More… don’t stop….yes, Yes, YES! You know what I’m talking about, right?— the feeling you get seeing more followers on Twitter, more subscribers to your blog and more members to your Facebook group. Ahhh. (I need a cigarette)
But wait a minute Johnny– is this social media stroking enlarging your business or just your …. ego? Will your groupies bring you an orgy of referrals or is it just a social circle jerk? Are you witnessing the wisdom of the crowd or a confederacy of dunces? Are these friends with benefits? Maybe it’s time to bend over and take a closer look.
I attended REtechSouth in Atlanta, GA last week. I was invited by the organizers to a Cage Match to debate Social Media with the “Notorious” Rob Hahn of Onboard Informatics.
One question for debate was “Does Size Matter in Social Media?” Does it really make any difference if you have 100 followers or 1,000 or even 10,000? I was asked to argue the Pro– Yes, size does matter.
Before I lay out my arguments in support of the proposition, let’s try to agree on some definitions and assumptions which make the debate relevant and worthwhile.
We’ll have to define what “matters”, what constitutes “size” and what comprises social media. Let’s start with—
What Exactly is Social Media?
Well, in order to know if size matters, one has to define this delicious and sexy thing called Social Media. You may be surprised to know it’s a many headed love machine.
Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand, gave a wonderful presentation on social media at AdTech New York, which I attended. (see his How Search-like are Social Media Sites).
According to Danny, Social Media sites can be categorized as follows :
1. Social News. These are sites like Digg, Reddit, YahooBuzz, where folks share recent information.
2. Social Bookmarking. These are sites where folks share any information. These would include sites like Delicious and Stumbleupon.
3. Social Networking. Here members connect and share thoughts, ideas and opinions with each other. Not only do folks share with each other, they also discover what their friends are sharing and who they are connecting with. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn fit in this category.
4. Social Knowledge. In these sites, people share questions and answers. People here are seeking solutions. Include here sites like YahooAnswers, Zillow Advice, and even Wikipedia.
5. Social Sharing. Here people share stuff, including social objects. These would be YouTube and Flickr. Danny puts Twitter in this category but I’d say Twitter crosses the lines into Social News and Social Networking.
I don’t know which social media box to put blogging, but an argument can be made that it fits into virtually all the social media categories, except, perhaps, social bookmarking.
Once you agree that social media cuts a wide and varied swatch of the communal internet, you can see that followers come in many different flavors.
Who Are We Counting in Measuring Size?
Taking this social media census is not as easy as it looks. We ought be careful not to leave people out of the social media follower head count.
We obviously count folks who “follow” you on Twitter, “friend” you on Facebook, “connect” with you on LinkedIn, “subscribe” to your blog or friendfeed. But what about folks who “join” your Flickr of Facebook group? Or how about people who watch what you digg, stumble or post to YouTube? I say they all count.
In other words, the size of your social media following is the number of folks who regularly receive, or have access to, your content in one way or another. They may get your stuff in their RSS feeds, email inboxes or see it stuck on some “wall”. And all these people have “opted in” to follow you, or perhaps more accurately, your content.
What Matters? Social media ROI
Now that we know the range of social media and the different folks who make up your social media possee, let’s get to the crux of the biscuit— what does it matter? First, though, let’s define what “matter” means.
I say it should mean ROI– do you get a better “return” on your social media investment time if you have more of an entourage.
And what is this “return”? Well, since we’re talking about real estate professionals and business, I think the social media return should be what is commonly known as leads — potential clients.
Leads can come from:
1. folks who may hire you;
2. folks who may refer clients to you; and
3. folks who will generally recommend you to others. This recommendation can come in many forms, including a link to you.
For ease of discussion, let’s call these folks sending you leads “quality followers”.
(Whether the non-monetary returns from a social media following are worhtwhile is a topic for another rasslin’ match)
The Argument Pro
Size matters in social media because it increases your sphere of potential influence and increases your odds of having quality followers.
A word on potential influence. By this I mean that your ability to move a person to action ( hire, refer or recommend you) is only a potentiality, never a certainty. This is where most folks get tripped up. They assume (rightly) that just because someone has 1,000 followers does not mean that will bring any business. And this is absolutely true. It is possible to have a 1,000 followers and get no business from them. BUT, and it’s a big butt (smiley face), there exists the potential to move up to 1,000 of those followers to action.
(If you think about it, when discussing ROI, we are always talking about potentiality– your website visitors, your smiles, handshakes and conference conversations, even folks who make an appointment to see you– heck, even the babies you kiss can get you a vote.)
