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Social Media Marketing: Connections Versus The Numbers Game

by ryanbiddulph
5 replies
The power of social networks when it comes to marketing is in the connections.

I feel the numbers game is overrated. By reaching a targeted audience each connection is maximized.

I see following tools, friend adders, etc. This is like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded.

When new to social media marketing I added everything that moved. Bot accounts on twitter, random people on Facebook. Numbers game, numbers game, I thought.

You don't do business with numbers.......you do business with people who are interested in your business, otherwise known as a targeted audience.

When I corrected this mindset I received more leads and my profits jumped. People who opted-in wanted to see what I had to offer.

What's your take on connections versus the numbers game?
#connections #game #marketing #media #numbers #social #versus
  • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
    I don't see them as being mutually exclusive.

    The problem is not with numbers because obviously the more "connections" you have, the more sales/profits you'll make.

    The issue is the quality of those connections - poor quality (aka untargeted) connections are pretty worthless.

    It's always been this way - we used to call it traffic.

    Cheers,

    Neil
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    Thanks for your feedback Neil

    I agree that connection quality is the key. The interesting thing is that one quality connection can yield you a fortune. Of course it may take a great amount of prospecting to establish this connection: that's where the numbers come in.

    Ryan Biddulph
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  • Profile picture of the author sdentrepreneur
    I totally agree about having targeted followers/friends but have seen great value in having large numbers of them. If you can get 1,000 quality Social Media connections, then you can get 10,000 of them as well. Using bots and tools aren't the right way to get these. If you provide great content about your industry, then you will brand yourself as a leader and that is when leads can turn to sales. When people trust you.
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    • Profile picture of the author netkid
      ryanbiddulph,

      Yes, I know for a fact that you have to build your social media list one quality "follower" at a time. It is like real face to face business. Using bots or anything automated not only in social media, but using it for anything is going to be useless. The quality of the number, not the pure number of leads is going to make a successful business.

      My "vote" is for high quality connections, not high numbers. Remember, there are so many success stories of making lots of money with a low number of high quality customer lists.
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      • Profile picture of the author Marty S
        Originally Posted by netkid View Post

        My "vote" is for high quality connections, not high numbers. Remember, there are so many success stories of making lots of money with a low number of high quality customer lists.
        Agreed as well. I dropped many of the people I was following a few months ago and if they dropped me, so be it. They were mostly IM accounts with like 40,000 followers simply spattering nonsense all day long to my stream. Listen, ANYBODY can get 1,000s of followers because there are so many eager IMers out there simply building numbers. However, it accomplishes NOTHING really.

        Now I am VERY selective about who I follow, and I get a lot of followers everyday, but most unfollow soon after because I ignore them. Since their ONLY intention was to have me follow them back, they are useless to me anyway. Even after I dumped a boat-load of IMers from my list, my Tweets were consistently pulling the same clicks to my blogs or videos - simply because I had the same amount of quality followers still, who actually read my stuff and appreciate the content.

        The followers I am MOST interested in are the REAL social media users who have a small audience of followers themselves, usually below 200 or so, and tweet regularly while connecting with their followers. These Tweeps are super valuable IMHO for several reasons:

        1) They are NOT looking for followers - they are looking for a way to connect with people they KNOW. Thus, their tweets, opinions, and who THEY follow carry a lot of credibility.

        2) They may very likely be using the Twitter stream, rather than 3rd party software, indicating they actually READ their stream because it is still a manageable size to do so.

        3) Having a trust connection with a REAL social media user, is like getting a referral that you can use with their followers, who also VERY likely have small social groups.

        When you find a Tweep like this you can instantly recognize that they are REAL people with social media intentions. I mean really, having 40, 50, or 60 thousand followers just is NOT natural - even for popular people. Unless your name is Lance Armstrong or Britney Spears (etc), you really shouldn't have 40,000+ followers.

        I don't give a crap how many followers I have, but I do try to tweet quality messages while attracting select followers every day. I also target certain keywords on Tsearch, and respond individually to those I am interested in. If I am fortunate I will get a new - QUALITY tweep.

        To sum it up for me, I would MUCH rather follow a Tweep who has 187 followers, follows 162, has been on Twitter for 1 year or more, and makes 2-3 Tweets per day than I would ANY IMer with 40,000+ followers.
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