Today web traffic marketing is incomplete without social media marketing. Popularity of social networking has made social media marketing an important part of the overall online marketing strategy for a majority of companies. Although marketers are no longer testing social media waters, but launching full scale social media campaigns, many of them lack the right focus.
Many marketers seem to be focusing on number, rather than user engagement. They aim to achieve a particular number of ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ within a certain period of time. It is important to have goals like these, but it is also important to understand that social media is not about numbers.
Larger number of Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter ‘followers’ are not equivalent to social media success. These numbers may or may not be accompanied by high level of engagement. Marketers need to focus on increasing engagement level rather than running after numbers. It is possible for a campaign to be successful from a numerical perspective, but still have low engagement rates. Such a campaign cannot be called a success.
It is very easy for social media users to ‘like’ your brand or to start ‘following’ you with a single click. It does require any investment on their part. So the number of ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ does not indicate the number of people actually engaging with your brand.
Followers and ‘likes’ are important, but engagement level is more important. You need to consider factors the frequency of visit of your followers to your Facebook page. Numbers are important as they offer a strategic direction, but you need to remember why these number matter and the ultimate reason for your social media efforts.