Would you rather have 500 followers who all fit the criteria of your target audience demographic and are very likely to buy from you or 5000 followers, of whom only 5% of them are viable leads for your business?

Chances are you’re going to say the first one, right?

If you’re the savvy and ambitious business owner I know you are, you know that vanity metrics don’t matter, and it’s the results that move the needle in your business that do. 

But sometimes, our ego gets involved. We get caught focusing more on what vanity metrics mean to other people than on the impact on our business. We’re human, after all. 

However, focusing on the metrics from the wrong perspective negates the impact of your marketing efforts and hurts your business.

A Real Life Example For You

A client came to me looking for support growing their Instagram. Despite having a decent following, they weren’t generating viable leads for their business.

When completing my audit, I found a massive disconnect between the target audience that was right for their offering and the people who were currently following them on Instagram. 

As it stood, less than 25% of their followers were relevant to their business, with most of their audience falling outside their geographical service area. Another concern was that the average follower age was falling between 18-24 when their target audience is more likely to be over 25 years of age.

When I shared these insights, they noted that they bought followers so their account wouldn’t start at zero. Disclaimer: At the time, buying followers was a prevalent (albeit incorrect) tactic getting pushed to many well-meaning people who wanted to add credibility to their accounts.

If you want to understand the strategy to correct this, you can check out the complete case study here, but we’re not going to get into that in this post.

The story’s moral is that vanity metrics are just that, vanity. They might boost your ego, but they certainly aren’t going to grow your business.

The Metrics The DO Matter

What metrics should you be paying attention to? I highly recommend focusing on insights like location, age, and gender as it relates to your target audience instead of paying attention to how many followers you have overall.

Even if that number grows, your results will not grow alongside them if you’re not attracting the right people.

The same goes for likes and comments. Many ‘experts’ will prey on your desire to go viral. However, if those impressions and engagements aren’t from relevant people, they will never positively impact your bottom line.

How Do You Know If You're Attracting The Right People?

This is the easiest metric to measure because it means you’re getting results. 

  • – You’re booking sales calls
  • – Signing new clients
  • – Growing your email list
  • – Building a highly engaged audience
  • – Getting relevant messages in your DMs 
  • – Your revenue is growing

Any number of these results can signify that your marketing is working to attract the RIGHT people into your world.