But does it really matter how many followers you have on Facebook?
Facebook makes it really easy for people to like or follow your Facebook page, but does it really matter how many people make the decision to follow you?
Sure, it’s a great ego moment when your facebook followers reach that certain goal you may have set for yourself, but how many of those people are actually seeing your content in their feed or actually engaging with it?
What you don’t get told is that many of the people who follow or like your page won’t actually see your content in their feed. As Facebook was growing in popularity, many of my friends and relatives were busy racking up the followers. My sister in law had a 1000 or more on her page, but in reality, on a few were actually seeing the posts she was posting. So many businesses started spending money buying followers that suddenly we began to see the word ‘organic’ appear next to the number of followers. This happened so business owners like you and me that resisted the temptation to give Mr Zuckerburg more money, placed a greater value on the followers that were liking us because we posted great content, not because we had money in our pocket to waste.
It’s easy to get people to like your business Facebook page (it’s only the click of a button) but how many people are you actually engaging with? Your business Facebook page should be used as a tool to educate and sell to your potential customers. Your personal Facebook page should be to connect with those people that really matter to you.
If you’re using your business Facebook as a ‘here I am” tool, then you’re probably racking up too many hours unnecessarily chasing followers when instead you should be working on engaging material that educates and upsells. At Rebel Coach, we provide our clients with ideas on how to engage with people on Facebook, by using it as an online loyalty program, how to educate people and upsell those people who are raving fans of your business.
So what’s the answer to the question “Does it really matter how many people follow or like your page?”. The answer? Not really. What matters is that you engage with them on a regular basis. The analytics you should be looking at on Facebook is your engagement results.
What then should I be looking to achieve on Facebook?
There are a few important results you need to consider if you are planning to use your Business Facebook to get and keep new customers. You need to know about Impressions, Reach and Engagement. So let’s dive into a crash course on these ‘words’ and look at how you can start making your page more relevant to your followers.
What are Facebook Impressions?
Impressions mean the number of times someone gets to see your post in their newsfeed. Duh, they only see it once, don’t they? No, if you share a post to your friend base and then they share or comment on it, it may come up in your feed twice. That means you’ve seen it two times or had two impressions. Think back to those sponsored ads in your news feed. Remember seeing that painting gadget that kept coming up or those inflatable beach beds that filled with air when you performed pirouettes? You may have had that appear in your feed several times, which counted as impressions.
So what is reach?
Let’s say that your post was seen by one person but had two impressions. That means your reach was one unique person who saw it twice. If you had a reach of 100 and 150 impressions it could mean that half of the people that saw your post, saw it twice.
Impressions and reach are really important because you are branding your business to large numbers of people, but to get customers you need to ‘engage’. Traditional forms of advertising like newspapers, radio and television have always used impressions and reach to help their advertisers get their name out into the market place.
The more you see something (frequency) the more you are likely to remember or use that brand or business.
Related Article: The importance of Branding
Now let’s look at engagement.
In my world, engagement is the biggie. It’s what we want as business people. Engagement relates to how many people are engaging with your content, like it, clicking on links, commenting and sharing it with their friend base.
This also helps Facebook determine how many people get to see your posts in their newsfeed. Facebook algorithms look at your past post comments and likes and if they see that you are ‘getting on’ with someone or a business page, they will encourage that relationship.
See Facebook as the interfering Mother. She loves your girlfriend so much, she encourages the relationship by giving you more opportunity to get together, family party invites dinner invitations and generally includes your GF or BF all the time. Facebook wants you to see pages you like, so they keep popping up. That’s why, like my sister in law, you may have 1000 friends on Facebook, but you only see posts from your ‘real’ friends, the top 10 you interact with on a regular basis. The other 990 flitters in and out occasionally. In fact, I reckon you have to go to your friend’s list to actually remember who most of them are.
You need followers to get reach and impressions, but you need great content to ‘engage’ your followers. Think about this scenario; If you have 10 followers that are engaging with you on a regular basis and are buying from you or recommending you to their friends, is it better than having 100 000 followers but you are not engaging?
The only time having 100 000 followers is great, is if you are engaging with the majority of them on a regular basis. This means you’re giving value to your potential clients and they are loving what you do.
Related Article: 5 ways to increase Facebook engagement
The analytics behind your Facebook page are great and can help you understand whether you engaging people or not, but what’s more important is that you get out from behind your laptop or mobile phone and start understanding who your customer is, what they want and ask if you and they are you are providing it.
Understanding your USP (your unique selling proposition) and what makes people buy from you is the first step to understanding your business and what you offer your customers.
Related Article: What is it that is going to make your business stand out from your competitors?
Happy engagement!
