Fair Game 012: Three Reasons Follower Counts Are Irrelevant

Originally published November 9, 2018.

Follower Counts Are Irrelevant.
Here’s 3 Reasons Why.

If you take a look around social media, it won’t take you long to realize that people have a thing for followers. The common thought tends to be the more followers you have, the “better/cooler/more in-demand” you must be. Follower counts have become the modern equivalent of having everyone want you to sign their high school yearbook back in the day. You must be so popular, right?

Nope. Not right.

Here’s my opinion on follower counts. They’re irrelevant. Here’s why.

Reason #1: Purchased Followers

That common thought I mentioned earlier that somehow lots of followers must mean you’re somehow more important is a gigantic misconception.

For starters, followers can be bought.

If you’re not deep into the social media ecosphere you may not even realize this is a thing. Social media users can go to certain companies and pay to get more followers on their account. Literally, they put their credit card in, and a computer program begins generating followers for that account. You might spend $100 for 2,500 followers. Or $500 for 20,000 followers.

Do the follower counts actually increase? In some case, yes, absolutely.

However, in most cases those are bot accounts. They’re not real. They’re just a computer generated fake account following that person.

Why do people buy fake followers? Super easy answer. They need fake followers to build up their fake self-esteem. It’s just true. If you’re confident in who you are, then it just doesn’t matter how many followers you have.

So how do you know if a person is buying fake followers? It’s not always easy. There’s apps and websites that claim to be able to indicate how many real vs. fake followers a user has. Accuracy can vary and in some cases only lead you to having to give up personal information to get the results. Not a great idea

One way I’ve found that’s pretty accurate is simply looking at the number of followers against the amount of engagement they have. By default, if you’ve got tens of thousands of followers, you should be getting some level of organic engagement, between .5% to 3%.

So someone with 25,000 followers should be getting at least several hundred likes and comments.

But take a look at some accounts on Instagram that have 27k, 45k, or even 100k followers. Yet they get 18 likes and 1 comment. You’ve just found someone who has bought their followers.

Reason #2: Your Goals Aren’t the Same as Someone Else’s Goals

This is a big one for me. Equating follower counts to some level of value or quality misses the very real possibility that the goals of one brand or person are different than the goals of another brand or person.

Here’s a couple of quick examples.

If you have Facebook then you likely have heard of these two companies: Purple Mattress and Squatty Potty. Each start up put out videos that went insanely viral.

Purple Mattress released a video with a character, “Goldilocks the Bed Expert,” dropping 4 raw eggs onto their Purple Mattress. It garnered 138 million views and shot Purple Mattress to the forefront of the direct-to-consumer mattress industry.

Squatty Potty released a video with a unicorn character dropping, well, you’ll have to watch the video. The video generated more than 140 million views and counting.

My point?

The company that created those videos has just 8,200 followers.

Your goals aren’t the same as someone else’s goals. So quit comparing your follower counts to someone else’s follower counts.

Reason #3: The Facebook Ad Product

Listen, if you’re a B2C business, having a high follower count in order to sell your watch, or your camera, or whatever your product is, intuitively seems like it would be helpful.

Or, if you’re like my business, and you provide a service to another business, so you deal in B2B, you might also think enormous follower counts are helpful.

But the Facebook ad product wipes away any advantage. Particularly, if we’re talking about entertainment service providers in the fair industry where our business serves.

“Follower counts are a nonsense vanity metric that says very little about the quality of a brand or product. -Robert Smith

As performers, we tend to log tens of thousands of miles traveling to fairs across the country. In one year I’ve picked up followers from southern California to Maryland. Other acts do the same.

Let’s take an example of two acts. One act has 20,000 followers while the other act has 1,000 followers.

The act with 20,000 followers gets booked at a fair in Minnesota. They put out a video on their Facebook page which generates an organic reach of 1,000 engagements. And that’s a generous estimate.

That’s good news for that fair, right? 1,000 people engaging with likes, comments and shares about an act coming to your fair.

