Game
One of my first jobs when I was fresh out of college was as a marketing assistant at a Sci/Tech publishing house. The main focus of the job was basically finding targeted direct mail lists in niche markets like organic chemistry, landscape management, wastewater treatment, and various human organ disease treatments. Exciting stuff, huh?
What it taught me was the value of targeting a niche rather than blasting a “universe” of potential buyers. We lived by direct mail, we could just as easily die by it, so if the lists I was able to find were right, all was well. The Marketing VP’s instructions to me were clear: “Find me small, targeted lists, we don’t mail to everyone.”
Flash forward 20+ years (sheesh, has it been that long?), and while direct mail is basically a thing of my past, the same principles apply to the Social Media world: small, targeted groups are generally better than large swaths of faceless “likers.”
Ahh if only the rest of the world would understand this. There’s a real numbers game happening in the social media world these days. It seems that in the race for national brands and local businesses to jump on the social media bandwagon, targeting has fallen by the wayside. I see what some social media consultants are pushing on clients who don’t know any better: the more Facebook likes, the more Twitter followers, the better. Well I call BS.
In his new book Social Media ROI (affiliate link), Olivier Blanchard gives the following example:
Then I asked him, “What is the value of having 25,000 followers on Twitter? To your company, I mean.”
He hesitated and finally answered, “More reach. More impressions.”
Then I explained to him, “Does a company want a million followers on Twitter or a million net new customers acquired through Twitter?”
He’s spot on, the number of followers you have on Twitter, or the number of Likes you get on Facebook mean nothing if you are not engaged with them. It’s pretty easy to bulk up a Twitter follower count; just auto follow everyone, and wait for the bots to descend, soon you tweet stream will be filled with valuable offers on all sorts of fun things. But shouting a sales message out to a bunch of uninterested (and in some cases, not even human) followers is kind of pointless, isn’t it? I mean, sure the social media consultant that’s sold you “follower count as proof of effectiveness” will be thrilled, but they’re probably going to be even more thrilled when you pay their bill.
What This Means for Local Businesses
If you’re a local small business, say a CPA firm here in New Jersey, and you are interested in using Twitter to generate referrals for your business, what’s more important: 1,000+ followers on Twitter, most of whom will never use your service, let alone read your Tweets, or 200 small business owners who need your service, and are looking for ways to make their lives a little bit easier?
So don’t play the numbers game. Right now, our @brunswickmedia Twitter account has 322 followers, not a huge number, but a respectable number. Could we be more engaged with them: we sure could. Do I care if that number climbs to 10,000: Meh.
An Aside: The Thing That Set Me Off On This Post
I saw a tweet earlier today from a “NJ based consulting service” that offers social media as part of their service offerings. Here’s the Tweet, with the names and link removed:
I just unfollowed @USER_NAME_X right back. Thanks to #NutshellMail for showing me quitters!
Wow! Really? Someone unfollowed you, and as a social media services provider, you felt it was a good idea to retaliate against them by calling them out, and calling them “quitters”? Spiteful & petty, that’s their brand to me now. Sure it “hurts” when someone unfollows you, but is it really necessary to scream at them as they leave? The consulting service is playing the numbers game. Don’t do that.
I just watched Scott Stratten’s recent keynote from an Adobe conference last night, and this particular part came to mind:
Don’t throw shoes at people either. 
(And if you get the time, watch Scott’s full keynote; it’s well worth the time.)
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