Does your social following actually matter?

With the ever-growing platform that is social media, the ‘virtual world’ is becoming more and more important as is the number of followers a person has. It seems like the more followers a person has, the more important they are deemed to be?

They (followers) are without a doubt an important part of your social analysis, but just how many you have is somewhat irrelevant. You can have strong relationships with your audience and and still be reaching a wide audience without having a Selena Gomez level of followers. It all depends on your engagement with your audience and the type of relationship you’ve built. You could have 20 followers who all skim past your posts, or you could have a few followers who like every photo, every tweet and read every blog you post – the question is, are the amount of followers you have more for show than anything?

Engagement has possibly the biggest impact on your followers. Have you ever looked at Twitter Analytics? It shows you a follow and unfollow rate over time. If you tend to participate in chats, the impact of your content is more noticeable. Putting out good content during a chat usually results in a higher following rate. It is also sometimes coupled with an increase in unfollowing (albeit a lower rate, which nets you an increase in followers). This goes to show you how much your followers are listening. If they see content they do not like or which seems out of place, they unfollow. However, if you engage and participate with new people while consistently using good, shareable content, they follow you! Engagement is interaction. It’s getting people to click on your links, like your posts, start up a conversation and share something that you posted. It’s getting people to feel like you are providing them with knowledge, that you’ve got a hint of personality and aren’t just there to sell your stuff.

Equally content has a huge impact on your online presence, especially in the blogging world. It helps to define your brand, carries your message, and even grows your following. If you are releasing quality content to a targeted niche who enjoy reading what you’re writing about, then you tend to keep and grow an audience who will remain loyal to you and follow all your social media’s and posts. Through your content, you can engage an audience whom will come back and read more of your work (therefore building a loyal audience which usually leads to followers).

Despite this, followers are good. They give you confidence – there’s nothing quite like gaining followers and creating a bigger audience of people who appreciate your work! Every follower you gain is like reaching a new milestone, whether that is reaching the next ten, hundred, thousand or million, every follower you gain is proof of an audience who are following your journey.

So, does does your number of followers really matter? I think that’s down to you!

Words by Maija Lily
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