Do You Really Need To Focus on Your Social Media Numbers?

Its a struggle that many business owners deal with….I need to get more likes, I need more followers. But really you don’t need to worry about it! One of the biggest concerns from my clients I find they ask how they can I get more likes on my page, something that is typically considered a vanity metric. Or how come I only have this many likes on my page?

Stop looking at your social media numbers…..saaay what?!  Yes, I said the numbers really don’t mean much. Certain numbers that is.

But  isn’t that the whole point of social media, to grow a large following?

Yes building up your numbers online helps, however, it should not be your biggest focus. What we are talking about is vanity metrics. Vanity metrics are numbers that you can measure but don’t necessarily matter.  For example, it could be how many likes you got on your latest post. Basically they make you” feel good”  and hype up your ego but are “bad for action.” If a bunch of non buyers are liking your posts, it’s just not going to translate into money. Sort of like having fancy clothes and wallets, but no money in the bank.

Building a community that collaborates and engages with you and eventually buys from you is key.  100 out of 200 engaged followers is much better than only 5 out of 1000 engaging with your content.

The Money Is In The Message

I saw some great content from Sterling Griffin…..By the way if you haven’t check out Sterling Griffin you definitly should! His energy is fantastic and he has built a huge business in a short amount of time.

Here is one of the takeaways:

Likes. DO NOT = Leads

Comments DO NOT = Cash

Messages DO = Money.

Create great content and messages and more than likely it will attract the buyers that you want.

Yes it is great to have engagement, but its even better to have sales and in business that means cash.  So yes we do have to talk money.  As much as we all love to talk about how we want to have a business for fulfillment, we also need a business to make a living.  It’s ok to talk about money sometimes.

The money is in the message.  What does this mean though?

If I provide a piece of content to a business that only reaches a small audience, but provides a 20% conversion rate when it comes to sales…boom! That is way better than brining in thousounds of likes, and a big ol goose egg or even something like a 2% conversion rate. The fact is if they are liking your content but aren’t buying, its really doesn’t matter how many followers you have.

Page Likes and Followers Don’t Always Mean Sales. Provide messages to those who want to buy from you and not for the entire world. Niche down and focus on that small market and your conversions will likely skyrocket.

Vanity metrics are dangerous.

~ Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup

Free Social Media Resources For Your Business 

Focus on Your Marketing Goals

Lets first figure out your marketing goals. Why did you setup a social media page? Are you looking to sell a specific services, build brand awareness or increase visits to your local shop?

The end goal that you want to work on will predict the type of content. For example, if you are looking to get buyers to visit your shop videos centered around your location.  If you have the goal to get repeat customers of a service product informative videos that provide value will determine your expert value.

Metrics That Matter

The goal is to track metrics that lead customers into sales and increase your revenue stream. These are called actionable metrics.

Here are a few metrics to consider looking at just if you want to focus on your revenue stream:

• Conversion Rate – Not hard to undestand why conversions such as email inquiries, click to calls and clicks to sales pages are important. These are people that are taking action to learn more about your products or services.
• Repeat Pageviews – Visitor retention is a great way to know if you are bringing back quality leads to your website or blog who are interested in your content. If you are currently running paid ads consider using retargeting ads to continue to push them into your sales funnel.
• Content Shares – Behind every share is 100’s of people who have viewed your content. When someone shares your content it means that they believe it is valuable for their audience as well.  It also signifies an increase in organic traffic as they trickle it out to their audience. I mean who doesn’t love free traffic 🙂
• Engagment Rates Per Post – The percentage of people who are seeing the post are actually doing something with your content. This could be clicking on your links, or sharing and liking your content.
  • For Facebook your engagement rate is going to be calculated by (People Talking About This / Total Facebook Page Likes) x 100 = Engagement Rate %
  • For Instagram you engagment rate formula looks like this: (Engagements / Total Reach) x 100 = Engagement Rate
  • Twitter engagement rates are calculated for you in the “Analytics” Dashboard. You can access Twitter analytics by clicking on your profile image in the upper right hand corner. In the drop down menu, select ‘Analytics.’ and display on the right hand side of the screen under “Engagement Rate.”

• Purchaes on Social Media – If you have a shop setup on your Facebook or Instagram Page, ensure that you are tracking how many monthly sales from each platform in comparison to reach.

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