A Following or a Community

Marketers that create a brand presence on social media platforms lack one very important thing in the beginning: an audience, and that is what marketers and their bosses constantly hunger for. From Facebook fans to YouTube subscribers to Twitter followers and so on, marketers want more of them and often they have no idea why. They just want them.

An audience is one thing, but it’s another thing to define what kind of audience will best serve business objectives. Do you want a following or do you want a community? 

We want a following.

A following is essentially a body of people that has subscribed to your brand's content by clicking 'like,' follow, subscribe and so on. This group has seen something from the brand that they'd like to see more of in one way or another in their social streams, but beyond that, they may not want more.

Marketers are often after a following. They don't care who it is or why. They just want to see the number go up. That number, for better or worse, is one way that marketers can easily point to in company meetings or hold up to a competitor's number and say, "See. We're doing it."

But the number is only cosmetic. A following is great, and it's important for a brand to build an audience in the social space, but efforts can't stop there. Any brand can get a following and for much less time and energy just by buying a traditional ad and getting its content in front of millions of people. Social media isn't made for just building followings. It's made to take them a step further. 

We really want a community.

A community is a group of people living together and practicing common ownership. Now, that's powerful. A community is a following that's evolved to a more invested and more valuable long-term group of consumers invested in a brand. They want to spread the word and help the brand succeed by sharing their personal thoughts and opinions.

A following is about quantity and growing the numbers, but the number means nothing if the following isn't invested. They can hide posts from their News Feeds and ignore tweets. A community is on the lookout for more content.

While a following can be bought, a community must be earned by proving value over the long-term to those who have chosen to follow.

Building a following is a short-term objective, but marketers shouldn't be short-sighted. The true value that social media can deliver like nothing else is the ability to build a community. Don't get caught up in the numbers associated with building a following. Gauge the quality of that following and the potential for it to turn into a community of invested advocates eager to spread online word of mouth related to the brand.

Who Owns Relationships?

In July, PhoneDog.com filed a lawsuit against its former employee, Noah Kravitz, for violating trade secrets and misappropriation of the company’s Twitter account.

Kravitz managed the PhoneDog Twitter account, which was also his personal account, while with the company. Well, PhoneDog filed suit to reclaim his 17,000 followers, claiming that they are actually PhoneDog’s. The lawsuit is for $340,000 or $2.50 per follower.

Owning Relationships

Now, the question has bee raised around who really owns the relationships. Kravitz continued to tweet about PhoneDog even after he left the company because he left on good terms. He put a lot of work into the account and built the following on his own. However, part of that growing following could be attributed to the fact that Kravitz was associated with the brand. 

Was it his hard work or his association with PhoneDog that built the following? It’s likely a combination of both, so now the question of who owns the relationship is being decided by the courts.

Instincts tell me that the relationships are with Kravitz, not PhoneDog because people want relationships with other people. Kravitz was the one they interacted with and got to know, not PhoneDog. This is the danger of putting a real human behind a company’s social media presence. Even though it’s a danger, it’s still a very valuable way to build deeper connections with customers. However, I understand PhoneDog’s perspective as well.

Value of Relationships

The $2.50 per follower number is interesting. There’s certainly no shortage of studies out there that claim a follower or fan is worth a certain number, but the problem with this $2.50 number and any other value of each follower study is that they assume ever person is equal.

Not all followers are created equal. People follow and fan for different reasons, and many may never see the brand’s content. In addition, not every brand’s followers are equal. One person may be more valuable to one brand than they would be for another brand. It comes down to purchase frequency, size of purchase, business model and so on.

The outcome of this case will be very interesting, but the true value of each follower depends upon the brand. Every follower is worthless unless the brand does something with them such as converting them to purchase, providing customer service to maintain loyalty and turning their follow into revenue-driving actions. Don’t assume that just because they’re a follower, they’re valuable because that is not the case.

Establish the Ownership Before Relationships

The issue with PhoneDog and other organizations is that they didn’t establish the rules early on. Much of this issue could have been overcome with a social media policy that 1.) outlined who owned a brand account and the relationships with customers, 2.) who was authorized to engage on behalf of the brand and 3.) how social platform management transitions would take place if needed.