There was a time when a page with the highest number of fans/likes was considered to be a successful page but do you think is it working the same way now?
Likes were always considered as the main metrics to judge the success of the page but with the changing time, engagement has taken a front seat. Today, it is more important to measure your engagement level than likes. Businesses are clear on whom they want to target and what type of content they want to share to have a highly engaging and interactive page.
Why Engagement and not likes?
Social media is all about engaging with your fans/audience. There is no point of having thousands of fans but no engagement. Such fans are just the headcounts and not contributing to the page in any way. If there is no interaction on the page, then you are losing the game. Your content won’t reach out to people; there are less likely chances that will turn up to your page. Quality is always better than Quantity.
Even if you have small but highly interactive fan group, they work as your brand ambassadors or influencers. They influence others to like your page. For example, if a fan comments on the post or share your content or participate in any activity on the page then they are increasing your viral reach, as their participation will appear on their feeds or on the page, which will let you reach out many people at the same time.
So, pushing the right kind of content on the page and encouraging fans to engage with the brand/business is the most important aspect of social media and business should adopt this if they want success.
Engagement with very fast pace is becoming the most important metric to judge success of the page.
We never say likes are not important, they are very important for a page to start engagement but always target right audience, who are interested in you as a brand/business because this will only lead to right kind of engagement.
How does it work?
Few months back Facebook introduced “Talking about this”. This’ Metric slated to roll out to users this week, this new metric measures ‘stories,’ or content users share on Facebook that can be featured in users’ News Feeds.
Working in social media field gives us opportunity to observe different pattern. We work for different clients and each client gives us different areas to explore. Working with one of the client from retail industry, we have observed that page is successful if you have high level of engagement despite of average number of fans. We targeted the right audience and shared the quality content which helped us in increasing the engagement on the page and getting new fans through the post, pictures and feeds shared by fans. Giving example of client and one of its competitor will show how higher number of fans does not mean higher level of engagement.
Data below also gives clear picture of the fact that higher number of fans does not mean higher level of engagement. Fanpage 1 has more number of fans than fanpage 2 but the interaction rate on fanpage 2 is higher than fanpage 1.
Rightly said by Jay Baer:“Activate your fans, don’t just collect them like baseball cards.”
So, make engagement your power!!!!