What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a successful social media account? Is it their killer video content? Is it their phenomenal photography? Or is it their follower numbers?
If you answered “followers”, you’re in the majority!
With the explosion of influencers and viral content, it’s hard not to be swept away by the sheer size of certain accounts. When you see @realmadrid, a Football club with 163 MILLION followers, or @fcbarcelona, another Football club with 127 million, or @championsleague, yet another Football club with 115 million (huh, the world really loves socc-excuse us-football), it can be hard to look at your own account with a measly few thousand followers as being anything but a failure.
But hey. Stop that. Don’t do that. That’s your inner saboteur talking, your imposter syndrome peeking out and trying to tear you down! You’ve worked hard, and your follower numbers do not equate as much success as you think they do!
Trust us. The Patch team has been working in social media for over 10+ years now and we know that millions of followers does not always a successful account make. Sure, you might not be the second largest Instagram account in the world like famed soccer player, @CristianoRonaldo (633 million followers. What!), but if you’re building an engaged audience with killer content, you’re already miles above most of your social peers.
At Patch, we’ve had the pleasure of building some fantastic social media platforms from the ground up, as well as taking over the management of previously owned accounts, and one of the first things we often hear from our clients is “How can you get me ______ number of followers fast?” We understand why people crave a large number of followers and perceive that as the ultimate goal, but here’s the true thesis of the argument:
While high follower counts can seem impressive, the true measure of social media success lies in the quality of engagement driven by compelling content.
As a side note, this Football/Soccer business started a debate between the staff about what we would re-name American Football as a sport.
What would you call it, dear reader? Get in the comments.
The Myth of High Follower Counts
It’s easy to assume that accounts with thousands or millions of followers are the most influential out there, that they are the gold standard all social media managers should be reaching for, but that isn’t always the case.
Consider, if you will, that while a lot of these accounts might have high numbers, their engagement is often minimal, especially when it comes to brand accounts. Often what happens is that accounts with millions of followers have minimal likes, comments or shares.
Just look at an account like @LorealParis. This skincare company has 11 million followers on Instagram, but their content very rarely reaches over 1000-2000 likes. That’s a wild disparity! Even with influencers and celebrity guests peppering their feed, the content is not entirely connected with their audience.
Another example is @SamsungMobile on Twitter. They’ve got 12.3 million followers, but much like Loreal, only achieve 500-1000 likes regularly on their content. What does this tell us? They aren’t engaging with their social media community in a way that resonates.
This is what your followers look like when you don’t provide them with quality content!
Strategies for Creating Quality Content
So, what is one to do? Seek high followers through any means necessary? Or build content that is more tailored to a specific audience? At Patch, we think the answer is simple. Quality always trumps Quantity, and our team has compiled some of our best tips to keep in your back pocket for the next time you need to develop content!
Always be Authentic and Tell a Story
Share compelling stories, real-life experiences, challenges, and triumphs about your brand, employees, products, and customers. People are surrounded by ads every minute of every day and seek stories that offer a real connection they can identify with. Show the human side of your business and let your brand’s personality shine through in your posts! Transparency builds trust and loyalty with your followers that is invaluable.
Provide Value
Offer insights, tips, and useful information that your audience can benefit from. Whether it’s industry trends, how-to guides, or expert advice, valuable content positions your brand as a thought leader and keeps your audience coming back for more.
Experiment and Analyze
Don’t be afraid to try new types of content and formats. Experiment with different approaches to see what resonates best with your audience. Regularly analyze your engagement metrics to understand what’s working and never be worried about refining your strategy. It’s fun to play and see what works, so give yourself permission to try new things!
Prioritize an Engaged Audience
The long-game is creating a community and building an audience that is going to be actively engaged and excited by your content. Focus on attracting followers who are genuinely interested in your brand. Engagement metrics like comments, shares, and saves are far more valuable than sheer follower count.
This is what your followers look like when you show them the good stuff!
The Power of Quality Content
How do we know this works? Well, if we may be so bold (and if you don’t mind us bragging a little), let us draw your attention to our client, OSL!
OSL is a dynamic, people-first agency specializing in tech recruitment, known for their presence in major retail stores like Walmart, The Mobile Center and The Samsung Store. If you’ve stepped inside the walls of one of these stores, chances are you’ve been helped by a rad OSL’er!
When we began setting OSL’s 2024 goals, our initial conversations with the client centered around growing their LinkedIn account. They wanted to expand their audience beyond potential new hires and build an audience of thought-leaders, directors and experts within the tech industry. Now, if the goal for 2024 had been to simply land more followers and gain vanity numbers, we knew we could easily nab these types of folks in the short term, especially with content supporting hiring initiatives. The real task at hand was creating a strong content strategy that targeted our new demographic and would encourage them to follow and engage with OSL’s initiatives regularly.
Quality Content in Action
With this goal in mind, we knew we needed to target the right followers, not just any ol’ folks. Following our own advice, we used the above tips and tricks to help OSL grow!
- Storytelling & Authenticity: We started sharing compelling stories about the most important thing at OSL, its people. Plus, authenticity reaaaaallly resonates with audiences.
- Example: Our Leadership 1-On-1 video series highlights real individuals within OSL’s leadership and their team’s achievements, giving a peek behind the curtain at what OSL is doing to help their employees achieve their best.
- Provide Value: Offering insights, tips, and useful information that your audience can benefit from helps build trust!
- Example: We revamped the OSL News site and our leadership team starting writing articles highlighting valuable industry insights, exciting changes in the industry, our women-empowerment and charity programs, and more.
- Experimented and regularly Analyzed Content:
- Just take a peek at the results below and you’ll see how we did! 😉
- Prioritized an Engaged Audience: The long-game is creating community and building an audience that is going to be actively engaged and excited by your content!
The Result
By focusing on these strategies, OSL saw impressive increases in engagement, just look at the numbers over the past 6 months on LinkedIn!
- LinkedIn followers grew by 7,370 in the first seven months of 2024
- Our reactions and engagements are up by 27% within the last six months
- We’ve had over 316K organic impressions
- Page Views have seen a 21% increase with over 60K views
- Unique Visitors are up by 13% with over 22K
We’re dang proud of these growth figures, and it highlights that simply gaining followers isn’t the end goal! Sure, our approach has increased follower counts but, more importantly, it is a highly engaged and loyal community.
Those numbers definitely make us feel like dancing!
To sum it all up…
Listen, followers are great, and honestly, we all love to see big numbers and watch growth happen, but it’s important to make sure you’re targeting the people that will be engaged and excited about your content. You want an audience that will be excited to tell their friends about your product or service and that aligns with your values. It takes longer to build, but it’s worth it.
So, take a closer look at your content strategy and prioritize quality. Your audience will appreciate it, and your engagement metrics will thank you!
And remember, dear reader, it’s not about the size of your follower count; it’s how you use i- wait, no, that’s not the message. It’s not about the size of your followers, it’s about the size of your impact. Yeah, that’s the one. Bam. Nailed it.
Now, off with you! It’s time to start building, friends!
Poof!
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