Numbers on Social Media that matter
The other day I attended a talk where the presenter claimed that all of us needed to be on social media and all of us has had to have a certain number of people following us to be relevant. With Facebook it was 1000 fans, LinkedIn 250 connections, Twitter 500 people, etc. To be honest my Facebook page only 280 fans at the time of this writing. I exceed the minimum numbers on the other accounts, but numbers doesn’t matter that much to me. What matters is that I have relationships with people that have chosen to follow me.
The relationships you have are what define your business. I have over a thousand on Linkedin in my connections. I don’t know even half of them and of the people I know, most of them are casual acquaintances. Some of them turn into business connections, based in part on getting to know me via my social media interactions. But the people I connect with choose to move that connection beyond social media. Likewise the majority of people on my Facebook page are mostly passive observers. A few of them comment regularly and it is with those people that I have the greatest breadth of relationships.
Social media is sometimes treated as a posting platform, where you belt your message out to everyone and hope someone will respond. I prefer to instead engage people and develop relationships. If they really want my business, they’ll get involved and we’ll start getting to know each other. All numbers really does is expand my exposure, but nothing is guaranteed until people start to interact with me.
My advice? Let your numbers grow organically, treat your followers with respect, and build relationships. You will get business if you approach it from this angle. Most importantly you’ll develop true social influence and be able to help people who need what you have to offer.
Categories: Blog, social influence, Social Media, social media behavior
Tags: fans, qualityvsquantity, social influence, Social Media, social media behavior, Taylor Ellwood
