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Which One is More Important, the Number of Likes and Follows or the Engagement Numbers?
We live and thrive in the digital world today. Companies today have a strong digital presence because consumers are present in the digital world. Everything is happening online, from deciding what to buy to actually receiving the order at your doorstep, and sometimes the consumption of the goods also happens online. In this digital era, companies have their own websites, social media accounts, and followers online. In the digital world, following the brand, commenting on the brand’s posts and stories, liking the brand’s content, or otherwise engaging with the brand helps the company determine its success in the digital world.
In this article, we will be diving deep into what liking and following indicate to the company, what engagement rate or numbers indicate, and what is a better measure to decide upon the digital success of the company.
The Concept of Brand Engagement
In this digital era where consumers are spoiled with choices, it is very crucial for companies to develop a relationship with their customers. They should not treat consumers or customers as the dumping ground for their goods or services but should help the customers solve their issues. When a company starts seeing its customers as humans, it starts caring about customer engagement. Customer engagement, in simple terms, means the interaction that happens between the consumer and the brand. It could be a call, test message, liking, commenting, or sharing the content posted by the company on digital platforms and the Internet.
The Concept of Calculating the Success of a Brand by the Number of Likes and Follows the Company Receives
The easy way to determine the success of the company is by analyzing the number of followers the company has on its social media accounts or by the number of likes the company receives on average or on a particular post. For example, if a company has more than 20k followers and is receiving more than 12k likes on every post, a layman would think that the company is doing well and has a very strong social presence.
The Concept of Engagement Rate
The engagement rate helps the business determine the success of the content posted by the brand on social media platforms. Engagement, in simple terms, means that if some content is being posted by the brand on social media, how is the public reacting to it? It can be calculated by using the number of likes the post has received, the number of comments the post has received, the number of shares, the number of tags, the number of views, and others. It is all in the process, which helps the brand determine the success rate of the content posted by the company. The engagement rate can be calculated.
Engagement Rate = {Total Number of (Likes + Comments + Shares + Mentions) / Total number of impressions created by the post or by the total number of followers of the company on the social media platform} * 100
Comparison Between Engagement Rate and the Number of Likes and Follows the Company Receives
The layman might use the number of followers or the number of likes that a company receives on its content as a parameter to determine the marketing success of the company. A learned individual or a digital marketer would dive deep into it to understand if the company is actually doing well. The number of likes and follows can be manipulated by the company in the following ways −
Earn fake followers through money − The company might buy the number of followers and likes. There are many marketing companies that provide social media users with fake likes and followers. Some of the companies that do this work for you are Insta-followers, User Viral, Sides Media, and others. In the same way, the number of likes can also be manipulated.
The follow and unfollow technique − companies might apply the "follow and unfollow technique". In this method, the company will send follow requests to numerous users out there randomly on the platform. Many users might follow back, and when they do, the company starts unfollowing them. This is a great but unethical method to gain followers.
And on the other hand, if the company is using various parameters like the number of comments on the post, the number of shares, and the number of mentions or tags, they can have a clear view. Not all these can be manipulated at the same time. Companies should ensure that they give more weight to the number of shares and mentions than they do to the number of likes. You might like many things, but you will only share the most impactful ones with your friends. Likes and followers can help you get a surface view, but for better analysis, you have to dive deep into the water.
What Else Can the Company Do to Determine the Success of Its Digital Marketing Efforts?
The engagement rate only helps the company determine how the consumer is reacting to the content posted by the company or the marketing campaigns. No matter how effective and impactful a campaign is, it means nothing if it is not backed by sales. Sales are the only activity that brings in money for the company, and hence the other ratios that the company should focus on are −
Conversion rate (CVR) − This rate helps the company understand how many of the people who were engaging with the brand are actually making the ultimate decision to purchase. This helps the business calculate the ROI that they have received from the money invested in the digital marketing domain. CVR = (total number of sales made by the company through that link / total number of click-through rates (CTR)) * 100. Brand engagement is very crucial for the brand, but something that is more crucial than this is the CVR for the company. The company should also focus on making the customer's user journey smooth while making the purchase decision smooth, and brand engagement should always have a call to action to ensure that consumers make the purchase decision faster.
Digital Attribution − Along with this, consumers should also keep an eye on digital attribution. This helps the company understand which digital marketing platform is working best for it. There are many ways to calculate the digital attribution rate of the different marketing platforms that the company uses, like the First Click Method, the Last Click Method, the U-shaped Method, the Algorithmic-Based Method, and others. This helps the company understand where to invest their money, which platforms are giving them the highest ROI, and which platforms have the most active consumers. We can also calculate the digital attribution of the engagement rate.
Brands can do well if they keep their audience engaged, which will not only help them improve their sales but also create a bond of trust and belongingness. Engagement rate is a parameter that a company should focus on because today human minds are cluttered and it is very crucial for a brand to occupy a space in that clutter. However, companies should give more weightage to the conversion ratio, digital attribution, and digital ROI as well. Let us sign off with the notion that happy and engaged customers bring in sales.
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