Social Media Business Results: Quality vs Quantity [includes video]

We have all heard the worthless advice from those who think social media is for blasting noise, building fake communities and fooling people into thinking they have the secret sauce to social business success.

Fake it until you make it.

Focus on social proof.

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If you have fallen for any of these lines of bologna, I am sorry. You are probably quite sorry you wasted your money on them as well.

Bottom line there is no short cut to business results.  There is no social media easy button or fast track that is going to get you there overnight.

Social media is not a band-aid or a magic potion that is going to solve your business problems.  It is simply a medium for you to better communicate and provide value to your your audience, stakeholders, clients and larger ecosystem. It is a medium for building relationships, not blasting noise that ruins them.

Having 50,000 fake Twitter followers is not going to prove to your target customer that you know what you're doing.

Quality vs Quantity 

Of course we want to have the largest engaged community possible that is chomping at the bit to devour our content, like our pages, share our goods and tell all of their friends and family about us. Quality combined with quantity is the ultimate goal.

However, it is much better to have 100 followers or fans that like you, listen to you and care what you have to say, than to have 10,000 followers who are fake or only liked your Facebook page or followed you because you begged them to do such.

Sorry to break the news to you, but fake followers are not real people. They do not eat, sleep, breathe, read, write, share content or own a credit card. They do not have a community you can tap into and they are not going to help your content go viral. They will do nothing but waste your time in achieving what could be real results if you focused on authentic means to achieve such.

If you want real results using social media for business you must focus on the needs of your audience. Help them achieve their goals and objectives. Inspire them to connect with you with a goal of helping them achieve their objectives. When they achieve their objectives, you achieve yours. Inspire – connect – achieve!

Is Your Audience Listening to You?

Does your audience care what you have to say? Do they truly listen to you? Do they follow your advice? Are you making them think different? Are you inspiring them to be better, be more and be something greater than what they could do without your information and help?

Check out the video below for further discussion on this topic and an analogy that I think might just help you clearly understand the importance of building real community via a focus on quality relationships vs just numbers.