Anyone who has ever dabbled with social media will agree that there’s something quite satisfying about watching your follower count grow. From your first 100 to your first 1,000, each milestone is undeniably exciting, and rightly so. However, this is where my slightly controversial opinion as a marketer tends to shock businesses that I work with: your follower count might be one of the least useful numbers you’re measuring.
Before anyone comes for me, I’m not saying followers don’t matter. Building an audience of people interested in your business is a brilliant thing, but there is a difference between growing an audience and growing a business. Let’s put it into perspective.
Two photographers, two very different audiences
Imagine you’re a local photographer with 300 Instagram followers. Most are people in your area, some have booked with you before, and others regularly recommend your services to friends. Now imagine another photographer with 5,000 followers, but the majority live nowhere near them, rarely enquire and have little intention of booking.
On paper, one account looks considerably more successful, and if you’re aiming to go down the influencer route, then of course a larger following is beneficial. From a business perspective, though, it’s worth considering which audience is actually more valuable, and shocker, it isn’t necessarily the one with the bigger number. So, what should small businesses focus on instead?
There is a difference between growing an audience and growing a business.
Start with what you want your marketing to achieve
I’d start by looking at what you actually want your marketing to achieve. Are you hoping more people will visit your shop? Request a quote? Book an appointment? Discover a service they didn’t realise you offered? These overarching goals are the things your marketing should be working towards, and from this, we can derive other questions worth asking beyond how many followers you’ve gained:
- Are you reaching people who could genuinely become customers?
- Do people understand what you offer and why they should choose you?
- Is your content answering the questions potential customers have?
- Are you generating enquiries, website visits, bookings or conversations?
- Are people remembering and recommending your business?
Not everything shows up in your insights
It’s also worth remembering that not everything valuable will show up in your social media insights. Someone might see several posts, never follow you, and still walk into your shop three weeks later. A customer might recommend you in a WhatsApp group you’ve never heard of, or someone might follow you for six months before they’re ready to make an enquiry. None of these things makes growing your follower count pointless. It just means the full picture is much bigger than one number, and relying on follower growth alone can mean overlooking some of the things your marketing is actually achieving.
The problem with chasing numbers
This is where I think the problem with chasing numbers really comes in. Follower count is just one of the metrics we can become a little too fixated on. Reach, views and likes can be equally distracting when we start treating them as measures of success rather than indicators of how our content is performing. Of course, these numbers have their place, but they don’t necessarily tell us whether we’re reaching the right people or encouraging them to take action.
When growing those numbers becomes the main objective, it’s easy to start making decisions around what gets attention rather than what actually helps your business. You might find yourself chasing trending audio, creating content that appeals to absolutely everyone or worrying that a post has only reached 200 people. But what if 20 of those people are exactly the customers you’re trying to reach? And what if one of them goes on to make an enquiry? That could be a considerably better outcome than a viral post seen by thousands of people who have no interest in what you sell.
My smallest post won me a customer
I’ve experienced this myself. My second-ever post reached over 2,000 people, which was obviously exciting for a brand-new account. Yet it was my fourth post, which reached fewer than 100 people, that actually secured me a paying customer. If I’d judged those posts purely on reach, I would have assumed the second was considerably more successful, when in reality, the smaller post delivered something far more valuable to my business.
Celebrate the followers, then build the relationships
So, my advice? Celebrate your first 100 followers. Celebrate your first 1,000 too. But give just as much attention to your first enquiry through social media, the customer who tells you they’ve been following your work for months, or the person who recommends your business because they genuinely love what you do. Keep building your audience, but don’t forget to build the relationships, trust and customer experience that make that audience valuable. Ultimately, the goal isn’t just to get more people to follow your business, it’s to give the right people a reason to choose it.
