Some people will have you believe that unless you have a gazillion likes or followers you are not a successful co. Well the reality is, certain types of businesses don’t need nor would they realistically have access to tons of followers. Not having likes doesn’t mean you aren’t liked…necessarily. Basically, having a ton of followers/likes means that tons of folks have a reason to keep up to date on what you’re doing. It’s a great way to update customers on all the hip and happening stuff in your business. Not to mention, a great way to engage with them regularly. But the key word is “customers”.
B2B’s (business to business) do not have the same “customer” requirements that traditional customer based businesses have. For a B2B, you may have 25 clients, which is a good deal. But then if every one of your clients liked your pages, you’d have a total of 25 likes. 😀 From the outside it may look as if you are not being tracked which may lead to the impression you are not good at your job or don’t have a lot of business. The reality is, your client base is not nearly as massive as a business that sells a product (e.g. a fashion boutique). With a clothing store, mass is everything. They must get tons of customers in order to stay in business. But if you are a CPA, having just a few clients may bring in more money than a hundred customers buying 1 or 2 dresses at a boutique.
Disreputable and unscrupulous “businesses” try to sell unwitting or perhaps simply desperate business owners on the idea that they need thousands of follows or likes and claim to be able to “sell” real people to help boost your follow-ship. Well the reality is, many of those likes fall away after a couple weeks and most of them are from people who will NEVER patronize your business. Your money is gone and you have to sit by and watch all of your likes fall to numbers much lower than you thought you were getting. You end up back at square 1 except now you’re out a few hundred bucks.
If you are a retail type operation, followers and likes will find you if you keep plugging away with social media. Keep getting your name and brand out there to people who would actually have the potential to buy your products. But if you are a B2B, getting likes is not the most important thing. Not having a ton of followers doesn’t mean much. Just keep your social media up to date and fun and make sure you interact regularly with the followers you have so they know they’re your #1 priority.