Are You Chasing the Wrong Metrics in Social Media Marketing?

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Many marketing consultants will tell you that, when it comes to social media marketing, engagement is everything. If you employ their done-for-you services, they will go out of their way to ensure that you get the highest possible number of likes, comments, and new followers.

So, you think that what they say makes sense, and you hire them. After all, if people like your content, they will be likely to buy from you, right?

Not necessarily. Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

The five realities of social media marketing metrics.

1. Getting engagement is relatively easy:

It’s social media. People go there to like and comment. So even if you can please just a small portion of the people on the platform, your content will get lots and lots of eyeballs, and lots of engagement.

Most social media managers or agencies will hold up these numbers, and show you that they have successfully executed their mandate – to grow your audience.

That is all good and well, but who exactly is your audience?

2. Engagement doesn’t mean that you are reaching the right people:

Engagement simply means that, well, your content is engaging. But to whom?

For instance, if you post a picture of a new concept car from Ferrari, it is likely to get loads of comments and likes.

But how many of the people engaging with your content will ever be in the market to buy a Ferrari?

Quite possibly, none.

3. The same goes for your following that grows as you attract engagement:

If you – or the social media agency or manager you appoint – focus on engagement rates and follower numbers to measure your success…

Then you may want to ask yourself this:

Who exactly are your followers? Go and take a look. If they don’t state on their profile what they do, you can simply have a look at the images they post.

Do they look like people who live the lifestyle of your typical target customer? Do they seem to be interested in things that would matter to your typical target customer?

How old are they? Do they fit the demographics of the people you want to target?

In fact, can you see ANY pattern in the type of person who follows you? or is it just a random group of people who are very unlikely to become buyers any time soon?

4. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in the middle:

On the one hand, you don’t just want a bunch of random people following you, or engaging with your content. On the other hand…

Engagement is how social networks decide how many people will see your content. If you have no engagement, not many people will see your content – ever.

However, if all of your engagement comes from people who simply like your content, but do not fit into your desired target audience, guess what?

The social network will show your posts to more of those people.

Keep in mind that any social network aims to keep users on the platform for as long as possible. The longer they stay, the more ads they are exposed to. The more ads they are shown, the more money the owners make.

As such, they don’t care if the people who see your content are people who would buy from you. From their perspective, if you want people to buy from you, you can pay for ads.

They just do what is best for THEIR bottom line.

So ideally, your social media audience should include a mix of people who are likely to engage with your content, and people who are actually going to be potential customers.

Depending on the niche you operate in, that could be a very wide, large group of people, or a very small, focused one.

5. Find the people you want in your audience, and connect with them:

You need to build an audience of two kinds of people – one group with engage with your content, giving you more exposure. The other group, usually much smaller – will be actual potential customers.

How do you know which is which?

Well, finding people who are likely to engage with your content is easy. Just do some searches for similar content, and note the people who like the content from lesser known users in your niche.

For your “engagement” audience, it doesn’t matter where they are from.

For your “prospect” audience, look at the comments, and see which of them could perhaps be from potential buyers. Visit their profiles, and look at what their profiles say, as well as what they post.

It’s not fool proof, but it will give you a reasonable idea as to whether the person you are looking at, is likely to be a prospect or not. If they seem to be a good fit, follow them. Some will follow you back.

If your business is area-bound, remember to include the town name or names in your search terms.

Finally, look at their follower and following ratios (on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest). If they follow much fewer people than are following them, chances are they won’t follow you back, and they will never see your content.

In conclusion:

Engagement is a double-edged sword. On the one hand you need it in order to get more exposure, but on the other hand, getting it from the wrong people can lead to exposure to ONLY (more of) the wrong people.

At the end of the day, there is only one real metric that matters on social media: Sales.

If your social media marketing is not making you sales, it can mean only one of three things:

a. Your target prospects don’t hang out on the platform you chose.

b. Your follower count and engagement rates are still too low (on Instagram and TikTok, for instance, you can expect around one click to your website for every 500-1000 views.

c. You are putting out the wrong content for your target audience.

The bottom line is this:

If someone offers to make all of your content go viral, run.

Viral content needs to have a very broad appeal. If you are selling makeup or very general merchandise with a very broad target audience, it can work.

But if what you do is aimed at a specific audience with a specific need or income bracket…

Viral content is unlikely to make you much money.

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per month on marketing agency fees!

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