Facebook, it seems, is always shaking things up. Just when we finally get used to their last round of changes, they go and “update” something else. We dislike how they decide what we get to see and what we don’t in our feeds, and just when we think we’ve outsmarted them, we realize they’ve once again beaten us to the punch.
Recently, Facebook struck fear in the hearts of page owners everywhere with the announcement that they were going to “make page likes more meaningful… [by] removing inactive Facebook accounts.”
Many page owners tried to inform their communities of the impending changes in hopes of preserving the numbers of fans that Liked the page.
While the dust continues to settle from Facebook’s March 12th move, we’re all still a little confused about what really happened because no two experiences were the same. Some pages lost a few followers while other lost thousands.
Don’t feel bad. It’s virtually impossible to keep up with changes and practices being created and deployed by the masters of Facebook’s universe. We can, however, appreciate the fact that all that effort is being made to create a better social media experience in the end.
When it comes to social media quality vs quantity, it’s often hard to stay the course. But even when numbers are a fast, easy way to determine how we’re doing – “Oh, look! We have 13 new followers this week!” – it’s not always an entirely valid measure.
We recently received an email request to Like a newly established Facebook page. Upon visiting the page, we noticed that although it just launched, the company already had over 15,000 Likes. As we tried to wrap our heads around what kind of social media magic was performed to accomplish such amazingness in just a few days, we quickly realized that it might have been a numbers game.
Did you know that you can buy followers and likes? Yep. You can grow inorganic communities overnight and impress everyone who visits your sites with thousands of extra fans. For a price.
But that raises a few questions, doesn’t it?
Why, yes. Yes it does.
Andrew Hutchinson hits a veritable plethora of proverbial nails on their heads when he says, “…platforms are doing all they can to identify and eradicate imposter accounts.” (Ah-Ha, Facebook… We get it now!)
There are always telltale signs of things not being on the up-and-up. And, even if the bulk of your followers aren’t social media experts, there are more than enough ways that building “smoke and mirrors communities” can come back to bite your brand in the backside.
So just how do we build and activate our social media following to impressive levels? The right way, of course… The quintessentially old school way with good content and genuine interaction.
- Listen to, and converse with, your audience regularly.
- Use the right language for the different platforms that you’re using.
- Learn more about your followers so you can provide more of what they like. Be the go-to source for information that they’re legitimately interested in.
- Say, “Please” and “Thank you”. Often.
- Don’t be too repetitive or “spammy” in your interactions. Genuinely connect with people, and they will genuinely connect with you.
- Keep your content fresh. Give people a reason to keep coming back to your sites for more. Your brand is a living, breathing, colorful being. Show its personality so your followers feel like they know it inside and out. The more people know and like about a brand, the more they’ll become ambassadors of your brand by sharing good things about it.
- Focus on engagement versus numbers. Look at what people are saying and doing rather than just how many there are. The activity is what matters when it comes to building a social community. Fewer quality followers that are more engaged will always be more valuable than a higher quantity of followers who are inactive.
Investing in the things that bring the best return always makes the most sense. Social media is no different, except for the fact that the returns come in variable forms. Decide what works best for your brand in the long-term because shortcuts rarely pay dividends.
Need help defining and directing your “Social Q” in terms of quality rather than quantity? We can help!
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