Subject areaMetrics and measurement
A follower is a user who chooses to follow a profile on a social media platform and from then on receives its content in their feed (the stream of updates the platform shows them).
Following costs one click, so a follower represents a potential audience: a person who has granted attention, not yet a customer.
Follower count is the most quoted of vanity metrics (numbers that look good in a report and change no decision). The reason is simple: a profile can grow out of curiosity, as happened to @BurgerKing in 2013, when the hijacking of the account brought thousands of followers more interested in the story than in the products. To understand whether an audience works for the company, marketers look instead at engagement, meaning how much followers comment, share and reply, and at the move from follower to loyal customer.
An example
A manufacturer of industrial coatings gains many followers in a month thanks to a curious video. Quote requests stay the same: the growth measures attention to the video, which is why the number alone says nothing about sales.
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Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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