Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. Today I would like to talk to you about Social Media. And the value that most of the users are giving to their followers.
Most businesses have a goal of “more” followers whether they are actively pursuing it or not. The reason they want followers is because a business needs customers to sustain it. In other words, a business eventually wants sales from its followers.
In most instances, business is an exchange of value. So if you own a business and you want more of an audience. Or you want something from your follower or subscriber, what value are you giving them in return?
I don’t spend a lot of time as a user on social media. I do like YouTube and I think that perhaps YouTube might be an exception to some of what I will talk about here. But to ensure I didn’t have a bias against the other platforms, I went on a few to see what sort of value I would get from the users on the platform. What percentage of social media do you think is truly valuable to its users?
We do have to apply this to businesses. Because if you are using it for enjoyment and it makes you happy, there isn’t anything wrong with that. But even if you look at the value brought by most businesses on social. There isn’t any reason why people would follow particular businesses. Unless they are a raving fan which is true in some instances, but most companies don’t have that kind of customer.
It’s all about what’s in it for them and nothing else. I am mostly referring to posts here, because if we talk about the advertising part of social. Typically users elect to visit a site and the exchange of value is the money for the product. But if we only talk about the posts which influence the quality and size of the audience.
Are there many who are really providing value for their users. Which would justify a larger following, who would then eventually become customers?
Most of it is just a big ad, nothing news worthy or different and not in the visitors interest. The effect being that the follower count doesn’t grow. If for some reason it does, it’s not an engaged audience because what they’re saying isn’t valuable or interesting.
When you are considering what posts go out for your business. Think about what kind of post would have to go out in order for it to be so interesting. An individual would want to see more of it. Would you follow your own business if you didn’t own it? If not the quality of the posts need to change, because if you wouldn’t, neither will anyone else.
I understand you don’t want to agonise over every post, but the higher the percentage of posts which are interesting, news worthy, valuable, speak directly to the person you are trying to reach and you would want to see more of them if you had nothing to do with your business, the more your following will grow and the bigger your qualified audience is, the more of them will turn into customers.