Why do people follow your brand on social media? Well, one thing’s for sure — it’s not all about your brand. It’s about them.
- Why are people following brands in the first place?
- Problem 1: Ghost followers are killing engagement ratios
- Problem 2: Inconsistent publishing makes followers passive
- The follower contract: A policy for growing a community
- 3 examples of common follower contract fails
- How to honor your follower contracts
Why are people following brands in the first place?
There’s an invisible contract between a brand and its social following. This contract can be described as a total sum of whatever reasons a person has for following a specific brand. However, many brands find it difficult to continuously engage their audience. One might argue that passive followers, ghost followers, wouldn’t be the end of the world as long as they convert into customers at a reasonable rate.
I mean, at least the numbers look good. No?
Problem 1: Ghost followers are killing engagement ratios
There’s a big issue with ghost followers — and it has to do with reach.
Ghost social followers will, via their lack of engagement and authority, severely damage your brand’s algorithmic momentum. And no algorithmic momentum means lower reach for your content.
Social network algorithms will typically look for engagement relative to the existing number of followers. What does this mean for a brand?
Problem 2: Inconsistent publishing makes followers passive
It means that long-term inconsistency will inevitable result in ghost followers. And there’s a reason why inconsistency is kryptonite for engagement. In every single act of following, there’s a critical time displacement:
They follow (present) on faith (future) from trust (past).
Inconsistency isn’t just sloppy social media marketing; it’s a breach of trust. And trust is a valuable commodity which takes a long time to establish. Now, if such a “follower contract” were an actual document, then, what would it say?
The follower contract: A policy for growing a community
Well, maybe a follower contract would read something like this:
Dear brand,
Best regards,
Your follower
3 examples of common follower contract fails
When it comes to respecting the follower contract in social media, let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes:
Example A: A brand decides to increase their Facebook audience quickly, so they focus on paid ads for free giveaways and sweepstakes. This strategy attracts a critical mass of people expecting free stuff.
The result? When then the brand suddenly starts asking these followers to spend their money, their followers lash out.
Example B: A brand decides to focus on growing their reach on social media platforms, so they allocate their entire budget on acquiring new followers.
The result? When all these followers discover that the brand has allocated exactly 0% budget to existing fans, they’ll ignore the brand.
Example C: A brand decides to apply a variety of digital campaigns where each initiative is attracting different types of followers. The brand “succeeds” in building a community of people all expecting different things.
The result? When the brand asks their community for specific actions applicable to a small fraction of their following — crickets.
How to honor your follower contracts
So, how can a brand steer clear of breaching their follower contracts?
Now, you could, for instance, decide to follow me via email. What will you get? Well, you’ll get more of these types of articles coming your way in the future — nothing more, nothing less.
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.
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- See also Inbound Marketing is a New Paradigm.
