Even though social media algorithms today may expand the reach of your content to non-followers, don’t forget how important social media followers are to your content marketing efforts.
There’s a lot of talk lately that social media followers don’t matter much today.
That’s rubbish.
The argument goes that social media algorithms are increasingly delivering your content to non-followers, expanding your posts’ reach beyond your followers. This levels the playing field for all social media creators because posts from individuals and organizations with small followings can go viral since the reach of a post is no longer limited by its author’s follower count.
TikTok got this going with its “For You” page, but Instagram’s “Explore” tab does this too. So does LinkedIn’s algorithm.
Ok, fine. Sure, when it comes to reach, social media followers may not matter much these days.
But social media followers still very much matter for other reasons, particularly for professional services providers.
Social media followers indicate you’re creating high-quality content
The number of social media followers you have is an indicator of whether your content is so good that people will opt in to see it.
Yes, I realize that social media algorithms don’t always send all of your posts to all of your followers. But your followers are people who are interested in what you have to say—enough so that they’re willing to raise their hands and tell you they want to see what you have to say in the future.
If your follower count isn’t growing, you’re not producing content that people want to see. In addition, you’re also probably not posting frequently enough.
The more frequently you post, the more regularly your content will be disseminated, and the more opportunities people will have to see your posts and like, share, or comment on them, which could expose your content to potential new followers.
Social media followers indicate whether you have message-market fit
Going up one level of sophistication, the KINDS of social media followers you have is an important data point.
If the majority of your followers, or at least a sizable amount, are your target audience, such as executives at organizations within a particular industry, your follower count shows you that you’re reaching the people you want to reach.
The opposite is certainly true. Are many of your followers NOT the kind of people who would hire you?
That’s a signal that your content might be too broad, so you should tweak the topics you cover to be more in line with the content your target audience wants to read.
Your follower count is a sign of credibility and authority
Though some platforms have a problem with fake (that is, non-human) followers, the number of followers you have can serve as a snapshot of your credibility and authority to people who are discovering you.
When they see a large follower account, they might trust what you have to say more and find you to be more credible than they might otherwise find you. They’ll assume that if you have this many followers, many other people are finding value in your content, so your content has to be good.
Your follower count can spare you from algorithmic shifts
The same social media algorithm tweaks that are sending more of your content to non-followers can be reversed.
You’ve likely heard of the concept that when you build a social media following, you’re building on “rented land” because you don’t own your social media followers. You can’t contact them directly unless you do so through the platform they’re following you on.
This makes having a social media following full of target audience members even more important.
First, the more social media followers you have, the more baseline views you’ll get of your posts, even though, as I said above, not every follower will see every post.
If only 10% of your followers see any of your posts, more people will see your posts if you have 1,500 followers than if you have 150.
Second, the more “ideal” followers you have, the more who are likely to sign up for your or your firm’s email newsletter. This is how you move from building on rented land to building on “owned land.” Though you don’t own your social media followers, you can own people’s email addresses so you can reach them directly without a social media platform standing in your way as an intermediary.
How many people you reach isn’t as important as who the people are that you’re reaching
Don’t believe the hype. Social media followers still very much matter today.
If you have a consumer-facing business where the target market is vast, like moms, college kids, or people who like Taylor Swift, the number of social media followers you have might not matter because your content is more likely to be seen by a wide range of people thanks to the algorithm since so many people are likely to find your posts interesting or entertaining.
But if you’re in the B2B world, especially in the professional services world, followers still matter for many reasons, particularly because they tell you whether the content you’re posting is resonating with the people you want it to reach.
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