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Summary
- We decided to write this article outside of our planned content schedule to address a question we’ve received from several PulseWeaver users who are worried about gaining more followers and to provide a professional opinion to others seeking a clear answer on this topic.
- Once he was sure that the creator of the initial video had done a good job, obtained a good result, and sometimes even invested in advertising to make it viral, he would come in and take part in that success with a simple amateur video added at the end.
- ” But do you have the time and resources to monitor the web, see all the outputs of each competitor, see them in time, create a timely reaction that is well-received, effective, and not perceived as a spoiled child who had their snack stolen and is pouting.
Are you struggling to gain more followers?
We decided to write this article outside of our planned content schedule to address a question we’ve received from several PulseWeaver users who are worried about gaining more followers and to provide a professional opinion to others seeking a clear answer on this topic.
The Money and Happiness Analogy
Answering this question can’t be done with a simple yes or no. For those in a hurry, we’ll give you a straightforward response: it’s the same as asking, “Does money buy happiness?” As everyone knows, money alone doesn’t bring happiness if you don’t have anyone to share it with who loves you for who you are, not just for your money. It also doesn’t matter if you don’t have the health to enjoy it or the freedom to travel. Other factors are just as important, if not more so, than money. However, without money to the point of not being able to afford dinner or a roof over your head, it’s impossible to live happily. The same logic applies to our question: does having more followers imply more customers?
Be careful; in this article, we’ll detail aspects that are generally ignored in the race for more followers and that can make acquiring followers the cause of a company’s downfall! Yes, we’re not exaggerating, and you’ll understand why.
The Danger of Attracting Competitors’ Attention Too Quickly
When launching marketing campaigns, you’re clearly trying to get a piece of the pie that other companies have probably already staked out. In some cases, you might even enter a market where predecessors have agreements to share their respective parts and evolve serenely. So, when running your campaign, expect reactions from your competitors. Don’t be naive in thinking they’ll let you do as you please; it’s business. The more aggressive your campaign, the more aggressive the reaction may be.
The Khaby Lame Example
Khaby Lame is the perfect example to illustrate this case. You all remember his videos on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and other platforms. His concept was to take videos from other content creators explaining ideas for various tasks, which he would then simplify and ridicule, ending with his signature hand gesture to say, “There you go.
It’s important to know that when Khaby chose a video to apply his concept, the selection wasn’t random; on the contrary, he targeted trending videos in a country, region, or theme with a large interested audience, and where the initial video had already gained many views and reactions.
Once he was sure that the creator of the initial video had done a good job, obtained a good result, and sometimes even invested in advertising to make it viral, he would come in and take part in that success with a simple amateur video added at the end. His concept was appealing and would capture a large number of views and new followers by leveraging the TikTok algorithm, which would show Khaby Lame’s video to almost everyone who had reacted to the first one. And boom, another success!
Don’t be naive in saying it’s different because Khaby isn’t a competitor to the content creator. Remember that both do this to gain more followers and views to be paid by social networks. So, imagine if your competitors each reacted by taking your successful content and adding an ending that puts them in a good light.
I can already hear your thoughts: “I’ll react too!” But do you have the time and resources to monitor the web, see all the outputs of each competitor, see them in time, create a timely reaction that is well-received, effective, and not perceived as a spoiled child who had their snack stolen and is pouting? And most importantly, ensure that you’re not extending a new pole for a new reaction, but that it’s a K.O. victory? Think about it.
Too Many Followers Means More Customer Service
Close your store when it’s supposed to be open, and it’s the beginning of the end for your business. This statement is indisputable; we agree, right? Then know that leaving emails or messages unanswered indicates that you’re not there.
The prospect won’t start making excuses for you; it will be directly perceived as “not serious” at the very least, and it’s worse if it’s public comments visible to any visitor on your pages, whether on your websites or social networks. So, the more followers you have, the more you need to hire or set up tools for fast and efficient customer and prospect contact management.
More Traffic Means Improving IT and Legal Infrastructure
Sometimes, even big brands can make do with web hosting for their site and blog that doesn’t exceed $100 annually. With this budget, they can put their pages online and ensure a good and fast display for their visitors. However, moving to a high traffic level may require much more advanced infrastructure, and it can quickly go from $100 annually to $500 monthly, and that’s just for the infrastructure. You also have to think about its maintenance and management, whether by hiring an IT manager or engaging a company to outsource this task.
