hej.

Social media marketing is both an art and a science.

🎨 ART – pouring your heart and soul into creating various forms of content based on what feels right

🧪 SCIENCE – making a hypothesis, knowing exactly what to measure, and doing multiple experiments

The art side of social may be the fun part...

But it's the science that makes things actionable and predictable.
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​This is especially true for social media.

Which brings us to something I have to get off my chest:
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follower count is a useless and distracting jerk and should be ignored

Focusing on your follower count isn't going to take you anywhere.

It doesn't move the needle on anything but your ego.

It is the ONE true vanity metric in social media.

There are only a couple (non-actionable) things it's good for:

1. It may add the potential for more engagement, reach, and conversions.
2. People may perceive you as more of an "established" business.

But that's pretty much where the benefits end 😕

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There are WAY better metrics to be looking at for social media and business growth.

...and which ones you use depend on your social media marketing goals.

A few examples of metrics that matter:
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✅ Engagement rate: the shares/comments/likes relative to number of followers

Why? – Engagement rate matters to the platforms, the big brands, the sponsors, and the general public. It proves your relevance and offers you social authority.
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✅ Share of voice: your mentions compared to your competitors'

Why? – Share of voice shows you if people are actually talking about you online — so you can jump into conversations that are already happening.
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✅ Click-through rate: how often people click the call-to-action on your posts and see your website or landing page
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✅ Conversion rate: the number of visitors who take action on a page after clicking a social post, compared to the page's total visitors

Why? – Click-through and Conversion rates are literally your leads that you can nurture and turn into sales.
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know your goals 🎯

🔵 If your goal is to increase brand awareness, grow your audience, and maybe land some sponsorships — focus on Engagement Rate and Share of Voice

🔵 If your goal is to drive web traffic for ad revenue — focus on Click-through Rate

🔵 If you want your visitors to sign up for your newsletter or buy from you — focus on Click-through Rate and Conversion Rate
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another thing to consider 🤔

Having a large follower count without much engagement or click-throughs could be hurting your reach (i.e. how many people actually see your content).

If you have a bunch of followers, but nobody is taking any action on your posts, then the platform is going to see your content as inferior.

And that means they may start limiting your posts' exposure 😮

That's right, dynamite...

Shadowbanning is real!​
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While platforms don't like to use this term, all the savvy social folks know it's actually a thing.

Take a peek at what Instagram says:

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To be fair, this arose in the context of managing "problematic content".

However... 😐

Social networks use countless algorithms to maximize how much time we spend on their apps.

They limit exposure to boring content and line up the good stuff in front of our eyes.

(You have seen The Social Dilemma, right? Right?!)

It makes sense to make the platform like you...

So encourage your audience to like, share, and save your content.
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at the most basic level...

...marketing is about connecting with your customers on an emotional level.

This naturally helps drive engagement, clicks, and conversions — the stuff that matters.

We shouldn't be paying much attention to vanity metrics (...like that manipulative asshat, follower count).

And if you know what to measure — you'll be able to make smarter decisions and grow your business faster.
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Stay tuned for next Thursday's newsletter...

I'll be bringing you a three-part deep dive into Instagram:

• The latest IG developments
• How the algorithm works
• How to create content that drives leads
• Tools to help with your Instagram marketing
• Plus an interview with an IG influencer

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Stay fresh,
Robert

P.S. If you haven't seen The Social Dilemma, I suggest you take a peek... It's pretty eye-opening!

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