BUSINESS NEWS: How to spot your "real" friends on Facebook and engage your followership
"Friends, how many of us have them? Friends, ones we can depend on?" (Whoodini, circa 1984)
"What about your friends? Are they gonna let you down? Are they gonna be around?" (TLC, circa 1990)
In order to get social media working for you, you must know how to work it! To learn why online followership does not always translate into true buy-in, support or sales read more.
buzzz worthy. . .
WHO ARE YOUR REAL FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK?
By Mona Austin
The Branducator
Anyone with a personal brand should make a resolution to attract more followers. This post is about connecting with and attracting more "real" friends on Facebook.
While there are over a billion Facebook users, "Understanding User Behavior in Social Media," a Duke University study on the subject indicated that based on crawled data from Facebook "users tend to interact with a small group of their friends while having no interaction with up to 50% of their followers on Facebook." This figure almost aligns with the discoveries on Instagram.
Some of their other findings include:
- 81% of all American adults ages 18 and older use the internet.
- 56% of the adult population uses Facebook.
- The average number of Friends a Facebook user has is 155.
- 52% of online adults use more than one Social Media site.
- 91% of Twitter users also use Facebook.
- 94% of Instagram users also use Facebook.
- 29% of Facebook users also use Twitter.
- 34% of Facebook users also use Instagram.
For me quality will always trump quantity. The number of followers is not all that important. I would rather have 50 contacts that are committed to my personal brand than 5,000 who skim over my content and never engage. People place far too much emphasis on the number in online settings. Ariana Grande has more Instagram followers than Mariah Carey, but that does not make Carey less of a legend. She continues to pack concert venues around the world.
Celebs learned the hard way that all their social media fans aren't always loyal. Many stars and everyday people alike were upset when they lost thousands of inactive fans in the recent "Instagram Rapture." The photo sharing company, which is owned by Facebook, took the liberty to purge dormant ghost followers, spambot (fake) accounts and other drifters that were just taking up space.There were 18.8 million accounts deemed fake and deleted, meaning that the app lost 30 percent of its users. Many people were angry and embarrassed by the sudden loss of fans, but Instagram may have done its users a favor by narrowing down followers that are the most responsive.
The online rapture shows that millions of followers can be wrong! Becoming effective on Facebook is not about how LARGE the numbers are -- it's about how LOYAL the followers are.
If you don't have a ton of FB followers, don't stress. You really don't need them anyway. . .
I have dug up some advice on how to best manage a smaller group of Facebook friends. Before trying any of these suggestions it's important to recognize that Facebook was not designed as a sales tool and the online space is still different from the offline space pertaining to sales and marketing. Social media should be viewed as added value to a business's marketing and communications efforts. Nothing replaces a good old fashioned marketing plan, of which social media should be a part.
Since Facebook is the leading social media platform, I will use it as the model for this discussion.
In my research on social media behavior I discovered some data that can be helpful in using online platforms to expand your network or to generate leads for business. This information can be especially useful in introducing a personal brand.
Bruce Kassanoff, Ghostwriter and speaker wrote an article titled "The Fewer Friends You Have The Better." He said unless you are selling Coke or Pampers, you don’t need a mass audience.
This truth smacked me firsthand. I once partnered with someone who boasted a social networking presence of over 3,000 followers on one platform and several thousand on another. As a part of our deal she agreed to promote my event in exchange for her being a featured speaker. If I only got 1% of her followers to purchase tickets, I would have 30 attendees from this one promotion source alone. No one showed up from her network. This experience taught me that followers are not necessarily qualified leads.
To get a better understanding of how to spot your "real" friends (prospective supporters) among Facebook followers it is necessary to understand the types of followers that exist o that platform. Facebook followers tend to fall into two categories -- latent and interactive. There are latent followers and interactive followers on Facebook. Latent followers (also known as passive or "ghost followers") browse, but do not interact. Interactive followers post on walls, click "like," share posts and comment on photos. There are also dormant followers, like those deleted from Instagram. The most active group of followers are what some social media gurus refer to as a "tribe," or people who are most likely to buy the music, see the movie, recommend the product to friends or support whatever is being "sold" whether it is tangible or intangible. Essentially, the tribe is the core target audience.
Doesn't that sound like how relationships works in real life? We have "real friends," those we hang out with and know us beneath the surface and associates, people who would recognize us in a crowd and exchange pleasantries, but who don't really know us. Facebook friendships, however, can not be viewed in the same manner as friendships in the real world the Duke researchers surmised.
If your number of friends is not increasing organically (or the way Facebook algorithms designed it to happen) there are several ways to gain more followers by strategically communicating with your "tribe," or the core group of followers who interact with you most frequently.
Here are a few suggestions on how to engage and/or attract more followers on FB.
Tell them what they want to hear
People connect with you to get information that is funny, entertaining or useful (i.e., news). If you are a comedian, make 'em laugh. If you sell cars, post suggestions on the best rates and deals. Changing your store hours? Notify your customers on FB. These are the types of followers you want to accept.
Communicate often and naturally
Frequently communicating with your online audience builds expectation.
Numerous social media gurus suggest just as in the real world it is best to be yourself and speak conversationally. Your approach has to be natural. Coming across like a pushy sales person, as someone with self-serving interests or too "ad-sy" may push active friends into the passive category or they could un-follow you altogether.
Make sure your message is consistent. People judge who you are by what you say and post.
Get real
Be authentic at all times. No matter what you are selling, promoting or attempting to get buy-in for users must be able to see you as interesting, engaging and REAL. Skepticism about hackers and phishing scandals will keep followers at bay if posts appear to be automated. Showing your personality is also going to attract more followers, experts say.
Keep it visual
Add a photo, graphic or video to every post. Just as on Instagram, people are more apt to respond to graphics and videos.
Separating the real from the fake
So who are your "real" fans/friends? Statistically, they are the ones who you are reaching the most--or the most loyal (tribe members). But the research on user behavior in social media is somewhat confusing. Unfortunately, you will not be able to decipher who they are by the naked eye, such as by the number of "likes" on a post. Some FB users have thousands of friends, but have limited social proof that they are engaged.
Learn to crack the code on user behavior by paying attention who follows you. The work involved in becoming more effective in reaping the benefits of social media may involve taking the conversation off line and getting to know social media contacts face-to-face or using traditional business practices to lasso prospects or other social media tools like meetup groups.
Above all else, choose your online friends wisely.
Email your questions about this or other articles written by Mona Austin to mediamindedpro@yahoo.com.