Add to that the fact that your traffic will also attract parasites who will want to take advantage of your success and try to hack your pages to place all kinds of content, whether to generate revenue for themselves with affiliate links, for example (and that’s the least worst), because it can go as far as placing tools to recover your private data and that of your visitors. If something happens, you will be the legal responsible party against whom the victimized visitor will point the finger and publicly denounce you or take legal action.
So, to avoid this, you’ll need to strengthen your security system, which means more resources and investments that you could have done without, unless it’s really necessary and you have the means to do it. And when we talk about strengthening security, we’re not just talking about cybersecurity experts, but also legal experts to properly tie up your terms of use and official documents in a way that reduces the risk of legal penalties that can be fatal in some cases.
How Many Followers Are Part of Your Persona?
Today, with the technical means that exist, if the number of fans you want is paramount in your eyes, regardless of their quality, there is the possibility to get them in 10 seconds, even if it’s a million fans, and on any platform, at sometimes ridiculous prices. So, seeing a page with thousands of followers is not really a sign of the brand’s success and notoriety for the majority of Internet users.
Today, we see more and more users who are, one might even say, “vaccinated” in a way and know how to detect fake followers. Already, seeing poor content with exaggerated reactions, comments, and views almost makes it clear that it’s fake. Or simply by seeing a local business making a video where they talk about themselves, so it doesn’t bring anything new, and where there is no controversy, having views and reactions that exceed even the number of inhabitants in their area, we automatically know it’s fake! And there, you’re likely to lose a visitor who is precisely the profile you’re looking for, but by seeing the community that follows you, they’re no longer interested in being a part of it, even if your content interests them! Too bad.
Aim for Valuable Goals
You’re doing business, and you’re communicating online about your business. Always keep the ultimate goal in mind: selling! It’s this goal that will allow you to continue to exist and grow. So, whenever you’re faced with a choice about your marketing, ask yourself the right questions, including three main ones:
- How many sales will this generate for me?
- For how long will this action be beneficial?
- What costs will it incur for its implementation and after its distribution?
Know that the campaigns that get the best answers to these three questions – that is, those that generate more sales over the long term (not just a one-shot deal), but that don’t require a large initial investment and whose subsequent costs will be proportional to the sales obtained through the same channels – this type of campaign will certainly not validate several KPIs that we see in aggressive campaigns with multi-channel advertising and paid campaigns.
Because this type is precisely selective and targets a particular persona, which means that it takes time, even for social networks, before they themselves understand the type of people who are looking for your content and to whom the algorithms of these media will systematically suggest your content without having to pay, because they themselves will want to satisfy their users by offering them content suggestions in line with their profile and interests.
Apply the Right Recipe and Be Patient
If you have a store, an office as a headquarters, or a clinic, did you expect to find a line of people waiting outside your store on opening day with a new brand that’s not yet known (except by your entourage)? Unless you’ve previously launched an aggressive campaign with a very enticing offer, it’s almost impossible to have that on the first day, or even the first month. It’s the same principle with your web pages.
But just as you persisted in continuing to open your store at the same hours every day and being present with your advice and warm welcome despite the low traffic at the start, because you knew it was the right way to build your reputation, you must continue in the same way to regularly offer quality content intended for your prospects, handle their messages and give them importance to build trust and develop a community that believes in you to meet the need for which your product or service is made. So don’t focus on the number of followers at the beginning; focus on quality first.
Do You Know the Real Demand in Your Niche?
How many people are proactively looking for your service? Even if your product can serve all of humanity, how many people take the time to ask for it and seek to know how to get it? For example, you’ve invented a product that slows beard growth. If you do a web search, for example on SEMrush, you’ll find that globally, the search for “slowing beard growth” doesn’t exceed 300 people doing that search. Yet, all the men in the world could be interested, whether they have a beard or not; it would be great to reduce the current frequency of shaving. So, if your communication also only targets one country or region, that search number will drop dramatically. Therefore, you shouldn’t expect a quick result at the start.
If you then say to yourself, “In that case, we’ll target searches for razors, for example, to get people looking for razors,” because a check on SEMrush gave you an average search figure of 9,000 for that keyword, we’ll say good luck. Because look further down on the same SEMrush results page and you’ll see the nice figure of 58 million result pages vying for that search. And look at the approximate cost per click for ad campaigns on that keyword. So, even when paying, the competition is fierce.