Except where are those followers located? Remember as acts we generate followers from a variety of locations around America and Canada. If your fair is in Minnesota and the act has performed there before, maybe 25% of those engagements are in your area. If this is the acts first time to Minnesota, forget it. Few if any of those engagements will be from your fair’s area.

To recap: The act has 20,000 followers. They publish a post which organically generates 1,000 engagements of which 250 or less will be in your area.

Now let’s take a look at the act with 1,000 followers.

Understanding Facebook’s ad product, they deploy an “unpublished” Facebook post and target it to a given demographic within 25 miles of your fair. They get their message in front of 10,000 people, who are actually potential customers for that fair, for about $90 dollars.

The ad generates 1,000 engagements (likes, comments and shares). Because of Facebook’s targeting capabilities, all of those 1,000 engagements are in your fair’s immediate area.

See how that worked? One act gets in front of few if any of the fair’s potential customers. The other gets in front of 10,000 of the fair’s potential customers.

Don’t Be Fooled by Follower Counts.Follower counts are a nonsense vanity metric that says very little about the quality of a brand or product. If they do say something, then certainly there should be some graduated matrix of follower success.

What’s my value if I have 1 million plus followers? What about 500,000? Is my product any better or worse if I only have 100,000? What about 25,000? 1,000? 500?

No. Follower counts are irrelevant and I just gave you three good reasons why.

I wish you all nothing but happiness.

Fair Game 011: Andrew Beltran, Original Grain

Originally published October 19, 2018.

A lot of you know I’m a fan of unique watches. Five years ago my best friend from college, Kevin, pointed me in the direction of a young upstart watch company. The company, Original Grain, was in the midst of their first Kickstarter campaign.

It would be another year before I received my first Original Grain watch as a gift from my wife, Sara.

Since then I’ve grown my collection and struck up a friendship with their co-founder, Andrew Beltran.

Earlier in August I was able to catch up with Andrew at the company’s headquarters in downtown San Diego.

We talked about the world of start ups, how social media marketing had built the company, and of course, we talk watches.

Thanks for listening.

Fair Game 006: Why the #DeleteFacebook Movement is a Waste of Time

Originally published April 9, 2018.

Apple Co-Founder, Steve Wozniak Joins the #DeleteFacebook Movement. Here's why it's a total waste of time.

By: Robert Smith

#DeleteFacebook.

That’s the position of Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak.

“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and… Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this. The profits are all based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits back,” Wozniak recently told USA Today.

It’s impossible to miss this in the news. Facebook is at the center of the spotlight on issues from data usage in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Russian’s allegedly hacking the 2016 US Presidential Election and how the company actually profits off its users voluntarily supplying their data.

Let’s step back and take a look at these issues individually.

On Wozniak’s comment, “but the users get none of the profits back.”

Forgive my while I nearly choke to death on that load of nonsense. Of course Facebook’s users don’t get profits back from the company. They’re a private company. Users are supplying their data freely.

Apple has been caught in multiple scandals on how their iPhone iOS systems work including geolocation based tracking of their user’s movements without user consent. But Wozniak is now going to flip his iSoapBox and declare he’s deleting Facebook.

Good for you, Woz. Way to stand on the moral authority of being Apple’s co-founder.

By the way, are people still throwing themselves out windows to commit suicide at Apple’s manufacturing plants in China, or no?

My gut feeling is that Woz’s comments have more behind them. Apple and Facebook are tech competitors, no question. Apple would love to destabilize Facebook and get a hold of the company.

I may be wrong. But make no mistake. When two tech giants are playing for the attention of billions of people, and there’s easily $1 trillion dollars in market value at stake, your interests are not what they’re representing.

On Cambridge Analytica & the Russian “Influence” of the Election
There’s so much we don’t know here. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has been clear there was abuse by Cambridge Analytica targeting FB user data. Time will tell how this plays out. You can bet with Zuckerberg scheduled to testify before Congress that legislative changes will eventually be rolled out to attempt to protect user data on various social platforms in the future.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. Americans have lost all perspective and context on these very serious issues.

I find incredible hypocrisy in Congress demanding Mark Zuckerberg appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to testify regarding Facebook’s privacy practices.

