Guest Post from Mike Smith of WordSmith Creative
The other day I received an offer via email from a marketing services company. To be honest, I don’t remember signing up to receive offers like this from anyone, but I’ll give these folks that benefit of the doubt. Maybe I clicked on something and didn’t read the fine print. Regardless of how they found me, they were making me an offer that I’m sure they thought I couldn’t refuse.
These marketing gurus were offering me a smokin’ deal that was guaranteed to net me 1000 Twitter followers for the low, low price of only $100. Gee, who wouldn’t want 1000 new Twitter followers? Do the math: that’s only 10¢ per follower. It sure sounds like a bargain.
But is that really a great deal? Getting a qualified lead for 10¢ would be fantastic. But a follower is not the same thing as a lead—much less a qualified lead. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with having followers—as long as your followers are people that are genuinely interested in your products or services and will either avail themselves of what you have to offer or will influence others to do so.
Business success isn’t determined by how many followers you have. It’s more about how many satisfied customers your have. And it’s about whether or not they come back. And whether or not they tell their friends about you.
So is all of this social media stuff nothing more than smoke and mirrors? Absolutely not! It’s for real. If you’re a business and you’re not engaging customers and prospects online, you’re not going to make it. But there’s a difference between engaging people with information that empowers them to make good buying decisions and bombarding them with unwanted messages. As in every other aspect of business, quality trumps quantity.
So is $100 for 1000 Twitter followers a great deal? That depends on what you really want. If you want the rush of suddenly having 1000 people know your name, it might not be such a bad thing. If you’re looking to gain real “fans” for your business that will keep coming back and eventually do business with you (and tell their friends about you) because you delivered valuable information to them, then “followers” may not be what you’re after.
And I bet if you take your list of 1000 followers to the bank, your banker won’t give you 10¢ on the dollar for them!