Number of followers and fans versus number of brand mentions
Posted By Nick Shin On August 6, 2010 @ 11:56 am In Social Media | 3 Comments
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Just when I thought our inaugural chat last week was going to be the peak of its existence, even more of you showed up for the second #smmeasure weekly chat. The total number of tweets almost doubled from 400 last week to 700 this week. I want to thank everyone who participated and helped spread the word. A big thanks to Sysomos’ Community Manager Sheldon Levine @sysomos for co-hosting the chat.
Last week [3], we started the chat with high-level questions. This week, we changed it up a bit to discuss the number of followers and fans versus brand-mention debate. Below is just a small taste of the great conversation we had. A full transcript [4] is also available.
Q1: What’s more important to you? Followers/fans vs. brand mentions?
Followers/fans are more important
- @photojunkie: “Chicken/Egg. hopefully it’s your followers that bring your brand mentions to the medium. That’s the ideal.”
- @Marketwire: “Building followers is just as important. Having an audience increases the opportunity for mentions.”
- @GetPushing: “having a sizable aud/following is good for initial looks too. Could persuade som1, potential brand ambassador to follow.”
Brand mentions
- @BrandEngineers: “While both are important, mentions reveal advocates of the brand and valuable engagement with the audience.”
- @MichaelNus: “Mentions cuz while you may have many fans, if they are not engaged they just stagnate. If they are talking, your reach multiplies”
Both
- @EvolveTom: “Both are important. Brand mentions could be potential fans.. just need to convert them so you can deliver messaging directly.”
- @GetPushing: “Difficult b/c both have value. Fans/followers = more chance ppl “hear” what you put out. Mentions means there’s discussion.”
- @theelusivefish: “It depends on the goal? Build channel? Then fans/followers. Broader awarenesss? Then brand mention.”
- @40deuce: “Having mentions means people are talking about, while having fans means people are also listening to you”
Q2: Which ranks higher on the priority list? Growing followers/fans vs. growing discussions?
- @brightmatrix: “I say growing discussions. I’ve seen followers build naturally over time, if you have good info & content to share.”
- @brightmatrix: “Followers w/o discussion from them is strange. Like standing in a room with a bunch of folks just staring at you.”
- @nigellegg: “through growing discussions you will grow followers organically”
- @hust0058: “discussion is where the magic happens, not as important if they don’t turn into followers IMO”
- @casiestewart: “if you generate good content and discussion your following will grow along with your engagement”
- @KyleMcShane: “growing discussions is much more important. a follower without engagement is nothing. also convos will lead to more followers”
Q3: What would you rather have? Having a few key people mentioning your brand vs. having masses of random people?
- @safekidszone: “I would love masses of random people mentioning my brand. Especially since some among them will be key people. Easy answer.”
- @marketwire: “A user with 200 followers might be an influencer outside of Twitter. My answer: masses rather than a few key influencers
- @nigellegg: “through growing discussions you will grow followers organically”
- @hust0058: “discussion is where the magic happens, not as important if they don’t turn into followers IMO”
- @casiestewart: “if you generate good content and discussion your following will grow along with your engagement”
- @KyleMcShane: “growing discussions is much more important. a follower without engagement is nothing. also convos will lead to more followers”
Some bonus tweets that I had to include. When you join a chat full of insightful, informative and amusing Twitter users, this is what you get:
- @danperezfilms: “Gaining thousands of followers = Good. Getting to know your few hundred followers = better”
- @tamara: “D.E.S.I.R.E.D = Disclose Engage Support Integrate Reward Evaluate Deliver. And the objs & measurements assoc w/ each”
- @Marketwire: “Be S.M.A.R.T = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and Timely”
- @casiestewart: “people would rather hear from ‘person at x company’ than just ‘x company’ – business need to get this!”
- @MichaelNus: “Another good acronym for engagement F.A.R.T = Friendly, Active, Relationship-building, Tangible”
- @TsarKasim: “K.I.S.S.: “Keep it simple, stupid.”
- @theblogstudio: “Engaging Online While Also Engaging Offline is Best Strategy.”
Check back here every week for #smmeasure announcements and weekly questions. If you have any questions or specific topics that you would like us to discuss in the future, please tweet @smmeasure [5] or @marketwire [6]. Keep track of all of the #smmeasure chat recaps [7].
Join the Social Media Corner LinkedIn Group [8] and Marketwire Facebook page [9] and let’s continue the conversation again next Thursday, 9:00 am PST, 11:00 am CST, 12:00 pm EST.
Until next time,
Nick
Related posts:
[13]Article printed from Marketwire blog: http://blog.marketwire.com
URL to article: http://blog.marketwire.com/2010/08/06/number-of-followers-and-fans-versus-number-of-brand-mentions/
URLs in this post:
[1] Tweet: https://twitter.com/share
[2] Image: http://www.twitter.com/smmeasure/
[3] Last week: http://blog.marketwire.com/2010/07/30/smmeasure-twitter-chat-recap-social-media-measurement-and-tools/
[4] full transcript: http://blog.marketwire.comlink to: http://wthashtag.com/transcript.php?page_id=16193&start_date=2010-08-05&end_date=2010-08-05&export_type=HTML
[5] @smmeasure: http://www.twitter.com/smmeasure
[6] @marketwire: http://www.twitter.com/marketwire
[7] #smmeasure chat recaps: http://blog.marketwire.com/tag/smmeasure/
[8] Social Media Corner LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1795464
[9] Marketwire Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/marketwire
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[13] Image: http://www.addtoany.com/share_save
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