How much is a social media follower worth?
This question continues to confound many jewelers, especially those who are scrambling to find the magical formula to measure the value of social media to their businesses.
Some businesses get nervous watching competitors’ social media followings grow while their platforms stay stagnant. Instead of putting the energy and resources into social media campaigns, however, these entrepreneurs look to “fake fans” to inflate their social media profiles.
The problem is that fake fans can do more harm than good to a business.
These fake fans come from “click farms,” located around the world, mostly in Asia. These businesses hire hundreds of workers for minimal pay and provide them the tools to “follow” brands on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media accounts throughout the day. And jewelers’ fake followers are on the rise.
If you conduct a quick online search for fake fans, you will find numerous websites that offer social media fans available for purchase, sometimes as cheap as $2 for 1,000.
Some offers for fake fans even come with a warranty!
Regardless of the reason, adding fake fans can hurt your brand. Here are three potentially harmful effects they can have on your company.
LOSS OF INTEGRITY AND REPUTATION
Customer engagement is a critical part of a successful and sustainable social media strategy. Regularly engaging with your fans, sometimes on an individual level, is what consumers expect these days.
When your social media accounts are filled with fake fans, it is incredibly difficult to genuinely engage with your real fans through all the noise.
Celebrities, athletes, pundits and politicians have millions of fake followers.
FAKE FANS DILUTE THE VALUE OF YOUR MARKETING DATA
The search algorithms at Google and Facebook are super smart. They monitor the online interactions you are having with everyone. And these algorithms also monitor the interactions everyone is having with you.
If the majority of your followers on social media are fake, then the marketing data your business generates will be skewed and irrelevant. And your decisions are only as good as the data they are based on.
YOU’LL GET FOUND OUT
Unless you are Kim Kardashian, The Rock, or another high-profile celebrity or business, it is unlikely that you should have tens of thousands of fans. This is especially true if you are a startup or a young and relatively unknown company.
Social media users these days are savvy, and they can spot a brand with fake followers easily. Also, websites such as Fake Check can conduct a quick search on an Instagram profile and tell you the number of fake users you have.
You do not want to be the brand that gives the impression that you buy popularity.
The bottom line is that it is important to cultivate and nurture your fan base online to better understand your audience and regularly engage them. The only real means of effectively doing this is to put the time, energy and resources into building it. Doing so will ultimately create a more meaningful and, dare I say, measurable value to your brand.