Do The Math: 100 % of Zero is Still Zero
If you have no followers, no blog subcribers, no Facebook friends, no one interested in seeing your latest photos, videos, or even wanting a connection with you on LinkedIn, you have zero chance of a follower hiring you, referring a potential client to you or recommending you. Duh. It is an impossibility. Your sphere of potential influence on no followers is zero. In addition, your odds of having a quality follower among zero followers are nil. In other words, 100% of nuttin’ is nuttin’
Now, if you have even 1 follower there is now the possibility that this person may hire you, refer or recommend a client to you. You now have a sphere of potential influence of 1. Not great. But certainly better than zero.
Keep in mind that your influence over this 1 follower is “potential”. That person may not be influenced by you. In baseball terms, you’d have to be batting a thousand to influence your entire follower base of 1.
But you can increase your odds of influencing followers if you have more of them.
Let’s compare A with 1oo followers to B with 1,000 to C with 10,000. If the object were to get 100 quality followers, A would need 100% of their followers, B 10% and C only 1%.
Assessing the Quality of a Follower Can’t Be Done With Certainty
I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell if one of my followers, subcribers or members of any of my groups is a quality follower, i.e. will hire me, directly refer me or generally recommend me to others who may hire me. I would not even attempt to prejudge any of them. If you do try to rank your followers as if you were ranking a blog carnival entry, I would accuse you of blogging too long in the Phoenix midday sun.
Inbound Links Expose Your Content to Followers of Others Who May Become Your Followers
Those who subscribe to your blog or follow you on Twitter are more likely to link to or retweet your content. This is only a theory but I suspect it’s true simply because your followers have regular contact with your content. If they see it and like it, they may pass it on– to be seen by their followers.
The republication of your content by your followers exposes it to their sphere of potential influence, thereby creating the possibility those followers’ follower might become your followers, thereby increasing the people you can potentially influence. My experience has shown that clients do come via the “friend of a friend” network.
Popularity Does Not Equal Quality, But It CAN
It is true that popularity does not guarantee quality. But popularity CAN equal quality. Witness Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. And even if you were to say (I wouldn’t) that Britney Spears is popular but not good, her followers are very likely to purchase tickets to her concerts and buy her music. One could also argue that in the genre known as Pop Music, she IS good.
Your Followers: Social Capital Or Brass Razoos
If you spend your time creating and publishing quality content and engaging folks in social media, you should attract followers naturally. These are the people I am talking about in this post. Each follower has cast a vote or endorsement for you or your content. As mentioned, the quality of that vote is uncertain— but so long as the vote count is above zero, it has potential value for business.
If, on the other hand, you build up your following artificially, using various techniques bordering on solicitation, I submit the value of your social capital may not rise to that of a brass razoo.
Mindshare and Branding
Whether we are talking individual or corporate brand, a larger social media following increases the potential of brand awareness and mindshare growth. Comcast is one example of a company brand on the Consumer Most Hated List (it’s been #1 on mine for a long time). It’s social media presence has built a following of folks who are now less likely to read their bill and kick the dog. (though I still don’t get the warm fuzzies because of their unrivaled streak of price increases– seemingly every year the monopolistic company has been in existence. )
A quick Zillow tale.
I had a conversation with David G of Zillow and asked him why he wasn’t on Twitter representing Zillow. I told him my Tweetbeep alerts for Trulia produced a constant stream of Twitter chatter about the brand among the real estate community, while those mentioning Zillow were a mere trickle in comparison. While there is Trulia complaining and grinding of teeth (for primarily sluggish customer service), there is usually a quick response to assuage it. The negative tweets for Zillow received no attention. Shortly after our conversation, David, the whirling dervish of blog commentary took his social media guruness to Twitter. (Zillow ticketmaster, Rich Barton soon followed.) The result: My Tweetbeep alerts show Zillow as much in the conversation as Trulia and the negative clouds have greatly dissipated. Call it coincidental, I’ll call it a result of joining the SM party de jure.
See Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media. (2008)
When Quantity Beats Quality
I’ve noticed this post is getting a bit long and I’m getting a bit long winded, so I’ll end it with an example to prove that quality is not always better than quantity…
I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Let’s suppose you had not eaten to the point you were ravenously hungry and thirsty. I’d wager a brass razoo you would decline a single bite of Kobe beef and a sip of Chateau d’Yquem for a Big Mac with cheese, large fries and Seven Eleven Big Gulp.
These are lean times. At a certain point, you can die over a principle.
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