How Many Followers Do I Need On Social Media To Be Successful?

It’s a question we get all the time here at Frame Social Media, and frankly, it’s one that isn’t particularly relevant in 2019.
 
So many people these days are still measuring their success on social media by their follower count alone, but followers and likes mean very little if you’re not getting any engagement or sales.
 
It’s Not About The Numbers
 
Social media success is no longer measured by follower numbers. Likes and follows are purely vanity metrics these days.
 
There used to be a lot of emphasis placed on how many followers your accounts had to determine how successful your business was, but with the rise of automated bots and likes, especially on Instagram, these stats can no longer be taken at face value.
 
It’s All About Engagement
 
Engagement on the other hand, is a much clearer indication of how well your brand is doing on social media.
 
Engagements could be likes and reactions, comments, or shares, depending on the platform in question.
 
How engaged your followers are, however, is a much more valuable statistic to monitor.
 
If you’re posting content that your followers regularly react to, comment on, or share on their own profiles and pages, that helps build your brand much more than increasing your follower count.
 
Yes it can help build social proof to have a large following on a particular social media channel, however, if no-one is engaging with you, their value is practically worthless.
 
What would you be more likely to trust – a brand that consistently posts, always replies to comments and questions, and shares user-generated content, or a brand that posts regularly and ignores any interaction from its followers?
 
 Other Social Media Metrics That REALLY Matter
 
Engagement can then be further broken down into several components to measure your overall success, and what kind of content is generating the best results for your business.
 
They include:
 
Reactions
Reactions are commonly known as likes, but on platforms like Facebook, there are other reactions to choose from as well – love, angry, sad, wow and haha.
 
When people use a reaction that isn’t the like reaction, it shows an extra level of engagement with your content as it takes more effort for a user to choose a particular reaction, as opposed to simply tapping the like button.
 
Mentions
When someone tags your page or account, either in a post or a comment, you’ll get a notification that you’ve been mentioned.
 
Mentions are great for brand awareness as people have taken the time to tag you and engage with you. It also helps you reach a whole set of new people that may not have seen you before (namely the audience of the person who tagged you).
 
Reach
Reach can be seen on your social media insights. The more likes, comments and shares your post has, the higher your reach will be.
 
Take a look through your insights and see what posts have had the highest reach.
 
This will help you work out what sort of content is the most successful – remember that different channels could have different results even if you’re posting the same content on multiple channels, as your audience could be different from one platform to the next.
 
Comments
Comments are one of the key measures of engagement on social media that drive your success on social.
 
They take a lot of effort for people who are generally time-poor so platforms like Facebook and Instagram regard comments very highly when it comes to how their algorithm distributes your post in your followers’ newsfeed.
 
Referral Traffic To Your Website
Don’t forget to keep an eye on how many people are visiting your website from social media.
 
You can see this in your Google Analytics account, and it’s a great way to see what channels are sending you the best quality traffic.
 
If you’re spending all your time trying to build your Instagram following, but 90% of your social traffic and sales is coming from Facebook, then is it really worth your time and effort to dedicate to Instagram?
 
So if you’ve been hung up on your follower count, you can finally relax.
 
It’s not all about how many followers you need before you can count yourself as successful. It’s all about how people engage with your brand and how you engage back with them.
 
If you need someone who can grow your social media engagement, speak to us today.
 
Frame Social Media specialises in assisting start-ups, small to medium businesses and corporates to have a social media presence.
 
We have a range of social media management packages, priced to be as affordable as possible for businesses just like yours.

Take advantage of our 7 day obligation free trial to see if our service meets your expectations!