Plus, you’re not really selling a razor, which means that a large portion of your visitors will return to the search engines to get other results and find real razors. This will indicate to the engines that they didn’t like your content and will move you back in the suggestions and results on this topic, especially at the beginning, before you already have a community that testifies to the effectiveness of what you claim. Getting the first customers by targeting keywords that don’t really match your services will be very difficult.
When Should You Worry?
Unfortunately, there is no exact numerical answer that can be given as to when you should see the threshold of 100 quality fans reached, and when 1,000 or more followers, because it depends on huge factors, starting with the size of your niche, as explained previously, but also the current competition, the behavior of your persona (whether they are people who generally interact quickly on web posts or rarely), and many other factors. But here are some elements to help you position yourself and measure the effectiveness of your actions:
- 2 months of implementation and improvements: Generally, between the time needed for search engines like Google to notice your presence, analyze your credibility, create and put in place the first posts, for these posts to be analyzed by the bots of the different search engines, for the algorithms of social networks to classify you in a content category and understand who is most likely to like what you offer and make it appear to the right people, then the time for these people to trust you and show their interest by subscribing to your publications to continue receiving what you offer, this process takes an average of 2 months to set up. During this time, focus on showing your seriousness, your regularity, improving the customer experience by enhancing your visual presentations and optimizing your page load times, and so on. Even if you see little or no results, don’t think about it before the first two months.
- Between the 2nd and 4th month: This is generally the time to see the first results of your work, but not necessarily in the number of sales or even fans, but rather in the quality of presence. For example, generally, good brand SEO work will allow you, after 3 months, to have the “Rolls-Royce” on Google when searching for your brand. What we call the “Rolls-Royce” in jargon is when you see, when searching for your brand on Google, that your site’s homepage is in the first position in the results, followed by two columns of links to different pages of your main menu. So, you almost monopolize 25% of the results displayed on the first page, which is an excellent sign because it indicates that Google has understood that for this search, you are “THE RESULT” that we want.
It therefore tries to make things easier for its users by suggesting the different pages of your site to lead them more quickly to their desired objective, whether it’s to know your products or services, contact you, or other possibilities on your site. - After 4 months: At this point, if you were really regular, if your content is of quality, if you have optimized your configurations, then you should start to receive a share of Internet users interested in your services in an evolving way. The speed will depend on the amount of searches around your service and the behavior of the people who see you, whether they really show interest or not, which will determine the speed of acquisition thereafter.
If between the 4th and 5th month you don’t see this impact, then you probably need to give your strategy a boost. That doesn’t mean changing your strategy, because the goal is precisely to attract people interested in what you currently offer. Except that at this stage, if initially the direct searches around the subject are low or you are in a sector where competition is fierce, you will need an analysis of the possible avenues available to you to get noticed, maybe with a paid advertising campaign on social networks and Google, or with content capable of creating a buzz encouraging people to discover other content and attract the attention of your persona who will see your old posts that will arouse their interest, or by actions to convert your real visitors in store into followers… but this is the time to give your campaign a nitro boost.
We hope this article will help you understand the priorities and know when you should monitor which KPI, and most importantly, not to be drawn to the goal of having more followers while ignoring the risks that this can bring, and to know when having more followers becomes one of the KPIs to monitor.
Having more followers does not necessarily guarantee more customers. It is crucial to focus on quality rather than quantity, set clear goals, and adopt a strategy adapted to your niche and audience.
PulseWeaver, the Assurance of Regularity
For entrepreneurs and marketers who want to implement an effective and regular content marketing strategy, PulseWeaver can be a valuable ally. Developed specifically to address the issues discussed in this article, this innovative solution allows you to create and distribute quality content on your blog and social networks in an automated way.
Thanks to a unique combination of algorithms reproducing the best practices of industry professionals and artificial intelligence models trained for specific tasks, PulseWeaver helps you produce personalized content, tailored to your prospects and brand image, all at a competitive price.
If you want to learn more about how PulseWeaver can help you achieve your content marketing goals and develop a strong and regular online presence, we invite you to discover our solution on our official website: pulseweaver.com. You will find detailed information as well as a complete presentation video.
Stay tuned; new articles are coming soon to help you get the most out of your content marketing strategy!
