Why A Smaller Audience Isn't Always Bad

Transcript

Hi, I’m Olivia, the client services manager at Insynth and today, I’m going to run through why a smaller audience on social media isn’t always a bad thing.

Social media is always changing, with trends lasting months instead of years. It has become the cultural norm for us to measure validation from others by the number of followers on social media and how many likes a post gets.

Metrics such as these are a quantitative way to assess how popular we are. This has then contributed to society's understanding value numerically, meaning the objectives set are then easily measurable.

There are 2 types of metrics, vanity metrics and actionable metrics.

Vanity metrics improve our esteem when they increase, they feel good to look at but lack any clear guidance for the next steps.

An actionable metric contains greater value and can be used to inform business decisions.

I’ll give you an example of each – A vanity metric for social media could be the number of followers your page has; an actionable metric would be the engagement your post gets, including comments and shares. You could have 20 thousand followers, but if nobody is engaging with your content and passing it on to others that might find it useful, then it’s worthless.

That’s where a smaller audience comes into play. If you’re producing content for the masses, your message is unlikely to resonate with your audience, and they won’t feel heard.
When you produce content for a targeted group of people, they feel important and get value from following you. This ties in with the inbound approach of producing content that educates and helps your audience.

Something else to consider is exclusivity. LinkedIn and Facebook both have the feature of groups or private pages. If you create a group or have a members page, for example, it’s likely others will experience FOMO (the fear of missing out) and want to be part of the conversation.

So don’t be afraid to have online conversations with the right people, even if it means reaching less. If people unfollow you, they probably weren’t a good fit in the first place.

Thanks for watching!