The hypocrisy quite frankly is mind-boggling. This is the same Congress that via repeated authorizations of the Patriot Act, have authorized Presidents Bush (43), Obama and Trump to spy on the American people. Think about this. Congress is authorizing themselves to spy on you without due process, via a kangaroo FISA “court,” and track your movements and personal data without notifying you.

But they’re going to summon Facebook’s CEO before Congress to testify about his company’s privacy practices.

All because Donald Trump won the election.

On Russian “Influence” of the 2016 Election
American’s need to desperately gain some perspective over this entire Russian influence situation via Facebook.

Let’s be clear on two things here.

First, the United States of America actively influences elections in dozens of countries across the globe. Our government will go to the point of war in order to gain influence over other countries.

But I’m supposed to be angry that Russia bought some Facebook ads to try and mislead voters.

Has Russia bombed us?
Have they sent their troops to Washington, D.C., to occupy our nation’s capital?
No? Interesting.

Second, the Russian’s didn’t use Facebook to influence our election. You did.

Facebook’s algorithm can only respond and propagate false news stories if you, the user, spread them, share them, like them and comment on them.

Russia wasn’t stupid. They planted stories. But ignorant users on both sides of the political aisle foolishly promoted and shared them without confirming facts.

That’s not Facebook’s fault. It’s not President Trump’s fault. It’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault.

It’s yours.

Don’t believe me?

Go to Facebook and type into the search bar a subject that has no interest to you.

Let’s say you have zero interest in Disney World or theme parks. You’ve never been. Don’t want to go. And can’t stand Disney.

Search, “Disney World.”

Then like the first 5 or 6 pages you see. Comment and like on 10-15 other posts. Then sit back and pay attention to the sponsored posts in your feed.

Over the next month you’ll suddenly see ads from Disney, Universal, tourism departments, Southwest Airlines, hotel companies and every other brand that is involved in the travel and tourism industry.

That’s exactly how Russia’s bullshit stories gained legs. Russia may have put the dollars into Facebook to cast a wide net. But the users themselves spread those stories and gave that nonsense legs.

Don’t blame Trump, Hillary, Zucks, Facebook. Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you spread that horseshit. If you did, take a deep breath, swallow hard and own up to it.

“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

— Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook

Zucks Owns It
That’s what Zucks did. If you’re reading this you need to know something about Mark Zuckerberg. He is among the all-time greatest entrepreneurs in modern history.

He took responsibility for all of this. He didn’t blame a staffer, or an assistant, or a rogue team member like the people in Congress who will be questioning him do.

Nope. He owned it.

"It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well," Zuckerberg said,  "That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here."

How many Congressional representatives own up to something like that?

Hell, do your local school board representatives ever take responsibility for anything?

The Future of Facebook & Social Media
My friends, social media is here. It’s not going away. You think we’re going to turn our devices off and go back to a day where we only got our news via television and 5 or 6 old white guys decided what information made it through the filter?

No way.

Information has been commoditized. More people have more opportunity world wide to make a life for themselves than ever before.

A small business can reach customers at a global scale for pennies on the dollar.

A music artist can take their music directly to the public without some producer deciding for the rest of us which song is good.

A writer with talent can use a blog to reach audiences never before available.

Will Smith, the Fresh Prince himself; one of the biggest movie stars of a generation, recognized that he was losing influence and becoming obscure. He’s now using Instagram every day to create a vlog and tell his story. He has rapidly regained relevance.

We’re not going backward. There’s going to bumps along the way. No different than when radio transitioned to television in the 50s and 60s.

Whether it’s Facebook or Instagram or FaceySpacey or InstaApp or whatever the hell it’s called, the internet and social media have reached scale. They are here and are not going anywhere.

This is the biggest communication transition in human history.

Complaining about it will not help. Rather than complain about it I recommend we make ourselves comfortable, read the terms of service agreements and take responsibility for the environment we’re helping create.

So share your pictures of your perfectly plated steak. Share the photos of your family vacation.

And maybe from now on, skip sharing political stories unless you do the due diligence of verifying their veracity.