Why you should stop worrying about how many ‘likes’ or followers you have on Social Media….

I was onboarding a new client recently and we got onto the subject of page likes. I was running this client through all of the metrics that I consider EXTREMELY valuable when conducting campaigns or activity on Social Media. Those metrics being; landing page views, leads, conversions, cost per conversion, return on ad spend (just to name a few). After I finished speaking to them about all of these juicy KPIs that I literally dream about when I close my eyes at night, they stopped me before going on…

“Now, I noticed there that you didn’t mention ‘Facebook Likes’ in that list of metrics. Is this something I shouldn’t be worried about as a small business owner?”

Great question! And it’s something I get asked A LOT. The short answer? No! You shouldn’t be worried about how many likes your Facebook page has or how many followers you have on Instagram. They don’t matter! In fact, they haven’t mattered for a while now…

The reason? Likes or Followers don’t instantly equate to engagement (or, to a greater extent, conversions or sales!) Organically, only 1-2% of your audience sees anything you do on social. So, to put that in perspective, if you have 1000 likes, only 10, maybe 20 people might see what you post!

Urgh – gross right? But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways for your organic content to get seen more regularly! The key in today’s current climate on Social Media is to prompt more meaningful conversation!

Ever since Facebook got into hot water last year around that data-bingle, they’ve been steering towards fostering more ‘meaningful interactions’ on their platforms. What that means for small business owners is that we can no longer rely on a pretty picture and ‘TGIF’ caption to prompt engagement. What Facebook is begging of us is to do is break down the walls of our brands online, and create opportunities for engagement that spark conversation.. And the reason they’re begging this of us? Because that old trick of sales-y copy or boring one-liner captions just doesn’t lead to any type of tangible business results! And really – that’s all that Facebook wants for us as businesses. Sure, they want us to spend on their platform as well (and I’ll get into THAT in another blog post), but all they REALLY want is for us to get results on their platform so that we hang around with them for a little while longer.

“But, HOW do I spark those conversations, Loz? How do I keep my customers engaged?”” I hear you shout! Here’s a few quick ways I like to keep things interesting with my audience:

• Cut the crap captions. Be real with your brand. Sure, the level of ‘realness’ you can share as a business might not get to the level sharing a video of you in your dressing gown (I’ve done that…), but you can show behind the scenes and invite your customers into ‘a day in the life’.

• Conduct FB and IG Lives! Prompt questions from your audience in real-time OR get them to submit questions early. You could answer a few FAQs about your biz, or just do a random Q&A to keep things interesting!

• Start convos via DMs – so much more intimate than a comment, sending a direct message to someone via your business page might start a conversation that could ultimately lead to conversion!

• Continue conversations off of Social. Sure Social Media is AMAZE – but what if you woke up tomorrow and it was all gone? Do you have other ways to continue conversations with your customers? Perhaps on email or via Youtube? Give your audience content via those channels as well!