Three Powerful Phrases That Guide Marketing on Social Media
Understanding the power of social media influence, social media audience and social media following as drivers of marketing on social media for personal online growth and success.
Influence, Audience & Following are the three most important words in the unwritten dictionary of social media marketing. Add ‘social media’ to these three words and they become three crucial phrases that power social media marketing.
Care to know what is the difference between social media influence, social media audience and social media following?
Here we go.
Navigating Marketing on Social Media
Social media audience building, social media influence building and social media building of followers are three different concepts. We are going to discuss in this content piece what is important for you — whether you should build a social media audience, whether you should build social media influence, or whether you should have a social media following.
Before you do anything on this, what’s important here is that you set some kind of goal first. You have to set some particular metric that you want to experience, whether it is data in the form of numbers, or some kind of feeling that you would like to feel once you see those numbers.
You are already working social media or using social media by posting content on it and sharing your thoughts. Sometimes you are sharing what you would like to say in the words of others (using quote posts). The good thing here is that you feel a sense of satisfaction that you got to say what you wanted to say.
What we are doing here in this particular content piece is trying to understand what is important for me. OK, fine, you too. 🙂
Why do I need social media?
Do I need to build a social media audience? Do I need to build a social media following, or do I need to have social media influence? Are they related in any way, or are they different concepts that we have to be clear about?
Good questions. Social media influence, social media audience and social media following are signposts that point you towards a particular path in today’s world of digital experiences and marketing on social media. All digital marketing of businesses is being done based on these three words - audience, influence and following.
Whatever strategies digital marketers are using, whatever tips, whatever brainstorming is being done, the objective is to gain an audience for their brand. They are trying to gain influence for their brands, while at the same time also gain following for their brands.
My question is: what do you want? You might say that you want all three. You want influence also, you want an audience also and you want social media following too.
Got it. But the thing is that these three paths, they have their own performance metrics and objectives. You have to keep those in mind before you finalize that you want all three. You may want all three, but to get that result, you have to take steps. Not only that, you have to create a process of reaching the destination of these three paths of having a social media audience, social media influence and social media following. This much is clear?
Okay, let me give you a better idea of social media influence, social media audience, and social media following. The best thing here is that first you understand the three words -influence, audience and following.
Now, if you are going to define social media influence, then it would be something like, “social media influence is the ability to impact public opinion or behaviour through social media.” Okay? Now what is the result of all this? The result is that with social media influence, you can drive brand awareness and business reputation. You can get consumers to think about their decisions and you can influence the consumer decisions. If you have social media influence, you can attract so many brand partnerships and brand collaborations. So that’s what happens when you have social media influence. Okay?
Now what about social media following? Now social media following, if you want to define it, will be something like, “the number of people who subscribe to your content on social media.” They follow you, they subscribe to what you are posting on social media, and it helps in building your credibility and authority. It attracts the attention of partners and maybe investors, and it is a very tangible, straightforward way to check how you are growing and how you are becoming successful on social media. So that means social media following is a metric that is considered here.
Then the third metric is a social media audience. If you want to define that, then it would be something like, “a group of people who are interested in and follow your content on social media.” This is called social media audience. Now, once you have that kind of audience, you get a direct channel for communication with those people who can be your customers. They are potential customers right now, but over a period of time they will be your valued customers. Once you have this kind of audience, you can get good insights into what they like and how they engage with your content. Many of them will be loyal to you—all those who subscribe to your content and follow your content. You get a sense of community.
So the important thing that you are going to decide here is whether you will build social media influence, or you will build social media audience, or build social media following.
Everything requires engagement, and it requires consistent quality content. You need to engage with the people who follow you and subscribe to you. You need to give time to it whether you want to build your social media influence, your audience or your following.
Influence, Audience, or Following on Social Media — what is better?
Now, how do all these three factors actually help? They can help you drive sales and generate business leads. Business leads mean somebody is asking some question about your business. “Tell me what kind of service you have” or, “Tell me what kind of product it is”, or “Price please”. This is called a lead or inquiry.
All the three factors help in building your brand awareness, which increases your reputation in the market. As I have said earlier, it also attracts partnerships and collaborations. All this happens when there is a combination of your social media influence, your social media audience, and your social media following. Now the only thing is, if you are going to talk about these three things, then what would be the best out of the three?
In a way, if you mention social media following, or you are strictly focused on building a social media following and having a number of followers and subscribers, then of course, you can do that. You can do it organically also. But again, it takes some time. But if you want to see those numbers, like so many people follow me and so many people subscribe to my channel, then that is another thing.
