Social Media: How not to Obsess on Followers Count

When you’re managing social media, figures are everywhere: number of likes, views, followers… The latter one is usually the most visible, which can be associated with credibility and influence. The issue is that we tend to always want more, and to compare our account with the most popular ones that have millions of followers.

So how to stop obsessing on this specific figure? On what can you focus instead?

Look at engagement rate

Relative figures are a good way to have a better overview of your engagement. In particular, you can look at engagement rate, calculated by the number of interactions on a post divided by the number of followers.

Engagement rates gives you a better representation of content performance, compared to absolute numbers. For example, if you have 100 followers and see that 50% of your followers are liking your content, it’s a good sign that your audience appreciates what you do.

Relative numbers also allows comparisons with other accounts. You could even realise that you have a higher engagement rate than some larger accounts.