The Metrics That Matter Less Than You Think

In the world of social media marketing, it's easy to get hung up on numbers. Are the follower counts going up? Did that post get a good number of likes? But are these numbers truly what matter most? Or are some metrics just vanity, making people buy Instagram followers or whatever else to look popular, without actually doing much for their business?

Some might say that this is just a way to make a user profile “look good”, but it does not necessarily represent the true organic growth of the platform, which is what actually matters to grow as an influencer. Understanding what metrics are fluff instead of substance is important to doing things the best way.

Counting Bots Instead of Progress

Lots of businesses chase after high follower counts. A big number can look great; having a lot of followers feels like popularity; however, what if a big chunk of those followers are fake? Say that a person buy more followers so that they can get more brand deals. But many of those followers are probably bots, in comparison to actual, real people.

There are "bot farms" that do nothing other than create profiles to follow. These profiles are worthless in the end because they don't buy products, they don't engage, and they don't share content. Focusing only on follower count can distract from really building a community of people who care about what is offered; it is all fake.

Loving Likes, Ignoring Engagement

Likes are easy to see. They also give a small burst of happiness; a post with a bunch of likes seems good. But what does it really mean? If a post has thousands of likes but no one clicks the link in the bio or starts talking through the comments, did it really do anything? An effective metric is engagement rate – do followers write comments or repost? Or do they just hit the like button and keep going?

Likes will just tell that something is pretty. A bigger problem is that lots of people turn to bot activity for something like this as well. Paying for likes does not provide value; you are just paying them in exchange for what appears to be a superficial value to those who don't understand how bot farms impact engagement.

Seeing Views, Missing Value

Views. It’s important for anyone starting a YouTube channel for views to be sky high, but what about watch time? Think about this: a video that gets thousands and thousands of views, but an average person only watches for a few seconds. Those views aren’t really doing that much! Look at something like how long people watch the video, and is there a chance that if they go to view the whole thing again from end to end?

The time that someone spends on the video gives a much clearer view of whether people watched and learned something, compared to a person clicking on it for a few seconds. If an influencer wants to sell a product from someone who paid for the promotion of it, is there enough useful content to cause someone to buy it now? You really need to think about whether you are really pushing a product or wasting people's time.

Ignoring Website Traffic

So, a social media presence, it feels like that is where it all is. But is it driving traffic somewhere important? A website! If those followers aren't leading to clicks on a website, sales numbers, or signing people up for a program, what are they even really doing?

Someone may point to some other value that cannot really be quantified in something like community building that is not designed with a business in mind, but the key is website traffic. You really need to be sure that those people are following through with an action beyond just an engagement through Social Media; make them go beyond an echo chamber. Think of building a bigger base that you have more control over.

Conclusion

Keeping track of metrics is important. It may even be more important for the people just starting out. If it is difficult to understand what real sales are, then it may not really work. Focus on the people who visit; don't get lost in a world of bot numbers. Focusing on the honest path is often the best answer.