In the world of social media it’s pretty common to think a large following is a full proof measurement of success. I see it every day - friends asking friends to follower their business pages, even though the friends they’re asking aren’t really their target demographic, meaning they’re not willing or likely to buy their product or service.

If you’re guilty of asking random people to follow your business pages, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Thinking a large follower count is the #1 priority for your business pages is probably one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to social media marketing. The reality is this: your social media marketing plan should be designed and executed in a way that solves your own unique business problems - I’ll provide some foundational information to help you do just that.

Why shouldn’t a high follower count be a main priority?

Quality, not quantity.

As you’re building a following your main focus should be quality, not quantity. I’m not just talking about posting high quality photos or videos; I’m talking about working diligently to figure out who your customer is and what their problems are, then shaping your messaging to solve those problems. When you do this you begin to generate a following of high quality followers who actually care about your business. When your followers are people that actually care, they’ll buy from you, tell their friends about you, and they’ll engage with your content.

But why’s it important that people engage with your content? I’m glad you asked. First, I’ll tell you what engagement is: Engagement is the measurement of how much your followers interact with your posts, this can be in the form of Likes, Comments, Shares, Saves, etc. The more people engage with your posts, the more likely the various social media platform algorithms will show your posts to even more people. Social platforms like Facebook & Instagram want people to use their services, so they try to ensure they’re showing people valuable content that they’ll care about. If a specific piece of content has low engagement, that’s a sign that the content wont be of value to others, and it won’t be shown to them.

The more people engage with your posts, the more likely the various social media platform algorithms will show your posts to even more people.

The key takeaways here:

• Focus on the long game and build a following of the unique type of people that care about your business, product, or service.
• The higher quality your following, the better chance social media algorithms will work in your favor.

We just told you to focus on getting the attention of the right people, but how do you know who that is? Don’t worry, we’re getting to that below.

Where to start?

Before worrying about how many followers you have you need to consider the answers to the following questions:

1. What do you do? (What service do you provide?)
2. Who do you do it for? (For what industry or type of person?)
3. Why does it matter?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand your positioning, which is the knowledge of how you fit into the market relative to your competitors; and better understanding of your positioning will help you understand the actual person profile you’re trying to attract the attention of.

Have you ever considered what the value of a perfect-fit follower for your business is? At JZB MEDIA we position ourselves as: “A creative agency that solves real business problems.” So for us a perfect-fit follower is someone who’s interested in hiring us to problem-solve, it means they’re people who can trust us at the experts we are, and it also means they’re willing to pay a minimum $ amount for that expertise, for this example let’s say that’s $5,000/monthly.

Think about this question:

Would you rather have 100 followers that don’t match the person profile you’ve identified, or 5 followers that match the person profile you’ve identified? If you’re us, then this example means you make $0 from your 100 unimportant followers, or $25,000 from your 5 important followers; which is more valuable?

The point: The number of followers you have and the growth at which you’re attaining more can be good signs so long as you’re working to attract the right people. If you’re working to attract “just anyone,” your high follower count wont do much for you in terms of accomplishing real business objectives.