"Likes don't determine your worth." -Sean McCabe
One of the huge advantages of using social media is that unlike other forms of media, it makes it a lot easier to access data on how your audience is engaging with your marketing. However, BEWARE. While measuring your progress is important, some metrics are not as important as you may think and you could easily find yourself spending a lot of time and energy finding ways to boost all the wrong numbers.
What are vanity metrics?
Vanity metrics include data such as social media followers, page views, subscribers, and other analytics that are impressive on paper, but do little to contribute to driving tangible business goals, such as revenue and profit. They can be easily manipulated and have little to do with the numbers that really matter.
Meaningful Metrics
You want to avoid metrics that are easily manipulated by irrelevant activity, and focus instead on the ones that are actionable. Actionable metrics means that they can guide changes to be made in your behaviour to improve your results and therefore, your performance in real growth for your business, such as sales and revenue.
Rather than "likes" and "views" you should be observing metrics such as engagement and conversion metrics. Your efforts should be directed towards the data which tracks your ability to attract, retain and convert potential customers.
Ideally, your social media strategy is not isolated from your overall marketing plan and should be doing its part to support your marketing efforts to convert as much of your audience into paying customers.
Quality not Quantity
It has been said so many times before. I will not be the first to say it and I will not be the last. Stop obsessing over these meaningless metrics. The number of followers you have, the number of likes a post receives... When these numbers soar it is easy for you to feel like you have accomplished a lot. But again, how many of those "likes" are translated into growth for your business?
I want to challenge you to observe which approach you are employing. Is your focus on trying to please everyone? Or are you building your brand to attract your ideal client? These are two very different approaches and one of them is more effective strategy than the other.
Remember, your aim is not to please everyone. Your aim is to attract your ideal client.
In trying to make content to appeal to everyone, you risk weakening your brand. You will find yourself spreading too thin. You should focus instead on delivering rich, quality content that will engage your ideal audience.
A large audience does not equate to a large number of paying customers.
If that large audience does not include your target audience, you will be wasting your time and resources engaging persons who were not interested in purchasing from you and probably never will be.
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