Social media is an important place to be for marketers today. After all, millions of people are visiting social sites on a daily basis and marketing is all about being where the people (target audience members) are. However, many marketers are measuring their social success the wrong way.

Social media marketers sometimes become so consumed with the wrong kinds of numbers. They are worried about their number of followers instead of being worried about what actually matters. 10,000 followers may be impressive on the surface- but how engaged are they with your brand? Are they even paying attention to your messages? 250 followers might not seem impressive, but if all 250 are actually interested in what you have to say, those 250 are much more valuable than the 10,000 that don’t care.

Becoming so obsessed with follower count can result in making some bad decisions, like paying for followers or offering incentives to get people to follow you. Followers that you pay for usually aren’t even humans, and even if they are- they probably don’t care about your product or service. It may seem like a great idea to give something away to get followers, but is that really the target audience that you want to attract? People that are just looking for freebies? There’s a good chance that they will follow you to win the prize, and then stop following you shortly thereafter.

Social media marketers need to stop worrying so much about getting followers, and focus on the followers that they do have. People that choose to follow you on their own are the ones that are actually most likely to buy your product or recommend you to someone else. It’s important to keep them engaged by staying active in social media. Instead of spending time creating contests and prizes to get followers, create content that will interest the followers that you already have. Over time, as your business grows and your other marketing efforts are executed, social followers will grow naturally.

Instead of worrying about follower count, worry about other success metrics including the number of comments or Likes that you get. If nobody is interacting with you, you’re obviously not providing content that followers care about. Also, you should be paying attention to website analytics to gauge social media success. Followers are great, but what makes them really great is if they are actually interacting with your brand and making purchases to improve your bottom line.