If you wish to show people those numbers in a visible way, in a public way, then there are many people who are indulging in fraudulent practices too. They are not using the organic approach. They are simply using bots. Not only that, but they are buying bots. Bots are computer-automated things and they show up as numbers on your followers and there are people who are buying it. Many people are selling such unfair things and indulging in fraudulent practices that do not help any person who uses such practices to build trust in the minds of clients and customers. This is called building a social media following.
Next is social media influence. Now influence comes as a by-product of having people who like your content and in this path what you will find is that if you have a social media audience, somebody who likes your content, somebody who engages with your content then it automatically helps you build your social media influence and your social media following.
So what I am saying is that the phrase ‘build your audience’ here in this particular content piece is important. Out of the three - social media influence, social media audience and social media following - you should be looking at building your social media audience because that gets you everything.
Story of the Instagrammer & Her T-shirts
Let me share with you two stories over here. Now, one story is about an Instagrammer. This happened about two-three years ago. What happened was that this Instagrammer who had a three million following on Instagram, she decided to launch her clothing brand. So the business she contacted to manufacture clothes for her brand said, ‘Okay, we’ll create your clothing line, but what you need to do is you have to sell a minimum number of T-shirts, then we will consider your proposal and manufacture your clothes.’ She was told by the company that was considered for manufacturing her clothing line, that, ‘please sell 36 T-shirts minimum so that we can start manufacturing more’.
Guess what? A person with an Instagram following of three million plus followers could not sell 36 T-shirts. Imagine! This was big news. You have so many people who follow you, so many people who engage with you, and she decided to tell them that here is my clothing line. You can go ahead and buy it, and did not get even 36 orders. In this example of a social media influencer, you now understand what this says about following, right? So it’s never the numbers. It’s the quality of those numbers, not the quantity.
Story of the Retired Army officer Instagrammer
Here is another story. There is another lady who is a retired Indian army officer and she built a following on Instagram. She retired from service 15 years back. She served as an army officer and built an Instagram following of almost 247,000 followers.
Guess what she did a few days back? She posted a story on her Instagram that she is deactivating her account of 247,000 followers. Imagine! Now she says and I am quoting her, “I know, I know some of you are thinking that who deactivates an account of such a big following, trust me I am very clear in my mind and also in my life, I always knew what I wanted, I always prefer quality that’s why in real life also I have a very limited circle of friends. This account will no longer be active as the majority of audience that I have here is not my target audience, but I will be active on social media via other mediums.”
Remember what we are discussing here? So what she has done is she has built two other Instagram accounts where she talks about her other interests which are important to her right now. What was happening in her earlier account that she has now deactivated and will not be active on is that being from an army background, there were many young people who wanted tips from her on how to get selected in the army and how to do well there. They wanted to know tips and strategies that can help them get selected and become an army officer. So, she would share what she knew at the time, but then she decided that she had had enough and now her interest was not in it.
What she says to her followers and I quote again, “Only follow if you have interest in the above fields, no SSB tips (about army officer interview) and nothing about my past life as a Fauji means army officer, I prefer to live in the present and not just keep blabbering about what I did 15 years ago.”
You understand what’s going on here. In this Instagram story, she also says that if you have 1000 fish in a pond, but 900 of them are infected, then the remaining 100 who are healthy and good will also be infected. So it’s always quality audience over quantity.
I quote her again, “I would like to be in the company of wise, kind and encouraging people and not crazy, projectionist, backward and trollers. It’s not just about trollers, it’s also about the audience. I don’t want people who always want to hear my Army days stories and keep asking me questions about SSB. It was 15 years ago when I joined Army. I am not a coach for SSB. My target is women and working men and not 16 year old kids. I know what I am here for.”
Now you understand what is the importance and relevance of a social media following or irrelevance of social media following. Here is a social media influencer with a big following of 247,000 followers on Instagram who decided to deactivate her account and not be active on this account. She doesn’t care because she has found that she, firstly, is not interested in talking about the same topics that she had talked and discussed so many years back to build that particular following. She realised that her interests have changed, plus the kind of people she finds on Instagram who are following her, she’s not comfortable with them. Not only that, but she wants to be surrounded by people who are like-minded.
In simple words, she wants quality audience over quantity audience. Now you understand? If you think building a social media following is important, this is the story that you should remember.
In this content piece, whether you’re reading it as an article or whether you’re hearing it as a podcast or you’re seeing it on YouTube, what I’ve tried to explain to you clearly is that there are three things - social media influence, social media audience and social media following. Based on whatever you know, whatever you’ve read, whatever you’ve heard me speak, now you decide what is important for you out of the three.
All the best.
Live in the now. 🧘🏼
Download Social Media Marketing (SMM) checklist
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