Over the past several years, the same concerns PR pros had with clients continues to pop up now when it comes to social media. Clients want immediate results on campaigns. Huge audiences and tons of fans.
Let’s face it, whether we are in-house or work at an agency we all want these types of stats as well. But as much as we all love big numbers, there needs to be a larger emphasis placed on the overall successes of a campaign.
For example, maybe after the first few weeks of a launch your client gained 100 new fans to its Facebook page through a series of incentives and tactics. Some clients will be thrilled. Others will not be. But what should matter most is not how many fans they have, it should be about who exactly the fans are.
And for all the naysayers that are going to say that quantity outweighs quality, I think that’s a huge mistake. Maybe one of those new followers is a senior executive at a company your client would love to work with? Perhaps it’s a TODAY Show producer interested in doing a segment on that brand? If a client isn’t happy with the results then go back and evaluate the entire project. See what worked well and what didn’t, and adjust the budget accordingly.
My point is that numbers don’t always tell the whole story. If a client can gain one new follower or one new customer lead from a campaign, then the effort was worth it. That new fan may not have ever appeared had no effort been made in the first place. After all, retention of customers you do attract is just as important as trying to lure in new ones.
So whether a company spends thousands or millions of dollars on a campaign, there will always be positive and negative results. There will even be results that remain unclear. But what there will be plenty of is key learnings, and that’s what the focus should be on.
Regardless of numbers, make sure your company/client doesn’t overlook the loyal group of fans who have been attracted to the brand and continue to buy its products. No matter how big the audience may be, the minute a brand starts taking them for granted is the minute they’ll start to lose them.
