Quality Over Quantity: The Overblown Importance Of Likes And Followers

  |   21 October, 2014   |   843   |   3980

The evidence for social media as a viable means of marketing is overwhelming, even for businesses traditionally unaffiliated with social media marketing. But many companies, even major marketing and advertising agencies, use objective numbers like Facebook likes or Twitter followers to measure a campaign’s health or success. It’s tempting to use objective measures like these because they’re verifiable, quantitative, and logical, but the true significance of likes and followers to the success of a social marketing campaign is greatly overestimated.



Why It’s Natural to Think Likes and Followers Are Important



We all fall into the trap of thinking more is better, and to an extent, it’s true; there are some benefits to having more likes and followers. For example, people tend to follow accounts that have large followings simply because they want to be a part of the crowd. By this logic, you could gain new, real followers just because your numbers are impressive. Along similar lines, if you tweet a message to 1,000,000 followers, even if those followers aren’t loyal to your brand, at least some of them are going to respond or take action.