Why Worrying About Social Media Likes, Followers and Shares is a Waste of Time

I made a mistake…

Last year, I wrote an article for the folks over at the PostPlanner blog.

In the article I covered tips on how to decide which social media platforms to use for your startup. You can read the full post here.

At the time that I created that blog post, I thought that I did a pretty good job of rounding up statistics and other data to help folks determine which social media networks they should be using.

how to decide which social media platforms to use

The post was well received by the Postplanner community (it has around 14 comments or so) and generated some pretty good buzz.

But…

If I could go back and rewrite the article I would write it from an entirely different perspective.

This is what I am going to discuss in this post.

The Myth of Being Everywhere (And Why It’s Not a Smart Strategy)

It’s easy to see why a lot of people get “squirreled” and follow along this path though when they are just starting out.

You’ve read the articles….(or perhaps heard someone say something like)

“If you want to get more traffic to your website and build your audience you should try to get as many likes, shares and FOLLOWERSSSS as possible”.

Peeps…

This kind of strategy can be downright tiresome and will get old really fast — especially if you are building your brand solo because:

#1: It takes TIME to learn how to use social media networks. If you’ve been online for any length of time then you already know that every social media platform is different.

As an example:

Twitter (one of my personal favorites) is a fast-paced “conversational” type of network. You need to post content multiple times a day on Twitter to get some traction.

Whereas “Facebook” is more of a “let’s hang out and chat” type of network where you don’t have to post as much.

#2: You may not have the RESOURCES that other brands do. Bigger brands and folks that post to a lot of social media networks have TEAMS in place to help them.

So it’s not smart to get out there and think just because you see other brands posting to 10 different social media platforms that you should do it too.

#3: Trying to be the jack of all trades (leads to being a master of none). You’ve heard the saying “jack of all trades master of none” right? Well, if you want to be effective at social media marketing, you need to be “intentional” about the platforms that you use.

Is Social Media Engagement a TRUE Measure of Success?

I read an article from one of my favorite bloggers sometime ago Mark Schaefer that runs Businesses Grow. In one of his blog posts, Mark talks about how he has more than 168k (thats thousands YALL) of followers on Twitter and gets a great deal of engagement from his connections.

In addition to social media engagement, Mark get’s a great deal of engagement on the blog content that he writes.

But…here’s the kicker:

Hardly any of the folks following him and engaging with him on social media are hiring him…

Something to think about right?

Likes, Shares, and Follower Counts Can Be…Very Deceptive

Have you seen blog posts stating things like…

“You need to get 20,000 IG followers and you can make XYZ per month” or “Learn How to get 100,000 Facebook Fans”

While I appreciate these kinds of posts, I’ve learned the hard way that follower counts, likes and shares do not give an accurate picture of how “successful” someone is at social media marketing.

For example:

Take a look at these two accounts: One is from my YourChicGeek Twitter account with 5k connections and the other is from a larger Twitter account that I run with nearly 10k connections.

YourChicGeek Twitter Account Clicks and Engagement (With 5K) Connections

But, if you look closely you can see that the Tweet that I sent out got 36 clicks! Grant it, this isn’t a ton of clicks by any means but it does prove that my audience is engaged with me via Twitter with a smaller account.

Now:

Check out this screenshot from a larger social media account that I run. This account has nearly 10k followers, but the engagement and click through rates are terrible.

Twitter Account that I Manage and Own (Nearly 10k Connections)

I learned very quickly that you should never equate the number of followers someone has with how well they are doing.

How to Decide Which Social Media Platforms To Use

As I grew more frustrated with trying to do all the things and use EVERY social network there was…. I decided to rethink my social media marketing strategy.

I did something that I should have been relying on from the start to tell me which social media networks I should be using.

I checked my Google Analytics account!

To my surprise, Pinterest was the social media network that was bringing me the BEST ROI for my time.

Here is my advice for choosing the BEST platforms that will give you the BEST ROI for your business:

Choose a few platforms to start with (no more than 3) then use Analytics to determine which social media platforms are giving you the BEST ROI.

After you determine which platform is working well for your brand, then hunker down and put a ton of effort into mastering it.

See this is the thing:

Listening to people tell you where you “ought” to be posting is one thing, but checking the data for yourself is another.

This is what happened to me. I assumed things instead of verifying what was actually working via my Google Analytics account.

Folks, take it from me, never assume anything. Data is the only thing that you can rely on that will give you a true sense of what’s working and what’s not working.

Savvy Social Media Marketing Requires Intent and Strategy

If you want to win at the social media marketing game guys, you will need a strategy in place….

If you:

#1: Struggle to find the right types of content to post to your social media accounts

#2. You are frustrated with your progress

#3: Spend a lot of time posting content to social media, but are not seeing any results from your marketing efforts

#4. Are overwhelmed by the amount of social media marketing tools there are out in the interwebs

I get it…because…

These were the same things that I struggled with too until I got a system in place for systematizing, organizing and planning my social media marketing.

It’s the main reason why I created Savvy Social Media. Savvy Social Media is a workshop in the Blazing Branding Academy that helps small businesses like yourself get out of the hamster wheel of throwing things to the wall and hoping they stick on social media by planning, organizing and systematizing the content that you post on social media.

You can click here to check it out.

Once I got a repeatable system in place for social media marketing, social media marketing got a lot easier for me.