Quality over Quantity

Spotting fake followers only takes about 2 seconds.

So this morning, I was scrolling through social media, as we all are everyday... some all day LOL. 

I stumbled upon a former client... that had been tagged and I thought "I wonder how they are doing and if they are still open." The thing about this client from the past is... the owner was obsessed with followers. In the midst of our contract they were growing and doing quite well, perhaps growing quicker than most. The owner decided to utilize and pay for automation to grow the following and likes on the account. What that means is you essentially pay for a bot or an app to randomly follow and unfollow other accounts with the hope that you gain more followers and more engagements. You could also set the automation to specific locations, hashtags and types of people. They initially asked me what I thought and I clearly said "this is a violation of the social media platform terms of use, you get instant gratification but once you stop paying for it the followers start to disappear, you will seem inauthentic and the growth is only temporary." Despite my words of caution, they decided to proceed and eventually our contract dissolved and I stopped working with them. 

Today, when I browsed the account I saw their followers had gone up upwards of 3,000 people since I last managed it a year ago, but the likes and engagements were abysmal. They went from having thousands of organic followers (with me and my management with hundreds of likes) to not being able to even break 50 likes and only living in double digits with no engagements. 

So what does this mean? Well you paid for more followers, but that does not mean you are proving successful at marketing, communication or sales. If you have thousands of "fake' followers this also makes you look inauthentic and things don't really match up - so anyone who sees your account and sees your likes will know you bought those followers. Essentially it is a part of the time honored tradition of quality over quantity. You want quality people, like quality friends who are going to support you, follow you on your journey and engage with you and share. 
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This isn't anything new, but it did remind me that too much emphasis is put on the total number of followers and not enough on authentic engagements and actual reach. 

My clients can rest assured that their accounts are enriched with quality over quantity - although some have high quantity and we've grown that over the years. I am also lucky and happy to report that all of my main clients are thriving and I have even taken on a few new ones last week. 

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