The Social Media Numbers Game And Why It Is Best Not To Participate

Social Media July 25, 2010 7 Comments @niallharbison

I get frustrated by things like the social media monitor tracking the amount of likes brands have. Why? Because it forces people in to thinking about the numbers and ultimately just throwing money at a problem to beat their rivals. It’s all about a race to the top. Who can spend the most money to acquire likes or followers so as they can reach the top of charts without thinking what the purpose of their campaign is. Every single time I enter a pitch with a potential client they want to know how much you can increase their likes or Twitter followers so as they can keep up with X other business. It’s understandable because everybody has to report to somebody at the end of the day and they need something to impress their bosses with and to a certain extent one of the main things we have to do as an agency is to educate people that it’s not just about the numbers. It’s a tough challenge believe me. Now there is no issue with adding in metrics to social media and it is one of the things we are working pretty hard on in the background since we announced our partnership with a market research agency but brands and businesses need to forget about pumping money in to campaigns just to get the most likes. Rather than explain why it’s a bad idea because it would take me a couple of thousand words here is a short video from Seth Godin that explains why the race for numbers is just so wrong…

The worrying thing is that the message just doesn’t get through to people and there is so much money being thrown around at the moment in search of numbers through social media channels. Whats important to remember in terms of likes on Facebook is that no matter how many you have Facebook allows users to filter out updates from your stream from that page and even worse your news feed is based on an algorithm that feeds you the content you interact with the most so even if brand X buys your loyalty in the short term it could be a false “like” unless it’s content you genuinely want to see. You only have to look at some of the click through rates on Twitter or the amount that Twitter followers “sell” for on Ebay to see that those numbers mean nothing at all either. How many of your followers do you actually interact with? How many would do something for you? I would guess it could be as low as 10-20%. It’s a false race everybody! Concentrate on bulking that 10-20% out a little more by striking up conversation and doing stuff for other people, thats what works! Most readers of this blog will already know what I am talking about here but the vast majority of people out there think in pure numbers and the more of them that can see the video above the better!

*Am pretty sure I shared this video in the past on another blog but it is well worth sharing.

Tags

engagement
Facebook
followers
influencers
likes
online
seth godin
social networking

Comments

Jonathan

I’d argue that if your content is engaging enough to te average joe, and your in the business of page views, then Facebook fans/friends can be a very worthwhile excercise. Also, in terms of a startup it can be very helpfull. If I get a random friend or fan request I will always click to see what it is. Its a good enough way at the very least to get your brand in people’s minds and to get initial engagement.

For example if I think of web design companies in Ireland, 3 immediatly pop into my head. 2 are major companies, but 1 is a one man operation that has befriended me on Facebook and keeps popping into my status updates with his content. Without Facebook, I would have no knowledge he existed and thats value enough for that guy. He has befriended 1000′s of people, and whats the chances he will be the first person they turn to for any future web development? I’d say high enough given that web development is a niche and not something where an average Joe can name 3-4 companies providing the service. So for him these masses of friends or fans are usefull.

Another example of where high numbers of friends would be usefull if the content is engaging enough: Sex

Imagine I launch a website that relies on advertising called hotchick’s.com. Now suppose I befriend thousands of men and consistantly post pictures of attractive scantily clad females into their status feed daily, with the promise of more upon clicking the link. I would imagine that would have a very high click through rate and would drive lots of traffic to my site, were they may of may not click on Ad’s making me money..

If your whole purpose of being on Faceook is driving traffic to an external site, then the numbers game can be usefull. I dont need these people to offer me a place to stay for the weekend or loan me 100 quid, just go to my website because that content I post in your feed is engaging and interesting to you (and click on a few Ad’s while your there). Its a better traffic driver than most other techniques and I’d argue that the brand association (given they have not already friended your competitor) is priceless.

Now of course this really depends on your business. If you had a paper clip company with 5000 fans, I’d think that’s pretty much useless because frankly, who cares about paperclips except 0.1% of the population and likely 0.1% of your fans. At the same time, when those fans think of paperclips, your paper clip company pops into their head. That must be worth something I suppose….
http://www.simplyzesty.com NIall Harbison

Dont get me wrong although the chasing of numbers is not what I think people should be obsessing about in social media there are times when it works. Just last week I wrote about growing the numbers to this blog and I explained who 18.5% of the traffic now comes from Facebook. The thing is with that, just like the web designer example above there is a clear goal and that is driving business leads through to us. The thing with the web designer above is that he is probably creating some useful content and engaging you rather than just trying to get 5000 followers on Twitter for the sake of it. The point that I am trying to make is that getting engaged fans, followers, blog readers etc is far more useful that having 10,000 automatically generated numbers who are going to do nothing for you!
http://www.intelitecht.com Scot Wheeler

Just FYI, Simply Zesty is my new favorite blog. So glad I found you guys. Thanks for the great posts.
http://www.deaddinosaur.co.uk Chris Paul Norton

Nice post, I agree with the fact that you only actually engage with 10-20% of your fans or followers on a regular basis. However, I do think bigger numbers can help in some areas because you have more potential contacts. However, the best way forward is to engage with as many people as you can by adding value and giving your fans/followers something useful. If you continue to do that and try and strengthen your online relationships that’s when you get real value from social media.
http://socialgrow.com Ken Herron

Great topic Niall,

I do confess to being an evangelist for social engagement *and* numbers.

I authored a post for the July “Social Media Marketing Magazine” I’d like to share: http://www.smmmagazine.com/blog/2010/07/17/size-matters-how-a-large-online-network-can-transform-you-your-marketing-and-your-business/.

I look forward to the continued discussion.

Cheers,

-K

Ken Herron
Chief Marketing Officer | Co-Founder
SocialGrow Inc.
+1 888 SOC GROW, x2 Voice/Fax
ken.herron@socialgrow.com
http://socialgrow.com
http://twitter.com/socialgrow
Paul Betts

The numbers game has another vital place in my experience. I work mainly with small companies who are often new to Social Media. I have found that (assuming all the other good stuff about engaging content, meaningful conversations etc.) a Facebook Page acquires something of its own momentum when it passes as small a number as 300 “Likers”. Beyond this “magic” number people start to find the Page rather than the Page having to go looking for them.
Not only do the numbers then grow themselves but the quality and value of those Likers improves all the time. The people who come looking for us are (usually) genuinely interested in what we have to say.
http://palak1582.wordpress.com/ Palak

Very intriguing talk with Seth Godin.I felt like each word he spoke was so true and I have also been feeling the same.I am still a learner in the field of social media,but recently my supervisor gave the this task.He asked me that are you familiar with social media platforms,I said yes.Then he said,Ok then can you help increase our number of friends or followers.I said I can start networking and communicating with them on FB and other platforms,exchange useful information and increase in the number of friends would follow by itself.
But he said,no I dont want you to just network there on FB,I just want an increase in number of friends.
At this time,I asked myself,not him,what would happen if few numbers increased,who are those people,do we even know them,if asked for business or any suggestion-would they give their view.

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