The Number Game - How many twitter followers/facebook likes does your client ask for?

Lately, I have heard from a quite a few social media peers here in India that clients are bent upon talking social media purely in terms of numbers. By Numbers I mean number of followers on twitter or number of likes on their facebook page. For someone who understands the very essence of social media, they would be able to see a clear distinction between qualitative and quantitative measurement. I think social media is all about focus on the qualitative aspect of measurement.


Before we get in to the qualitative and quantitative measurements, I think your prospective client should clarify a few key points. First of all, they have to clearly understand that Social Media cannot be completely outsourced and done with. Secondly, they have to understand that social media happens hand in glove with their existing traditional marketing campaigns. They cannot expect to get sales through social media. It is obvious that social media campaigns at some point get integrated into the traditional media campaigns.

As a social media enthusiast and a consultant, when I approach a prospective client and ROI is discussed. One thing I tell them clearly before I start the project is to do brand analysis and research report of company which also includes competitor benchmarking .One more important factor I always look into is the kind of database the company has. Bigger the database implies bigger the potential of people in the community. These two factors are the most important factors in the social analysis report. This report gives a clear assessment of the company’s potential on the social web and a realistic target of number of followers of fans can be allocated before starting any work for them. Doing this is very important for prospective clients as most of the companies still have a misconception that social media is all about numbers.

In addition to the quantitative digital measurement that can be done by some analytic and monitoring tools, the most important measurement is the qualitative measurement. I don’t agree on the fact that we could generalize a set of qualitative measurement standards for any brand. I think qualitative measurement is client specific and has to be tailor made for the client depending on many factors like strategic goals and the target audience of the client. This is where the actual ROI can be measured and social media progress of the company can be tracked.

To make the client company understand all the above points is a huge challenge, most of the times I end up giving a presentation about social media first and then talk about what kind of services I offer. Showing them relevant case studies will help the situation rather than showing a very general case study of a very large and famous organization and increasing their hopes.

So as a social media consultant or an enthusiast, how do you handle a situation like this, wherein your prospective small and medium sized client is going to ask you’re for 100k followers on twitter? If you have come across situations like this, I would love to hear. Please share it in the comment thread.